சனி, 26 நவம்பர், 2011

கடலோர காவல் படைக்குக் கண்டனம் தெரிவித்து முதல்வர் கடிதம்


பாராட்டுகள். பாராட்டுகள். மத்திய அரசு தன் நிலைப்பாட்டை மாற்றி்க் கொள்ளா விட்டால் தமிழக அரசு மீனவர் நலன் கருதி நெய்தல்நிலக் காவற்படை ஒன்றை அமைத்து  மீனவர்கள் உயிரையும் நலனையும் காக்கும் என்றும் தமிழக அரசு அறிவிக்க வேண்டும். துணிவுள்ளவர் என்னும் பெயர் பெற்றுள்ள
முதல்வர் துணிந்து அறிவித்து அவ்வாறே செய்ய வேண்டும்.அன்புடன் இலக்குவனார் திருவள்ளுவன் / தமிழே விழி! தமிழா விழி! எழுத்தைக் காப்போம்! மொழியைக் காப்போம்! இனத்தைக் காப்போம்! /
 

இது நடைமுறைக்கு ஒத்துவராத, விபரீத விளைவை ஏற்படுத்தக் கூடிய, மூர்க்கத்தனமான நிலைப்பாடு ஆகும். பாக் நீரிணைப் பகுதியில் எல்லை வரம்பு இல்லாமல் தமிழக மீனவர்கள் காலம் காலமாக மீன்பிடித்து...

பறவைகள் பலவிதம்-அரியவை




பறவைகள் பலவிதம்-அரியவை

பாருங்கள்,ரசியுங்கள்,!

     அரியவை!

                                                          இமாலய மோனல்

                                                        ஃபார்மோசன் மேக்பை

                                              லேடி ஆம்ஹெர்ஸ்ட்’ஸ்  ஃபெசண்ட்
                                              லேடி ஆம்ஹெர்ஸ்ட்’ஸ்  ஃபெசண்ட்

                                             குருதி  வடியும்  இதயக் குருவிகள்

                                                         பெயர் தெரியவில்லை!

                                                                நிகோபார் புறா


                                                      வின்சன் சொர்க்கப் பறவை

                                                      கோல்டன் ஃபெசண்ட்
                                                                                                                    
                                                                       

                                                   


                                                                      


                                                    

Senators urge US to take lead role in Sri Lanka investigations


Senators urge US to take lead role in 

Sri Lanka investigations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 November 2011, 15:09 GMT]
In a letter to United States Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, three senior Senators have called for "United States to openly take the lead in pressing for an independent international commission, either by the UN Human Rights Council or under the [UN's] Secretary General's own authority," if Sri Lanka fails to take "credible steps to investigate and hold perpetrators accountable for the array of allegations documented in the UN Panel of Experts report." Senators also expressed concern that "since the end of the war the [Sri Lanka] military has supplanted or interferes in civil administration in the North, and that more than thousand detainees with suspected LTTE links, names withheld, reportedly remain without charge, without access to Red Cross or family."

Senator Robert Casey
Senator Robert Casey
Senator Benjamin Cardin
Senator Benjamin Cardin
Senator Patrick Leahy
Senator Patrick Leahy
Vermont Senator and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, Pennsylvania Senator and Chairman - Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs of the Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Casey,Maryland Senator and Chairman of the subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection of the Foreign Relations Committee, Benjamin Cardin, jointly wrote the letter to Secretary Clinton.

The letter referred to earlier statements by Ambassador Susan Rice earlier stand on the LLRC that the commission "should fully investigate serious allegations of violations," and also the statement from the State Department which expressed it dismay that "LLRC did not possess the requisite level of "independence and impartiality."

Meanwhile, according to local reports, the LLRC has handed over the report to Sri Lanka's President and unofficial time lines have been publicized on the procedures for 'releasing' the report.

While Colombo is busy ochestrating its next round of theatrics using the LLRC report to buy further time to postpone answering war-crime charges, the question asked by Tamil diaspora circles is whether the report will provide ammunition to the big-power abettors of the genocide to further prolong the agony of the Tamils.

Sri Lanka’s war against Tamil heroes continues for the third year


Sri Lanka’s war against Tamil heroes continues for the third year

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 November 2011, 08:58 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka occupying the country of Eezham Tamils continued for the third year in militarily preventing people observing the Heroes Day week ending on Sunday. SL military’s paranoia or arrogance of oppression has gone to the extent of ordering temples not to toll bells or light lamps during the week. Military is also placed near some temples to watch for any breaches. With the cemeteries of the heroes erased down, temples became the solace for parents and relatives paying annual homage to the fallen heroes. Sanctions on temples too started in 2009, coinciding with Indian foreign minister choosing the day to visit Jaffna. In a latest development on Friday, hundreds of SL police personnel have entered into the University of Jaffna to prevent any observation of the week by students. On Thursday some masked men entered the university and destroyed students union noticeboards.

Owners of public halls in Jaffna were intimidated at gunpoint by the occupying military not to rent out the halls for any gatherings during the week. In some instances, high-ranking military officials were also involved in the intimidation.

Even functions not associated with the Heroes Day were also stopped by the paranoid military.

A meeting organized by Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) in Jaffna on Thursday to arrange help to the families of war victims and journalists who were killed was cancelled due to military intimidation. The meeting was co-sponsored by two journalist associations, Nimalrajan Memorial Foundation and North Ilankai Journalists Association.

The oppression in Vanni was worse. Even the inaugural function of a Sai Baba centre’s building on Sai Baba’s birthday on 23 November was stopped by the SL military.

In Kanakaraayan-ku’lam, a school function was stopped and the students protested.

Occupying military in Vanni has strictly ordered that people should not be seen in groups. Former cadres of the LTTE have been ordered not to come out of their houses.

Meanwhile, commander of the occupying military in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe has said that he had not made any orders against temple routines. However, there were specific instances such as in Kaarainakar, where the SL Army called temple priests and ordered them against tolling bells and lighting lamps.

Deception is the usual trick of ‘Asian Peace Laureate’ Hathurusinghe, is the observation of people in Jaffna.

However, all the oppression and tricks of the SL military could not prevent posters remembering the Eelam Heroes widely appearing in the walls of Jaffna.

Moothoor villagers demand their security ensured after teacher murder


Moothoor villagers demand their security ensured after teacher murder

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 November 2011, 16:27 GMT]
Students, teachers, education officials and members of public in large numbers went in a procession Friday morning from Cheanaiyoor Central College to Champoor Police Station in the Moothoor East in Trincomalee district demanding that the culprits behind the brutal killing of a young unmarried Tamil teacher Miss Kurukulasingham Srivathani that took place on Thursday should be arrested. Srivathani left home Wednesday as usual in her scooter to Paaddaa'li-puram Government Tamil Mixed School in the Moothoor education zone, about seven km away from her place Cheanaiyoor-Kaddaipa'richchaan, which is located between two Sri Lanka Army camps, one at Paaddaa'li-puram and the other at Chanthosa-puram. Moothoor East, previously a part of the de facto Tamil Eelam administration by the LTTE is now fully occupied by the SL military.

A delegation of the civil groups at the conclusion of the procession met the Officer-in-Charge of the Champoor Police Station and put forward a demand to ensure the security of teachers and students and public in the Moothoor East.

Miss Srivathani
Miss Srivathani with garland at World Teachers Day event in her school two months ago
Later in the afternoon a condolence meeting was held in the Kaddaipa'richchaan residence of the murdered teacher Miss Kurukulasingham Srivathani who was born on 20 February 1978.

Her body was kept at the residence for the public to pay their last respects.

Moothoor Zonal Director of Education Mr.A.Vijeyanandamoorthy, former Trincomalee district parliamentarian Mr.K.Thurairatnasingham and several others spoke at the condolence meeting.

They said the death of Miss Srivathani was an irreparable loss to the educational development of Moothoor at a time student community needed dedicated teachers. Mr.S.Suntharamoorthy, Principal of the Paaddaa'lipuram Government Tamil Mixed School presided.

Later in the afternoon around three p.m. the remains of Srivathani were buried in the Hindu Cemetery at Kaddaipa'richchaan amid cries from students, teachers and people of Moothoor East.

Miss Srivathani passed out as a trained teacher from the Batticaloa Teacher Training College in 2006 and got her first appointment at Paaddaa'lipuram School.

She was honored at her school at an event held two months back on the World Teachers Day for her dedicated service.

She met her tragic death while she was on her way to school in her scooter on Thursday. Later her body was recovered from a shrub, three miles off Cheanaiyoor with cut injuries on her head.

Except her ear-ring all jewelry she was wearing and her handbag with the salary for the month of November had been reported missing. Her scooter was found lying near her body.

Related Articles:
24.11.11   Young female Tamil teacher killed in Moothoor East

நண்பேன்டா...! விளையாடும் அணில்: வியக்க வைக்கும் பாசப் பிணைப்பு





விழுப்புரம் : விழுப்புரத்தில், ஒரு டீ கடைக்காரருடன் விளையாடியபடி நட்புடன் பழகி வரும் அணிலின் பாசப் பிணைப்பு, ஆச்சர்யத்தை ஏற்படுத்தியுள்ளது.

