Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Dalai Lama calls for 'middle way'


NEW YORK, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The Dalai Lama says U.S. President Barack Obama is supportive of his desire for Tibetans to have religious freedom and a modern education.

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader met with Obama last week despite strong objections from China, which controls Tibet.

Speaking Monday on CNN's "Larry King Live," the Dalai Lama said he believes the Tibetan people may be culturally and religiously restricted under Chinese rule but they are "not seeking independence."

Tibet is a "materially backward" landlocked country, the Dalai Lama said, advocating for a "middle way" to modernize Tibet within the People's Republic of China.

China has described the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who lives in India, as a separatist who wants to sever Tibet from China.

As a Buddhist, the Dalai Lama said he practices love for the Chinese but has "some irritation" with Chinese hard-liners during "small moments."

The following article first appeared in TIME Magazine on AUGUST 23, 1999

By ROBERT A.F. THURMAN

Driven from Tibet by military force, the smiling monk remains an apostle of peace, inspiring millions and never letting the world forget the plight of his homeland
Watching CNN recently, I was suddenly transported into the Dalai Lama's study and meditation room in Dharamsala at 4 a.m. I have never joined him there myself at that hour, though I've known him for more than 30 years. So I was fascinated as he meditated and said his morning prayers, yawning occasionally, hiding nothing from the camera. At one point the filmmaker off-screen asked him what he was doing. He said, "Shaping motivation!" What? "Shaping my motivation for the day." The Dalai Lama, at 64, after six decades of study, practice and intellectual and spiritual attainment, was reinforcing his altruistic motivation to make his daily thoughts, words and deeds more beneficial to all beings.

What makes this man so interesting? Why do people around the world care about a simple Buddhist monk who heads an unrecognized government-in-exile and an unrecognized nation of 6 million Tibetans? Perhaps because he is also a diplomat, a Nobel laureate, an apostle of nonviolence, an advocate of universal responsibility and a living icon of what he calls "our common human religion of kindness."

We live in an era of extreme paradox: technology informs the masses more than ever and yet makes them feel weak before the things they see; the art of caring for the sick and injured is more sophisticated than ever, and yet the cruelty of fanatics rages more violently than ever; the power of knowledge and machinery to improve our environment knows no limit, and yet the devastation of our planet proceeds inexorably. In this climate of manifold desperations, the Dalai Lama emerges from another civilization, from a higher altitude, as a living example of calm in emergency, patient endurance in agony, humorous intelligence in confusion and dauntless optimism in the face of imminent doom.

He was born on July 6, 1935, the ninth child of Choekyong and Dekyi Tsering, a farming family in Tibet's northeastern Amdo province (now part of Qinghai province). At the age of two he was discovered to be the 14th reincarnation of a great spiritual teacher, a Bodhisattva (enlightenment hero). In the 16th century, during his third incarnation, he was titled Dalai Lama (Oceanic Teacher) by a Mongol king, and in 1642 his fifth incarnation was entrusted with the political and spiritual rule of all Tibet.

Reincarnation played a crucial role in Tibetan society, allowing for legitimate rulership in a monastic realm that did not elevate any family dynasty to royalty. The Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet wisely and peacefully for more than 300 years, becoming highly beloved of their people. They are erroneously called god-kings by Western journalists. Tibetans--aware of their humanity, monastic discipline and intellectual and spiritual achievements--think of them as monk-kings. One of the virtues of the Dalai Lama system was that all but one of them were of humble origins and were brought up with strict discipline in a curriculum that might have been designed by Plato for his philosopher-kings. They set a high standard for enlightened rulers.

When I first began to spend time with the Dalai Lama in the early 1960s, he was 29 and just five years into his life of exile in Dharamsala in northwest India. He was getting his feet on the ground in the modern world, while staying immersed in his monastic, philosophic and spiritual curriculum. He was bravely bearing responsibility for his community in exile and the Tibetan people back home, who were ignored by the world, oppressed under Chinese military occupation and mired in the agony of Mao's violent political and cultural revolutions, during which more than a million Tibetans lost their lives.

At the time, I paid little attention to all this, being too young and too intent on becoming a monk. I would visit His Holiness weekly with questions about Buddhism, and he would ask me about the West. I had to coin new Tibetan words to convey the ideas of Kant, Freud, Jung, Reich, Einstein, Jefferson, De Tocqueville, Weber and others. He was curious about everything, thoughtful, quick and creative. I once questioned his political role as Dalai Lama. He said that but for the crying need of his people he would happily give it up for a life of study and meditation.

After I was formally ordained as a monk, I had to return to my monastery in the U.S. When I later resigned my vows and returned to lay status, the Dalai Lama was disappointed. But when I returned to Dharamsala for a year of research for my Ph.D, we resumed our talks, and he helped me with my dissertation. I found his philosophical skills greatly sharpened: he had been studying hard.

During the '70s we did not meet for eight years, partly because he was blocked by geopolitics from visiting the U.S. He spent four or five years in intermittent retreats, mastering the contemplative technologies of the tantra, and turning periodically to his political duties. He spoke out on Tibet wherever he could, though China was on the rise as a result of the Nixon-Mao alliance against the Soviet Union. To the world in general, the Tibetan freedom struggle remained in the lost-cause category.

