Book Review - Chinaman

Where in the world is Pradeep Mathew?
An ambitious, inventive, must-read new novel from Sri Lanka

There are at least two types of book readers. (I refer to the people who read books and not those new-fangled devices.) The first type read their books in one go, rarely pausing for rumination, reflection or any handwork with pencils or highlighters. If at all, they reflect on the book after they're done reading.

Then there is the rare type - those who cannot read a book without obliterating it with dog ears, notes in the margin, underlined passages and bookmarks. They convert the reading experience into a process. Perhaps they even stop every few minutes to tweet out interesting lines.










































If you are one of the latter, you will take days to get through young Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka's Chinaman. That is even if you really want to finish this brilliant book as quickly as you possibly can. With clever lines on every page, Chinaman is the most tweetable book I've ever read.

In hindsight it appears to me as if Karunatilaka wrote the book with a checklist in his mind: "That's one more page done. Do we have a joke? Check. A brutal dig at cricket? Check. An irreverent swipe at Sri Lankan culture? Check."

A superb work of fiction blended with non-fiction that makes you sit up night after night reading it? Double check.

Chinaman is, mostly, the story of a Sri Lankan journalist's hunt for a long-forgotten, and fictional, Sri Lankan cricket player called Pradeep Mathew. Mathew has a brief, meteoric cricketing career in the late 80s and early 90s that sees him achieve superhuman bowling records. But he vanishes as quickly as he appeared.

As the curious, and increasingly obsessive, journalist, Karunasena, begins to peel back the layers of Mathew's life he realises something is amiss. Mathew has vanished not just from the cricketing scene, it appears he has ceased to exist. His existence has even been expunged from the record books. And there is something disturbingly Orwellian about it all.

Yet Karunatilaka's book is equally about Karunasena. I wish I knew more about the author to see how self-referential this character is. Or maybe they just share Karunas. But the character of the 64-year old journalist is a wonderful device to place the topic of Sri Lankan cricket within the larger themes provided by Sri Lankan society and history.

So on the one hand there is the obsessed, alcoholic journalist, well into the twilight of his career, going in search of a human mirage. But on the other there is the very real world that this journalist occupies. One of his friends is a diplomat who may have an ugly secret that involves little boys. Yet another is a member of Sri Lanka's Burgher minority, who is as obsessed with cricket as Karunasena is. And somewhere in the final third of the book a bomb explodes at a train station. It happens casually, the death toll described as if in an afterthought.

Most of all Chinaman is a book about cricket. Karunatilaka has crafted a thinly veiled version of modern cricket, complete with reviled commentators, horny cricketers, loose women and big, bad money.

Did I say the veil was thin? I meant to say it is almost transparent. One of the book's minor characters is the Turbanned Indian Commentator. Mentioned frequently enough so that after a while he is just referred to as TIC. Earlier in the book there is a beefy English cricketer, whose idea for a documentary is what really kicks off the hunt for Pradeep Mathew. His name is, but of course, Tony Botham.

Karunatilaka skewers cricketers old, new, good and bad, all in style. And with prose that is infectious. Once you get past the first 50 pages, which are the slowest but not by much, the book is - no cliché intended - unputdownable. The mysteries of Pradeep Mathew, combined with the brutal dissection of cricket and the delicious morsels of cricketing trivia come together to form one of the strongest, most immersive plots in a sports novel, or indeed any novel, I have read in a long time.

The book is not without its gimmicks. There are a few towards the end that are particularly laboured. And there are a few occasions where the dialogues seem too smart by half. But all good innings have room for a few hoicks over slip. And Chinaman is a Test match-winning innings-at-the-death watch-over-and-over-on-Youtube kind of a book.

At least one commentator has called Chinaman the first great Sri Lankan novel. Perhaps it is. It certainly is a superb novel. For all cricket fans, especially those from the subcontinent, it is a compulsory addition to their library.

And if you can't stand cricket, this is still a book well worth reading. For sheer scope, ambition and inventiveness. Karunatilaka has smashed this out of the park.

Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew
by Shehan Karunatilaka
Random House
Currently available in Sri Lanka and online. An Indian edition of this book, due out in January 2011, will be available across the subcontinent

Horton Plains Slender Loris pictured for first time

This cute furry primate is the first of its species to ever be photographed.

One of the world’s rarest primates driven to the brink of extinction by Britain's taste for tea has been photographed for the first time, scientists said.

The Horton Plains slender loris has been so elusive for more than 60 years scientists believed the wide-eyed mammal had become extinct.

It had only been seen four times since 1937 but was fleetingly spotted in 2002 by researchers who identified it by the reflection of a light shone in its eyes.

Experts believe the prime reason for its rarity was due to the loss of its natural forest habitat largely destroyed by the drive to create tea plantations.

Now scientists from the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) edge of existence programme have managed to capture the world's first pictures of the rare animal during research aimed at quantifying how many species remain in the wild.

The picture of the endangered mammal shows an adult male Horton Plains slender loris, characterised by short limbs and long dense fur, sitting on a forest branch.

It was captured after more than 1,000 night time surveys in Sri Lankan forests taken during 200 hours of painstaking work.

The team not only took pictures of the animal but also captured three live specimens long enough to measure them.

"We are thrilled to have captured the first ever photographs and prove its continued existence - especially after its 65-year disappearing act,” said Dr Craig Turner, a ZSL conservation biologist.

Slender lorises, officially known as Loris tardigradus nycticeboides, are small nocturnal primates which are only found in the tropical forests of southern India and Sri Lanka.

They are about 6-10 inches long (15cm-25cm) and have large saucer-like eyes which help their night-time hunting.

Estimates suggest there are just 100 of the endangered creatures left in the wild, putting it among the world's top five most threatened primates.

But researchers admitted that so little was known about them that numbers could in fact be below 60, which would make them one of the rarest breeds in the world.

Comparing cricket with baseball is a good way to start a spat

Harold Pinter, the late English Nobel Prize-winning playwright, espoused the pleasures of cricket when he said: "I tend to believe that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth. Certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either. Anyway, you can either have sex before cricket or after cricket. The fundamental fact is that cricket must be there at the centre of things."

BRITAIN and America are divided, not just by a common language, but also by their passion for summer ball games. The English dismiss baseball as a barbarous mutant form of rounders, a kids’ game; Americans regard cricket as a crazed English joke. Matthew Engel, a cricket writer, notes that “It is less contentious to write about religion or politics than the origins of these two games.”

Early in the 20th century Albert Spalding, an American sporting-goods manufacturer, insisted that baseball had been invented in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 by a young soldier called Abner Doubleday who would be promoted to major-general during the American civil war. Baseball’s Hall of Fame was opened in Cooperstown when a misshapen leather ball found in the attic of a house near the town in 1934 was heralded as the ball originally used by Doubleday. This was always an unlikely tale, and Spalding’s papers, which are now housed in Cooperstown, expose his claims as a fabrication.

The true origins of both games are to be found in “Swinging Away: How Cricket and Baseball Connect”, a new exhibition for which the curator, Beth Hise, has written an exemplary catalogue. This cornucopia of bats and balls, uniforms (belonging to England’s Andrew Flintoff and the Yankees’ Derek Jeter), photographs and memorabilia has opened at the Marylebone Cricket Club’s museum at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London and will move on to the Hall of Fame.