விழுப்புரம், கணபதி நகரை சேர்ந்தவர் வேல்முருகன். திருச்சி நெடுஞ்சாலையில் மகளிர் கல்லூரி எதிரே, டீ கடை வைத்துள்ளார். எப்போதும் இவருடன் விளையாடிக் கொண்டிருக்கும் அணிலைப் பார்த்து, கடைக்கு வரும் மக்கள் ஆச்சர்யப்படுகின்றனர்.பங்க் கடையில் விற்பனை, டீ போடும் போதும், அவரது தோளிலும், கைகளிலும் திரிந்தபடி விளையாடிக் கொண்டிருக்கிறது அந்த அணில். கண்ணில் பட்டவுடன் ஓடிவிடும் சுபாவம் கொண்ட அணில், ஒருவருடன் நட்புறவாக ஒட்டிக்கொண்டுள்ளது, அனைவரையும் ஆச்சர்யப்பட வைக்கிறது.அவர் கொடுக்கும் உணவுகளை சுவைத்தபடி சுற்றி வரும் அந்த அணில், டீ கடை மேல் கூரை, பங்க் கடை பகுதிகளில் உலவுகிறது, காஞ்சன் என செல்லமாக அவர் அழைத்த குரலுக்கு, உடனே ஓடி வந்து, அவர் தோள் மீது உட்கார்ந்து விளையாடுகிறது. அவருடன் சண்டை கூட போடுகிறது.
அணிலுடன் ஏற்பட்ட நட்பு குறித்து வேல்முருகன் கூறியதாவது:கடந்த இரண்டு மாதங்களுக்கு முன், கடையின் அருகே இருந்த மரத்தின் கூட்டிலிருந்து, இந்த அணில் குஞ்சு கீழே விழுந்து கிடந்தது. கண் திறக்காமல் இருந்த அணில் குஞ்சை எடுத்து, பால் வாங்கி ஊற்றி வளர்த்தேன்.பால், பிஸ்கட், சாதம் ஆகியவற்றை உணவாகக் கொடுத்து வந்தேன். அணில் என்னுடனே ஒட்டிக் கொண்டது. காலையில் கடை திறந்தவுடன், என் மீது அமரும். மாலை இருள் சூழ்ந்தவுடன், 6 மணிக்கு, கடையின் உள்ளே சென்றுவிடும்; வெளியே வராது. மறு நாள் காலை கடையைத் திறந்தவுடன், என்னுடன் வந்துவிடும்.பால், பிஸ்கட், சாதம், வறுகடலை, மணிலா பயிறு வடை என, நான் கொடுப்பது அனைத்தையும் சாப்பிடும். சிக்கன், மட்டன், மீன் உணவையும் இது ருசித்துள்ளது. நான் டீ போடும் போதும், விற்பனை செய்யும் போதும், என் மீது விளையாடிக் கொண்டிருக்கும். எந்த பொருளையும் வீணடிக்காது; நான் கொடுப்பதை மட்டுமே சாப்பிடும்.மற்றவர்கள் மீது விட்டால், நுகர்ந்து பார்த்து விட்டு, உடனே திரும்பி என் மீது ஒட்டிக் கொள்ளும். நான் வெளியூர் செல்லும் போதும், என்னுடன் பைக்கில் பலமுறை பயணித்துள்ளது. உறவினர் திருமணத்திற்கு வெளியூர் சென்ற போது, என் பாக்கெட்டினுள் பயணித்து, திரும்பி வந்துள்ளது.இவ்வாறு வேல்முருகன் கூறினார்.இந்த பாசப் பிணைப்பை பொதுமக்கள் பலரும் பாராட்டிச் செல்கின்றனர்.

வெள்ளி, 25 நவம்பர், 2011

தமிழ் அமைப்புகள் எதிர்ப்பு: சிம்புவின் 'ஒஸ்தி' படத் தலைப்பு மாற்றப்படுமா?


சினிமா செய்திகள்
சிம்பு நடிக்கும் புதிய படத்துக்கு `ஒஸ்தி' என பெயரிடப்பட்டுள்ளது. இதன்...
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தமிழ் அமைப்புகள் எதிர்ப்பு:
சிம்புவின் ஒஸ்தி படம்
தலைப்பு  மாற்றப்படுமா?
சிம்பு நடிக்கும் புதிய படத்துக்கு `ஒஸ்தி' என பெயரிடப்பட்டுள்ளது. இதன் படப்பிடிப்பு முடிந்து அடுத்த மாதம் ரிலீசாகிறது. இந்த நிலையில் ஒஸ்தி தலைப்பை மாற்ற வேண்டும் என்று தமிழ் அமைப்புகள் வலியுறுத்தி உள்ளது.
தமிழ் அமைப்பு கழக தலைவர் லக்குவனார் திருவள்ளுவர் நடிகர் சிம்புக்கு அனுப்பியுள்ள கடிதத்தில் கூறி இருப்பதாவது:-
 
தமிழ் பெயர்கள் தாங்கி திரைப்படங்கள் வரும் இக்கால கட்டத்தில் ஒஸ்தி என கொச்சைப் பெயரை படத்துக்கு வைத்திருப்பது சரியல்ல. இது போன்ற கொச்சையாக பெயர் வைத்தால் தான் படம் வரவேற்பு பெறும் என்று இல்லை. உசத்தி அல்லது ஒசத்தி என்று பேச்சு வழக்கிலாவது பெயர் வைத்து இருக்கலாம்.
 
நல்ல தமிழ் பெயர் சூட்டினால் சந்தோஷப்படுவோம். தங்கள் பாடல் எழுதும் போது கூட அயல்மொழி கலாவாமல் இருக்க வேண்டும் என்று விரும்புகிறோம். `ஒஸ்தி' பெயரை மாற்றா விட்டால் அப்படத்தை தமிழ் மக்கள் புறக்கணிப்பார்கள் என்று கடிதத்தில் குறிப்பிடப்பட்டு உள்ளது. `ஒஸ்தி'' பெயரை மாற்றலாமா என்று படக்குழுவினர் ஆலோசிப்பதாக கூறப்படுகிறது. ரிலீஸ் தேதி நெருங்குவதால் தலைப்பை மாற்றுவது சிரமம் என்கின்றனர்.
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Friday, November 25,2011 05:00 PM, சாமியார் said:
ஒஸ்தி மூன்றேழுத்து சிம்பு மூன்றெழுத்து ராசியில்லை. ஒசத்தி நல்ல பேரு நாலு எழுத்து நாலு பேர் சொன்னா கேட்கணும்
Friday, November 25,2011 04:55 PM, ஆல்வார்கடியன் said:
ஐயா தமிழ் இடி தாங்கி, முதலில் விமான நிலையம் சென்று பாரும். வெளி நாடு செல்லும் தமிழன் யாரும் தமிழில் பேச முடியாது செக்யூரிட்டி செக்கிங்கில். ஒரே இந்தி தான். அதை மற்ற முடியுமா என்று பாரும், பிறகு படத்தின் பெயரை மாற்றலாம்.
இக்கருத்துக்கு உங்கள் கருத்து .....

வியாழன், 24 நவம்பர், 2011

oil mixing with the sea water - dinamalar photo news




Judge Kotelly to decide Rajapakse's legal fate in US


Judge Kotelly to decide 

Rajapakse's legal fate in US

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 November 2011, 04:16 GMT]
Lead counsel for the three Tamil plaintiffs, who have charged Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse of war-crimes in the District Court of District of Columbia, filed a memorandum Tuesday requesting Judge Kollar-Kotelly to validate the service of process based on the publication of the summons and complaint in TamilNet as ordered by the Judge in her October 13th ruling. The plaintiffs also have submitted to the Court affidavits and supporting documentation that attempts at publication in Colombo media were not successful due to Rajapakse's "brutally effective" efforts to silence critical media through "politically motivated deaths, attacks, and disappearances," and have requested for a waiver from local publication as "compliance has been frustrated by Defendant’s alarming attack on freedom of the press."

The plaintiffs have also requested authority from the Judge to effectuate service on Rajapakse via his individual U.S. Post Office Address, Facebook, and Twitter Accounts as alternate methods if the Judge finds further attempts are necessary to effect legal completion of service of process, court documents filed Tuesday say.
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
Bruce Fein
Bruce Fein, constitutional lawyer
Bruce Fein, lead counsel for the plaintiffs commented after filing the memorandum with the Court, "Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse's sneering contempt for the judicial process in the United States is not likely to militate in his favor. If the court enters an order validating service of the summons and complaint because of the Defendant's tacit threat to assassinate any cooperating newspaper journalist, Mr. Rajapakse would have 20 days to respond under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

"If, as his spokesman indicated, Defendant Rajapaksa chooses to ignore the summons and complaint, we will file for a default judgment and pursue his assets everywhere in the world until proper damages are collected for the bereaved Plaintiffs," Fein said.

Court papers referred to supporting e-mail and other material from Bob Dietz, co-ordinator of the Asia Program at the Committee to Protect Journlists, quoting: "[a]uthorities have turned the notion of law enforcement on its head, obstructing justice in numerous attacks against journalists. Prime examples are the unsolved 2010 disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda, and the unsolved 2009 murder of prominent editor Lasantha Wickramatunga. But those cases are hardly unusual," the submitted CPJ statement said.

"[Sri Lanka's] President Mahinda Rajapaksa has presided over an appalling era in which every journalist murder—nine since he rose to high office—has gone unpunished. Anti-press violence continued in 2011," CPJ's publication on Sri Lanka added.

Spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group that sponsored the law suit, commented: "Judge Kotelly, who served as the Presiding Judge on United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), has enviable expertise in legal issues on extra-territorial defendants and immunity defences. Her earlier decision to allow the case to proceed and her directive on publication using the internet as a valid medium for service, reflect her independent, precedent setting legal mind. Tamils will earn a major legal victory if the judge validates the service, or accepts cyber social networks as acceptable service medium of last resort," TAG spokesperson said.
The Complaint filed in January 2011 alleges multiple violations of the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) based on Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa’s command responsibility for the extrajudicial killings of Ragihar Manoharan, the son of Plaintiff Dr. Kasippillai Manoharan, of Premas Anandarajah, a humanitarian aid worker for Action Against Hunger, and husband of Plaintiff Kalaiselvi Lavan, and four members of the Thevarajah family, all relatives of Plaintiff Jeyakumar Aiyathurai.

The plaintiffs seek $30m as damages through six counts of violations of the TVPA.

Chronology:


Related Articles:
23.10.11   K. Manoharan et al. v. Mahinda Rajapakse: Complaint, Summons


External Links:
ABCNews: Profile of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
US: District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

‘Sandwich theory’ an excuse for not taking a stand: Indian academic Radha D’Souza


‘Sandwich theory’ an excuse for not taking a stand: Indian academic Radha D’Souza

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 November 2011, 17:59 GMT]
“Those wanting to remain equidistant from state and the struggles of people. [..] actually end up legitimating the moral authority of the state by giving the state the moral authority to continue with the war on people.”, observes Radha D’Souza in an interview to TamilNet on Sunday. Dr. D’Souza, who is a reader of law at the University of Westminster and a social justice activist from India, argues that such an approach by international agencies that act as ‘peace-brokers’, ‘NGOs’, and local actors, only benefits militarist states in the final analysis. They are the other face of oppression because the other face is necessary to sustain the armed intervention, she says.

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
On ethnic questions, D’Souza says: “Vast majority of ethnic conflicts happen in societies with colonial histories. In the formation of European nation-states, they were truly nations and capitalist. In the colonies, that is not how the state structure came in to being. In the colonies, the colonizers just lumped together people in one state structure. The territorial boundaries were often the result of inter-imperialist rivalries between colonising powers – the Dutch, French, English, Portuguese whatever.

“During the anti-colonial struggles people thought that it was possible to retain the state structure to fight the common enemy and things could be worked out together after Independence. Which may have been possible, but not in the context of this overarching imperialist world where imperial economies must depend on arms and defence industry – Eisenhower’s military-industrial-commercial complex – to exist. This is why movements have to question the nature of imperialism today and the way ethnic conflicts are fuelled by the imperial war machine.

“But it cannot be endless war either. There has to be something coming out of it. Some economic benefit, some geo-political benefit... Without that, wars without end cannot be sustained. If the Tamils are finished, there’s nothing more! How will they keep the military regime going? Any militarism necessarily involves the other side - stabilizing it; otherwise it cannot comeback and refuel the whole thing. That’s why at one point Western powers were desperate for the peace process to get going in Sri Lanka. Norway thought it would be the ‘peacemaker’ but things took a different turn. It has not solved anything. After a point, it was bound to refuel. In the meantime many NGOs, peace builders, diplomats, development professionals – have made their money, careers whatever.”

The United Nations made a shift with neoliberalism from being ‘peace keepers’ to ‘peace builders’, Dr. Radha D’Souza observes.

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
“A lot of the NGOs are getting involved in these peace building measures. We are no longer living in a state system that we are used to and that existed in the past,” she argues.

“The agenda of the state is driven by international organizations.

“Words like ‘good governance’, ‘civil society’ used by the NGOs come from World Bank programmes and the language of international organizations, often linked to monetary assistance.

“In the repackaging of power structures under neoliberalism and globalisation, NGOs are a crucial part. They exploit people’s frustration with the state often funded by the international organisations or states or private interests.

“And people actually get dis-empowered because of this diffusion of power where NGOs become, in World Bank’s language, ‘stakeholders’.

“What are you a stakeholder in? NGOs are a stakeholder in the global economy and the peace processes as well. Does that give ordinary people a ‘stake’ in anything?” D’Souza asks.

Full text of TamilNet’s interview with Dr. Radha D’Souza:

TamilNet: Your writings on the ‘sandwich theory’ are highly popular in Indian activist circles. Could you elaborate briefly on the same?

Dr. Radha D’Souza: By ‘sandwich theory’ I meant the idea of equidistance between two opposed sides where one is the oppressor/aggressor and the other is the oppressed/aggressed – the idea that you can be neutral in a conflict that is fundamental to a society. It is an idea that is premised on a superior ethics that transcends oppressor and oppressed, aggressor and aggressed. It is stance that disregards the political and real consequences of one’s stand, the objective effects of one’s political position on people and society.

In India there were people saying they were against the state and also against the Maoists without taking a stand on which of these is the source of the problem. They presented ordinary people as being ‘sandwiched’ between the state and the Maoists. I wanted to say it is people who want to take the position of equidistance who were politically sandwiching themselves by believing it is possible to neutral. What appears neutral is not in reality so neutral.

It is usually the dominant power, the state for example, that frames issues in a way that pushes people to become ‘sandwiched’ between two sides because it is a very nice way for the dominant power to say that ‘we have done everything wrong but you must still condemn the other side.’ So, it is a way of dividing opposition to the state and neutralising a section of its critics.

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
On the Palestinian issue, the UN is doing the same thing. It says that the Israeli state should stop violence and the Palestinians should also stop violence as if the two were equals. They are not equals. One is an occupying, colonizing settler state that has put millions of Palestinians out of their home. For those in the middle, it becomes an excuse for not taking a stand.

The problem with equidistance is that first, it obscures questions of politics, power, justice, injustice and such. Secondly it forecloses the debate that needs to happen among the people in India today. Instead of focusing attention on the real issues of displacement, exploitation, social, economic and political deprivations, it sidetracks into violence and non-violence which is a secondary question, whatever ones’s position on it.

Instead of creating the democratic space where we can have this debate, what eqidistance does, is, it forces people to a defensive position on moral grounds. This means they do not have to answer the questions, in the Indian context, that the Maoists raise – on endemic, routinised violence that is perpetrated daily against ordinary Indians, on questions of state violence, on questions like criminalisation of politics and public life in the country.

Thirdly, by distancing themselves from the state it absolves those wanting to remain equidistant from the state from any responsibility for the kind of state we have. The state is not an alien. This is our state. Where did it come from? The theory allows you to distance yourself from it and also from the fellow citizens who are fighting to raise fundamental issues about Indian society, whether one agrees with them in their entirety or not, or whether one agrees with the ends but not the means. Instead of creating a space for a democratic debate where questions like means and ends, justice and injustice can be debated, those wanting to remain equidistant end up objectively siding with the state. It is the state that comes out as beneficiary in the final analysis.

Those wanting to remain equidistant from state and the struggles of people – where they support the ends but not the means - actually end up legitimating the moral authority of the state by giving the state the moral authority to continue with the war on people. You can’t have war against a section of the people and also have the democratic space for a debate at the same time. It is a nice way of wriggling out of taking a position on the issue.

TamilNet: You have criticized organizations like the Observer Research Foundation which claim to adopt a supposedly neutral position but are actually partisan in practice. In the context of Sri Lanka, the ORF and other such organizations put across the argument that the LTTE used ‘innocent civilians’ as ‘human shields’. Do you see parallels in this?

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
D’Souza: If you notice some of these arguments, they are being used everywhere. It is used in Palestine, Sudan and other places. It is as if someone was photocopying these ideas and circulating them. You should understand what is entailed in globalisation if you want to understand the genesis of these so called ‘autonomous’ research organization. Globalization is about rolling back the state. But what is it rolling in?

Neoliberalism is about dispersal of power to a number of bodies/entities that are independent from the state and often international.

Think-tanks are a very important part of globalisation.

Neoliberalism institutionalizses think-tanks and so called ‘experts’.

The key point is that this is fundamentally undemocratic. There can be people who have expertise in fields but fundamentally different views than you. What makes your expertise more privileged than someone else’s? It allows you to get a seat in any of these global organizations and not someone who holds the opposite view?

There is a fundamental restructuring of power in the global system. Power is restructured and dispersed to fundamentally undemocratic organizations and institutions and such think-tanks play an important role in the new regime.

How issues are presented and how issues are framed comes through these networks of privileged institutions. Sri Lanka, India, Sudan it is the same language; it’s obviously coming from the same source.

TamilNet: You ascribe value to the agency of the subject in radical movements. But the problem here with Sri Lankan civil society in recognizing the agency of the Tamil ‘civilian’ would mean that they would then have to concede equal legitimacy to the movement led by the LTTE, i.e for a sovereign state for the Tamil people.

D’Souza : As far as agency is concerned, all human beings have agency, have always had it. Agency is the capacity and will to do something.

For us in the third world, agency is not a theoretical discourse, it is a real thing. It is what people really do on the streets. And that is why it is so frightening. One of the most frightening things is the agency of the dispossessed. It has always been so.

The oppressed, the poor, the subjugated whatever, are OK as long as we can talk about them in ‘compassionate’, ‘humanist’ terms.

The poor are nice because they help salvage our sense of ‘humanity’ by not challenging us. When they start saying ‘hey, we have a view on this’, it becomes very frightening. When they challenge the dominant powers, there is a confrontation between the ideal, and its materialization as a reality. It looks nice as an ideal but frightening when the ideal becomes real. And by its very nature, someone’s agency means another person’s compromise.

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
As far as political issues like self-determination, sovereignty are concerned, democratic idealism says these are negotiable within a democratic framework. In theory you could ask ‘do the Tamils want absolute sovereignty’, ‘why do they want it’, ‘is it an irreconcilable problem’, ‘is it possible to live together’, ‘if so, what would be the conditions’ etc etc.

And in theory agency means not only agency of the Tamils but also of the Sinhalese.

Their agency requires that they are able to say that ‘we don’t care about the politics of the state’, ‘we want a society where we can both live together’.

I am not saying that this is the right way or that is the right way. I am not trying to prescribe a solution for the Tamils or the Sinhalese.

My point is that agency in theory means that people should be able to talk about these things. Whatever the conclusions. They may in the end say that we have opted for sovereignty. Or they may come together and say that this state system is not working for both of us, we need to find another alternative. That’s the debate that needs to happen among people.

For me, the conditions for agency, the conditions where people can negotiate are important.

What happens often is that the state becomes proxy agent for the population, it acts in all our name. And sometimes it sides with one section of the population against the other. What are those people who benefit from the state being on their side, what are they to do?

Agency is no longer a hypothetical, theoretical question. The State is an institution and it subsumes the agency of everybody.

We need to bring it back to where it belongs, to the people. Do the Sinhalese have agency? Or is it an illusion? A subterfuge for state power?

TamilNet: But what about conditions where things have gone to the point that the agency of one community depends on denying the same to the other, i.e., their freedom is fundamentally an infringement of the freedom of the other. Should we respect the agency of such a community?

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
D’Souza: This is where the relationship between the state and a section of the population is important. In many of these ethnic conflicts, the state says we are working for one section and the others are coming in the way of your well being because they are taking away your jobs, they are taking more than their share, the sons of the soil argument etc. This is the state’s discourse.

It is possible that there is identity between the state and majority community. But the state and the dominant community are not one and the same thing. It is possible that they have chosen to be together because of false ideological reasons. No society is homogenous.

Political leadership is about managing conflicting interests, divergences and not letting things take this kind of dualist form.

The problem is what to do when that kind of visionary leadership is not there anywhere in society?

Because our political lenses, our ideological frames, our understandings of society and indeed life, are skewed? In that case there would be no other solution than to say that we want to completely break away and be free. But we can’t prescribe it as a solution without trying out other options. There can’t be a fundamentalist or essentialist view on this. What is fundamental is the agency of the people and their right to determine their future, whether it is together or separately.

TamilNet: How would you rate the role of NGO’s that use terms like ‘good governance’, ‘citizen activism’ in conflict torn regions?

D’Souza: I don’t think words like ‘good governance’, ‘civil society’ come from the NGOs. These are words from World Bank programmes and the language of international organizations, often linked to monetary assistance.

In the repackaging of power structures under neoliberalism and globalisation, NGOs are a crucial part.

They exploit people’s frustration with the state often funded by the International organisations or states or private interests. And people actually get dis-empowered because of this diffusion of power where NGOs become, in World Bank’s language, ‘stakeholders’. What are you a stakeholder in?

NGOs are a stakeholder in the global economy and the peace processes as well.

Does that give ordinary people a ‘stake’ in anything?

UN made a shift with neoliberalism from being peace keepers to peace builders. A lot of these NGOs are getting involved in these peace building measures. We are no longer living in a state system that we are used to and that existed in the past. The agenda of the state is driven by international organizations.

TamilNet: You write that such groups balk at the fundamental question, the political question. But in situations where systemic violence is intense, such groups put forth the argument that they at least ameliorate some suffering of the subject population.

D’Souza: In any conflict there are always some humanitarian responses. The kind of humanitarian approach of individuals from within communities is different from organized interventions that are specifically committed to certain kinds of models of development and politics.

They come in and say that ‘we are providing you some kind of relief’ but they are actually not providing relief out of ‘humanitarian’ intention but due to a larger political agenda.

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
The way power is diffused in globalization is very often not visible. You have 50 different NGOs, 50 different people juggling and talking this nice language... It is our responsibility as members of society living in a neoliberal society to differentiate between genuine humanitarianism, which very often is local, not global in outreach, and these kinds of interventions where their claim to be humanitarian is only the other face of armed intervention. There can never be only stick, there has to be carrot too.

TamilNet: So you would say that they are the other face of oppression?

D’Souza: They are the other face of it because the other face is necessary to sustain the armed intervention.

TamilNet: Organizations like the International Crisis Group set paradigms that reduce parity between state actors and non-state actors, especially in conditions of negotiations. The balance is always tilted in favour of state actors, where state violence may be frowned upon but is still considered legitimate whereas the violence of non-state actors is condemned in absolute terms.

D’Souza: This works by isolating one dimension of the conflict. It isolates violence. It says that violence is bad, yes there is poverty, yes there is structural violence, but you cannot challenge it in overt forms, you can challenge it only in passive ways. It isolates the violence of the warring sides from the structural violence. By doing that it actually prevents people from taking a stand on fundamental structural issues.

Instead of the main issue of routinised structural violence it focuses on reactive, defensive violence which is a secondary issue.

TamilNet: In the context of globalization and states like Sri Lanka, the same advanced capitalist countries that fuelled the war-machine against the Tamil nation now promote the ‘peace and reconciliation’ industry with extensive funding.

D’Souza: Vast majority of ethnic conflicts happen in societies with colonial histories. In the formation of European nation-states, they were truly nations and capitalist. In the colonies, that is not how the state structure came in to being. In the colonies, the colonizers just lumped together people in one state structure.

The territorial boundaries were often the result of inter-imperialist rivalries between colonising powers – the Dutch, French, English, Portuguese whatever.

During the anti-colonial struggles people thought that it was possible to retain the state structure to fight the common enemy and things could be worked out together after Independence. Which may have been possible, but not in the context of this overarching imperialist world where imperial economies must depend on arms and defence industry – Eisenhower’s military-industrial-commercial complex – to exist.

This is why movements have to question the nature of imperialism today and the way ethnic conflicts are fuelled by the imperial war machine.

Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza
But it cannot be endless war either. There has to be something coming out of it. Some economic benefit, some geo-political benefit... Without that, wars without end cannot be sustained. If the Tamils are finished, there’s nothing more! How will they keep the military regime going?

Any militarism necessarily involves the other side - stabilizing it; otherwise it cannot comeback and refuel the whole thing.

That’s why at one point Western powers were desperate for the peace process to get going in Sri Lanka.

Norway thought it would be the ‘peacemaker’ but things took a different turn. It has not solved anything. After a point, it was bound to refuel.

In the meantime many NGOs, peace builders, diplomats, development professionals – have made their money, careers whatever.

TamilNet: The peace process here weakened the Tigers more than the government. But in a so-called ‘postwar’ scenario, where there is still violence perpetrated on Tamils on a systemic level, doesn’t the peace industry give a sort of moral and political legitimacy to a militarist regime?

D’Souza: It does. The peace industry also had to take a position. And what is their position? Equidistance! ‘Sandwich theory!’

Now they are critical of the government on their role in the last phases of the war in Sri Lanka, the treatment of people in camps etc because that gives them the opening, the foothold to intervene and remain an actor on the scene.

Now if they said that all the government did was correct, there would no way of entering in.

This is a method of intervening and keeping both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils in check, where nothing is resolved, and it brings in foreign economic and political forces and keeps them active on the ground. No self determination for Tamils or Sri Lankans! The story of the arbitrating monkey and the warring cats!

Related Articles:
22.11.11   Solheim hijacks thrust of Norway report
13.11.11   LTTE losing, SL winning was Norway failing: Norway report te..