In 1979, the embargo against His Holiness visiting America was finally lifted. When I met him that year, I was amazed at the new intensity of his spiritual aura, the sense of contemplative accomplishment that came from his Buddhist practice. I also found myself responding powerfully to his faith in the Tibetan cause. His optimism made me realize that it was never too late to correct injustice, soften the hardest heart or change the most deplorable situation. When I asked how I might help, he urged me to found a Tibet House in America to spread the knowledge of Tibet's Buddhist culture and generate energy for its preservation. I returned with him to India that fall and began a year-long sabbatical, during which we had our third series of dialogues. In these sessions, I was awed by his new depth of insight and dedication, not only to Buddhism and the Tibetan cause, but also to the future of the world. He had retained his down-to-earth humor, unpretentiousness, curiosity and friendliness.

During the early '80s, Chinese Premier Hu Yaobang visited Tibet and was visibly distressed at the effects of Mao's destructive policies. He relaxed some of the oppression and partially restored religion, culture and communication with the outside world. He began negotiations with the Tibetan government-in-exile. There were hopes of real improvement in the status of Tibet and the lives of Tibetans. These hopes were soon dashed, however, when Deng Xiaoping removed Hu, broke off dialogue with the Dalai Lama and returned to the previous destructive policies.

Undeterred, the Dalai Lama continued to visit countries on every continent. In the mid-'80s, we were able to found a Tibet House in New York, with the help of a growing circle of influential friends of the Dalai Lama. A Year of Tibet was declared in 1990-91, with events in 35 countries. Tibet Houses were founded in Mexico City, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo and other cities. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Dalai Lama the 1989 Peace Prize. The Berlin Wall came down, and many Soviet-bloc states attained self-determination. Hope bloomed again for a just settlement of the Tibetan situation.

The years since then have been disappointing for Tibetans. In the early '90s it had seemed as if the long night of loss and terror might give way to a new dawn for Tibet, as enlightened or at least pragmatic policies seemed ready to emerge from the ruin of the communist empires. Yet Deng stubbornly reverted to attacks on the Dalai Lama, suppression of Tibetan culture and intensive colonization and industrialization of the high plateau. His successors have continued in the same way, oppressing any distinctive Tibetan identity. They reintroduced communist thought-reform into monasteries and nunneries, closing those that resisted. They imposed their own Panchen Lama reincarnation, not realizing that no Tibetan could accept him without the Dalai Lama's assent. They confiscated photos of the Dalai Lama and vilified him whenever possible. They broke off all dialogue.

The Dalai Lama remains cheerful, hopeful and as ready for dialogue as ever. An important breakthrough came in 1997 when he visited Taiwan for the first time--and the world saw how popular he really is among Chinese.

The Dalai Lama is the world's greatest living exemplar of nonviolence and compassion, accessible to followers of all faiths. He refuses to convert anybody to Buddhism and preaches tolerance among religions. He continues the lineage of spiritual activists descending from Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. His first responsibility is to protect the Tibetans. But he also stands ready to serve the Chinese people, including their leaders, in their much-needed spiritual recovery. Through his teachings and writings, he serves and inspires Buddhists worldwide, as well as followers of other faiths.

The Dalai Lama sees the coming century as hopeful because of four naturally occurring changes: the general loss of faith in war and a turn to faith in the power of peace; the loss of faith in big systems and a renewed faith in the free and creative individual; the loss of faith in materialistic science and a turning to faith in spiritual sciences; and the loss of faith in technology and a turn to the power of nature to maintain an ecological balance and a healthy, happy life for all beings. As one of the greatest people of the 20th century, he offers an inspiring vision of the likelihood that humanity will realize its highest potential in the 21st. In this sense, his role naturally expands from being Dalai Lama for the Tibetans and Mongolians into being an Oceanic Teacher for the whole world.

Robert A.F. Thurman heads the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sinhalese influx into Tamil heartland of Jaffna

P K Balachandran


JAFFNA: The northern Tamil heartland of Jaffna, which had been inaccessible by land since 1990, is experiencing a post-conflict Sinhalese tourist influx from south Sri Lanka.

Though it brings loads of money into Jaffna, it puts tremendous pressure on the limited facilities and infrastructure in existence, giving rise to fears of health hazards.

A majority of the southern visitors are Buddhist pilgrims going to the ancient Nagadeepa Buddha Vihara, associated with one of Buddha’s visits to Sri Lanka. But there are a large number of traders and casual visitors too. The place is still not open to foreigners, though a few travel with clearance from the Ministry of Defence in Colombo.

The Sinhalese traders are doing brisk business, mostly satisfying the sartorial fancies of the younger Tamil hoi polloi. “Business is good and the Tamil people of Jaffna are the nicest in Sri Lanka,” said 30-year-old Rohitha selling children’s and ladies clothes.

“We have been here only for a few weeks but we are making good profit,” he said.

The boarding and lodging facilities expected by the visitors seem to be minimal.