It is based on the revisionist notion that the two games have much in common. Both are rooted in English folk traditions, and each is based on a contest between the pitcher and the batter in baseball and the bowler and the batsman in cricket. Referees are called umpires in both. “I see them as blood brothers, separated at birth but genetically linked,” writes Mr Engel in the catalogue’s introduction.

The first handwritten reference to baseball is to be found in a copy of a diary written in Shere, Surrey, on Easter Monday in 1755: “After Dinner Went to Miss Jeale’s to play at Base Ball…” (The original diary turned up after the exhibition opened.) Four years earlier, a team of London cricketers had already played a cricket team from New York, for a considerable wager, and between 1840 and 1855 cricket was America’s leading ball game. The first international cricket match was played between the United States and Canada in 1844. (Canada won.)

Baseball became pre-eminent during and after the civil war. Ms Hise suggests that the key to popularising it was the abolition of the rule that a fielder could eliminate a batter by catching the ball after one bounce. To catch the ball on the fly was considered more “manly” and “scientific”, making baseball less a game for women and children. The system of box scoring was invented by an Englishman named Henry Chadwick, and many of the first professional players were from immigrant English families who could play both cricket and baseball.

By 1900, though, the two games had become completely distinct. When Babe Ruth (pictured) and Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest of all batters and batsmen, were introduced in 1932, it was not a meeting of minds: “You mean to tell me you don’t have to run when you hit the ball?” said Ruth, who was known as the Sultan of Swat.

In recent decades baseball has been more confident about the way it is organised than cricket, which experiments with new forms of the game intended to popularise it, by speeding it up. In the traditional format, games last four or five days and can end in a draw. Twenty20 is the latest of these innovations. The two teams each bat for 20 six-ball overs and the emphasis is on heavy-hitting. This form of the game has become very popular in the subcontinent, where the Indian Premier League is a major television spectacle, paying cricketers unheard-of sums to play in a short period in the spring. The attraction of Twenty20 is that games take about three hours to complete and there is no such thing as a draw. In fact, Twenty20 is not unlike baseball. Indeed, it is perfectly plausible that cricketers and baseball players will become ambidextrous again, swinging between the two games, as they sometimes did in the 19th century.

Brian Lara looks on as golf star Ernie Els has a go at cricket ahead of the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, Bermuda, October 18, 2010

Diplomatic games over CWG 2018

No one but suspicious Australians are talking about it but China could be the ace up Sri Lanka’s sleeve in its bid for the 2018 Commonwealth Games (CWG). The town of Hambantota, some 260 km south of Colombo, and Australia’s Gold Coast paid 60000 pounds and picked up the bidding documents for CWG
2018 earlier this year. The final bids have to be submitted by May 30, 2011 and the winner will be announced in on November 11 next year.

``We will put up a fighting challenge (against Gold Coast). Things are moving,’’ Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of mass media, told HT.

It would have to start moving fast because at present the hot, arid town only has an under-construction cricket stadium to talk of as sports infrastructure.

The beginning hasn’t been great. A plan to put up a stall at Ashok hotel in New Delhi to publicise the bid during the New Delhi games fell through because of lack of preparation.

But one advantage the town has that it is in President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s home district and he has grand plans to transform it into Lanka’s biggest city after Colombo.

The town is gradually rebuilding after the 2004 tsunami devastated it, killing nearly 6,000 people living there.

To my question whether Colombo will ask Beijing to chip in with building sports infrastructure in the town, Rambukwella said the help of all ``our friends will be solicited’’ for putting up the infrastructure.

With Beijing-Colombo current relations more snug than ever, China could even use its influence, say over African countries, to ensure that Sri Lanka wins the bid. And it is expected that if Hambantota wins, China will then gladly step in with its decades-long experience in ``stadium diplomacy’’.

It is already currently Sri Lanka’s largest donor and is building a $ 1.5 billion port on Hambantota’s coast.

China also helped Sri Lanka with arms and ammunition during the civil war without asking questions.

China has been building `friendship stadium’ across Africa; even a few cricket stadiums in the West Indies were built by Chinese companies. Since 2000, China has either built or is building at least 30 stadiums in African countries like Angola, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Togo and Congo.

No one is more acutely aware of China’s deep pockets and the quiet diplomatic influence it might wield in favour of Sri Lanka than Australian officials like Gold Coast mayor Ron Clarke.

``China is supporting them and China has got lots of money to build new facilities…So if they want to call in their charge, then no matter how it appears on the surface, that would have an influence on votes (to decide the bid winner),’’ Clarke told the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday.

``We’re respecting their bid – there’s always that question about what does that Chinese investment mean for the bid, but no one has answers to those questions,’’ Mark Peters, Gold Coast bid chief executive told the newspaper.

An email query to the Chinese embassy in Colombo about Beijing’s help for Sri Lanka’s bid didn’t get a response.

``Chinese companies could easily build 15 stadiums and the games village in Hambantota,’’ National Olympic Committee president Hemasiri Fernando said, adding that at least 30 to 40 stadiums and training venues would be required to host the games.

Employees of two Chinese companies – China Harbour Engineering Company and Sino-Hydro Corporation -- are stationed in the town to build the port. Which also means construction equipment needed for big projects is already available there.

The `Hambantota 2018’ website says the town is in the ``grip’’ of a massive development. With China’s hold over developments in the region, it can afford to claim so.

Readers' comments
Readers have commented on this article

james kumar 1 day ago

the problem in sinhala-srilanka is the sinhalese are the majority on that strength they know

they can do whatever they want ,at the end of the day whatever comes to the parlimentit will be

out voted by the racist (all the sinhala politicians are anti-tamil ranil,mangala all included)sinhala politicians in their favour.

that is why most of the time they talk through their back side.

my fellow tamils of eelam and the great tamil-nadu breathern the only way to beat sinhalese is that we the

tamils become the majority in ceylon(i can't bring myself to call it srilanka).the name srilanka was introduced

unilaterally by the sinhalese using their majority votes.never did the tamils,muslims or other citizens opinion were sought! (majority rule srilanka as long as it benefits the sinhalese) under the constitution it was illegal if you want to clarify get in touch with that great man,sorry i can't seem to remember his name. he is a sinhalese man doctor by professoin and a human right actvist who lives in australia.

becoming the majority in ceylon is neither easy nor hard in my opinion .we got to start working right now

instead of doing these clever game plese don't wate your time on arguing with the sinhalese they will never change.

because they are being brainwashed with xenophobic ideals and myths from the very young age.

i would like to names few supposed to be oxford educated interlectuals : peiris,athulathmudali and so on

they became more xenophobic after came back from the uk.if these people can behave like this what would you expect from a man who studied in ceylon and come from the deep south where no other languageis spoken or other cultures are practiced!

come on tamils 70 million in tamilnadu 90 million world over thisis our strength! unity is strength what are you waiting for ! i am not advocating anything outside the law .it can be done if we come up with ideas and actions! please start discussing with your friends and neighbours alike spread the word .

finally i would luke to take this opporunityto say hello to ungle anadasangaree ! plese if anyone of you see him convey this message that i would like to hug him when i see him next time!