External Links:
MRZINE: Sandwich Theory and Operation Green Hunt
CounterCurrents: The Economics, Politics, And Ethics Of Non-Violence

புதன், 23 நவம்பர், 2011

4 நாளில் 10 இலட்சம் பேர் கேட்ட 'கொலைவெறிப்’ பாடல்


சிம்புவும் தனுசும் போட்டி போட்டுக் கொண்டு மொழிக் கொலை புரிகிறார்கள். தமிழிலும் எழுதத் தெரியாமல் ஆங்கிலத்திலும் எழுதத் தெரியாமல் ஏன் இப்படிக் கொலை வெ றியுடன் அலைகிறார்கள் என்று தெரியவில்லை. இக் கொலை வெறிக்குத் தக்க தண்டனையை யார் எப்பொழுது வழங்குவார்கள் என்று தெரியவில்லை. காலம்தான் விடை கூற வேண்டும். அன்புடன் இலக்குவனார் திருவள்ளுவன் / தமிழே விழி! தமிழா விழி! எழுத்தைக் காப்போம்! மொழியைக் காப்போம்! இனத்தைக் காப்போம்! /



தற்போதைய செய்திகள்
4 நாளில் 10 லட்சம் பேர் கேட்ட 'கொலவெறி’ பாடல்

Social activist A C Nadarajah passes away in Jaffna


Social activist A C Nadarajah 

passes away in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 November 2011, 05:42 GMT]
Former principal of Vasaavi'laan Central College and former General Manager of Jaffna edition of the Tamil daily Thinakkural passed away in Jaffna on Monday night at the age of 70. He was ailing from cancer and was anticipating death at any time. Yet, even in his last days he was engaged in social work in full swing, especially in reviving educational, social and cultural institutions of his native village Kurumpasiddi, where people are permitted to resettle in parts of the village. But, his more impactful and extensive contributions were in doing charity in Vanni after the war.

A C Nadarajah
A C Nadarajah
After the Vanni War, Mr. Nadarajah was writing a series of over 80 columns titled Karu'naip-paalam (the bridge of compassion) in Thinakkural, through which he was able to raise funds of over 10 million rupees for charity work in Vanni to help the war victims. The charity he instituted was designed in such a way to run independently.

When it became known that he would survive only for a few months, Nadarajah concentrated on a number of activities related to the revival of his village, a part of which was then just permitted for resettlement.

Uprooted from Kurumpasiddi by the occupying SL military 20 years ago, Mr. Nadarajah was spearheading the movement of uprooted people in Jaffna. He led one of the welfare organisations for the uprooted people of Valikaamam North and was voicing for their rights. The tragedy was that, to the end of his life, he could not see his own land and house. That part of Kurumpasiddi is still under SL military occupation.
A C Nadarajah
Mr. Nadarajah was steering Vasavi'laan Central College at a crucial time when the school itself was uprooted, was shifting from place to place and was later functioning for years in temporary sheds built at Urumpiraay Hindu College. Even under those conditions, he was able to maintain quality of education of the institution to the extent the students of his school were excelling in education, producing impressive results in the public examinations.

As a committed educationalist, even after retirement he was involved in a number of educational development activities in the peninsula and was always looked upon with respect in getting advice on educational matters. The educationalist in him reflected in every writings of him in Thinakkural as he touched on a variety of topics ranging from heritage to development. He was writing under the pen names, Yaazh Arasan, Uruththiran, Aasinan and Pulikeasi.

He started his social life as a Leftist, and in his later years turned to society oriented spiritualism.

He was also a theaterist and a sportsman in his younger days.

He was managing Jaffna Thinakkural for 8 years, from 2002 to 2010.

Mr. Nadarajah's life was an illustrated example of his generation that has never lost its spirit and was committed to the society to the very end, despite going through decades of tragedies overshadowing major part of the lifetime.

He leaves behind his wife and two daughters.

A video feature in Tamil, which he gave to TamilNet in 2005 on the story of his village, will be produced herewith in the 2nd lead.

Related Articles:
19.01.11   Rajapaksa skips 're-reopening' of Vasaavi'laan Central Colle..
15.05.10   Resettlement of uprooted civilians remains rejected in Jaffn..

Solheim hijacks thrust of Norway report


Solheim hijacks thrust of Norway report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 November 2011, 03:39 GMT]
Norwegian minister Erik Solheim, while speaking in Oslo 11 November at the release of the report evaluating Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka, tried to hijack the philosophical thrust of the findings of the report and this brought him into confrontation with the evaluation team leader, Gunnar M. Sørbø. Mr. Erik Solheim tried to defend the main criticism in the report and the stand of Sørbø that Norway should have quit the peace process to signal the world of the impending dangers. Arguing that nobody expected a military solution succeeding, Solheim painted the picture of a star-crossed and epic-style tragedy that everyone has to be now contended with in a philosophical way, and said that the stand of Sørbø was ‘arrogant’. Solheim’s speech made Sørbø to remind that the issue was of life and death and Norway should have had contingencies ready.

Erik Solheim
Sørbø’s stand on the failed peace process was that “there was no excuse for not anticipating them, or for lacking a strategy to deal with them,” as there were patterns and structures and some of them were “old tricks in the Sri Lankan book.”

Coming out with many ‘If’s, Solhiem defended why Norway could not withdraw.

The following were the main thrusts implied in Solheim’s speech:


  • Bailing out Colombo and its abettors from intentional or premeditated part of the crimes committed.

  • Placing the main blame on the LTTE for the end.

  • Beginning a PR exercise on behalf of Colombo and ‘counterinsurgency’ elements of the world to make Eezham Tamils accept defeatism, to depoliticize the diaspora, to blunt their struggling spirit and to disown international responsibility in favour of Rajapaksa’s ‘home-made genocide,’ ultimately to ‘consolidate’ the premeditated ‘victory,’ in the engineering of which Erik Solheim-steered peace process played a main role.

  • * * *

    Mr. Solheim’s speech was a carefully thought out psy-op and is a forerunner to the PR exercises that would be undertaken by Rajapaksa and his ‘friends’ in the world Establishments following the release of the LLRC hoodwink, political observers predict. Sri Lanka has already hired a PR firm for this purpose, Colombo media reports say.

    Solheim sounded like Rajapaksa’s “past is past” in ‘philosophically’ talking on the ‘chance’ factor in history, but the rest of the speech betrayed his ‘counterinsurgency’ fangs.

    One of his ifs was the Karuna factor. Who ever was behind the militant split caused by Karuna factor, the West and Norway promoting an ideological split within the LTTE during the peace process is now becoming more and more clear. To what extent the dividing setup aimed at blunting the goal of Tamil independence and saving the Sri Lankan state continues in postwar times too is for the Eezham Tamils to look around and find out.

    Solheim talked about the murky cases of Rajiv and Kadirgamar assassinations for the LTTE losing the support of India and the international community. But, whether his political philosophy upholds such individual assassinations justifying the genocide of an entire nation is the crucial question. Solheim, like the other engineers in the world Establishments never accepts there was and there is genocide.

    In answering a question about his partiality in accusing the assassinations during the peace process, Solheim citing the case of Kadirgamar was not doing justice to the sequence.

    He also came out with a dangerous theory, perhaps that of the neo-liberal states of today, implying that in international reckoning moral and political values are applicable only to non-State actors while States are licensed for wrong doings.

    In the liberal democracies of the past, politicians and diplomats resign when they fail. But whether neo-liberal or ‘Asian model,’ people sitting in the Establishments today are the same in refusing to accept wrongs or failures. Perhaps the only recent exception was the Fox case, but Solheim had an appreciative tone in talking about the ‘contributions’ of Fox to Sri Lanka.

    * * *

    After talking about star-crossed and LTTE blundered failure of the Tamil militant struggle, Solheim was looking forward to IC discussing with Rajapaksa, harping on his ‘magnanimity in victory.’

    Solheim wanted to depoliticize Tamil diaspora by vesting leadership with TNA that is prepared for any ‘nondescript’ solution.

    There was no difference between what Rajapaksa was telling and what Erik Solheim was speaking.

    LTTE losing, SL winning was Norway failing, was the observation of the evaluation team leader, Sørbø. But consolidation of genocidal Sri Lanka’s victory is what seems to be perceived by Solheim as his personal vindication and success of his mission.

    Solheim warned against any renewed militant struggle. In the mean time, many of the intelligence agencies in the West are also now keen in knowing whether there would be a militant resurgence. The way the Establishments are approaching the national question of genocide-afflicted Eezham Tamils, the intelligence agencies are perhaps expecting the fundamental aspirations not fulfilled and as a result the worsening of the situation. Towards the end of the war, the agencies were keen in assessing what would happen if the LTTE leadership were annihilated.

    * * *

    Erik Solheim would have been the happiest person had Pirapaharan’s LTTE surrendered and had dropped the cause of Tamil Eelam, including the trial of internal self-determination even which the peace process could not materialize. But Pirapaharan’s LTTE chose the moral victory for the righteous cause and that is what now troubles and irks Solheim and his ilk, for unlike in the other ‘counterinsurgency’ maneuverings, in this case the Establishments nakedly stand indicted en block in the eyes of humanity. This is where the Sri Lanka–Tamil Eelam case is paradigm-setting for a global struggle of humanity.

    But Solheim has a ‘contingency’ plan for that.

    He knows the accountability issue will not go away. But he envisages the issue to “remain for a long time, may be for ever.” Governments cannot decide it should go away as “those issues will be kept up by non-governmental actors, by media and by many other actors,” Solheim said. This means, the Establishments or international organizations are not going to do anything.

    According to Solheim, the accountability issue is the only way the Sri Lankan state is made to reach out to Tamils in finding a way of resolving the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka itself.

    The irony is that even the only contingency plan the peace facilitator is able to conceive harps on the very sacrifices of the LTTE and the Eezham Tamil civilians he finds fault with.

    But genocidal Sri Lanka will have its own agenda of ‘resolving’ Tamils, while Solheim and his ilk keep the accountability issue remain for long, may be for ever within Sri Lanka, and thus saving their skins from their accountability by remaining arbitrators.

    Who will raise the accountability issues of Norway, India, Co-Chairs and the UN and how are they going to “reduce the impact” by reaching out to Eezham Tamils in accepting their chronic case of national question?

    Sections of Eezham Tamils see some ‘openings.’ The openings actually lie in the global awareness that now justify the struggle of Eezham Tamils for their independence. This has to be harnessed in seeking global justice. The pre-emptive and counterinsurgency tactics of India and the West that don’t acknowledge the nationhood and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils are not openings but mirages.

    * * *

    Transcripts of the speech and extracts of the question and answer session as well as concluding remarks of Mr. Erik Solheim, during the release function of Norway’s peace process evaluation report held in Oslo on 11 November 2011:

    Let me start by thanking Gunnar and his team for what I consider a very valuable, a very interesting report. Because, I have not been able to study everything at this stage, I will go through it, all the big and small issues which are covered by the report, looking into them and see to what extent I can inform what we will do to assist Sri Lanka in the future, of course may be more importantly how this can enlighten Norwegian efforts in other peace processes. Norway is involved in one way or the other, in may be 20 peace processes in the world – in very few of them if any at the moment – as the main actor as in Sri Lanka but, in supporting the parties or in supporting other international actors in bringing peace. So, it is very valuable to look into all these experiences, which you have in forward and all your comments, and we will do that.

    Also, I wish to say that (smiling) this is may be the first time, most certainly it is not normal, that one involved in the peace process is commissioning a report to look into all the positives and negatives of what happened.

    I broadly agree with most comments Gunnar made and I have one major reservation – let us start with that.

    I think that the idea that Norway should have withdrawn from the peace process when it was clear to everyone that the government of Sri Lanka wanted a final military victory, everyone knew that, there was no doubt about in Delhi, Washington, Beijing nor in Colombo or Vanni about that, nor in Oslo. Noone was in doubt with that. But, that the idea that we should have withdrawn, I think is extremely arrogant. Why? Because the Tamil Tigers asked us to continue; the government of Sri Lanka - at least to some extent- asked us to continue; the complete civil society and all the peace groups in Sri Lanka asked us to continue; the United States of America asked us to continue; India asked us to continue; European Union asked us to continue. The idea that I, or may be Vidar Helgesen or myself, should sit in Oslo and make the decision that when everyone else in the world ask Norway to do it. It was of course under the most difficult circumstances, even when there is war, even when so many peoples are killed we should decide to withdraw. I cannot disagree more. I think it is very arrogant, because it is putting Norway far above anything else, it is about our reputation, not about what there is to do for all those who were suffering on this war. Except for that major reservation, I agree to a lot of what has been presented by Gunnar here.

    If there is another, not major reservation, but some reservation is the following: we should be very cautious with determinism, believing that the outcome of some events had to be what it actually was. Richard Armitage is at the first row here and I think he and myself agree the [inaudible] that the American Independence war by George Washington could very easily have taken a completely different end: George Washington being hanged as a terrorist and the UK consolidating power for at least 50 more years in the United States. It was so close to a southern separation during the civil war in America in the 1860s, not far away, very close. You can just make a few changes in the few of the battles or moving the election of 1864 from the cold to the spring, and the outcome would have been completely different. And these occurs to most important events in the world history, and the tendency by researchers to believe that what was actually was the end, had to be the end, I take a reservation with.

    Let me just mention some of the “ifs” in the peace process of Sri Lanka:

    “If” Mr. Prabhakaran had not forced Tamil voters to abstain from electing from the election in 2005, everyone knows that Ranil Wikcramasinghe would have been the president, not Mahinda Rajapaksa. Everyone knows that. That would have at least have been a major change in everything what happened after that.

    “If” Mr. Balasingham had not died of cancer, it may or may not have made a major difference, I think it would have made a major difference, because after Mr. Balasingham's death, the LTTE leadership made all the mistakes. Prior to that, they have been quite clever in the political and in military field. In the three years after Balasingham's death, there was not one single, meaningful, political or military initiative from the Tamil Tigers. Not one. And there is no other way of explaining that after influence of Balasingam disappeared, Prabhakaran was alone to make decisions so to say.

    “If” Karuna has not split, it was not I think inevitable, but it was basic from personal characteristics of Mr. Karuna - not necessarily very nice personal charatctersticas, that it was what happened and it made an enormous change.

    “If” Chandrika Kumaratunga or the other actors had been able to move 1 or 2 months after the tsunami. It was a completely new setup in Sri Lanka. Tamil Tigers assisted the Army. The Army assisted Tamils. There was a really a chance for a new beginning, but it was drawn out and drawn out and the momentum was lost and basically nothing happened. If we had been able to achieve a major change early that year, again I think, everything would have been at least very different, not necessarily exactly what we have hoped for, but it would have been at the minimum, very different.

    And, I can continue with a number of other such “ifs”. So, I think, we have to judge historical events on the basis of the available information at that time, not when we know exactly what happened, because what happened was not necessarily what had to happen.

    Then, let me add to one or two other aspects:

    No one believed that there was a military victory possible. No one. Maybe, with exception of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. That is the only person I can mention who thought a military victory was possible.

    No one in Colombo thought it was possible. I was very – have to say Very Close – to Indian Intelligence. I met them enormous amounts of time throughout this process. Never, ever did any Indian official hint that a military victory was possible until mid 2008. Then they started, I mean I observed the change in Mr. Narayan and others, gradually shifting to the position that maybe - still may be that the government can wipe out the Tigers, militarily. Before that, no one thought it was possible. United States thought it was impossible; India thought it was impossible; Colombo thought it was impossible; So, again, complete change from what we all based the peace process on, until that point.

    Then, coming to what can be learnt. Of course, I mean there are number of these issues that have been reflected in the report as summed by Gunnar: Obviously we have to be patient. That is very obvious. We started the peace process on the part of Norway with the belief that this could be resolved in a few months time. The Indians told us please be patient. If you cannot be patient, go away, I mean, get out of South Asia, you will only complicate matters. This will take a decade at the minimum. So, we learnt to be patient and you need to be patient with a peace process. Then, you need to get the international context right, as well covered by Gunnar. At the end, the government won a military victory because they better understood the new international situation than the Tiger leadership. Rajapaksa understood that it was possible to build up, basically a coalition of China, Pakistan, Iran and a number of new actors in Sri Lankan context to get on one hand military support from these new actors that on the other hand also using these new actors to put pressure on the old actors in the sense that India will be very much more reluctant if it sees China coming in a major way in Sri Lanka. So that was very clever international diplomacy by Rajapaksa and out ruling the Tigers in that way. International context is very essential.

    Now, the other issue is inclusiveness. I have to say we were fighting throughout to include particularly the Muslim community in Sri Lanka in a much broader way in the peace process in and basically everyone else. That was not easy, mainly because the Tamil Tigers were reluctant to see a separate Muslim dimension to the struggle. But, that is very important to be in a process that is very inclusive as possible.

    Then, I will come to the three main issues from my perspective in the peace process, which we have to contemplate for future parallel or future situation.

    Number one, in the priority list, is were there ways to influence the Tamil Tigers leadership in a more effective way than we did. Please recall that the Norway was the only actor with access to Prabhakaran. I met Prabhakaran may be 10 times. There is absolutely no non-Tamil in the entire world that met Prabhakaran that often. None. During the peace process, except for Norwegians, Chris Patten from the European Union met him once and Akashi from Japan maybe once or twice. Except for that it was just Norwegian visits to Mr. Prabhakaran. And of course they may be lasted for approximately two hours, two-three, including lunch may be three hours at a time. So, it gives may be combined totally 30 hours with Prabhakaran throughout this peace process. With all this of course since he spoke only in Tamil and my Tamil is zero. So, it was a very limited time. I think it was completely wrong – I would like to have comments from other actors here - from the international community to make good behaviour of Prabhakaran [inaudible], unless he behaved well, people didn't want to speak to him. I think it was wrong and I think other strategies should have been followed. The more people meet and speak to Prabhakaran the better. Of course the government would have been reluctant to that because they see it as recognition of his role, but I think, the more the LTTE had them opened up, the more actors would have been able to meet with the international community, the more they [could] have been able to feel secure, the more likely accesses would have been.

    Right what Gunnar said, when Balasingham negotiated the so-called Oslo Declaration, which said that the LTTE would explore, not that they have decided upon, but they would explore federalism. It was Milinda and myself who wrote that document at the [...] restaurant here in Oslo and Balasingham accepted it [smiling] and he took it to Prabhakaran and Prabhakaran refused. It was not public at that time, but it was clear he was furious because he was reluctant to federalism. But still had there been ways of influencing the LTTE leadership, and in reality thats Mr Prabhakaran more, that is the most, I think that is the number one crucial issue.

    Balasingham once told me: please understand that Mr. Prabhakaran is a warlord. He is not in a democratic society understanding international community, understanding debates in Europe or the United States. He is an isolated warlord. I may be studying warlords or Chinese history in the early part of the 20th century would be the best parallel to study Prabhakaran, Balasingham hinted. So, that was not my idea. But, if that is the case, could more have been done to open up their eyes, their understanding of the world? And should we have done more on that matter, I think yes. I think it was completely wrong that United States, Europe and every one else asked ‘please you behave well over a long period of time, then we will talk to you’. Should we have talked to them all the time, as much as possible, 24 hours if possible.

    Okay, that is the number one strategic issue and people may think that you should look upon this from the world of systems, structures and theoretical experience. It may seem personal oriented, but reality is Prabhakaran was the LTTE. Without Prabhakaran the LTTE would never have existed and all major decisions of whatever type will be made by Prabhakaran, no one else. He will of course speak to some of their military leaders, definitely consult Balasingham, but ultimately he will make the decision. It was very hard. I never heard any Tamil giving unwanted advice to Mr. Prabhakaran. I think that would be very difficult to any Tamil to knock at the door and go into Prabhakaran and say Boss, we are on the wrong path, we shouldn't do this, but should do the opposite. Only person who could do that was Mr. Balasingham. He was 10 years senior to Prabhakaran because he has enormous exposure to the world. Except for him, it was only foreigners who could do that. We tried. But, 30 hours with Prabhakaran over 10 years is not a long time.

    Second issue, very much covered by Gunnar, there were two parties in Colombo and still are: the UNP and the SLFP. They have a long, long history of not working together. During the most of the peace process, Chandrika Kumaratunga was the president and Ranil Wickramasinghe was the prime minister and they were not on speaking terms and they were both believing the other was doing whatever possible to undermine their situation. Could we have done more on that regard? We felt that this was outside Norway's mandate. We felt our mandate was to negotiate between those in power in Colombo, whoever they were, and the Tamil Tigers and that intervening on this would be intervening in the affairs of Sri Lanka.

    Fox, the UK minister of defence who just left his post, he made so-called Fox agreement in the late 1990s. You should cover that. There were of course lot of efforts by India and others to try to bring the parties together. Norway could have forced an apporach between them, may be we could have done more to ask more powerful nations like India and the United States to do it. But, I think it would have been very difficult.

    A very critical issue, I don't know to what extent you have discussed it, is the peace agreement from the beginning when we made the Ceasefire Agreement, should more efforts have been done to bring Chandrika into that, because that was done right after Ranil Vickramasinghe's political victory. He was on the political ascent, I mean very strong and very popular at that point, and Chandrika was, as you said, sidelined. That's true. Should more have been done to bring her into that agreement from the beginning, momentum would have been lost, but is a very critical issue, because that would have been a two-party agreement in Colombo with the LTTE, that would have been made an enormous difference, that is very clear. That, I think, was outside the scope of Norway to achieve it, but maybe we should have done more to try to convince other actors to act, a lot we could have possibly done more.

    The last issue I would like to bring up is also covered is the issue of communication. True, that Norway became very unpopular, at least under the peace process lasted for long, particulary in chauvinist nationalist Sinhala groups. That is very clear. The main reason for that was simply the optic. Whenever someone saw Mr. Prabhakaran or the LTTE, they would see them with Norwegians. There is because no one else was going there. So, either I would be there, or our Ambassador or John or some one else, but if Prabhakaran or Balasingham or Thamilchelvan whoever it was on TV, normally there would be a Norwegian with his side. So, it gave an impression to most Sri Lankans that Norway was close to the LTTE since no one else basically did this. So, there was optical reasons for why this became the mantra. We should have discussed a better media strategy. However, of course the parties did not want Norway to have a high profile. They wanted this to be a process between the LTTE and the government, they wanted us to make comments, particularly when they have agreed on something, but they did not want Norway to be seen as speaking on behalf of itself defending its own role in the media. We were clearly told that was not what the parties wanted to see. But still it is an issue which definitely needs consideration whether we could have done more on this.

    “A sub issue on communication is that one group, I am very clear, that we should have done more to reach out to, that is the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka, the Mahanayakes in Kandy and others. They were important spiritual leaders in Sri Lanka. We were clearly advised by Chandrika Kumaratunga and others to not to spend too much time on the Buddhist clergy. It is not our idea that we should not do it. We wanted to do it. But, we were told not to do. Stick to yourself, don't intervene in this. Leave that to us. But, still I think with the hindsight today we should have done more to reach out to the Buddhist clergy, because their role on this Sinhalese side was so important. So, these are some of the issues for discussion. There are many big and small, but at the end the two big ones, the two defining issues of the peace process was could more have been done to reach out Mr. Prabhakaran, to get him at the end to accept a federal state. The other was, could more have been done to bring together UNP and SLFP, Ranil and Chandrika, if we have been able to do very different on one or the other of these two, that would have been a completely different process. These are the two essential questions.

    * * *

    When Frances Harrison, former senior correspondent of BBC, who chaired the panel debate, asked Mr. Solheim on his opinion on the impact by the global war on terror with regards to the peace process in the island, Mr. Solheim had the following to say:

    “I don't think that so-called global war on terror was a main problem here. On one hand, the LTTE made enormous mistakes. The reason why the war on terror became so important in Sri Lanka was that the LTTE made high profile assassinations of top Sri Lankan politicians, which gave them nothing from any political or military point of view, because, I mean, leaving the moral dimension outside. Why in hell, killing Luxman Kadirgamar, it gave them absolutely nothing. Of course, the killing of Rajiv Gandhi was an enormous blunder. If you want to receive the support from the United States, would you kill an American president? I mean, who would even contemplate that? India was the main source of support for the Tamil Tigers, why then kill Rajiv Gandhi, an outstanding Indian prime minister.

    Of course, they made enormous mistakes.

    But, then it becomes somewhat more complex, because on one hand whenever Prabhakaran told us that he would stop killings, he sticked to his word. And that is more than I can say on some Sri Lankan Sinhalese politicians. But he always did. One example was right after Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected the president, the LTTE started huge number of attacks against the Sinhalese soldiers in the north. Then, we went and met Prabhakaran and he promised to stop it and it stopped. There was no killing did by the LTTE until the government started killing different Tamils. Then, true, the LTTE responded. But, it was the government at that point that initiated the killings.

    There is also another issue making it more complex.

    The LTTE did not start the peace process at its weakest point. It started [smiling] the peace process at the peak of the power. The LTTE was never as powerful as in 2000 and 2001. They were very close to capture the entire Jaffna peninsula. They destroyed Katunayake airport in Colombo, bringing the economy of the Sri Lankan state to zero and also ending up Chandrika losing in the elections. So, they were at the peak of the power when they started in the peace process. So, the idea that they did this to make a cover for re-arming is simply peanuts. It was the State to benefit from the ceasefire. It was the LTTE the main actor in the start. This is much more complicated.

    And finally, the idea that it should be more difficult for Norway at the time of the war on terror to act with non-state terrorist actors, I think is wrong. And I think we can prove it is wrong. Because, you said Jonathan that we would have more difficult relationship with the US because we were doing this.

    But, then we have in reality the fasit, which are the WikiLeaks reports. Because, Richard may be polite when he is here. But, the discourse between the Sri Lanka Embassy [the US Embassy in Sri Lanka] and the government in Washington, is not completely open, and is not one critical remark whatsoever on the role of Norway throughout the peace process. Not one. To the contrary, it is full of praise.

    And there are, over and over again underlining the point that there is a need for several to talk to the Tigers, the United States cannot do it, will not do it. It is very useful that Norway is doing it. So, I disagree with that [view of Jonathan]. And I think it is proven by the American internal discourse. That is not done for [...] That United States felt that it was very useful and I think in reality the United States also think it is useful in many, many other theatres of the world.

    * * *

    When Hans Petter of the Evaluation Department of Norad, asked a question regarding the legitimacy of the LTTE in representing the Tamils, Mr. Solheim had the following to say:

    “I do not think it is a major issue in the peace process, to be very honest, for the reason that whatever the LTTE had been able to agree with the Sri Lankan state, would have been acceptable to nearly 100% of the Tamils. True, that there were a lot of anti- and non- LTTE Tamil groups, and there are lots of them in Colombo, not the entire diaspora was supportive of the LTTE. It was impossible to imagine any solution where the government and the LTTE had shaken hands and agreed which have not been acceptable to the wide majority of the Tamils. The respect for or understanding of the LTTE was wide in the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. Even the Tamils [...] who completely disagree with the terrorist assassination of Rajiv Gandhi or Luxman Kadirgamar, has big, let me give an example, after the bombing of the Bandaranaike airport in 2001, there was a huge number of Tamils we spoke to were [...] and they were proud. [...]”

    * * *

    When Mr. Pirabukkannan, an Indian Tamil, living in Norway asked Mr. Solheim why he was always referring to the killings done by only one party while there were several Tamil leaders who were killed by the SL State, Mr. Solheim said:

    “Joseph Pararajasingham, a good friend of mine, a member of parliament, he was killed on the New Year mass at Batticaloa Church obviously by the structures of the Sri Lankan state. One of the editors in Colombo, Lassantha Wickramathunge, friend of us during the peace process, was killed by the structures of the the Sri Lankan State. There is absolutely no doubt about that. They should be condemned. Those responsible for these crimes should be brought to Court. But, for a non-state actor attacking and kill the [former] Prime Minister of India. Frankly, that is very rare. It is hard to think of any terrorist group attacking the president of America, or the president of China and the Prime Minister of India. It is immoral and is also enormously foolish. India was the main source of strength of the Tamil Tigers, why do they then kill the [former] prime minister of that land? Adding to that, killing the foreign minister of Sri Lanka, Luxman Kadirgamar in the midst of the peace process without any provocation was of course, again, enormously provocative. You may disagree with the view that killing a foreign minister is different from killing a farmer or a soldier. But, how it is seen by the International Community, I have to tell you, is seen very differently. Killing a local commander of the LTTE or a colonel of the Sri Lankan Army is seen by the International Community, rightly or wrongly, as absolutely different from an provoked killing of the foreign minister [of Sri Lanka] or [former] prime minister of India. So, it is also a moral issue, but is also a political issue. I have brought this up, all over and over again with Tamil Tigers' leadership. Again, when the Tamil Tigers' leadership told me, why can't you get European Union to avoid putting us on the terrorist list. Yes, I told them that would be achieved if you stop killing people like Kadirgamar. Then, it wouldn't happen. But, over and over again it happened. And ultimately, there was no way. The European Union put the LTTE on terrorist list because it was provoked by that killing and I could mention a number of others.”

    * * *

    In response to another question Solheim said that his opinion was that banning the LTTE was not a good idea “because I stick to the opposite would have been much wiser to overwhelm the LTTE with political contact, bringing them out in the light, discussing with them and trying to convince the top leadership that they have to transform themselves.”

    Responding to another question by an opposition Progressive Party parliamentarian on whether Norway was manipulated by the parties to the conflict, Mr Solheim had following to reveal on India's role, after commenting that the parties were trying to put forward their interest and part of the job would therefore would be trying to manipulate the broker almost on a daily basis throughout the period of 10 years.

    However, Solheim came with the following revelation on India's role:

    “India, throughout had a veto power over the peace process. Milinda, because the Tigers did not have access to India, Milinda and myself shuttled to Delhi. I don't know how many times I have been at the Indian airport of New Delhi, meeting Indian intelligence and others and was no major step in the peace process whatsoever which was taken, without informing India. Sometimes they give tacit accept even if they may have disagreed. But, India was throughout informed. And the reason for that was very simple.

    “From Day 1, we took the view that India is by far the most important foreign influence in Sri Lanka. The United States is important. But, it is second to India. And even more so. For India, Sri Lanka is a core interest. For the United States, it is periphery interest. And the United States will never ever risk relationship with India for Sri Lanka. So, if India is on board, ultimately the United States will basically follow. Most important and even into the details, for instances, what nations should be acceptable in the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. They gave us a list of nations that they would accept and we picked from that [smiling].

    * * *

    A Tamil who said he agreed with the SL Minister of Rajapaksa cabinet, posed a question to Erik Solheim: “Did you ever think that you will be able to persuade Mr. Prabhakaran to drop his idea of Eelam and accept a federal state?”

    Solheim's response:

    I would say that it was a question mark throughout the process. We thought it was worth trying. That we would not be able to convince Prabhakaran on that, but Balasingham was may be in the position to convince Prabhakaran.

    Balasingham of course clearly wanted a federal state. He was deeply disappointed at the end of his life. I have to tell you. In the last months, he knew he was going to die, but he was enormously disappointed with the developments in Sri Lanka, particularly within the LTTE.

    And, that because he knew where it was going. He told us that the LTTE would lose the East, maybe they will even lose everything. That was in 2006. So, he was right in his predictions.

    And, I still believe that if the LTTE had been opened up in a much more profound manner, many more people would have gone there, to Prabhakaran who could have shown more respect even if it would have been regrettable from Colombo point of view. But, still that may have changed entire equation. Now, he was very isolated as I said. Very few people met with him. Balasingham ultimately died. And the answer to that question, whether at the end Prabhakaran could have been convinced of accepting some sort of federalism.

    Ranil Wickramasinghe coined the term “asymmetric federalism”. You never know the answer to that question.

    * * *

    Solheim came with a counter claim that there was no scientist in Norway with the understanding of political actors in Sri Lanka. There are scientists who are specific to the areas, such as North and East, or Tamil Diaspora. According to Solheim, it was only the Norwegian Foreign Ministry that has such competency.

    “We have worked on this both day and night for many years. They are basically brilliant people and they have a lot of expertise.”

    If we want to look for better experts, again India is the place, and to some extent US and UK, but basically India where you find people with much better understanding. You should all read Narayan's book (pointing at Narayan).

    * * *

    About the final days:

    We were in place to find a settlement if they so wished. And I can tell you that we were on the telephone, both directly to the Tigers in the Vanni and indirectly to the Tiger representatives who lived in Singapore and Malaysia throughout the months until 17th and 18th of May [2009], trying to convince them that time has come for an orderly end to the war. That means, you will all save your lives, you will save the lives of the Tamil Tiger cadres, of course all the civilians will be saved, they will be able to hand over their weapons to the United Nations, to India, to the United States, basically to whoever they want to organise that orderly regrouping.

    The United States would have been able to send military vessels to take all the cadres, they would have not been taken to US, they would have been taken to Colombo, but every single name would have been registered through a global, international process, which would have made it more or less impossible to liquidate anyone after that has taken place.

    This was told to the Tiger leadership throughout. We cannot give you any particular guarantee maybe for Prabhakaran and Poddu Ammaan, but except for these two individuals, everyone else will have a personal guarantee. But, it was rejected by the LTTE. We proposed to go into the Vanni pocket. I suggested I could go myself, [...] the Secretary General of the UN was ready to go.

    But, the end of the issue was that they said: “you are welcome, but you cannot meet Prabhakaran, you can meet Mr. Nadesan”.

    Of course, no one would be able to go on that note. And I was absolutely convinced that Sri Lankan government would not have known this and they preferred a military victory that they would have accepted it. And they have no choice, but to accept it because both India and the United States were in favour of this orderly end to the war.

    Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved if the effort could have been successful.

    * * *

    From Solheim’s concluding remarks:

    Then, may be on the views on different roles of India, but there can be no different views on the fact that India was consulted throughout the peace process. Milinda can confirm it. I can confirm it. Every other actor can confirm it. India was much more into the peace process than most people tend to believe.

    There were secret meetings between the India and the LTTE. I participated in these meetings. I will not disclose who were they and where did that happen, but they did happen. There was lot more contact.

    India, at every stage was consulted.

    They were kept informed on the smallest details and throughout they were supportive to the peace process.

    And, only in the final stage of 2008 onwards, top Indian officials saw there could be a military answer to the conflict. Prior to that they all said no. And all that the foreign minister and all the heads of the intelligence apparatus and heads of the foreign service which were the key individuals. So, the role of India was throughout.

    Then, finally looking ahead: I think now the main issue for the international community is to get into discussion with the president or what Narayan framed being magnanimous in victory. He has the strongest position of any Sri Lankan president ever, huge majority in the parliament, huge electoral victory, fantastic, brilliant from his point of view military results, why is it he is not using the opportunity to reach out to find a settlement.

    As Richard said, there is no military answer to political problems.

    There may be military answers to military problems. But, remaining problem in Sri Lanka now is not military. It is political. And for the president to reach out to solve that political problem.

    And that I think is the entire international community should do, gather behind that banner.

    On the Tamil side, Tamils should be told there is absolutely no support for violence anywhere in the world. If anyone try to take up violence, they will have no support. We will do whatever we can to stop it, you must fight for legitimate rights in Gandhiyan, non-violent manners, but then you will get also support.

    Leadership in the struggle for Tamil rights should move from the diaspora to the actors in Sri Lanka itself. Tamil National Alliance is the most important. And I think there is a broad international understanding that the Tamil National Alliance should be in the lead of the struggle for Tamil rights and we should give support to TNA and of course to TNA - Government talks.

    And finally, the issue of the accountability of what happened in the last phase of the war. That issue will not go away. It will remain for a long period of time, maybe forever. But it is no way that the governments can decide it should go away, those issues will be kept up by non governmental actors, by media and by many other actors.

    They will remain the only way the Sri Lankan state can reduce the impact of this is to reach out to Tamils and finding a way of resolving the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka itself.

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