Since most of them are Buddhist pilgrims from the lower middle classes, they seem to be quite happy to sleep in the stands of the Duraiappah Stadium, a converted camping site which receives 20 bus loads of people everyday.

The pilgrims, all in white, cook their own meals in pots and pans brought from the south. The Jaffna municipality keeps filling the water tanks, so there is no water shortage.

In places like Achchuveli, the paddy fields are used as toilets. Jaffna is still not ready to receive middle and upper class visitors. It lacks in decent hotels, lodges or guest houses. The upkeep of the existing hotels is poor even as they charge the earth.

Houses of those who had migrated to the West are rented out by their caretakers for a few thousand rupees a day.

Some resident house owners rent out a room or two on a daily basis.

“The government has to control the influx so that people who come need not put up with poor facilities,” said Jaffna Chamber of Commerce president R Janakumar.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

by Mel Gunasekera

COLOMBO (AFP) – In 70 years of greeting guests to Sri Lanka's venerable Galle Face Hotel, doorman K. Chattu Kuttan has hobnobbed with everyone from royal heads of state to Bond girls and Soviet cosmonauts.

Kuttan, who turns 90 on Monday, has watched the hotel change with the country, from colonial days, through independence and the dark decades of ethnic conflict.

And he has pretty much seen it all, from a Japanese Zero fighter plane crash-landing on the hotel grounds during World War II, to sultry film star Ursula Andress dancing in the ballroom on New Year's Eve 1976.

Born in India's Kerala province, Kuttan left his home and took the ferry to Sri Lanka's northern seaport town of Talaimannar and then made his way to Colombo in 1938.

He worked as a servant for one of Colombo's elite families before landing a job at the hotel in 1942, weeks after the Japanese bombed the capital. He started as a waiter, and took 50 years to gravitate to the front door.

"Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was known, was a different country then. Famous people like Emperor Hirohito, Richard Nixon, Sir Laurence Olivier and George Bernard Shaw came and stayed with us," Kuttan recalled.

In colonial days, the adjoining Galle Face promenade that overlooks the Indian Ocean used to host horse races on the green.

"White ladies and gentlemen would watch the races from the terrace of our hotel. The ladies wore hats and were covered with frills and lace," he said.

In recent years, Kuttan has embraced his role as a living Galle Face institution.

His distinctive neat white cropped hair, handlebar moustache, white brass buttoned coat, sarong and expanding collection of colourful souvenir badges from dozens of countries, all combine to make the perfect photo opportunity.

Few guests pass up the chance of picture, and his image and life story have graced the covers and inside pages of some of the world's leading travel magazines.

"He is probably among the world's oldest people still in employment, and also one of the most famous hotel employees in the world," said one of the Galle Face directors, Lalith Rodrigo.

Even as he prepares for his 90th birthday bash, Kuttan, who walks one mile (1.6 kilometres) to work each morning and catches the bus at the end of his afternoon shift, has ruled out any imminent retirement.

"Walking to work and the busy life at the hotel keeps me going," said the father of two girls, five grand children and one great-grand child.

When he first started as a waiter, Kuttan served dignitaries like Lord Mountbatten, Princess Elizabeth, Jawarharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Arthur C. Clarke.

His monthly pay back then was 20 rupees.

"Now I earn 30,000 rupees (265 dollars) a month as a doorman," he said.

The Galle Face's glory has somewhat diminished over the decades, and most A-list celebrities and political statesmen now stay at modern luxury hotels that have sprung up in other parts of Colombo.

But its faded splendour still attracts a loyal clientele and newcomers who stare at its prominently displayed list of famous guests, and point out the known and the unexpected, like Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Kuttan is happy he lived to see the back of Sri Lanka's 37-year ethnic conflict, which ended in May with the military victory over Tamil Tiger rebels.

"Too many people died. I have seen too many bomb blasts around Colombo. People were scared to move around. Even tourists didn't want to come. So I'm happy its finally over," he said.

A non-smoker, teetotaller and lover of vegetable dishes, Kuttan hopes to visit Kerala in April to see his two sisters, aged 93 and 73 -- his second visit to India since arriving in Sri Lanka.

In good shape despite his years, Kuttan relies on spectacles for night vision and avoids sweets to keep his blood sugar low.

And his pet peeves? Mobile phones. "I hate those (ringtone) noises. I feel my ear is vibrating after talking into one."

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Inspirational Sri Lankan Photography

By Agron Dragaj













Agron Dragaj is a Kosovar born professional photographer who currently lives in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. He did humanitarian aid work in Sri Lanka during the Tsunami and constantly publishes his works in magazines like Daily News Sri Lanka, UNHCR publications and many more. He is also the founder of the photography agency The wideangle.

2-Min. Bio of Sarath Fonseka

By Ishaan Tharoor

After winning the war, Sarath Fonseka seems to have lost the battle. The former chief of Sri Lanka's army chose to run against his ex-boss, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in last month's elections and was defeated by nearly 2 million votes — a few complaints of polling irregularities notwithstanding. On Feb. 8, Fonseka was seized by military police for allegedly conspiring to launch a coup, a charge his supporters say is trumped up. The arrest has deepened concerns over the increasing heavy-handedness of Rajapaksa's rule, which has seen allegations of human-rights abuses as well as the suppression of journalists and other organs of dissent. For Fonseka, who is due to be court-martialed, it's a long fall from the glory days of last year when — as Rajapaksa's right-hand man — he led a decisive military campaign ending the three-decade-old insurgency of the Tamil Tigers, one of the world's most ruthless separatist groups.