Rajaratnam 1 day ago

Warning for Sri Lanka

PERFECT SLAVES

“Perfect slaves are those which blissfully and un-awaredly enslave themselves”
By Daniel Taylor

“The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims.

The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.” – Dresden James

The following are some of the main characteristics of an oppressed society living under tyranny, or progressing towards it.

1. Fear is rampant. “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” – Andre Gide

The fear may be legitimate, but it may in fact be an illusion created by the ruling powers in order to maintain control.

Fear clouds judgment, and when harnessed, can be used as a tool to cause individuals who are clamoring for protection to beg for their own enslavement.

A large group of individuals under oppression may in fact be afraid of the force of tyrannical governmental power and consciously decide to go along with it.

One recent historical example is of the Nazi Gestapo, who depended on German citizens snitching on their neighbors.

They did this because the number of their employees were not adequate to enforce their power totally.

They ruled by fear, exaggeration of the extent of their power, and depended on individuals to provide information to them who either identified themselves with, or who were afraid of the brutal Nazi regime.

As the old axiom goes, it’s easy to go along to get along.

2. Ignorance. “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” – Frederick Douglass

Because of their often corrupt nature, illegal activities and a desire for control, tyrants need to manipulate or restrict access to vital and often embarrassing information from those they are ruling.

Propaganda promotes the desired message to be propagated among the masses.

Restriction of information leads to an ignorant and unaware population which is easily molded.

This ignorance may also come about in a self censoring society that is lazy, bathed in decadence, and has no desire to be aware of information that may make them uncomfortable.

An unaware and uninformed population can be led to believe that they are in fact doing the right thing by enforcing tyrannical laws and supporting corrupt leaders.

They may buy the line that tyrants have sold their people for ages – that out of necessity these things must be done.

In the words of William Pitt, as stated before the House of Commons in 1783, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.

It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

3. Little men. The propagandists , traitors …

“A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know… He’s proud of his great generals but not of himself.” – Wilhelm Reich

Yet another group of individuals, who are in no way connected with the existing power structure — who do not respect themselves — often associate themselves with its power, and its leaders.

These individuals believe that life is good as it is, as they are provided with basic necessities and desire in no way shape or form radical change.

Often, an attempt to demonstrate the corrupt and tyrannical nature of their government to them will be met with a quick and angry denial, and at times a passionate defense of their oppressors.

Can you observe any of these trends around you today?

Is western society falling into the depths of tyranny?

james kumar 1 day ago

sinhalese only understand one language that is violence!

has anybody seen uncle anandasangaree ? i want to give him a hug

plese let him know if any of you happn to see him .

and again i saw gothabaya firing in all cylinders in a meeting today

what does he tells his people? is he a good orator ? he doesn't appear to be

and again that bugger was wearing that tie again in that scorching heat .

how does he do it ?

he must be stinking when takes his shirt off! how does his wife puts up with this horrible man?

with all the tamils blood on his hands!

does he have any children? if he has, hope they don't follow in his footsteps

he isn't a good role model is he?

has he given a time frame in which he will kill all the tamils!

i think he is living in a fantasy land !

Former female fighters strive for a better life

For many of Sri Lanka's former female combatants, the road back to normalcy will be a long one

BATTICALOA, 29 September 2010 (IRIN) - Lalitha* was 23, from Petiva Pullumalai, deep in Sri Lanka's eastern interior, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) came for her.

At the time, each family living under LTTE control was required to provide a child to the separatist forces fighting for an independent Tamil homeland for three decades. Lalitha joined up to spare her younger sister.

After heading a female Tamil Tiger team in battle for nine years, Lalitha escaped in 2004 to take care of her then-ailing mother, only to end up on the run.

She was terrified of being identified by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) or the LTTE and putting her family at risk.

"Every day I would change my accommodation so I would not be tracked down," she said. Today Lalitha lives with her mother in their partially built home, earning a small wage managing a makeshift shop in the eastern city of Batticaloa.

Bias

According to the World Bank, only one-third of skilled youth are employed in Sri Lanka and much of the Batticaloa's population remains dependent on traditional livelihoods like fishing and paddy farming to subsist.

But for women like Lalitha, that struggle can be more pronounced.

The biggest problem for female ex-combatants in Batticaloa is that a conservative Tamil civilian society does not allow them to use the skills they learnt in the armed movement, said Sonny Inbaraj, a researcher from the UK-based Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who recently completed a study on the reintegration of female ex-combatants in Batticaloa.

"Society would have them learning how to sew or be domestic helpers, rather than being carpenters, masons, bricklayers or computer repairers," he said.

At the same time, however, Inbaraj believes the women have formed strong support networks among themselves, and are often the heads of households in this post-war period.

"I don't think there is stigma at the community level against the women ex-combatants... Most of them were from areas that supported the Tigers," he says.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has helped 660 ex-combatants, more than 50 of them women, who took the risk to enrol in the government-backed plan in the east.

"These are people in government rehab centres," Richard Danzinger, IOM's chief of mission in Sri Lanka, said. "Once discharged they come to us, and we see what their needs and aspirations are. Then we provide both direct and indirect assistance. For example, business grants, civic education training and vocational training."

Rasenthi*, from rural Thihilivetta in the east, was 13 when the LTTE knocked on her family's door. She survived a fierce battle in the LTTE stronghold of Vaharai when 80 Tigers were killed, including her best friend, and Rasenthi was hit by shrapnel. After an operation by LTTE medics, metal now replaces bone on the right side of her skull.

"When I came home I had a bad reputation," Rasenthi recalls. "Many of my old friends didn't talk to me, and feared to be associated with me." After being identified by the SLA, Rasenthi ran away to hide near Batticaloa town for three years. "I was very scared," she says.

Skills training

The 22-year-old now says she has missed too much school to return. She has instead enrolled in a six-month bakery course at the national Sarvodaya vocational training centre in Batticaloa, hoping for a steady job.

The Sarvodaya programme is part of the government-backed reintegration programme that offers vocational skills for aspiring electricians, plumbers, beauticians and food manufacturers, and community leadership training.

UNICEF campaign for the disarmament of (female) child soldiers

To date, some 200 people have graduated from the programme, and there is a large demand from the private sector for their skills, E.L.A. Careem, Sarvodaya's long-term coordinator in Batticaloa, says.

"With the last 30 years of war, many youth have had difficulties with work and their future," he says. "Mentally and physically they have had challenges - no father, mother, or sister. And many only have only low-level skills, as compared to youth in Colombo. But gradually we are establishing a new generation."

* Not their real names

Copyright © IRIN 2010. All rights reserved.

Emotional homecoming after 21 years for Sri Lanka widow

It is an intensely emotional homecoming for Mangayarkarasi Amirthalingam.

Decades ago Appapillai and Mangayarkarasi Amirthalingam were a formidable political team

After 21 years she has returned to the residence where her family stayed in Colombo on the fateful day her husband - one of the most prominent Tamil political leaders of the past half-century - was shot dead by the Tamil Tiger rebels.

"Sri Lanka is a beautiful country but the war destroyed everything," she reflects ruefully.

Mrs Amirthalingam is at the place where her husband - who in contrast to the Tamil Tigers advocated a peaceful solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic divisions - was murdered in Colombo in July 1989.

Brutal conflict

Appapillai Amirthalingam was the only Tamil leader ever to become leader of the opposition in Sri Lanka and was the last Tamil politician to command a mass following.

Mrs Amirthalingam met leading members of the Tamil community
Since his death, no other Tamil leader has appealed so strongly to the masses.

The suffering of his widow reflects the suffering of tens of thousands of Sri Lankan war bereaved over the past two decades.

The only difference perhaps is that Mrs Amirthalingam was fortunate enough to flee the ravaged country and live in UK.

She returned to Sri Lanka with her youngest son Bahirathan, to find out what the future holds for the Tamil community after decades of brutal conflict that finally came to end with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers - known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - in May last year.

They made sure to visit Mr Amirthalingam's loyal security guard, Nissanka Thibbotumunuwa - a Sinhalese national - who killed all three Tamil Tiger assassins on the spot.

It was a highly moving reunion - all three of them were in tears.

"Every time these people came and murdered they managed to escape but Nissanka killed all of them," says Mrs Amirthalingam.

Hidden weapons

The assassins were invited to the house by another Tamil parliamentarian, Yogeswaran, and were to discuss improving ties with the most prominent Tamil political party of the day, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), which was led by Mr Amirthalingam.

They were allowed in without any security - all three had hidden weapons.

As they sat down for tea they killed both Mr Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran.

"He was killed by the Tigers because he supported the Indo-Lanka agreement which he thought was the best solution at the time," Bahirathan Amirthalingam - who is in Sri Lanka for the first time since his father's funeral - tells me.

The accord with India signed in 1987 forced the Tigers and other militant groups to give up arms.

Long before the Tigers began their armed struggle, TULF leaders including Mr Amirthalingam were calling for an independent state for Tamils in the north and east called Tamil Eelam.

But they wanted it through negotiations, not guns.

His stance meant that he was seen as a "stooge" by the Tigers, who wanted to be the "sole representatives" of the Tamils.

This was although many Tamil militant leaders were inspired by Mr Amirthalingam's politics and were initially his followers.

But while the father was promoting peaceful, democratic solutions, both the sons, Kandeepan and Bahirathan, took up arms on behalf of Tamil militant groups not associated with the Tigers.

It was not a secret for the parents.

"My father did not oppose my taking up arms but he did not support targeting civilians," Dr Bahirathan tells me.

"He was a forceful moderate."

Tribute

But not everyone saw it that way. Mr Amirthalingam was accused by some Sinhala groups of grooming and supporting militant groups as a bargaining tool.

A presidential panel that investigated attacks on Tamils in 1977 by Sinhala mobs - widely seen as a key event which triggered the Tamil uprising - accused the TULF of stirring up inter-ethnic animosity by spearheading the campaign for Tamil Eelam.

But it seems that point of view has faded over the years.

When President Rajapaksa marked the anniversary of Mr Amirthalingam's death in 2006, he paid tribute to his "commitment to democracy and the larger unity of the Sri Lankan people".

Like her husband, Mrs Amirthalingam is also a controversial politician.

She was accused of making inflammatory and racist remarks while campaigning for him but was exonerated by an investigating judicial panel.

A quarter of a century later, the widow has strong words against the Tigers.

"If they were fighting for the Tamils, why did they kill my husband? Why did they kill so many moderate politicians?" she asks.

Though revisiting the painful memories is highly emotional, the family say they are happy to be back in Sri Lanka.

"I love my country. Sri Lanka is a beautiful island. I am happy to be here to recollect my memories," Mrs Amirthalingam says.

She insists that the passage of time has meant that she has no intention of seeking revenge.

"I think they lost an opportunity to solve the issue. The LTTE should have negotiated a political settlement with the government while they had power."

Mrs Amirthalingam says the president must now find a solution for Tamils so that they can live in Sri Lanka in dignity and as equal citizens.

"We can't go to any other country. We have our land, language and culture so this must be honoured by the president," she says through the tears.

Sri Lanka among most charitable

Sri Lanka has been ranked eighth among countries who are more prone to charity, a global study has revealed.

The World Giving Index, the largest study ever carried out into charitable behaviour across the globe, which ranked Sri Lanka the eighth most charitable nation, has found that happier people are more likely to give money to charity than those who are wealthy.

The World Giving Index used a Gallup survey on the charitable behaviour of people in 153 countries representing 95 percent of the world’s population. The survey asked people whether they had given money to charity in the last month and to rank how happy they are with life on a scale of one to ten.

For all countries CAF compared the strength of the relationship between giving with both a nation’s GDP and the happiness of its population. CAF found that the link between happiness and giving is stronger than the link between wealth and giving.

The study also measured two other types of charitable behaviour alongside giving money - volunteering time and helping a stranger. The “World Giving Index” combines the levels of each charitable behaviour to produce a ranking of the most charitable nations in the world.

Sri Lanka came eighth on the World Giving Index with 56 percent of the population having donated to charity. Sri Lanka’s happiness score was 4.2

CAF Director of Research Richard Harrison said: “We have always thought of ourselves as a charitable nation and now for the first time we can see how charitable we are compared to the rest of the world.

“Donating money to charity is something that is traditionally seen as being driven by how wealthy a person is. However, it is clear that happiness plays an important role in influencing whether people give.

“The findings suggest a positive cycle where one person gives to charity, the charity improves the happiness of the individuals they support and they in turn are more likely to give.”

Australia and New Zealand topped the “World Giving Index”. Malta was found to be the country with the largest percentage of the population (83 percent) giving money, the people of Turkmenistan are the most generous with their time with 61 percent having given time to charity and Liberia was top of the list for helping a stranger (76 percent).

World Giving Index

First 25 countries

Country Rank Index% %money %time %help score out of 10

Australia 1 57% 70% 38% 64% 7.3
New Zealand 1 57% 68% 41% 63% 7.4
Canada 3 56% 64% 35% 68% 7.5
Ireland 3 56% 72% 35% 60% 7.0
Switzerland 5 55% 71% 34% 60% 7.5
USA 5 55% 60% 39% 65% 7.2
Netherlands 7 54% 77% 39% 46% 7.6
United Kingdom 8 53% 73% 29% 58% 5.6
Sri Lanka 8 53% 58% 52% 50% 4.2
Austria 10 52% 69% 30% 58% 7.2
Lao People's
Democratic
Republic 11 50% 64% 32% 53% 5.0
Sierra Leone 11 50% 29% 45% 75% 3.0
Malta 13 48% 83% 21% 40% 6.3
Iceland 14 47% 67% 26% 47% 6.9
Turkmenistan 14 47% 17% 61% 62% 6.6
Guyana 16 45% 36% 33% 67% 6.0
Qatar 16 45% 64% 18% 53% 6.4
Hong Kong 18 44% 70% 13% 50% 5.1
Germany 18 44% 49% 28% 56% 6.7
Denmark 18 44% 67% 20% 45% 8.0
Guinea 18 44% 28% 42% 61% 4.3
Guatemala 22 43% 46% 33% 51% 6.5
Trinidad and
Tobago 22 43% 45% 25% 60% 6.7
Myanmar 22 43% 36% 40% 52% 5.3
Thailand 25 42% 73% 18% 36% 6.9
Kuwait 25 42% 41% 19% 67% 6.6
Luxembourg 25 42% 58% 28% 41% 7.0
Norway 25 42% 43% 38% 45% 7.6

Last 25 countries

Country Rank Index% %money %time %help score out of 10

France 91 27% 31% 22% 28% 6.3
Singapore 91 27% 35% 10% 35% 6.1
Republic of Congo
(Brazzaville) 91 27% 11% 18% 51% 3.8
Republic of Moldova 100 26% 17% 20% 42% 5.6
Nepal 100 26% 22% 21% 36% 4.9
Georgia 134 19% 5% 15% 37% 3.8
Turkey 134 19% 14% 7% 35% 5.1
India 134 19% 14% 12% 30% 5.1
Vietnam 138 18% 17% 6% 32% 5.3
Montenegro 138 18% 18% 6% 31% 5.2
Russian Federation 138 18% 6% 20% 29% 5.2
Bulgaria 141 17% 18% 3% 30% 3.8
Cambodia 142 16% 34% 2% 13% 4.1
Pakistan 142 16% 20% 8% 20% 5.2
Romania 142 16% 14% 5% 28% 5.4
Rwanda 142 16% 15% 11% 21% 4.0
Bangladesh 146 15% 12% 5% 29% 5.1
China 147 14% 11% 4% 28% 4.5
Lithuania 147 14% 4% 6% 33% 5.5
Greece 147 14% 8% 5% 28% 6.0
Serbia 150 13% 14% 5% 21% 4.8
Ukraine 150 13% 5% 14% 19% 5.2
Burundi 152 12% 9% 7% 21% 3.8
Madagascar 153 12% 6% 11% 18% 4.6

Police discover Sun Sea’s link to Norway

Stewart Bell

The Bangkok-based human smugglers who have so far sent two shiploads of illegal migrants to Canada have been called “sophisticated” and “well organized.” But nobody ever said they were perfect.

Before the last ship, the MV Sun Sea, left Thailand in July carrying almost 500 Sri Lankan migrants, the smugglers made the passengers sign contracts that spelled out how much each owed for the journey to Canada.

The contracts were then mailed to Norway, ostensibly for safekeeping. They were, after all, valuable receipts. They were proof of millions worth of uncollected debts, not to mention highly sensitive.

The problem was, they were mailed to the wrong address.

According to newly released details of the case, the contracts — in which Sun Sea passengers pledged to pay the smugglers between $5,000 and $30,000 upon reaching Canada — were mislabelled and delivered to the wrong person.

The recipient handed them to Norwegian police, who passed them on to their Canadian counterparts. The gaffe has given Canadian officials a unique insight into the smugglers’ system of payment, which involved an up-front deposit of about $5,000 and a hefty debt that was to be paid off after arrival in Canada. It has also linked the smuggling operation to Norway.

The Norwegian connection and the blunder that brought it to light are described in a transcript of an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing held in Vancouver on April 7. A declassified copy of the transcript was recently released to the National Post.

“Now, these are a series of payment contracts signed by various individuals who ended up travelling on the MV Sun Sea,” Kenny Nicolaou, a Canada Border Services Agency representative, explained at the hearing.

“You can see the general tenor of the contract. Essentially it says, ‘I paid this much up front, depending on the situation, and I owe this much, who this family member in Canada pledges to pay on my behalf once I arrive.”

Mr. Nicolaou said the Sun Sea’s arrival in Canada was “the end result of a sophisticated, well organized, for profit human smuggling operation orchestrated by a network of agents in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.”

Boarding began in April 2010 and occurred in “continuing waves” until the ship sailed for Canada on July 5. An “intricate network of agents” organized the effort, he said. “It was well organized and it was designed to generate large sums of money.”

The Sun Sea arrived off the British Columbia coast last August carrying 492 Sri Lankan migrants who had contracted smugglers to ferry them from Thailand. All have made refugee claims. The Canadian government has spent more than $25-million so far dealing with the ship.

In all likelihood, Canadian authorities already knew about the Sun Sea by the time the contracts were intercepted. But the package would have given them advance notice about who was on board, how much they had paid and how much they still owed the smuggling syndicate.

The CBSA raised the Norwegian matter at the hearing of a Sun Sea migrant whom the government alleges was involved in the smuggling operation. The man’s lawyer downplayed the significance of the documents, saying “there is no credible evidence before the board to say that these are the contracts that the people on board the Sun Sea were a party to.”

The IRB has sealed all the exhibits related to the Sun Sea refugee cases.

The RCMP is investigating the suspected organizers of the Sun Sea and Ocean Lady, the ship that smuggled 76 Sri Lankan migrants to Canada in 2009. To date, the IRB has ruled that four of the Sun Sea migrants were members of the Tamil Tigers rebel group.

The intended recipient of the contracts was not identified in the transcript but Norway has a large Sri Lankan population and is the base of the Nediyavan faction of the Tamil Tigers. The head of the Nediyavan group, Perinpanayagam Sivaparam, was arrested in Olso last month.

Dutch police reportedly want to question him about an alleged Tamil Tigers fundraising network that has been extorting money from ethnic Tamils in the Netherlands. The Dutch authorities arrested seven suspects in April.

The European case is similar to the RCMP’s recent investigation of the World Tamil Movement, a Toronto-based rebel front group that raised millions to support the Tamil Tigers until the federal government banned it in 2008, shut it down and seized its assets.

National Post
sbell@nationalpost.com

Security issues may keep Tamils in detention

BY DOUGLAS QUAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS



VANCOUVER -- Ever since a shipload of Tamil migrants arrived in Canada on Aug. 13, the government has argued for their continued detention on the basis that their identities have not been verified.

But as a third round of detention hearings gets underway on Wednesday, lawyers for the migrants say they won't be surprised if the government starts making a new argument: that some of the migrants should be held because they pose a possible security threat.

If that happens, it'll bring a new level of complexity to the hearings, experts say, putting Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicators into the difficult position of having to weigh the migrants' rights to liberty with protecting the country.

"They're in a bit of a tough spot," said Gregory James, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer.

When the cargo ship MV Sun Sea arrived on B.C.'s coast last month with 492 men, women and children aboard, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews stated publicly that the ship included "suspected human smugglers and terrorists" belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that battled the Sri Lankan government for 25 years and whose members are banned from entering Canada.

And Rohan Gunaratna, who has consulted for the Canadian government and is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, was quoted widely in media reports saying the captain of the Sun Sea was a Tamil Tiger.

But so far, officials with the Canada Border Services Agency are keeping mum about what evidence, if any, they have to support those claims.

"The CBSA is exercising due diligence in the screening of all irregular migrants for both security and criminal threats. This is an ongoing investigation and the CBSA cannot comment at this time," said spokeswoman Esme Bailey in an e-mail.

One of the migrants' lawyers, Douglas Cannon, who says Toews' comments amounted to "fear mongering," says he is anxious to learn what the government knows.

"If you have evidence, come out with it," he said.

Larry Smeets, another migrant lawyer, says, based on Toews' remarks, he has warned his clients that they could remain in detention even after their identities have been verified.

"I expect that's what's going to happen," he said.

Last October, 76 Tamil migrants showed up on the B.C. coast aboard another vessel, the Ocean Lady. Official transcripts from the detention hearings of those migrants offer some insight into what could be in store for the current group of migrants.

Initially, the 76 migrants - all men - were held on the grounds that their identities still needed to be verified. But after a couple of weeks, the government started making the case that the migrants were potential security threats.

Government lawyers said traces of explosives had been found on the Ocean Lady and on the personal belongings of a few of the migrants.

They said the ship's name had been deliberately disguised and that its true name was the MV Princess Easwary.

They cited testimony from Gunaratna, who asserted that, based on information from a terrorism database he maintains and confidential sources, the ship was owned by the Tamil Tigers.

Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicators sided with the government in those early days, and agreed to continue holding the migrants on security grounds.

However, one adjudicator, Leeann King, acknowledged during one hearing that she had an "extremely difficult" time making her decision.

"This section of the (Immigration and Refugee Protection) Act was passed in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, and has been seen very rarely by members of this division in this region," she said.

"I don't have much guidance."

But by December, adjudicators were starting to become impatient with the government and started ordering the releases of migrants.

In one particularly tense hearing, adjudicator Otto Nupponen said flatly that "there is nothing whatsoever" that would tie the migrant in question with the Tamil Tigers and that any further steps the government took to inquire into his background would likely amount to "a fishing expedition."

He raised questions about the credibility and impartiality of the government's witness, Gunaratna, pointing out that he had close ties to the Sri Lankan government and that he had even helped the president write his memoirs.

"There is more than just a slight basic apprehension of bias," Nupponen said.

On the discovery of trace amounts of explosives, Nupponen said the government could keep swabbing the ship, but "one once again needs to question what the purpose of that really would be and if there are further hits, what then? What is that supposed to mean?"

Government lawyers appealed to the Federal Court to stay the releases and even called for top-secret hearings so that they could share in more detail some of the security concerns they had with respect to 25 of the migrants.

But just as those hearings were set to begin in January, the government called off the hearings. Instead, it consented to the release of all the migrants under a host of conditions, including that the migrants report to Canada Border Services Agency officials on a weekly basis and that they not associate with members of any criminal organizations or anyone who supports foreign or domestic terrorism.

"Over time, the longer you keep someone in detention, the harder it is to justify," said James, the immigration lawyer.

Factbox:

The government can detain foreign nationals if it has reasonable grounds to believe they:

- are unlikely to appear for an examination, hearing or removal

- are a danger to the public

- are inadmissible for security reasons or for violating human or international rights

- have not established their identity

Refugees spark racism row

An opinion poll last month indicated that a majority of Canadians wanted the Tamils to be sent back.

"Why such rage directed at such a minuscule group?" asked columnist Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun. "Perhaps it's because they aren't white ... How we respond to a few Tamils seeking safety and a future for their children says far more about us than it does about them. And what it says so far is rather distasteful."

This provoked a furious reaction. "Gee, could it be that we are sick of being played for Patsies?" was one of the milder responses from readers. "You might sing a different song if your community was flooded with Hindus, Vietnamese, etc who brought such worthy skills with them as drive-by shootings, drug wars, murder of their own wives and daughters," read another.

Views from Canada

By EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY

Great news: There is a country in Asia willing to take Sri Lankan Tamil refugees by the thousand — with the United Nations' seal of approval.

And they're already doing it. In the first six months of 2010, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the generous country accepted 1,857 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, who had been staying temporarily in India.

UN refugee spokesman Michael Zwack says these Tamils are now "rebuilding their lives." The UN quoted one Tamil refugee, a 39-year-old woman, who said she was pleased with her new home for a pretty good reason: "Peace."

So where is this wonderful place that Sri Lankan refugees are going to by the thousand?

Sri Lanka.

That's right. Thousands of Tamil refugees are returning to Sri Lanka — because it's safe. Within Sri Lanka itself, internal refugee camps for displaced Tamils are winding down, as Tamils go back home.

For example, the Menik Farm refugee camp in Sri Lanka once had 228,000 Tamils in it. It's down to less than 35,000 now, with 3,000 people going home every week.

It's an amazing success story, and it's because the 30-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers terrorist group is over. The terrorists lost. The war ended last spring. Everyone can go home.

Including the 492 gatecrashers who showed up on Vancouver Island last month.

This isn't Sri Lankan government propaganda. It's Tamil refugees telling the story, not with words but with deeds. They're leaving some of the friendliest places on earth to go home.

For example, the 1,857 refugees mentioned above had been staying in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It's a huge state, with more than 66 million people, overwhelmingly Tamil, as its name implies. Even from that Tamil paradise, Tamil refugees are going home to Sri Lanka.

We already knew 71% of Tamil refugees in Canada go home to Sri Lanka for holidays, too, according to a survey done by Canadian immigration officials, and reported by QMI Agency.

Question: If thousands of Tamil refugees from around the world are going home to Sri Lanka, and 71% of Canadian Tamil refugees go back there for holidays, why are we still going through the motions with the 492 Tamils on Vancouver Island, as if they are legitimate? And why are more Tamil ships steaming our way?

That's easy. Criminal smugglers made an estimated $20 million profit from the voyage. Why wouldn't they keep doing it?

Canadian immigration lawyers love it. It's lucrative work — they're paid by legal aid. Which is another way of saying "paid by your taxes."

Politicians love it. With more than 200,000 Tamils living in Toronto, there are plenty of votes to be had by pandering.

And liberal, white journalists love it, because it's a chance to prove how sensitive they are, to polish their politically correct credentials.

That just leaves the rest of us — chumps paying the bills, and watching helplessly while 492 queue-jumpers butt in to the front of the line. Not just queue-jumpers, but queue-jumpers fleeing a "peaceful"place.

So are we going to change our laws to keep out these shysters, like Australia has done? Or is being the world's sucker the new Canadian identity?

Read Ezra Levant's blog @ ezralevant.com

Jason Kenney, the federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

There are several of these [human smuggling] syndicates actually competing with each other for this business. They were involved in the arms trade in the Sri Lankan civil war, but since the cessation of hostilities have sought a new business line, a new commodity to smuggle, and that is human beings ... They are charging people on average about $50,000 to be smuggled to Canada in the most dangerous and worst way possible – in dangerous vessels that either have been decommissioned or should be.

This poses a serious challenge to the integrity and fairness and public support for Canada’s immigration system and our refugee protection system in particular. Since the arrival of the last vessel, there’s been a very significant drop-off in the general public support for immigration, and public support for refugee protection in particular. That’s something we need to be responsive to. Our security partners in Australia, for example, tell me they believe the syndicates targeting Canada have the logistical capability to deliver several large steel-hold vessels a year, each with hundreds of passengers ... Imagine this happening every month or every other month. That would fundamentally undermine public confidence and support for Canada’s generous approach to immigration and refugee protection – which is one of the reasons we need to take action to deter the smuggling networks and disincentivize their potential customers from buying the package to come to Canada ...

The public is pretty clear in their condemnation of this ... They want an immigration system that’s characterized by the principle of the rule of law and fairness, and they see this as a violation of those principles. And that feeling is strongest among new Canadians, in all of our research.

Some 60 per cent of Canadians have said we should prevent the boats from entering our territorial waters in the first place – which implies the use of force and the risk to human life, and that’s a risk we are not prepared to assume.

Over 50 per cent of Canadians in polling have said that those from these vessels who are deemed to be bona fide refugees should be deported back to their country of origin ...

We have decided instead to produce a balanced package which recognizes and upholds our international and domestic legal obligations – the essential obligation under the UN conventions for refugees and torture is an obligation of non-refoulement – that is to say, if someone has a well-founded fear of persecution, a risk to their life, a risk of torture, you can’t send them back to the country that they fear. And the package we propose would not do so ...

I believe that these migrants have mixed motives for coming to Canada: some are primarily economic migrants, some may well be bona-fide refugees ... and some of them have a mix of economic and political reasons ... I should say contextually, that since the cessation of hostilities in Sri Lanka, some 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees living in Tamil Nadu, India, have since voluntarily returned to Sri Lanka. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has facilitated the voluntary return of many Sri Lankans living with temporary status in southeast Asian nations. The Canadian Border Services Agency has done a survey which indicated that a majority of successful Tamil asylum seekers in Canada have subsequently returned, at least for visits, to the country where they allegedly feared persecution ...


Source: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada

dquan@canwest.com

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Analysis - American Angle

------------------------------------------------------

USA fears loss of Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka should become Switzerland of Indian Ocean

By John Stanton

“Sri Lanka has been a friend and democratic partner of the United States since gaining independence in 1948 and has supported U.S. military operations overseas such as during the first Gulf War. Commercial contacts go back to 1787, when New England sailors first anchored in Sri Lanka’s harbors to engage in trade. Sri Lanka is strategically located at the nexus of maritime trading routes connecting Europe and the Middle East to China and the rest of Asia. It is directly in the middle of the ‘‘Old World,’’ where an estimated half of the world’s container ships transit the Indian Ocean. American interests in the region include securing energy resources from the Persian Gulf and maintaining the free flow of trade in the Indian Ocean.” --Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report, 2009.

Most Americans are not familiar with the long history of relations that Sri Lanka and the USA have. In fact, most -- and to be fair, a good deal of the world’s population -- couldn’t pinpoint the country on a map even though Sri Lanka is one of the top trading partners of the USA.

Still, some may know Sri Lanka through the name Mathangi Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A., a globally recognized musician/singer/artist. Many will remember that science fiction giant Arthur C. Clarke (2001 Space Odyssey) made his home in Sri Lanka. Perhaps a handful will know that Sri Lanka is a Cricket powerhouse.

Others may remember the 2004 tsunami that destroyed large portions of the Sri Lankan coastline, wiping out thousands of lives and leaving many more thousands internally displaced. Some will be familiar with the Sri Lankan’s military defeat of the LTTE -- Tamil Tigers -- in 2009 after roughly 26 years of conflict. The victory came with a burdensome price tag: thousands killed, nearly 460,000 Tamils/noncombatants confined in holding camps/displaced, and the horrible legacy that is one million landmines that dot former warfighting zones.

So what do they do in Sri Lanka besides producing excellent tea and Cricket players? Here is the industry/services breakdown for 2009:

Sri Lanka’s natural resource base consists of limestone, graphite, mineral sands, gems and phosphate.

The agricultural sector is 12.8 percent of GDP and includes rice, tea, rubber, coconut, and spices. The service industry is 58 percent with key sectors being tourism, wholesale and retail trade, transport, telecom and financial services. The industrial sector comprises 29.2% of GDP and includes garments and leather goods, rubber products, food processing, chemicals, refined petroleum, gems and jewelry, non-metallic mineral-based products and construction.

Major exports (amounting to $7 billion US) in 2009 were garments, tea, rubber products, jewelry and gems, refined petroleum, and coconuts. The main markets for those products were the USA ($ 1.54 billion US), the United Kingdom, India and Italy.

Major suppliers to the Sri Lankan economy were India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Iran, Malaysia, Japan, U.K., U.A.E., Belgium, Indonesia, South Korea and the USA (totaling $9.6 billion US of which $283 million was with the USA).

USA-India-China: Sri Lanka as Geopolitical/economic battlespace

For US policy makers and military planners, Sri Lanka has now become a top geopolitical priority. A sense of urgency is driving the grand brains in the White House and Pentagon to figure out how “not to lose Sri Lanka.” In short, that means an answer to the question, “How can we use Sri Lanka to further US national security interests in the Indian Ocean?”

“Friendly” economic competition (and the concomitant struggle for resources, markets, jobs) between the USA and China/India will inevitably move to military conflict at some future date. Why? There simply are not enough energy stores in the world to meet the needs of the three nations which, combined, make up 41 percent of the world’s population. And this excludes Indonesia and Brazil that together make up just over 6 percent of the world’s population. The five nations make up 47 percent of the world’s population and their hunger for energy, raw materials, food, construction materials, “the better life,” is insatiable. All are pre-positioning for economic security which, of course, is an element of national security.

In state and corporate governing circles within the five countries (USA, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil), there is a far graver threat to be dealt with: the prospect of restive populations revolting as their job prospects darken, social programs are cut, income inequality increases, and health/pension benefits become more restricted, even eliminated. Meanwhile, up above, the losing classes watch as their nation’s stock exchanges operate as though it’s business-as-usual. In this volatile environment, internal mass dissent/boycotts are, arguably, the number one threat to each nation’s security.

So where does Sri Lanka fit in?

“Indian threat perceptions have grown as China has become more active in South Asia. Sri Lanka is no exception,” said Maria Kuusisto of Eurasia Group in an interview with Kari Lispschutz of World Politics Review. “Chinese investment has expanded rapidly, including the strategically situated commercial deep-sea port in Hambantota -- which is [Sri Lankan] President Mahinda Rajapakse’s home constituency -- and the two-phase coal power plant in Norochcholai. During the civil war in Sri Lanka, Beijing provided unconditional diplomatic, economic and military support to the Sri Lankan government, winning significant goodwill in Colombo. And China is now offering to provide financing and technical expertise to the Sri Lankan government, which is pursuing an aggressive, multi-million dollar reconstruction program. New Delhi sees this Chinese maneuvering as an incursion into its historic sphere of influence, and is consequently trying to outbid the Chinese for strategically important infrastructure projects.”

While India and China solidify their relationships with Sri Lanka, the USA/West has had a muddled foreign policy that seems to always be fixated -- no matter the region -- on Iran and China. Writing in Future Directions International, Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe indicated that the European Union used the war crimes card following the defeat of the LTTE simply to punish Sri Lanka for its trade relations with Iran and China, not out of any great concern for human rights.

“Following the LTTE defeat in May, the EU sought to pursue a motion against Sri Lanka for war crimes investigations at the UN Human Rights Council, which collapsed when 29 countries of the 47-member council voted in solidarity with Sri Lanka. India itself came out strongly in support of Sri Lanka at the Council and later even criticized the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Commenting on Sri Lanka’s diplomatic feat, Sri Lankan Ambassador to the United Nations, Dayan Jayatillaka, said: ‘This is not a lesson that Sri Lanka taught the West. It is a victory of the developing countries and the global south. It was not a defeat of the Tiger Diaspora alone. It was the defeat of a powerful bloc of forces. Geneva was a miniature diplomatic Dien Bien Phu or Bay of Pigs for the EU.

“The unfolding events earlier this year underscored the fact that Sri Lanka’s confrontation with the West, which has seen relations plummet to their lowest point since the 1970s, has had less to do with human rights and more to do with a fierce geopolitical struggle for influence. There is little doubt that Sri Lanka’s move to broaden relations with China and Iran, its rejection of Western demands in its internal affairs, the timing of its victory over the LTTE, and its acceptance in June 2009 as a Dialogue Partner to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) were crucial in influencing the West’s attempts to take punitive action against Sri Lanka -- moves which served to further strengthen Sri Lanka’s relations with China.”

Senate Foreign Relations Report 2009: The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!

The Sri Lanka Foundation (SLF) reports that former Sri Lankan military commander Sarath Fonseka was favored by the USA to win the Sri Lankan presidential election in 2010 over rival and current president Mahendra Rajapaksa. Fonseka was apparently awarded permanent residency in the USA, according to the SLF, and spent too much time hanging around Washington, DC during the LTTE conflict.

Fonseka is now charged with Criminal Breach of Trust by the Sri Lankan government under Sri Lanka’s Property Act.

Many Sri Lankans here in the USA and in Sri Lanka itself see Fonseka as a tool of the US government and Western interests. Others, of course, don’t.

The SLF derides the Senate Foreign Relations Report of 2009 (see link above, also known as The Kerry Report) as being the product of a dumbfounded US foreign/military policy establishment that was shocked when the Sri Lankan military defeated its LTTE nemesis. Their criticisms of US foreign policy practices (subterfuge, spreading money around via NGOs, fanning the flames of class conflict) are certainly not without ample historical precedent.

The SLF views the purpose of the Kerry Report as this: “Their mission: to make recommendations to prevent further erosion of US security interests in the island and increase US leverage in Sri Lanka for securing longer term US strategic interests and expanding the number of tools available at Washington’s disposal.”

No problem there, that’s what the large nation’s do.

But then it gets very interesting. SLF goes on to say, “If the LTTE had succeeded, the US would have gained control of two thirds of Sri Lanka coastline, enabling them to secure Persian Gulf energy resources to Japan, interfere if and when the need arose, with the flow of these same resources to China, selectively interfere with free trade in the Indian Ocean, and undermine stability in India by provoking Tamil and Hindu sentiments in Tamil Nadu”

“To make matters worse, not only did President Rajapaksa destroy the cornerstone of US policy in the region [by defeat of the LTTE], but he was, as The Kerry Report identified, responsible for the country’s drift towards China (and the non-Western world), considered one of the biggest challengers to US hegemony of the world.

“All this threatens US national security interests, and President Rajapaksa is considered a threat to US National Security.

“US policy, the report states, has to be re-charted. A regime change is considered imperative: Rajapaksa must go.”

:The battle lines were drawn for January 26, 2010. The battle was not between Rajapaksa and Fonseka, but between Sri Lanka and the US. On May 18, 2009, Sri Lanka won a historic proxy war on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon, defeating the scourge of terrorism [LTTE] and the threat of neocolonialism. Election day was crucial -- Sri Lankans had to defeat the neocolonialist if they were to protect their victory at Nanthikadal.

“The sovereignty of Sri Lanka is being challenged and is at stake..”

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that Sri Lankan Ambassador Tamara Kunanayakam (Cuba and Venezuela) urged Sri Lankans to study Latin American and USA relations. Writing in Why Latin America is Important for Sri Lanka, she states, “Whereas the economic performance of China and India impress most observers in Sri Lanka and much of our efforts are focused on warding off attacks from our former colonial masters and their allies who continue to have a stake in this country, we have failed to grasp the significance of the history that is being written in Latin America.

“Sri Lanka cannot remain indifferent to this evolution. The quality of its international relations cannot be appreciated through the narrow vision of those who judge its good health solely through the state of relations with Western powers.

“Sri Lankan foreign policy must take into account the reality of a world that is changing and Latin America as constituting an important factor in that change.”

Become the Switzerland of the Indian Ocean

How can Sri Lanka -- with 21 million people, just .3 percent of the global populace -- rebuild and reunite its tattered country after 26 years of war and a tsunmai, while at the same time avoid Faustian economic and military bargains with the world’s giant nation-states? Can its leaders avoid the lure of bribes (in any form), the sweetheart deals that will inevitably be forthcoming, and the trappings of power?

Can the Sri Lankan people calm the ethnic turbulence between (Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim) that has plagued it and develop a common national consciousness/identity?

Can Sri Lanka avoid getting tangled in the competition between the world’s largest nations that will only escalate in the future?

DeSilva-Ranasinghe made this observation. “So far, at least, Sri Lanka appears to have successfully balanced the competing interests of India and China.” He cited the commentary of a former Sri Lankan diplomat named Jayantha Dhanapala on the delicate balancing act.

“There are elements in America and India who would like to raise the China bogey . . . This is not a zero sum game where our relationship with China is at the expense of our relationship with India. We cleverly balanced the relationship.”

How long that relationship can be balanced remains to be seen.

As they rebuild their country and amend their constitution, they would do well to look to Switzerland as an example of a neutral -- even sane---nation state. Their survival may depend on it.

With the USA shifting focus and resources to the Indian Ocean, they’d best move quickly and warily.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
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MOVIE REVIEW: Have You Heard from Johannesburg?

The Long Story of a Long Revolution

By MIKE HALE

When documenting racist atrocities, one proven tactic is to go long, matching the gravity of your subject with sheer duration. Joining “Shoah” (about 9 hours) and “Eyes on the Prize” (14 hours) in this category is “Have You Heard From Johannesburg,” Connie Field’s seven-film, eight-and-a-half-hour documentary series about apartheid.

What Have You Heard From Johannesburg gives us is a history -- inside and outside the Apartheid regime -- that allows us to see what South Africa's Afrikaners, its Blacks (and its other two "colored" groupings), as well as the world at large, thought and felt about what was going on. It does this via talking heads, but in this case, the same heads often span thirty or forty years. We see many of them as young people and also as aged seniors. We explore Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand; many of the African countries (during the 1960s) as they shake off their colonizers; Scandinavia, Europe and the middle east, including Israel. They're all here, especially the United Nations, the majority of whose members consistently vote against South Africa and its Aparthied regime, only to have the UN's powerful Security Council members continue to shore up the foul regime by voting against the majority membership. One might conclude, as is often true regarding UN actions, that the organization was created to keep power in place and strengthen the status quo.

The history of the subjugation of South Africa’s nonwhites and of their long battle against their white rulers — a struggle frequently undermined, until near the end, by the governments of the United States, Britain and France — certainly deserves the time. And “Have You Heard” (the title comes from the lyrics of the Gil Scott-Heron song “Johannesburg”) presents a vast amount of information that will be new to most American viewers, especially in its early sections.

Setting education aside, however, it’s a tricky business evaluating these documentaries from a cinematic standpoint. Judged as a whole — that is, watched from beginning to end — they don’t really justify their lengthy claim on our attention. There are repetitions large and small. Many images of police brutality and everyday indignities recur from film to film; more egregiously, the 90-minute fifth and sixth parts, which cover the same period from slightly different angles, feel redundant.

Ms. Field (“The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”) might argue that there’s nothing wrong with that. She conceived the project as a set of self-contained documentaries (originally there were to be just three) that could be seen independently, with no requirement that the viewer watch the entire series. