ISI maintains link with militant commanders, says Musharraf !!!

Former Pakistan President General Parvez Musharraf has conceded that his country's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains link with militant commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, suspected of having masterminded the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Musharraf said that ISI had "used Haqqani's influence" to get Pakistan's Ambassador to Afghanistan, who was abducted by Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, released.

Haqqani, "is the man who has influence over Baitullah Mehsud, a dangerous terrorist, the fiercest commander in South Waziristan and the murderer of Benzir Bhutto, as we know today," Musharraf told Der Spiegel in an interview.

"Mehsud kidnapped our Ambassador in Kabul and our intelligence used Haqqani's influence to get him released. Now that does not mean that Haqqani is supported by us. The intelligence service is using certain enemies against other enemies. And it is better to tackle them one by one than making them all enemies," he said.

On US media reports that ISI had systematically supported Taliban, the former Pakistan President said, "Intelligence always has access to other network -- that is what Americans did with KGB, that is what ISI also does."

Sirajuddin Haqqani is the son of renowned Mujaheedin commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is now one of the foremost commanders of Afghan Taliban. Haqqani brothers have been accused of masterminding the attack on Indian embassy in Kabul on July seven, 2008.

Musharraf in the course of his interview accused the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, of interfering in Swat valley and also of arming and financing Baluch rebels.

The former Pakistan President also said that there were "many Indian extremists who have extremists in Pakistan".

So he claimed that if world was serious about combating terrorism then "don't leave India out", since there is "an Indian element" behind the current situation in his country.

Claiming that US President Barack Obama does not understand the reality in Pakistan, Musharraf said that India should not be left out of the mandate of Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"I am totally against the term Af Pak," he said. Musharraf said he did not support the Af-Pak policy for two reasons: First, the strategy puts Pakistan on the same level as Afghanistan.
"We are not. Afghanistan has no government and the country is completely destabilised. Pakistan is not."

"Second, and this is much more important, is that there is an Indian element in the whole game. We have the Kashmir struggle, without which extremist elements like Lashkar-e-Taiba would not exist," the wily commando-turned- politician said.

The former President saw a conspiracy going on to weaken Army and ISI in Pakistan, saying that the talk of Balkanization of his country was wrong as long as Army and the Intelligence were "intact and strong".

He refused to name who were behind this conspiracy, merely pointing to India saying it had 16 insurgencies going on and nobody was making a big thing out of it. "But the West always focuses on Pakistan as a problem."

Asked why he had not acted to eliminate the Taliban leadership when they came to Pakistan at the end of 2001 -- above all the so called Quetta Shura, the Taliban's highest decision making council, in the Pakistani city of Quetta -- Musharraf claimed that Quetta Shura never existed.
"Do you really think there is an assembly in a kind of a House where they come and discuss things is something like a regular consultation. Mullah Omar never was in Pakistan and he would be mad if he appears there. He is much safer in Afghanistan," he said.

On allegations of diversion of US aid running into billions of dollars for anti-terror campaign, Musharraf said Pakistan was not obligated to give out any details and instead said US should give Islamabad $20 billion a year and don't ask what we are doing with it.

On Kashmir, Musharraf claimed that India and Pakistan were close to an agreement.

"My proposal was the demilitarization of the disputed area, self-governance and a mutual overwatch," the former president said.

On what held up the agreement, he said "the key irritant was the Line of Control which the Indians wanted to make permanent. I said we should make it irrelevant by opening transit routes. And that is where the situation stands."

Asked if he viewed himself as a future Ambassador for peace between the two countries, Musharraf said "if the Pakistan Government wants me and if the Indians also trust me, then I can be of some use."

Australia: Victims blame media, say attacks not racial !!!

Indian students in Australia ,reeling under a spate of attacks, say the media back home has done more damage to their interests than protecting them.

Speaking to rediff.com from Melbourne ,on the phone, Mandeep Malik, who went to Australia for a course in community welfare, said the attacks "could not be termed racial".

Those indulging in violence against Indians, he said, belong to the 19-20 age group. "They do such attacks as they get some sort of pleasure out it. It is more for fun sake," he said over the phone.

Malik shared an apartment with Baljinder Singh, who received as many as 19 stiches while he was attacked by teenagers in Melbourne last week.

"I was returning home last Monday evening when the robbers brandished a knife and asked me to hand over money to them. Even before I could realize what happened, they stabbed me in the stomach and fled," Baljinder told rediff.com over the phone.

"Right now I am speaking to you from one of the Melbourne suburbs. My father would be with me by the weekend. I am not sure which day or flight they have booked their tickets. My mother will join me later," Baljinder said, sounding a bit nervous.

Though Mandeep Malik, a Haryana native, has completed his course, he has chosen to stay back to pay back the bank loans for higher studies.

Baljinder and Mandeep said though such incidents took place in the past as well, but this time it was the media glare which brought "our plight before the world".

Australian newspapers, they said, did not give any importance to such incidents.
India sends nearly 1 lakh students to Australia out of which 50,000 are from Haryana.

Australian youth allegedly stabbed by Indians !!!

A 20-year-old man was stabbed in a western suburb after he had allegedly racially abused a group of Indian students in Melbourne in possibly the first act of retaliation. The victim allegedly said, "You are black. You don't belong here. Go away from our country", The Age newspaper reported. Police said they were looking for two dark-skinned men aged between 23 and 29 years in connection with the attacks on Monday. They said a car believed to belong to people attacking Indians was torched at a factory near the station in western suburb. The attack on the victim was the first time Indian students appeared to have retaliated against violent attacks against them as they walk back home late at night, the daily said. Chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, Sam Afra, said it would be unacceptable for the Indian community to take the law into its own hands.

"There is a danger this will become like a chain reaction with the victim becoming the perpetrator. We don't want to get to that," he said. Kapil Bajaj, spokesman for the Hindu Council of Australia, said the possible retaliation was worrying and the Council would condemn such a response. A Metropolitan Ambulance Service spokesman said the 20-year-old man stabbed in the early hours of Monday morning was treated at the scene before being transported to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

"The Age" report said a man, who did not want his name published, said the Indians took the action "in self-defence" after police failed to respond to their call for protection in the wake of attacks on fellow Indian students. He disputed claims by the police that they were liaising with the Indian community group that gathers at the station each night to protect late travellers from attacks as they return home. "The police don't care. In this suburb, everyone is a migrant," he said. His claims were verified by another person who witnessed the attacks but did not want to be identified.

Bangalore Human-Chain Protest Pictures !!!

Will Mr. M.Karunanithi go to Sri Lanka?

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has invited Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to Colombo to apprise him of the ethnic Tamils issue, according to Tamil MP from the island nation Arumuga Thondaiman.

. ‘An official invitation in this regard will be sent very soon,’ said Thondaiman, who called on Karunanidhi’s daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi yesterday.

The Lankan MP reportedly discussed with her the relief and rehabilitation measures to be taken up for the affected Tamils in the island nation.

Lanka should devolve powers to Tamils: Chidambaram Meanwhile, speaking to reporters after meeting Karunanidhi in Chennai yesterday, Union Home P Chidambaram said Sri Lanka should devolve powers to Tamils in line with the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord and ‘if possible go even beyond that.’

‘The Sri Lankan government should implement the 13th amendment of the Indo-Lankan Accord on devolution of powers.... if possible go beyond that,’ he said.

Chidambaram said the Lankan government should strictly proceed towards rehabilitating the Tamils. India, he said, too was working for the internally displaced Tamils and had donated large sums of money.

Chidambaram, who called on Karunanidhi for the first time after taking charge as Home Minister in the new UPA government, said he met the DMK chief to get ‘inputs on what he was thinking and what has to be done for Lankan Tamils and how to rehabilitate them as well as how we should be proceed in this regard’.

He said he would present Karunanidhi’s ‘thoughts’ at the Union Cabinet meeting.

Seeman heads human chain in B’lore
A ‘human chain rally’ was organised in Bangalore on Sunday under the auspices of ‘Karnataka Tamil Makkal Iyyakkam’ seeking to mobilise public support for the rehabilitation of displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka.
KTMI President C Rajan demanded that rehabilitation be done under the supervision of the United Nations, International Red Cross and international NGOs. Tamil film director Seeman
was the chief guest at the rally.

CPI(M) for equal rights for Tamils
CPI(M)’s State unit on Sunday appealed to the Sri Lankan government and international community to play a collective role in ensuring peaceful life to the Tamils affected due to the war between the nation’s Army and the LTTE besides giving equal rights to them on par with the Sinhalese.

A resolution in this regard was adopted at the party’s State Committee Meeting, a party release said.

Tamil Aftermath !!!

``(The war) is not going to end soon,'' said Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Sri Lankan army's spokesman, last month. ``It will take some time to completely eradicate terrorism from the country ― we think about two years.''

In the euphoria over the recent military victory that ended the conventional war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (``Tamil Tigers") and wiped out most of their leadership, most people in Sri Lanka have forgotten that prediction, but it remains likely.

In fact, the brigadier may even have been optimistic in saying that two years would ``completely eradicate terrorism'' in Sri Lanka.

In the last weeks of fighting, foreigners called for a ceasefire to protect the Tamil civilians trapped within the diminishing perimeter held by the Tigers, solemnly warning that a crushing military victory by the government would embitter the Tamils and cause just such a terrorist war afterward.

But that was foreigners being naive: After 26 years of war, the bitterness among Tamils is already quite enough to fuel a postwar guerilla conflict.

However, whether that war actually occurs depends on what happens next, not on how Tamils feel about the way the war ended.

The ordeal of the 300,00 Tamils who were trapped with the Tigers' army in its last stand was extreme, but it was not just due to government shellfire.

The survivors of that ordeal, who are now being held in government-run ``displacement camps,'' were forced to accompany the Tigers in their retreat to serve as shields.

The Tigers killed them if they tried to leave, so they are not in the least romantic about that last stand, whereas the very large number of people in the Tamil Diaspora overseas are.

Diaspora Tamils are in shock about recent events, for most of them saw the founder and leader of the Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakan, as an invincible defender of the Tamil cause.

They can scarcely believe that he and almost all the other senior leaders of the Tigers are dead. Moreover, the Tiger support network in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom that provided 80 percent of the organization's military budget is still intact.

There are plenty of young radicals in those communities who are ready to continue the war in Sri Lanka, if only through guerilla and terrorist attacks for the time being.

This is strikingly different from the situation in Sri Lanka itself, where it is clear that most Tamils in the areas formerly under the Tigers' control are ready to stop fighting.

They have personal experience of the Tigers' ruthless rule, they have lived through 26 years of constant insecurity and recurrent violence, and they have had enough.

That would normally be the deciding factor in the equation, for if the Tamils at home in Sri Lanka really want to end the war, who could make it continue?

There are, unfortunately, two possible answers to that question. One is the dogmatists in the Tamil Diaspora, for whom the goal of a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka is sacred. The other is the victorious and deeply intolerant government of Sri Lanka, which may well throw its victory away.

Many Tamils living abroad just want to integrate into their new countries and leave all that unhappy history behind them, but family ties back home and the pervasive presence of Tiger radicals in the overseas communities make it hard for them to do so.

There is a risk that the Tamil Diaspora, like the millions of Irish who emigrated to the United States in the famine of the 1840s, will become the base for a permanent war against the oppressor back home.

That is what the Fenians became in 19th-century America, even launching unsuccessful ``invasions'' of British North America (i.e. Canada) in pursuit of their goal of liberating Ireland. If the Sri Lankan government cannot create an acceptable future for its Tamil population at home, the same thing will happen in the Tamil Diaspora.

There is no good reason why Sri Lanka's Tamils should not live peacefully as the country's largest minority, but history is against it.

The ethnic nationalism of the Buddhist, Sinhala-speaking majority has poisoned Sri Lankan politics, beginning with the laws that made Sinhala the sole official language and imposed restrictions on Tamil access to universities and the professions in the 1950s and `60s.

Those laws were mainly the work of the Bandaranaike political dynasty, which deliberately cultivated a resentful Sinhalese nationalism for electoral reasons.

The laws aimed to redress the grievances of the Sinhalese majority, who believed that the Tamil minority had prospered at their expense by collaborating too closely with the British colonial power, but they went too far and they have lasted too long.

What the country needs now is a clean slate where everybody's language has equal status and every ethnic group has equal opportunities.

At the end of these terrible months, and despite all the killings and the ``displacement camps'' crammed with dazed Tamil civilians, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government has enough political credit in the eyes of the Sinhalese majority to make that revolution happen.

Unfortunately, his government probably lacks the imagination for that, in which case the terrorism will probably start up again soon.

15 more bodies found from debris of Air France jet

Seventeen bodies now have been recovered from the debris of an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic nearly a week ago, as investigators probe whether a defective speedometer caused the tragedy.

Fifteen more bodies were snatched from the waves 1,150 kilometers off Brazil's northeastern coast on Sunday, when search teams battled "unfavorable" weather conditions to recover other bodies spotted floating among seats and other plane debris, Brazilian military officials said.
"Dozens of structural components" from the Airbus A330 were also picked up, air force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Henry Munhoz told reporters in Recife, a coastal city in northeastern Brazil.

The latest finds followed the recovery on Saturday of the first two bodies from Air France flight AF 447, which came down early June 1 with 228 people on board. The plane left from Rio de Janeiro to Paris a week ago, on May 31.

The bodies were to be taken by ship to Brazil's Atlantic archipelago of Fernando de Noronha from where they would be flown to Recife for identification, Munhoz said.

On Saturday, the bodies of two men were the first to be recovered by Brazilian navy personnel from the zone located 1,150 kilometers from Recife.

The 15 others were taken from the water yesterday by teams from a Brazilian frigate and a French navy ship involved in the operation.

Of those 15 bodies, four were men and four were women. The gender of the others had not yet been determined.

Sri Lanka president invites Karunanidhi to Colombo

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has invited Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to Colombo to apprise him of the ethnic Tamils issue, Sri Lankan Tamil MP Arumuga Thondaiman claimed today.

"An official invitation in this regard will be sent very soon," the Lankan lawmaker said.
Earlier, Thondaiman also called on Karunanidhi's daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi at her residence and discussed with her the relief and rehabilitation measures to be taken up for the affected Tamils in the island nation.

Sri Lanka : What price victory?

The world welcomes the end of the civil war that has ravaged Sri Lanka for decades. Unfortunately, questions have emerged about how the conflict was brought to a close and whether war crimes were committed in the final bloody days of fighting. The Colombo government has dismissed the allegations as unfounded; the defeat of the Tamil Tigers has overshadowed charges that the guerrillas used civilians as human shields. An investigation is required: If war crimes were committed — no matter which side is responsible — perpetrators must be held accountable. No government or rebel group must believe it is immune from the rule of law.

The Sri Lankan conflict was a long civil war that claimed 80,000 to 100,000 lives. Both sides inflicted indiscriminate damage on civilian populations — the government by resorting to artillery and air power, the rebels by their suicide attacks. The guerrillas even used Tamil compatriots as human shields.

During the last weeks of the conflict, the number of civilian casualties increased as the Tigers retreated to an ever-shrinking area. Rebels claimed civilians joined them out of fear of government forces; the government countered that the refugees had been uprooted at gunpoint. The government said civilian-occupied areas were no-fire zones for heavy artillery; the rebels insisted that pledge was a sham, providing various pieces of evidence to support their allegations. No definitive proof was available as the fighting reached its conclusion; the government kept journalists and human rights groups from the war zone, and Tamil Tiger claims were viewed with suspicion and often dismissed as propaganda.

Since the fighting ended, however, independent observers have been able to examine the war zone and what they have found is disturbing. A strip of beach where thousands of civilians retreated was pockmarked by craters that, in the words of one expert, look to be the work of "a very large" shell.

The civilian casualty list is long and growing. The number of refugees exceeds 265,000; some say it tops 300,000. Equally troubling is the death toll. The government says civilian deaths were unavoidable, adding that the military did not use heavy artillery as alleged while the Tamil Tigers used civilians as shields and in some cases even killed civilians themselves.

Officially, the United Nations has estimated that 7,000 people were killed in the final offensive. Unofficially, however, it has been reported that the death toll for the last month of fighting could exceed 20,000 civilians. The discrepancy has prompted calls for an investigation into whether war crimes were committed. Mr. Navanethem Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, rightly noted that "victims and the survivors have a right to justice and remedies." As he explained, "establishing the facts is crucial to set the record straight regarding the conduct of all parties in the conflict." The European Union's human rights commissioner agrees.

The Sri Lankan government has dismissed any criticism of its actions. Officials say they should be applauded, not censured, for ending one of the world's most vicious insurgencies. Mr. Palitha Kohona, the minister of foreign affairs, firmly rejected the allegations, arguing that "We would have finished this war months ago if we hadn't cared about hurting civilians." The local press was even more succinct: "The time has come to tell the salmon-eating international busybodies to go home."

The diplomatic response has been more restrained. When European governments brought a motion before the U.N. Human Rights Council, calling for an international investigation into whether war crimes had been committed by either side, the council instead passed a resolution commending the government's victory and urged it to protect minorities.

Colombo is no doubt aggrieved that its victory has been sullied. It is upset that Western governments, which demanded support in their war against terror while permitting the Tamil diaspora to fund the Tiger rebels, would demand that Sri Lanka be held to account. But the laws of war and the notion of crimes against humanity are premised on the belief that there are limits to how combatants conduct themselves in conflict.

If anything goes, then all conflicts could be ended much quicker. But we insist on standards to restrict the behavior of combatants, and it is only the prospect of their enforcement that gives them force and utility. Laws that are disregarded when they are needed most are worse than useless, because they endanger those who rely on them for protection.

If the government is telling the truth, it should have nothing to fear from an investigation. A complete, unvarnished international assessment of its conduct would vindicate its counterclaim that the Tamil rebels are the real criminals. Stepping forward would also demonstrate the government's readiness to reach out to its long-aggrieved Tamil community, a vital first step toward true reconciliation and enduring peace in Sri Lanka.

Students, IT professionals protest against genocide

A collective of IT professionals, medical students and youth lashed out at the State and the Centrefor their apathetic attitute towards the Sri Lankan Tamils. To mark their protest they took out a rally in the city on Sunday raising slogans against President Mahinda Rajapaksa for ordering the genocide of Tamils.

They compared the refugee camps of the Lankan Tamils with that of concentration camps set up by the Nazis. “Innocent people died terrible deaths due to the evil doings of the Sri Lankan defence forces. It is high time for the government of India to interfere in this issue in a proactive manner and do justice to Eelam Tamils, who were subjected to genocide at the hands of the Sri Lankan military troops,” said Saravana Kumar, one of the organisers of the rally.

Over 100 people participated in the rally. Many of them were vociferous when it came to India’s stance. “India is more concerned about its territory. It extended military assistance to Sri Lanka because of the growing influence China and Pakistan exert on the government existing in the Island nation,” said Arun Kumar from HCL.

Pointing out that the requirement of having a more mature and pragmatic approach towards the issue, Fr Jegath Gasperraj of Tamil Mayyiam said that the issue was moving from political parties to civil society organisations. The involvement of civil society organisations will make this fight more mature, consistent and sustainable, he added.

Though protestors came with placards of slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabakaran, they were a good number of them who expressed their dislike for LTTE.

Pugal, who identifies himself as an IT employee said: “We are against LTTE. But we want Eelam for Eelam Tamils. That is the only way to resolve the issue.”

US Senator asks Lankan Prez to address needs of Tamils

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa needs to take steps to show a "serious commitment" towards achieving a political solution to the decades-long ethnic problem and to genuinely addressing the needs of the minority Tamils following the defeat of LTTE, an influential US Senator has said.

"I urge President Rajapaksa to take steps now to demonstrate a serious commitment to a political solution, the rule of law, and most importantly, to genuinely addressing the needs of the Tamil people," Senator Russ Feingold said on the Senate Floor.

At the same time, in proportion to the passion and effort with which the world's diplomats have demanded peace and respect for civilians throughout the conflict, donor countries must remain actively engaged and dedicated to helping bring about a lasting resolution to the issue, he said.

Expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in the country, Senator Feingold said the Sri Lankan Government must not shirk its responsibility to help the displaced people return to their homes swiftly and safely.

"The international community, too, can provide assistance to help these people return home safely or seek other lasting solutions," he said.

"The US government should join with its international partners to coordinate in demining efforts, work with the Sri Lankan government to develop and rebuild infrastructure, and ensure that those who have been displaced are able to reclaim the land that is rightfully theirs," the Democratic Senator said.

Feingold said the fundamental grievances of the Tamil minority have been overshadowed, distorted, and in some cases silenced by the severe tactics of the LTTE, who since 1997 have been designated by the United States as a terrorist organisation.

The LTTE claimed to be the voice of the Tamil people, and yet their commitment to both indiscriminate and targeted violence, as well as reports from the last days of fighting that they used Tamil civilians as human shields, would indicate otherwise, he said.

"If we are to see legitimate reconciliation in Sri Lanka, the grievances of the Tamil minority must be seen as distinct from the violence of the LTTE and addressed thoroughly and justly," the Senator said.

Air France crash: What could have caused it?

Was it a lightning strike, an electrical failure, or violent turbulence? Or a combination of all three that brought down the Air France plane?

As possible debris of Air France 447 surfaced 1000 km off the coast of Brazil on Tuesday, several theories emerged on what could have caused the crash that killed 228 people on board. The speculations are:

• Lightning crippled the plane's weather radar
• The electrical systems failed totally
• The pilots couldn't react quickly enough
• The plane broke into pieces as it entered the eye of a massive storm

Investigators are now intensely focused on locating the flight recorders or the black box of the plane. The crucial equipment holds the key to finding the reasons behind the accident.
Recovering the black box will be tough since this area in Atlantic may be as deep as 4700 metres.

Brazilian Air Force planes found what appeared to be parts of the Airbus 330 plane in this area. It will take months to arrive at any conclusion but investigators are hoping to get initial reports by June-end.

No Talks with Pak : India

India on Friday ruled out resumption of dialogue with Pakistan until it takes 'concrete measures' to prevent terrorism directed against this country.

"Not unless they (Pakistan) take concrete measures to prevent terrorist attacks emanating from the soil of Pakistan aimed against India," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna told reporters when asked whether there was any move to resume dialogue with Islamabad .

His assertion puts at rest speculation that moves were underway to resume dialogue with Pakistan in the near future. Referring to the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Krishna said, "That only shows that Pakistan is not serious about terror and all that terror spells out."

On the United States advisory cautioning its citizens with regard to travel in India, he pointed out that Home Minister P Chidambaram [Images] has already stated that India is a very safe country.

"If there are any concerns of particular countries, we are willing to address these concerns," Krishna said.

The US advisory had said that India faces 'high threat' from terrorism and Americans should be vigilant in this country.

On US President Barack Obama's speech on Thursday in Cairo, Krishna said, "We will have to wait and watch. He has made a broad appeal. It was a reconciliatory speech and we will have to watch the reaction from the Islamic world."

Obama, while trying to reach out to 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe, had talked about a 'new beginning' between the US and the Islamic world based on 'mutual respect'.

Is it the end of the LTTE?

With the death of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran and the decimation of most of its leadership, Sri Lanka has declared victory in Jaffna. The existence of the LTTE as an organised body that was a 'virtual' government in northern Sri Lanka has come to an end. But it would be hasty to come to a conclusion that it also means end to the Tamil insurgency and the return of peace to the island nation. The LTTE made several cardinal mistakes. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi turned public opinion against it, so much so that even when the Congress was not in power, the National Democratic Alliance government also did not dare deal with it.

It needs to be noted that in 1987 when the Indian Peace Keeping Force went to Sri Lanka, it went there to save the Tamils from the genocidal tactics of the Lankan army. On a visit to Jaffna in 1989, I was told that till the time the break did not take place, the LTTE top brass used to dine in the Indian Army mess! The LTTE misread the Indian intention which was to save Tamils, but not help create a separate Tamil Eelam. India has been steadfast on this support to Sri Lankan unity.

The LTTE forgot that Eelam was a means to an end -- that is a place of honour for Tamils and preservation of their identity and culture. By obdurately focussing on 'all or nothing' strategy, the LTTE lost everything and has brought upon untold misery on the Tamil people of Jaffna.
The LTTE also failed to see the altered world situation after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. In the aftermath of that attack, a world consensus has been built around zero tolerance for terrorism and secessionism. Sri Lankan diplomacy was skilful and successful in hiding its own obduracy and painted the LTTE in the darkest possible colours.

Finally, Prabahkaran paid the price of forgetting cardinal rules of insurgency. It is true that the LTTE had reached the last stage of its guerrilla struggle in that it was capable of open confrontation with the regular Sri Lankan army.

But as Sri Lanka built its military muscle with Chinese and Pakistani help, the LTTE ought to ceded territory and gone back to its underground days to survive to fight another day. Instead, it chose open defiance and annihilation.

In the closing stages of current Sri Lankan offensive, the LTTE found itself friendless. The Sri Lankans also cleverly timed their offensive to coincide with Indian elections when Indian decision-making went on a limbo and gave the Lankans ample time to finish off the LTTE militarily.

What next?

Insurgency is like an amoeba that changes shape, size and reproduces itself.
If reports in the Western media are to be believed, close to 20,000 Tamil civilians were been killed in the present offensive. The whole of Jaffna has been turned into a concentration camp. While the LTTE may have been neutralised, an organisation like the Palestinian 'Black September' may well have taken birth.

It was Black September, born in aftermath of the Jordanian offensive against the Palestinians, that pioneered aircraft hijacking and started a cult of terrorism in the Middle East. There is real fear that the brutal tactics of Sri Lankan army may produce this result.

In its six decade long experience of dealing with insurgencies India has never used heavy weapons like artillery or air power against the insurgents. In this the Lankans seem to be following their Pakistani brethren.

A few years ago, an European diplomat involved in the peace process in Sri Lanka mentioned to me that both sides were obdurate. While the LTTE has been rightly criticised for its demand for Eelam, the Sri Lankans have escaped censure. Sri Lanka has steadfastly refused to give a federal structure a chance.

While talking to then foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar (assassinated by the LTTE later) in 1996, I mentioned that a status like that of Kashmir in the Indian Union would certainly satisfy most Tamils.

Unfortunately the mass of Sinhala opinion in Sri Lanka equates national unity with a unitary form of government. Such is the vehemence of Sinhala opinion on this issue that all talk of federal solution is denounced as treachery.

Historical roots
In terms of sheer longevity, the Sinhala-Tamil conflict is mother of all, dating back to the 67 BC war between King Elara (after whom Eelam is named) of Jaffna and King Duttagamini of Sri Lanka.

Unlike India, Sri Lanka did not have well-developed political parties at the time of independence. The Buddhist clergy was the most well knit organisation in the country with influence down to the small community levels. This was through the control that the clergy had over the educational institutions.

While not willing to play a direct political role, the clergy nevertheless had its own ideas of how and independent Lanka should be run. Solomon Bandaranaike and his Sri Lanka Freedom Party provided that vehicle.

At independence every major group in Lanka was a victim of feeling of insecurity. The plantation workers were afraid of deportation, the Moors (Muslims) were afraid of being lumped with the Tamils as they spoke the same language, the Sinhalese were afraid that the Jaffna Tamils together with the plantation workers will dominate them and the Burghers (a mixed race of Sinhalese-Europeans) simply emigrated to Australia en masse.

The 'credit' for sharpening the Sinhala-Tamil divide goes to the Sri Lanka Freedom party.
The elements of the divide were present even before his advent in 1956. He and his party, exclusively dependent on Buddhist Sinhala support, converted Lanka from a multi-ethnic nation to a Sinhala nation with Buddhism as its state religion and Sinhala as the state language and Sinhalese as the only legitimate citizens.

The Tamil demand for separatism was the logical culmination and reaction to the doctrine of Lankan nationalism that was 'exclusively' Sinhalese.

The religious fervour generated by the 2,500th death anniversary of Buddha in 1956, was utilised by the Buddhist clergy to push their agenda of ethnic cleansing of Sri Lanka of all non Buddhist elements. It is here Banadarnaike stepped in and gave this retrograde move a political direction and colour.

The first target of Sinhala chauvinism was, however, not the Lankan Tamils, but the Christians. In a systematic move the Christian institutions of learning and teaching were discriminated against and forced to either flee the country or shut down.

Having achieved success on the Christian front the next target were the plantation workers who had come to Sri Lanka nearly 150 years ago. Under the ill-conceived Shastri-Sirimavo Accord ,India took back the plantation workers who were in Sri Lanka for over a hundred years.
The imposition of Sinhala as the 'only' official language of Ceylon was interpreted not merely as a move to deny the rightful place to Tamil language but a direct attack on their 'identity ' and not just language. A comparison of the politics of the Indian and Lankan Tamil parties shows that it was the former that was more militant and also separatist.

Impact on India
If the Sri Lankans do not show pragmatism and accommodate Tamil aspirations, the island nation is in for a long spell of violence. It is only a matter of time before the refugees begin to arrive in India from Lanka, inflaming public opinion here.

The Indian approach to Lanka has been timid and indecisive. Partly out of the memory of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination but more due to the shrewdness with which the Lankans have used the bogey of China-Pakistan against India.

While in the short run the Lankans may have succeeded, but they will suffer in the long run if they get involved in the potential big power rivalry in the Indian Ocean. They may yet discover that a giant India is far more benign than the Chinese dragon.

Sri Lanka : Ten Myths !!!

In the ancient Indian epic Ramayana the Aryan Prince Rama goes all the way from north India to vanquish Ravana, the King of Lanka. Following a massive battle in which thousands are slaughtered Rama, with the help of the monkey god Hanuman, finally rescues his kidnapped wife Sita in a grand victory of ‘good' over ‘evil'.

The Ramayana of the 21 st Century may need a little modification.

In the modern version the Indian Rama and the Lankan Ravana, who turn out to be long lost brothers, together stage the abduction of Sita and accuse the ‘terrorist' Hanuman of the crime. Finally with international support they use every means possible to kill him along with thousands of innocent bystanders.

Adding insult to injury the council of Gods supposed to safeguard the world's conscience not only absolves Rama and Ravana but perversely even applauds them for ‘saving' Sita and winning the ‘War on Terror ‘.

Alas, if this were really the only wonky myth about Sri Lanka in our times! The truth is that over the years and decades dozens of myths have been floated about this island nation's history, politics and conflict.

Many of these myths were created by colonial administrators and ‘scholars' in the period when the British ruled the island. Many more were created by the chauvinist Sinhala elite- of different shades- who have run Sri Lanka for the past sixty years. Some others were born in the fertile minds of the armchair warriors who sit in New Delhi and a few created by the various champions of the Sri Lankan Tamils themselves.

Given below is a list of the top ten myths (in my opinion) about contemporary Sri Lanka , the dispelling of each of which is indispensable to finding a lasting solution to the seemingly perpetual tragedy of its diverse population.

Myth One: The Sri Lankan government is/was at war with the LTTE: This has been the single biggest myth about the Sri Lankan conflict in our time and used as an excuse by many outside to keep quiet about what has been happening all these years in this island country. The LTTE is/was after all a ‘terrorist' organisation banned by the international community and so what as wrong if the Sri Lankan government went to war against them?

The simple truth is that the Sri Lankan conflict is much older than the LTTE itself, which emerged as a force only in the early eighties. The systematic conversion of Sri Lankan Tamils into second-class citizens in their own country or state-sponsored violence against them however dates back to the time of Sri Lankan independence in the late-forties itself.

The recent offensive in the north of Sri Lanka was just a new and more brutal phase of the war that Sri Lankan Sinhala elite have been waging for a long time against Sri Lankan Tamils and indeed all the minorities in the country. And I must add that these minorities are not just linguistic or religious ones but also political as over the decades successive Sri Lankan regimes have also killed – and continue to kill- a very large number of Sinhala people opposed to their policies.

In their quest for power there has been no human norm left unviolated by the Sri Lankan elite, which has managed to murder over 20,000 or more of the country's Tamil citizens in its final assault on the LTTE in May this year. If the LTTE has used terrorist methods to further its cause there is no doubt that the Sri Lankan government has used genocidal methods to put them down.

Myth Two: The Mahinda Rajapakse government has ‘won' the ‘civil war' and successfully prevented the division of Sri Lanka : There is of course nothing ‘civil' about any war but this term implies that the conflict in Sri Lanka is between two groups that belong to the same nation. Maybe this was true upon a time long ago but is certainly not the case any longer.

How many countries around the world do you have governments bombing their own citizens using air power, mobilising tanks, heavy artillery, thousands of ground forces, sophisticated military equipment supplied by foreign governments? How many governments herd all citizens of a linguistic minority into concentration camps to be treated as terrorists simply because of their identity? And after doing all this what right do they have to call themselves ‘one nation'?
What we are today witnessing in Sri Lanka is indeed a war between two separate nations.
Whether the regime in Colombo realizes this or not by their own actions over the years they have made Tamil Eelam a reality today. The defeat of the LTTE is not the defeat of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka . Nor is it the end of their quest for dignity, against racist discrimination and the right to self-determination.

There comes a point in every relationship when divorce becomes inevitable and the only alternative to separation is gross murder. That time has arrived in Sri Lanka today. The future of the Tamil people should be urgently decided by a internationally monitored referendum on whether or not they want to be part of a united Sri Lanka .

Myth Three: The creation of a Tamil Eelam will damage the interests of the rest of Sri Lanka : In fact the opposite is likely to happen if Sri Lanka 's Tamils are given the right to self-determination and form their own country. Either they will fail miserably and clamour to become part of a future Sri Lankan federation on their own accord or succeed brilliantly and create a prosperous neighbourhood that benefits everyone. If a group of Tamil guerillas could make fighter aircraft while hiding in the forests of Vanni imagine what they can achieve in peacetime.
At the same time the proponents of Tamil Eelam will also have to remember that independence does not mean all their problems will be solved automatically. They will have to deal with the divisions of caste, religion, class within the Tamil population and also demonstrate to the world that they treat all minorities in their midst as equal citizens unlike the Sri Lankan state they have opposed so bitterly all these years.

Also any Tamil Eelam will geographically forever remain on the same island- after all Eelam can't be physically carried away to Australia or Canada . In the long run the Tamil and Sinhala people, along with every other community on the island of what is currently called ‘Sri Lanka' today will have to come to terms with each other and live in harmony - as perpetual war can only mean collective suicide.

Myth Four: The Sri Lankan Tamils will gang up with Indian Tamils and create a ‘Greater Tamil' nation: For all the light and sound produced in the Indian province of Tamil Nadu about the fate of their ‘Tamil brothers and sisters' in Sri Lanka the fact remains – beyond the usual rhetoric- they have not really done much for them. Over the past twenty years there are thousands of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees languishing in Tamil Nadu without proper shelters, livelihood, education for their children or even safety from arbitrary arrest by local police. The Indian government has repeatedly turned down calls to sign international treaties on rights of refugees and the politicians of Tamil Nadu – busy bargaining for their place in the Indian cabinet- don't care a damn.

Similarly, soon after independence from British rule when the then Sri Lankan government, in one of its first vile acts, disenfranchised over a million Indian Tamils working in the country's tea plantations there was not a murmur of protest from the then leaders of the Sri Lanka 's Tamils. They were ‘Indian Tamils' after all and that too poor workers to boot.

The point I am trying to make is that Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils have different histories, outlooks and priorities and cannot be simplistically conflated into one phrase ‘Tamil people'. The fact is that the problem of the Sri Lankan Tamils is not a ‘Tamil' issue at all- it is a problem common to many linguistic, ethnic, religious and other minorities around the world. While indeed the people who are suffering today in Sri Lanka are the Tamil speaking population of that country their primary identity is that of an oppressed people fighting for their rightful place under the sun and not as Tamil speakers alone.

In that sense what is being murdered in Sri Lanka is not just the Tamil population but the very concept of humanity itself, an issue that should agitate the entire world. To make my stand clear I would say that if the Sinhala people had been a minority in Sri Lanka and the Tamils had been the racist oppressors I would have appealed to the world to fight for the rights of the Sinhalese.

Myth Five: Sri Lanka has a special place in world Buddhism and its territorial integrity needs to be protected by the Sinhala people: From whatever little I know, the Buddha became what he did only by giving up his entire kingdom in the search for truth and the salvation of humankind. In the process he in fact conquered the entire world. What the current day proponents of religious nationalism in Sri Lanka are promoting is a crude kind of ‘landlordism' and certainly not ‘Buddhism', which has nothing to do with ownership of property.

The idea of the Sinhala elite being champions of Buddhism – a religion of compassion, peace and tolerance - is also simply laughable given their historical record of taking so many lives. Ultimately you are a Buddhist only by what you do in practice and not by wearing saffron robes, chanting a few mantras in Pali or Sanskrit or building large and expensive monuments to the Buddha.

Two thousand years ago the great Emperor Ashoka became a Buddhist when he repented for the massacres he committed in the war on the Kingdom of Kalinga . Today the Sinahala chauvinists, many of whom claim their ancestry back to the very same Kalinga, are exiting from Buddhism through the genocide they have committed against the Tamil people. These champions of Buddhism have no doubt become its greatest destroyers.

Myth Six: Sri Lanka is a sovereign country and outsiders should not interfere: Sri Lanka used to be a sovereign country once upon a time when they were not at war with their own people. The fact is that whenever the Sri Lankan regimes have been in deep trouble they have always violated their own sovereignty to seek help from other countries to help prop up their rule.

In 1971 the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government sought and obtained the help of the Indian navy together with the Pakistani air force to put down the JVP rebellion- mainly consisting of Sinhala youth fighting for revolutionary change in their country. Today in their war against the Tamils the Sri Lankan regime is supported by the governments of India , Pakistan , China , Russia and Israel while the entire Lankan economy depends on regular infusions of aid and cash from the IMF, World Bank, Japan or the European Union. It is also worth mentioning that the conflict on this island over the decades has sent thousands of Tamil citizens fleeing the country into exile all over the globe. So for all the touchiness of its leaders against ‘foreign interference' what is happening in Sri Lanka is really an international conflict and the people of the world have as much right to interfere there as their governments.

Myth Seven: A majority of the Sinhalese people are racists and chauvinists: Sinhala chauvinism was inevitable in a country where the Sinhala population is in a majority and every politician has to stoke nationalist, ethnic or religious passions to win his/her election. So whether you were a practicing Buddhist or not or knew even how to speak Sinhala properly or really loved your motherland you had to be a ‘Sinhala Buddhist nationalist' in order to succeed in politics.

There is no real history of Sinhala-Tamil conflict before the formation of the Sri Lankan ‘nation' artificially carved out of their ‘Raj' by the hastily departing British colonialists in 1948. For most ordinary Sinhalese, like ordinary folk everywhere, the main concern is livelihood or love and the quest for a better life denied to them by their own elites.

But so venal have been the feudal Sri Lankan families that inherited power from the British that they chose to divide and destroy their motherland rather than give up power- political, economic or social- to the ordinary men and women of their land.

If one looks at the results of the 2005 presidential election in Sri Lanka the hawkish Mahinda Rajapakse won only by a slender margin of 50.29% of the overall votes against 48.43% for former Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, who had signed a peace deal with the LTTE in 2002. Since the Tamil population largely boycotted the election what this clearly shows that close to half the Sinhala voters preferred peace over war when they voted for Ranil.

Today most of these Sinhala people are also being held hostage by the fascist Rajapakse regime, which has turned Sri Lankan nationalism into a family-run dictatorship guarded by guns purchased with the people's own hard earned money. The fact that there are still enough Sri Lankan journalists and human rights activists willing to die to preserve democracy in their country is evidence that human decency is still not dead everywhere on this troubled island. The entire world should come to the support of these brave people fighting one of the most murderous regimes in recent history.

Myth Nine - The Indian government, once supportive of the Sri Lankan Tamils, has turned against them: The truth is that the Indian government does not really care for either the Sri Lankan Tamils or the Sinhalese for that matter. Like in most countries of South Asia successive Indian regimes too have only been bothered about preserving the power of the corporate or feudal elites and care little for their ordinary citizens.
New Delhi in that sense is not the capital of India but the seat of the Indian Empire inherited from the Mughals and the British by the ‘Brown Sahibs' of today. And among the nefarious things these Johnnies have been up to all these years is bullying neighbouring governments and playing games with the lives of their people - especially those that don't ‘stand up and obey'.
So the Indian regimes in the past supported the Tamil struggle, including through military assistance and training, when they wanted to put the then Sri Lankan government in ‘its place'. Later on when their priorities changed – for various reasons chief among which was the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi- they dumped the Tamils and started cultivating the Sinhala elite.

The lip sympathy for Tamils across the Palk Straits that still emanates now and then from New Delhi is solely because of the compulsions of electoral politics in Tamil Nadu- where politicians routinely play political football with the hopes and aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Once elections are over it is back to the usual indifference to the fate of thousands of people being pulverised by the genocidal Sri Lankan state.

Myth Ten – Governments around the world do not care what happens to the Sri Lankan Tamils: Many of them actually they care so much that they will not do anything to help the Tamils form their own nation. For many governments – from India to Israel and China to Russia- Tamil Eelam becoming a reality would set a ‘bad example' to their own restive minorities. Hence their all out support to the ruthless Sri Lankan government, who they believe is showing them ‘the way' how to deal with dissent of all kinds within their borders.

Western nations, that themselves have the blood of innocent civilians on their hands in Iraq , Afghanistan and elsewhere, also care- but only about their own global image. Making noise about upholding human rights after the genocide has been carried out allows to them to appear to be ‘civilised' without having to take any meaningful action.

After all it was quite clear that a colossal human tragedy was in the offing for the past three months. If the UK , EU and the US had put their combined might together to warn the Rajapakse government properly the Sri Lankan lion- for all its bravado- would have squeaked like a trapped mouse.

The fact is that the Sri Lankan Tamils today can expect genuine support for their cause only from other people around the world facing similar racist discrimination or fighting for autonomy and self-determination. That is not such a bad thing, as looking across the globe such people probably constitute well over half the planet's population.

There are the Palestinians, the Tibetans, the Burmese, the Kashmiris and people of the Indian North-East, the Baluchis, the Pashtuns, the Chechens, the Basques, the Puerto Ricans, the Scots—and lots more. If Sri Lanka 's Tamils can join hands with all these struggles for dignity and equality it would be a good start indeed to make a fresh bid for Tamil Eelam!

IDP Camp in Sri Lanka

China to help rebuild Lankan economy after LTTE war

As Sri Lanka works out ways to accelerate development after defeating the rebel LTTE, China has pledged its full cooperation in reconstruction of the Island nation's economy after 30 years of ethnic war.

"Prevalence of peace will strengthen the economy of Sri Lanka and China will continue to be a part of the economic reconstruction of the Island country," Deputy Director General of the Asian Affairs, Commerce Ministry, China Liang Wentao said.

"Ending the war against terrorism might help Sri Lanka to regain its ancient glory and economic prosperity," Wentao told reporters in Beijing yesterday.

"What Sri Lanka needs at this moment is a peaceful environment to rebuild its economy and this will attract more investments and economic benefits to the country.

"Sri Lanka has the best natural resources in the entire South Asian region. Reviving tourism and the export trade will help Sri Lanka rebuild its economy which was affected severely due to the war," Wentao said.

He said China will provide assistance to the Sri Lankan Government to rebuild and rehabilitate those affected. The top Chinese official said the two countries could work towards economic as well as cooperation in tourism.

"The strategic location and Buddhism will attract more Chinese tourists to Sri Lanka," he said.
Rubber, tobacco and fish products are the major exports to China from Sri Lanka.

"Diversifying of the economy will open new avenues for Sri Lankan products to enter the Chinese market," the state run Daily News quoted Wentao as saying.

Sri Lanka has invited Chinese investments to the country by taking advantage of the conducive conditions for setting up projects. China had invested in the Southern Hambantota new Port Complex, the Norochcholai (North-west Sri Lanka ) coal-fired power generation plant and the Performing Arts Centre in Colombo, among other areas, in Sri Lanka.

Tourist arrivals from China to Sri Lanka is estimated to have grown by 7.3 per cent during the first half of 2008.

On the export front, Sri Lankan tea is performing exceptionally well in the Chinese market and has achieved a remarkable growth of more than 65 per cent during first few months of 2008 over export figures for 2007, an official said.

Weapons that won the War: Untold story

Sri Lankan Armed Forces’ yesterday marked their unprecedented triumph over the LTTE with a striking show of fighting forces and military assets ranging from Czechoslovakian-built RM 70 mobile multiple launch rocket systems, movable Indian radar (Indra Mark II) to a fleet of Israeli, US and locally made Fast Attack Craft (FACs) built with Japanese collaboration.

Despite heavy international pressure Sri Lanka managed to secure much needed supplies to keep up the momentum. Had there been a breakdown in supplies, the LTTE would have been able to hang on a little bit longer.

Also on display were the Multi Sensor Integrated System (MSIS) mounted on fighting vessels and armoured fighting vehicles, mostly of Chinese origin and a range of artillery pieces acquired from China. Israeli-built MSIS with night vision and radar capability acquired at the tail end of the offensive had facilitated naval operations against the LTTE. But the Navy had far more powerful land based MSIS of Italian origin on the north-eastern coast to thwart LTTE attempts to launch boats stealthily.

Also on parade were the Police, its elite para-military wing, the STF and the Civil Defence Force (CDF). The STF played a critical role in the overall security strategy to weaken the enemy in the eastern theatre and in covert operations. The STF contingent on parade was one of the smartest along with the elite Special Forces, Commandos and the Special Boat Squadron.

Yesterday’s display of firepower was undoubtedly the biggest ever since the gradual transformation of the country’s ceremonial armed forces to a cohesive fighting force. A three-year campaign spearheaded by the first serving General Sarath Fonseka brought the LTTE to its knees last month.

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) retd. Air Chief Marshal Donald Perera General Sarath Fonseka, Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda and Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetilike joined President Mahinda Rajapaksa on a special dais to take the salute following a 21-gun salute. A smiling Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa whose contribution made Sri Lanka’s victory possible sat in the front row with his wife enjoying the finest hour for Sri Lankan forces.

Among the armoured fighting vehicles on display was a mixture of Russian and Chinese armoured fighting vehicles including BTR 80 A, BTR 80 and T 85 along with Czechoslovakian-built T 55 main battle tanks. A range of artillery pieces of Chinese origin and RM 70 mobile multiple launch rocket systems aka as MBRL were some of the main attractions at yesterday’s parade.

Among the state of the art equipment displayed by the army Signals Corps are of Japanese, Indian and French origin. General Fonseka’s brainchild, the Mechanized Infantry Brigade formed two years ago paraded some of its Russian and Chinese armoured fighting vehicles. The Brigade attached to the 53 Division stationed in the Jaffna peninsula before capture of Elephant Pass comprised over 100 armoured fighting vehicles.

But the destruction of the LTTE wouldn’t have been possible without bolstering the infantry. Of some 80,000 recruits who had joined the army over the past three years, the majority strengthened the SLLI (Sri Lanka Light Infantry), Sinha Regiment, Gemunu Watch, Gajaba Regiment, Vijayaba Infantry Regiment and the National Guard. The Commandos and Special Forces, too, received a tremendous boost over the last three years.

The armed forces and police lost 6,200 officers and men in the three-year war with the army paying a heavy price to finish off the Tigers.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his inspiring 40 minute speech to the nation declared that the ground forces fought under extremely difficult conditions to achieve victory.

To his credit, General Fonseka maintained his troops on a UN peace keeping mission in Haiti as he met the LTTE military challenge. While bloody fighting was on Geneal Fonseka expanded the army to almost 200,000.

The unprecedented naval parade included three Indian OVPs (SLNS Sayura, SLNS Sagara, 623), SLNS Samudura formerly of the US Coast Guard, Fast Missile Vessels, SLNS Suranimala and SLNS Nandimithra acquired from Israel, two Chinese heavy gunboats, Udara and Prathapa, troop carrier Jetliner of Indonesian origin. Twenty five FACs and 20 locally built boats of navy Special Forces, too, joined yesterday’s impressive display. The big ships played a pivotal role in the war by sinking eight LTTE ships on the high seas.

Also on display were 14.4 mm (Chinese), 23 mm (Bulgarian), 25 mm (Chinese), 37 mm (Chinese), 107 mm rockets also of Chinese origin now deployed both on land and on ships as well as Gabriel Mark II missiles (Israel). Sri Lanka has received eight missiles along with the two Fast Missile Vessels acquired years ago. None of them had been used.

The Navy accommodated armoured personnel carriers turned out by its personnel in the parade. The army, too, displayed armoured personnel carriers built by its personnel. Had the navy bothered to remove a 30 mm Bushmaster weapon from one of its FACs, the people could have seen a powerful US weapon which helped the navy to overwhelm fast moving LTTE craft on many a occasion.

The air display included altogether about 40 helicopters and fixed wing aircraft including Bell 212s and Bell (US), Mi 17, Mi 24s, MiG 27s (Russian), PT 6, Y 12, K 8 , F7 (China) and Kfirs (Israel). Also on display were C 130 medium lift aircraft, the largest transport aircraft in service with the SLAF and AN 32s of Russian origin.

Although there was no mention of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) acquired from Israel, the eye in the sky as they were also known played a critical role in the war. There was also no mention of the Chinese 3 D radar station at Mirigama.

But the SLAF displayed 20 mm (Israel) and 23 mm (Bulgarian) along with 40 mm L 70 anti aircraft weapon acquired from India.

SLanka seizes ship with supplies for war-hit civilians

Sri Lanka's navy Thursday seized a foreign-owned ship loaded with medical, food and other supplies for war-hit civilians, saying the vessel had entered its territorial waters illegally.
The supplies, arranged by supporters of the Tamil rebel cause, were loaded onto a ship in the English port of Ipswich in April -- just weeks before the government declared victory in the ethnic conflict, a navy spokesman said.

"We have seized the vessel and we are bringing it ashore now," Captain D.K. Dassanayake said, adding the crew offered no resistance when the navy boarded the vessel 140 kilometres (87 miles) west of Sri Lanka.

The ship, the Captain Ali, was carrying hundreds of tonnes of food, medicine and other supplies for Tamil civilians caught up in the decades-long conflict, he said.

A London-based group called Mercy Mission to Wani had arranged the transport of the supplies at a time when Tamil Tiger rebels were cornered in a strip of coastline in the island's northeast and using tens of thousands of civilians as cover.

Wani had formed part of the Tigers' virtual mini-state in the island's northeast before the end of the conflict.

"We have been tracking this ship for some time and seized it today as it got closer to our shores," Dassanayake said. "We are bringing the ship to a port together with its crew."

Initially it was believed that the ship had set sail from Britain but the website of the Mercy Mission said the shipment was made using two vessels and that the Captain Ali had set sail from France.

The website said the Syrian flag-carrying vessel with a crew of 13 was carrying 884 tonnes of food, medicine and other essentials for Tamil civilians affected by the fighting.

Government troops announced they had crushed the Tigers after killing the rebel leadership on May 18.

Nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians crossed over to government-held areas during the final stages of fighting.

Mercy Mission's website said an Icelandic national who had served as one of the monitors of a truce between Tamil Tigers and security forces between February 2002 and January 2008 was also aboard the the Captain Ali.

The supplies were first ferried from England to the French port of Fos-sur-Mer, 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Marseille aboard another vessel, the Sea Ruby.

The supplies were then transferred on May 7 to the Captain Ali, the group's website said.
The cargo was donated by Tamils living abroad, according to the website.

India rejects US advisory, says country is safe

The United States has claimed that India is faced with a 'high threat' from terrorism and asked its citizens to be vigilant, prompting New Delhi to assert that the country is a safe place and such an advisory was unwarranted.

Home Minister P Chidambaram said India is "safer than any other country in the world" and New Delhi will try to persuade Washington to withdraw such an advisory. He was reacting to an 'Urgent Warden Message' posted on the American Embassy website, which cautioned American citizens in India.

"The United States Mission in India wishes to urgently remind all US citizens, resident in or traveling to India, that there is a high threat from terrorism throughout India," the message said.

"As terror attacks are a serious and growing threat, US citizens are urged to always practice good security, including maintaining a heightened situational awareness and a low profile," it said.

The message said, "Americans in India should be vigilant at all times and monitor local news reports and vary their routes and times in carrying out daily activities."
The advisory asked Americans to consider the level of security present when visiting public places, including religious sites, or choosing hotels, restaurants, entertainment and recreation venues.

Commenting on the advisory, Chidambaram said the Ministry of External Affairs will be asked to speak to the US to persuade them to withdraw the advisory.

"India is a completely safe country... India is a safe place, it is safer than any other country in the world. Thousands of tourists come to India and we look forward to welcoming them," he told reporters.

Asked whether the US was trying to hyphenate India and Pakistan, Chidambaram said, "Why should we jump to conclusions. We will try to find out why this advisory was issued, if at all it was issued."

America is not at war with Islam, asserts Obama

Reaching out to the 1.5 billion Muslims around the world, President Barack Obama on Thursday called for a "new beginning" between the US and the Islamic world by ending the "cycle of suspicion and discord" and confronting "violent extremism" together.

In a much-awaited speech at the University of Cairo in Egypt, Obama said he had "come to Egypt to seek a new beginning between the US and the Muslim world," Obama made several significant remarks on the so-called clash of the civilization, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to women's rights.

"My father came from a Muslim family; I know civilization's debt to Islam," he said, striking an instant chord with the audience.

The US President said: "America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Let there be no doubt that Islam is part of America."

"America is not and will not be at war with Islam."

To move forward, we must listen to each other, learn from each other and respect each other, says Obama. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, he pressed.

Starting his address with traditional Islamic greeting Assalaamu alaykum, which drew a huge round of applause from the jam-packed hall, Obama said "we meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world."

He conceded that "more recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations."

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," the US President, on his first visit to Egypt, said.

In a candid confession, Obama admitted that "9/11 had led some in my country to view Muslims with fear and as being anti-human rights." "Changes brought about by globalism made many Muslims view the West as hostile."

"9/11 was an enormous trauma for US, in some cases it led us to act contrary to our ideas...Al-Qaida killed innocents on 9/11, they still plan to kill; this is not an opinion, it's a fact."

"The Koran says whoever has killed an innocent has sinned against mankind," he said, adding, "Enduring faith of over a billion is more important than the narrow ideals of a few."

"US has international support to pursue Al-Qaeda," the US President said.

On the war Afghanistan, the US President said: "We did not go to Afghanistan out of choice, it was a necessity. Any nation that subjugates will eventually fail, we must engage in partnership."
"We are not seeking to create a permanent military base in Afghanistan."

He, however, said, "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice."

"I believe Iraq is better off without Saddam; it has reminded US of the need to use diplomacy."
The US President announced that America will remove combat troops from Iraq by July and all troops by 2012.

On Iran, he said :"Rather than remain trapped in the past (with Iran) I am ready to move forward."

He announced that "Israel must recognise Palestine's right to a separate homeland." "America will not turn its back on the legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people."

Obama also touched upon the proliferation issue: "'No single nation should pick and choose which nation should hold nuclear weapons. None should have nuclear weapons, I have reiterated my commitment to the NPT."

More Air France debris found, but no bodies

Despite intensive search, Brazil's air force and navy have found no trace of any of the 228 people on board the Air France plane that vanished in a mysterious plunge into a rough and dangerous section of the Atlantic Ocean three days ago.

The air force on Wednesday found new debris and a long oil trace in the crash region about 1,200 km north-east of Brazil's mainland.

"No bodies or survivors have been found," Brazil's defence minister Nelson Jobim said on Wednesday evening at a press conference in Brasilia.

It is seen as next to impossible that any of the passengers or crew survived the crash, even as experts raised the possibility the Airbus A220-200 had disintegrated in mid-air.
Brazil, from where Air France flight 447 took off, is in the midst of three days of official mourning. French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined other dignitaries on Wednesday at a multi-denominational service at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris commemorating the victims.
Paris was the destination of the ill-fated flight.

The most urgent focus of the search was finding the two black boxes mandatory on every large plane: a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder, which are essential in helping investigators in the painstaking search for the cause of a plane crash.

"We have to find the black boxes," said Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of France's Office of Accident Investigations and Analyses (BEA), in Paris. The BEA is leading the investigation.
US accident inspectors will also get involved since the engine was built by General Electric and some of the instruments were made by Honeywell, according to US media reports.

"This aviation catastrophe is the worst this country has ever suffered," Arslanian said in Paris. "We cannot allow ourselves to speculate. We must verify everything."

After the Brazilian air force searched Tuesday and Wednesday over tens of thousands of square kilometres of ocean, the Brazilian Navy was expected to concentrate Thursday on a 230 sq km defined zone near the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Islets, a small, uninhabited archipelago that is home to a Brazilian Navy scientific station.

"There is no doubt that the crash site is in this place," Jobim said.

Recovery workers face difficult challenges, with strong currents and uneven topography in the region, where the Atlantic plunges to a depth of 4,000 metres and has spiking underwater mountain peaks.

France has sent a vessel carrying diving equipment that can reach 6,000 metres down.
Jobim said the oil traces on the water would tend to exclude an on-board explosion as the cause of the accident. "When there are oil traces, that's because the oil was not burnt up," he said.
The air force found a piece of debris on Wednesday that measured 7 metres in length, possibly a piece of the wing, officials said.

German aviation expert Heinrich Grossbongardt, analysing sparse details provided by Air France, gave an account suggesting several minutes of severe technical problems by the Airbus 330-200 before it crashed.

In an interview with DPA, Grossbongardt described a four-minute time span between 0210 and 0214 GMT Monday in which the A330 plane apparently experienced severe technical problems before all contact was lost.

At 0210, the plane's system reported that the crew had turned off the automatic pilot in order to fly the plane manually."Then, for a span of two to three minutes, there was a flood of malfunction messages: the navigation equipment had collapsed, the image on the onboard monitors was gone, and other things," Grossbongardt said.

"That was the last report that was automatically transmitted from the airplane via satellite to company headquarters," he said.

Grossbongardt said the sequence of events also spoke against a mid-air bombing. Four minutes between the shut down of the auto pilot to the drop of cabin pressure "is a very long time. That means that the pilots were trying to get control of the problem".

He also ruled out a lightning strike, saying: "A lightning strike does not bring down any plane of this size from the sky."

The 228 people on board were from 32 countries, including 72 French, 60 Brazilians and 26 Germans.

President Rajapaksa proclaims himself father of the nation !!!

Sri Lanka celebrates victory over Tamil Tigers in a military parade in Colombo. The president announces a great and bright future for the country. Speaking to Tamils in their language, he guarantees protection and a life “without fear and mistrust”.

“I am the happiest guardian, leader and father of a victorious nation,” said President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his speech to the nation during the military parade celebrating the victory over the Tamil Tigers.

In Tamil the head of state said that Sri Lanka was the “Motherland of us all” and that “Tamil speaking people should be protected [. . .] able to live without fear and mistrust.”

Similarly he said the country had a great and bright future, urging his compatriots not to forget that 24,000 military who died and the 5,000 who were wounded in the fight that led to the victory over LTTE rebels.

Rajapaksa also named some of the better known figures who died during the conflict; Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for instance, who died in an attack carried out by the LTTE.

After a two-minute moment of silence in honour of the fallen soldiers and civilians, units from Sri Lanka’s army, navy and air force began a parade along the Galle Face Green, the capital’s coastal promenade.

Weapons captured from the Tamil Tigers were also exposed as war trophies.

'Sinhalese hate us, we won't return to Lanka' !!!

Sri Lanka may have succeeded in destroying the LTTE, but the Tamil Eelam dream remains. Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in 115 camps across 25 districts of Tamil Nadu believe that they can return to their country if only a separate Eelam is created for them. Nearly 99% also believe that LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and will resurface on November 26, Maaveerar Naal (Heroes Day).

"The Sinhalese hate Tamils. We lived as refugees in our own country for 35 years and were denied all rights, including educational opportunities. How do you expect us to return to Sri Lanka? We would rather die as refugees here," Sundari, 46, who fled Kandy and Mullaittivu subsequently, told DNA at the Gummidipoondi camp ( 45 km from Chennai).

Similar sentiments were expressed by other refugees, including the youth. Some of them were infants when they had left their homeland.

"We may be refugees without any rights here, but at least we are leading a peaceful life. A fortnight ago, we got a call from a relative at the Vavuniya camp and the news from Sri Lanka was not very encouraging. In the government camps, Tamils are kept behind barbed wires and suffer for want of food and medicines. We are willing to be repatriated if only our people are rehabilitated with equal rights and lead a prosperous life," J Rasilda Mary, 25, whose family fled Kokkilai in Mullaittivu when she was 10 months old, said.

Government officials and those of Organisation for Eelam Refugees' Rehabilitation (OfERR), an NGO launched by former Sri Lankan Tamil leader SJV Chelvanayakam's son SC Chandrahasan and run by Sri Lankan refugees, say the Sri Lankan government has a bigger task of rehabilitating over 3 lakh internally displaced people (IDPs), most of them living in Menik Farm in Vavuniya. OfERR believes that it will take close to 10 years for all the refugees to be repatriated to their native land.

"We will soon write letters to the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu to keep in mind a timeframe of 5-10 years for complete repatriation of refugees. The Sri Lankan government wants to screen the refugees to filter out remaining militants, if any. Under the circumstances, one wonders if the government will be able to complete the process of rehabilitation in six months," OfERR director of advocacy M Sakkariyas, a former assistant commissioner of labour under the Sri Lanka Administrative Service who arrived in India in 1985, said.

"Some of the freed regions, such as Jaffna, are still high security zones. It will take a long time for internally displaced people to be relocated. Before repatriating refugees their children's education will need to be addressed. They would like their children to complete their education before relocating to Sri Lanka. Further, we are given to understand from the deputy high commissioner's office that about 30% of the people are of Indian origin and need to be granted Sri Lankan citizenship. The deputy high commissioner feels it would be better to complete the formalities here before they are sent to Sri Lanka. However, fishermen from Mannar and Trincomalee, which weren't a part of the war zone, would like to return soon as they haven't got suitable jobs here. They would like to return to fishing and they can get exit permits from the respective district collectors after getting due permission from the police," Sakkariyas said.

"We have 73,675 refugees in 115 camps in 25 districts of the state. The main camps, including the transit camp at Mandapam, are in Madurai, Erode and Tiruvanamalai. We also have 26,976 non-camp refugees registered with the police. Any decision on their fate has to taken by the governments of India and Sri Lanka. This is likely to happen only after the internally displaced people of Sri Lanka are rehabilitated. We then have to get the willingness of the refugees to return to their native land, before we think of repatriating them," a senior officer at the office of the special commissioner and commissioner of rehabilitation said.

"The UNHCR has helped some 104 refugees return to Lanka. In case the refugees are not willing to return, they will have to stay in the camps in India. In that event, New Delhi will have decide on whether to give them citizenship or otherwise," he said.

No fresh influx

There has been practically no flow of refugees ever since the Sri Lankan government announced an end to the war and the LTTE's defeat. "We've no reports of boats carrying refugees reaching Indian shores," a senior officer at the office of the special commissioner and commissioner of rehabilitation said. "The last batch that reached Vijayawada was last month. Some of them died of starvation," OfERR director of advocacy said.

Tamils for Obama: U.N. is Hopeless and Useless, Should be Dismissed After Recent U.N. Human Rights Council Event

According to Tamils for Obama, the U.N. Human Rights Council resolved last week that Tamil Tigers are responsible for all killings this year, and the Sri Lankan government for none of them.

The U.N. has refused to carry out its basic duties to protect minorities, Tamils for Obama said recently. The Financial Times last week wrote that "in what will be seen as a further blow to its already damaged credibility," the U.N.'s Human Rights Council adopted a resolution introduced by the Sri Lankan government that condemned the Tamil Tigers and ignored Sri Lankan outrages. The Tamils complain that the U.N. has been slow to act and silent when confronted with a clear duty to defend national minorities.

According to Tamils for Obama, the United Nations' Human Rights Council shocked much of the world on May 27 when it stated that it blamed the Tamil Tigers for all of civilians death in Vanni this year and failed even to mention atrocities by the Sri Lankan government. The London Times reported online that "Western diplomats and human rights officials were shocked by the outcome at the end of an acrimonious two-day special session to examine the humanitarian and human rights situation in Sri Lanka…"

The U.K. Guardian wrote "Sri Lanka last night scored a major propaganda coup when the UN human rights council praised its victory over the Tamil Tigers and refused calls to investigate allegations of war crimes by both sides in the final chapter of a bloody 25-year conflict."

The Guardian continued "In a shock move, which dismayed western nations critical of Sri Lanka's approach, the island's diplomats succeeded in lobbying enough of its south Asian allies to pass a resolution describing the conflict as a 'domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference.'"

At the same time as it affirmed Sri Lanka's right to abuse its population without interference from the rest of the world, the council voted down a resolution proposed by Switzerland and supported by European countries proposing access by international aid agencies to the war zone and IDP camps. The Swiss resolution had also called for investigations into possible war crimes by Sri Lanka.

The U.N. is not doing its job, says Tamils for Obama.

"The U.N. has a responsibility to watch out for human rights and the safety of minorities," said a spokesman for the Tamil group. "U.N. officials are looking for every reason not to do their duty." In 1992, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National … Minorities. It places a moral obligation on U.N member states to respect the rights of their minorities and on the U.N. to ensure that its members do so.

A London Times analysis writes "Critics say that the UN should be reformed or abolished because of its failure to stand up to dictators or the perpetrators of genocide. They point to its failure to halt the Rwandan genocide in 1994, to intervene in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, its obsession with criticizing Israel and its failure to halt genocide in Sudan."

'It has been largely impotent on the major issues of our time," said Anne Bayevsky, a UN expert at the Hudson Institute. Tamils for Obama adds that the U.N. has seen atrocities in Sri Lanka and tried its best not to notice.

UN Humanitarian Coordination Office (OCHA) spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told AFP: "The UN has publicly and repeatedly said that the number of people killed in recent months has been unacceptably high and it has shared its estimates with the government as well as others concerned."

The Tamils for Obama spokesman said "Of course the U.N. has said those causality figures are 'unacceptably high.' Any number of casualties would be 'unacceptably high.' Ten deaths would be 'unacceptably high.' It is a way of not giving a figure, of not acknowledging that not ten but tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed."

The London Times reports that "Confidential United Nations documents acquired by The Times record nearly 7,000 civilian deaths in the no-fire zone up to the end of April. UN sources said that the toll then surged, with an average of 1,000 civilians killed each day until May 19, the day after Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers, was killed. That figure concurs with the estimate made to The Times by Father Amalraj, a Roman Catholic priest who fled the no-fire zone on May 16 and is now interned with 200,000 other survivors in Manik Farm refugee camp. It would take the final toll above 20,000. 'Higher,' a UN source told The Times. 'Keep going.'" The Tamils for Obama spokesman commented "Of course, that figure comes from 'Confidential United Nations' sources. Do not expect the U.N. to state that in public."

The Times goes on "On Wednesday, Sri Lanka was cleared of any wrongdoing by the UN Human Rights Council after winning the backing of countries including China, Egypt, India and Cuba." Tamils for Obama notes that this is one group of malefactors covering up for another.

Tamils for Obama reports that it has its own sources in the safety zone. These sources estimate that there were 360,000 Tamil civilians in the safety zone last January. Now, news reports say that there are about 290,000 Tamil civilians held in detention camps by the Sri Lankan military. For Tamils for Obama, the math is simple: about 70,000 Tamils civilians have vanished in the last five months.

In an earlier example of U.N. denial, Gordon Weiss, the U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka, spoke this month about the "Mothers' Day Massacre" that had happened in the safety zone in northern Sri Lanka. "The large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend," he said, "including the deaths of more than 100 children, shows that (the) bloodbath has become a reality." However, Ban Ki-Moon, the U.N. secretary general, visited Sri Lanka last week and denied the reality to which the U.N. spokesman had just testified. Ban said, regarding the bloodbath, "I myself did not mention that particular word, I want to make that quite clear."

The U.S. has satellite photos that seem to show that Sri Lanka used heavy weapons in the "safety zone." The U.N. "has leaked satellite images from multiple sources that appeared to prove that the Sri Lankan air force had bombed civilians (in the safety zone) despite establishing it as a no-fire zone for them to shelter in," said the London Times Online. Ban Ki-Moon, however, claimed in an interview with CNN that, after flying over the safety zone, he saw "no clear evidence" of heavy weapons use against the civilians.

The Tamils for Obama spokesman acknowledged Ban's diplomatic obligations--"The secretary general was clearly being polite to his Sri Lankan host"--but added "At the same time, he was neglecting his duty to protect the Tamil minority and was deliberately ignoring evidence which the U.N. possessed of Sri Lankan abuses."

Ban Ki-Moon's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, visited Sri Lanka last month to report on the humanitarian crisis unfolding in northern Sri Lanka. He then refused to pass on anything he had learned to the Security Council, his bosses. Nambiar has argued that as a "mediator," what he discussed with Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers was "confidential," even from the Security Council. Nambiar declined at first even to have a closed door briefing for the Security Council, but later bowed to international pressure.

"Whatever Nambiar learned about the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka," said the spokesman from Tamils for Obama, "he apparently did not want to share it with the rest of the world, or even with the Security Council."