Quick Facts:
• Born on Dec. 18, 1950, in Ambalangoda, a coastal town in the island nation's southwest. He joined the army in 1970 as a staff officer and gradually rose through the ranks.

• As a colonel in the field, Fonseka led a 1993 operation dubbed Midnight Express to relieve government troops holed up in a fort in the Tamil Tiger hotbed of Jaffna, rescuing several hundred soldiers and winning commendations for his bravery. Accompanying him on the mission was Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of the President, and currently Sri Lanka's iron-fisted — and allegedly corrupt — Secretary for Defense.


• Fonseka furthered his reputation during the pivotal Operation Riviresa in 1995, in which he led a brigade that helped finally seize the town of Jaffna, a Tiger stronghold.

• In 2006, Fonseka, by then a Lieutenant General, was nearly killed by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber (the group pioneered the deadly tactic following the start of its war for an independent Tamil homeland in 1983). After receiving treatment abroad, Fonseka returned to his desk within three months of the attack.

• As the country's top military commander in May 2009, Fonseka was the architect of the final campaign that encircled the last remaining Tamil Tiger positions from the north and east and led to the killing of the Tigers' notorious leader, Velupillai Prabakharan.

• In November, Fonseka resigned his post after falling out with Rajapaksa, whom he claimed was trying to sideline him within the country's military hierarchy and was taking too much credit as a civilian for waging a war fought by Fonseka's troops.

• Fonseka threw his hat into the ring for the Jan. 27 presidential elections, then considered just a formality for Rajapaksa, and provided the incumbent a real political challenge. Though he cobbled together a loose coalition of opposition, Muslim and ethnic Tamil political parties, Fonseka ultimately failed to win enough votes. The country's Tamil and Muslim minorities were largely disenchanted with both candidates, who hail from the country's ethnic Sinhalese majority.

• In the aftermath of the election, Fonseka refused to accept the results, speaking conspiratorially of plots to assassinate him. His opponents in power accused him of planning to topple the government; on Feb. 8, over 100 soldiers burst into a political meeting Fonseka was attending and took him away as prisoner.

Quotes By:

"We can announce very responsibly that we have liberated the whole country from terrorism."— To Sri Lankan state television after security forces defeated the last remaining Tamil Tigers, effectively ending one of the world's longest-running civil wars (CBC News, May 18, 2009)

"I am both disgusted at the way they have treated me and extremely disillusioned ... [My government-assigned security guards] are all new men. They could be an assassination squad — maybe they are trying to assassinate me." — After stepping down from his military position and entering civilian life in the opposition (Sunday Leader, Nov. 22, 2009)

"The country in the future will be free of corruption. Democracy will be restored. Your children will have a bright future." — At a Jan. 24 election rally (New York Times, Jan. 24, 2010)

Quotes About:

"[Fonseka] has to answer to the people. We have a lot of allegations against him. [Sri Lankans] don't want anarchy. They don't want dictatorship. So they rejected Fonseka." — Basil Rajapaksa, younger brother and adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in the aftermath of Fonseka's defeat at the polls on Jan. 28. Rajapaksa hinted at Fonseka's rumored plans to overthrow the government (Indo-Asian News Service, Jan. 28, 2010)

"This is a military matter that has nothing to do with politics." — Brigadier V.U.B. Nanayakkara, a Sri Lankan military spokesman, in the wake of the Feb. 8 arrest on the grounds of committing "military offences" (New York Times, Feb. 9, 2010)

"The way the troops spoke to General Fonseka and the way they forcibly dragged him away is a disgrace to the security forces. It is a shameful way to treat your former commander." — Rauf Hakeem, leading Sri Lankan Muslim politician and Fonseka ally, after witnessing Fonseka's arrest (AFP, Feb. 9, 2010)

"This is not an arrest. It is an abduction." — Anoma Fonseka, Sarath Fonseka's wife, pleading at a press conference that she knew little of her husband's whereabouts or medical condition (AFP, Feb. 9, 2010)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The choice before the Tamil Diaspora

Realizing political goals through economic investment
by Somapala Gunadheera, The Island, Colombo, January 17, 2010


"But there is neither East nor West,

Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

though they come

from the ends of the earth!"


from The Ballad of East and West
by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)


I preface this essay with some extracts from Special Report No: 34 of University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), (released on December 13, 2009), because of their logical relevance as background to what I want to say. Many a reader might have missed the report on account of its substantial length.

"To be sure, the situation we find ourselves in has a good deal to do with how the LTTE managed society, pushed for war whenever there was a prospect of peace and brainwashed the community through its propaganda monopoly. It also has a good deal to do with how the State has conducted itself. And expatriate LTTE supporters who basked in this vicarious glory are deserving of the highest contempt.

"The LTTE as an organization evinced two minds, showing the different expectations of the Leader and normal cadres and officers. The Leader had driven himself to a point where it would become difficult for him to justify his prolific record of killings if he settled down to a federal settlement, where he would ultimately be held politically accountable. A more immediate problem was the section of the Diaspora that had financed and feted him to deliver Tamil Eelam. Disappointing them would have meant some loss of face that could (not) have been ignored. What the people wanted was a federal settlement offering them dignity and an opportunity to rebuild their lives.

"Today politicians continue to use this war, this monumental tragedy, for political capital in their narrow power game in the South, while the removed and insensitive Tamil Diaspora tries to further polarize people in their home country with their meaningless rhetoric and slogans of Transnational government.

"There is only one way forward. An initiative to forge a broad multi-ethnic and multi-religious movement that challenges these narrow ethnic and religious agendas and Sri Lanka’s climate of impunity"

Diaspora’s Labours Lost

The Tamil Diaspora’s investment on the ethnic war has been evidently wasted as discussed in my article "A comedy of errors", published in the Island of June 30, 2009,

"The ‘stage-fright’ of the Diaspora has already cost them much. Even at the peak of the war they failed to come into open negotiations with the Government. They preferred to act by proxy through Moon, Brown, Miliband and Clinton and it was too late in the day when they discovered how ineffective those cat’s paws were.

Imaginably the bulk of the LTTE investment on the war came from the Diaspora but they did nothing to manage that investment, preferring to remain back-stage. The result has sent billions down the drain. The Diaspora had all the rights and stakes to come forward and negotiate with the Government on behalf of their people when the battle was on. Such direct intervention would have provided a plausible mediator who had a legitimate role to play in the escalating conflict, unlike third parties who were ineffectively praying for peace in chorus.

Perhaps the conflict might have had a happier ending with direct mediation and saved thousands of lives on both sides. This reminds me of the following observation I made in an article published in the ‘Groundviews’ of February 18. 2009; "A prompt hands-on, pragmatic approach by the Diaspora should be more meaningful and fruitful to the Tamils than all the efforts to get Clinton, Brown, Obama and Moon to help by remote control".

It is hoped that at least at this late stage, the Diaspora would manifest itself to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for their less fortunate brethren at home, by filling their leadership vacuum. They have all the brains and resources to play that role better than any other imaginable substitute.

‘Government in transition’ may look fashionable but even for that the foundation has to be laid at home. The immediate problem is to grant relief to the refugees who are suffering ‘untold hardship’ according to them and obtain the best possible berth for their kind at the ongoing negotiations by putting together the infighting leaders on one side. Unfortunately the Diaspora itself appears to be divided.

A Stalemate

Eight months after the end of the war, nothing has happened to remove the root-causes of the conflict and to heal its wounds. The Government that had vociferously promised to put all inequalities behind us after the ‘war’, citing it as the obstacle to action, now promises to do so after the presidential election. No explanation is given for the waiting.

The president is fighting shy of implementing the 13th Amendment in full, despite the fact that it has been on the Statute Book for over two decades. Evidently the hesitation arises from the assumed loss of votes that such action could cause in the South, if taken before the election. Such diffident, hyper-sensitivity to the reaction of the electorate does not auger well for a political settlement even after the election. It is a vagary that is inevitable in a ‘Democracy’ that prioritizes the vote over basic human rights.

The principal challenger to the president is promising to do more. He would implement 13A in full, immediately after the election and even go beyond it. One promise begets a better one from the other side and the ‘bidding game’ goes on outdoing even our share market which is proclaimed to be the best in the world after the ‘war’, although its effect is still not felt by the man in the street. Going by the track record of the contestants, what guarantee can the minorities have that their promises would be kept after the election? And the emergence of a third force to hold the scales evenly does not appear to be a possibility in the foreseeable future.

In this state of uncertainty, the Tamils have to think of a second string to their bow and that string is economic advancement. Now that the end of the fighting is granting mobility to the North and the East, progressively, these regions are getting closer to the means of production. Their long neglected resources can now be exploited to their maximum advantage.

The Tamils caught up in the fighting did have funds to maintain themselves thanks mostly to support from the Diaspora. What is needed now is not charity but equity capital to develop the investment base of the North and the East. Such economic development would certainly consolidate the dignity and self-respect of the war-torn and strengthen their bargaining chips.

In that sense, the vicissitudes of communal strife may become a blessing in disguise. I have seen this happen once. During my travels in Jaffna as a Cadet in the mid-fifties, I saw it as a sleepy, stagnant District with no visible signs of development. My next visit there was in the seventies as Chairman of the IDB. Flying over the District and traveling on its streets, I was taken aback to see profuse building and industrial activity that I had not seen before. Inquiries revealed that the resurgence was the product of enterprising natives who were compelled to get back to base from the South due to communal riots.

When I flew in again in the mid-nineties as Chairman of RRAN, Jaffna was worse than what I saw on my first visit. It was not just sleepy; it was dead. The ‘contribution’ of the 1983 Riots had worked in the reverse direction and devoured the ‘achievements’ of the earlier riots. Management under a dictatorship had starved the economy and sapped its vitality. Time is now ripe to emulate the positive experience of the past and invest freely in commercial activity, untrammeled by a ‘Gestapo’ breathing down one’s neck.

An obligatory investment

The Diaspora has a bounden duty to perform here. Their investment on the LTTE was no doubt motivated by their attachment to their native roots. They would never have expected any material returns from the investment. Now that the input has gone stray, the Diaspora should rethink their role in the new scenario and lend a helping hand to their less fortunate brethren to rise from the ashes as they themselves have done in the rich foreign climes to which most of them came as refugees. They should share their luck with those in whose boats they would have been, if not for their initial ability to migrate.

This contribution does not call for ‘collective action’ on which there appears to be a curse on the Tamils. Each of them must individually think of the plight of the place where he was born. The chances are that it is a modest village in the backwoods. Let him develop that place by investing on a commercial project individually or in association with his country cousins. The superior experience that the investor has gathered abroad should help to make the venture a success.

There is no shortage of investment ideas. Jaffna’s sweet mangoes and bananas can support several export industries. The Palmyra is another unexploited resource. To these and many more may be added hi-tech industries that investors have learnt abroad. If the Diaspora invests on this economic revival, half of what it has put on the LTTE arsenal, voluntarily or under threat, their native place would be turned into a Singapore before long.

Politics will take a back seat in such an affluent atmosphere. Even if it surfaces, a Tamil would have gathered adequate confidence and power by then to talk to his counterpart on an equal footing, granted that by then the Government would have succeeded in bringing at least the ‘counterpart’ to his own.

And when two strong men stand face to face, there will be neither border, nor breed, nor birth, though they come from the South or the North!

The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora after the LTTE
by International Crisis Group, February 23, 2010

For the past quarter-century the Tamil diaspora has shaped the Sri Lankan political landscape through its financial and ideological support to the military struggle for an independent Tamil state. Although the May 2009 defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has dramatically reduced the diaspora’s influence, the majority of Tamils outside Sri Lanka continue to support a separate state, and the diaspora’s money can ensure it plays a role in the country’s future. The nature of that role, however, depends largely on how Colombo deals with its Tamil citizens in the coming months and on how strongly the international community presses the government to enact constitutional reforms to share power with and protect the rights of Tamils and other minorities. While the million-strong diaspora cannot regenerate an insurgency in Sri Lanka on its own, its money and organisation could turn up the volume on any violence that might eventually re-emerge.

Following the defeat of the LTTE, the mood in the diaspora has been a mix of anger, depression and denial. Although many had mixed feelings about the LTTE, it was widely seen as the only group that stood up for Tamils and won them any degree of respect. The Tigers’ humiliating defeat, the enormous death toll in the final months of the war and the internment of more than a quarter million Tamils left the diaspora feeling powerless, betrayed by the West, demanding justice and, in some cases, wanting revenge. A minority in the community is happy the LTTE is gone, since it directed much of its energy to intimidating and even killing those Tamils who challenged their rule.

Funding networks established by the LTTE over decades are seriously weakened but still in place. There is little chance, however, of the Tigers regrouping in the diaspora. LTTE leaders in Sri Lanka are dead or captured and its overseas structures are in disarray. Clinging to the possibility of victory long after defeat was inevitable damaged the LTTE’s credibility and weakened its hold on the community.

Nonetheless, most Tamils abroad remain profoundly committed to Tamil Eelam, the existence of a separate state in Sri Lanka. This has widened the gap between the diaspora and Tamils in Sri Lanka. Most in the country are exhausted by decades of war and are more concerned with rebuilding their lives under difficult circumstances than in continuing the struggle for an independent state. There is no popular support for a return to armed struggle. Without the LTTE to enforce a common political line, Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka are proposing substantial reforms within a united Sri Lanka. Unwilling to recognise the scale of defeat, and continuing to believe an independent state is possible, however, many diaspora leaders have dismissed Tamil politicians on the island either as traitors for working with the government or as too weak or scared to stand up for their people’s rights.

Many now reluctantly recognise the need for new forms of struggle, even if they would still prefer the LTTE fighting. New organisations have formed that are operating in more transparent and democratic ways than the LTTE and that aim to pressure Western governments to accept an independent state for Tamils. These include plans for a “transnational government of Tamil Eelam”, independent referenda among Tamils in various countries endorsing the call for a separate state, boycotts against products made in Sri Lanka and advocacy in support of international investigations into alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan state. The new initiatives, however, refrain from criticising the LTTE or holding it responsible for its own crimes or its contribution to the shattered state of Sri Lankan Tamil society.

So long as this is the case, most Western governments will remain sceptical of the diaspora’s post-LTTE political initiatives. All have kept the transnational government of Tamil Eelam at arm’s length given its resemblance to a government-in-exile, even if the group does not claim this status. Western governments will have little choice but to engage with the dominant, pro-separatist Tamil organisations, even if officials would prefer to deal only with the handful of interlocutors with a record of criticising the Tigers. But until it moves on from its separatist, pro-LTTE ideology, the diaspora is unlikely to play a useful role supporting a just and sustainable peace in Sri Lanka.

Watching the devastation of the final months of the war and the seeming indifference of governments and the United Nations, many Tamils, particularly the younger generation born in the West, grew deeply disillusioned. Governments with large Tamil communities have been worried this might lead to new forms of militancy. In the last months of the war and months immediately following, there were self-immolations by Tamil protestors, vandalism against Sri Lankan embassies, and increased communal tensions between Tamils and Sinhalese abroad. While such events have grown less frequent, risks of radicalism in the diaspora cannot be dismissed entirely.

While Tamils have the democratic right to espouse separatism non-violently, Tamil Eelam has virtually no domestic or international backing. With the Sri Lankan government assuming Tamils abroad remain committed to violent means, the diaspora’s continued calls for a separate state feed the fears of the Rajapaksa administration and provide excuses for maintaining destructive anti-terrorism and emergency laws.

To ensure the current peace is a lasting one, the Sri Lankan government must address the legitimate grievances at the root of the conflict: the political marginalisation and physical insecurity of most Tamils in Sri Lanka. Statements made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa since his January 2010 re-election suggest there is little chance the needed political and constitutional reforms will be offered in his next term. Any significant improvement in the political position of Tamils and other minorities in Sri Lanka will thus come slowly and with difficulty, requiring significant shifts in the balance of political power within Sri Lanka as well as careful but tough persuasion from outside.

India, Japan, Western governments and multilateral organisations can do much more to assist the political empowerment of Tamils in Sri Lanka and press Colombo to address the causes behind the rise of the LTTE and other Tamil militant groups. There should be no blank cheque for Colombo to redevelop the north and east without first creating a political climate where Tamils and Muslims can freely express their opinions and have a meaningful role in determining the future of the areas where they have long been the majority. Donor governments and the UN should also press more strongly for an independent inquiry into the thousands of civilians, almost all Tamil, killed in the final months of fighting. Their aid should be tied to an end to impunity for human rights violations and abuses of political power that undermine democracy and threaten the freedoms of Sri Lankans from all ethnic communities.


Epilogue

From CBC News, Canada

The editor of a local Tamil newspaper says an attack on his office in Toronto's east end left a gaping hole in the front window — and left him worried about his safety.

Logan Logandralingam, the editor of Uthayan, said he got an anonymous phone call Sunday morning from a man who told him to go to his office, where a “message” would be waiting for him.

He arrived at the office around 8:30 a.m. and found the office windows had been broken.

“The scene was very terrible,” he said. “I was very sad and I got frustrated to see the broken pieces everywhere.”

Toronto police are investigating the incident, but Logandrahlingam told CBC News that he thinks the attack may have been a warning from people who are unhappy that some members of the Canada-Sri Lanka Business Council travelled to Sri Lanka to meet with President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

He said the caller said Logandrahlingam's "friends" had visited the Sri Lankan president, who was a “killer” and “an enemy of Tamils.”

Logandrahlingam, who launched the community newspaper 15 years ago, said he never expected his office would be vandalized because he didn’t report on the trip.

“I thought working in our community, doing publications, doing something in our community is not dangerous,” he said.

But he said the recent vandalism has made him more aware of his safety.

“I fully understand that I have to be very keen about my personal safety,” he said Monday, adding that he plans to address the vandalism in an editorial.

Toronto Tamil newspaper vandalized after publisher warned of trouble

By ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
From Monday's Globe and Mail

The phone call came at 7:30 yesterday morning: A blocked number and unknown voice on Logan Logendralingam's cellphone.

"They said, 'Okay, your friends went to Colombo and met the president of Sri Lanka - the enemy of Tamils who killed 40,000 innocent people. Go to your office: There is a message for you.' "

So he went to the Uthayan newspaper's offices, a 15-minute drive from his Scarborough home. The publisher said he had been expecting something like this after a week of angry phone calls - fallout from a meeting last week of Tamil-Canadian leaders with high-ranking Sri Lankan officials, including President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

But that didn't make what Mr. Logendralingam found any easier to bear: A sea of glass shards littering the parking lot of the Progress Road office, and a gaping hole left where the double-plated glass windows used to be.

Nothing was taken, and Mr. Logendralingam said it doesn't look as though whoever smashed the windows even went inside.

"Not only the glass is broken - my heart is broken," he said. "It's a painful incident. ... I was shocked and sad and frustrated."

Mr. Logendralingam said it will probably take as much as $12,000 to replace the smashed windows, which have been boarded up with plywood.

Staff Sergeant Kevin Murrell said the Toronto Police Force's 43 Division got the call at 9 a.m. and an investigation is continuing, but is in the early stages: They have no leads apart from the unidentified morning caller, and although they've put a call out for information no witnesses have come forward.

"This is fairly rare, these kinds of things. It's obviously someone who's taken issue with the fact that somebody has supported an individual they don't support. They've taken it upon themselves to damage these windows as a result of it, which is obviously childish and doesn't make much sense."

Staff Sgt. Murrell said the incident could have occurred any time between 7 p.m. Saturday evening and yesterday morning when Mr. Logendralingam got the call.

It wasn't the first time the local Tamil newspaper, which publishes on Fridays and has a circulation of about 10,000, has come under fire: Since Mr. Logendralingam founded it 15 years ago, he says he has gotten plenty of angry phone calls for not being vocal enough in support of an independent Tamil homeland.

Three years ago, the same thing happened at his old office on Ellesmere Road. Then, the smashed glass was in response to an editorial he wrote criticizing politicized violence among Tamil youth.

The recent act of vandalism, and its apparent link to the Canada-Sri Lanka Business Council's controversial co-operation with the Sri Lankan government, has touched on the much larger issue of how best to rebuild the Tamil homeland, and whether President Rajapaska is sincere in his desire to work with the country's Tamil community as tens of thousands remain in internment camps.

Kula Sellathurai, prominent Tamil businessman and president of the Canada-Sri Lanka Business Council, argues it's time to work with President Rajapaksa's government to help rebuild the shattered northern region of the island, which had been chronically underdeveloped well before the latest conflict.

"[Mr. Rajapaksa] said he's willing to resolve the Tamil and ethnic issues in Sri Lanka; he wants our help, as foreigners, to help to invest and rebuild."

Last week's trip took them from the capital of Colombo to Jaffna in the north and the Tamil refugee camps around Vavuniya. Mr. Sellathurai said he was encouraged by what he encountered: The tens of thousands of Sri Lankan army troops are seen as a benign force rather than a hostile occupation.

"They're carrying guns, but they're not harassing people," he said. "People in the outside world are still carrying a 30-year-old mentality."

Manjula Selvarajah takes issue with that: It's one thing to want to support the internally displaced Tamil community, said the media co-ordinator for the Canadian Tamil Congress; it's quite another to do so through a government that was accused by both Tamils and international organizations of human-rights violations and war crimes well after the Tamil Tigers were defeated in May, 2009.

"We are concerned about the government that's in place right now, because they have a record of suppression of the press, they have a record of possibly war crimes," she said. "We're concerned they would sit down and be meeting with someone who has this kind of a record."

But none of that justifies yesterday's act of vandalism, she said: The attack on press freedom flies in the face of everything her organization is protesting in Sri Lanka.

"An act of vandalism is wrong. And if you consider all the issues that media face in Sri Lanka, both Sinhalese and Tamil journalists ... it's even more vexing to see something like this happen."

Tamil Tiger defeat could lead to bombings here, report says

National Post Canada
Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Canadian security officials are concerned that last year's defeat of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels could trigger attacks like the 1985 Air India bombings, says a new report.

The International Crisis Group study quotes unnamed Canadian law enforcement officials saying that supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam might resort to terrorism.

"While there are no signals yet that the rump LTTE is planning a terrorist act, it only takes a handful of committed cadre in the diaspora bent on violence to have a deadly impact," the report says.

"For example, Canadian law enforcement officials have been concerned that, if left unchecked, LTTE activities could result in an event similar to the terrorist bombing of an Air India jet in 1985, which was planned and funded by Sikh separatists in Canada."

Canadian Tamil Congress spokesman David Poopalapillai called that "pure speculation" and said that "we as Canadian Tamils and we as Canadian Tamil Congress are opposed to any form of violence, not only in Canada, anywhere, any part of the world."

Based in Brussels, the ICG is one of the world's leading think tanks. Its President and CEO is Louise Arbour, the former Supreme Court of Canada justice, and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is a board member. It is funded partly by the Canadian government.

The report examines the state of the Tamil diaspora almost a year after the end of the brutal Sri Lankan civil war, which routed the Tamil Tigers rebels who had been fighting for independence.

Canada has the world's largest Tamil diaspora and was a major Tiger fundraising base. Several Canadians were also involved in procuring arms for the rebels.

The report says the defeat of the rebels has left the diaspora feeling "powerless, betrayed by the West, demanding justice and, in some cases, wanting revenge."

An unnamed Canadian security official was quoted in the report saying that, "Because of what we learned from Canada's connection with Khalistan we're compelled to look at issues concerning the Tamil Tigers here differently.

"As much as it's a law and order issue in some regards, we also are compelled to treat the Tamil Tigers as a national security issue because we don't want another Air India disaster."

The comments are attributed to federal enforcement officials in Toronto and says that French, British and American officials had expressed similar concerns during interviews.

The report says while the diaspora remains committed to an independent homeland, there is little appetite for a return to fighting in Sri Lanka itself, where Tamils are exhausted by war and focused on rebuilding their lives.

It says, "until it moves on from its separatist, pro-LTTE ideology, the diaspora is unlikely to play a useful role supporting a just and sustainable peace in Sri Lanka."

The Sri Lankan government also must deal with the roots of conflict, notably the insecurity and political marginalization of Tamils, while the UN and Western aid donors need to press for independent investigation of the killings of thousands of civilians in the final months of fighting, it says.

Speaking from London, where he was attending the inaugural meeting of the Global Tamil Forum, an international diaspora group, Mr. Poopalapillai said he supports the calls for an investigation but sees no sign the Sri Lankan government intends to resolve Tamil grievances.

"This government is jailing a man who polled four million votes," he said, referring to the recent arrest of opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka. "Can you expect any justice from this government at the moment?"
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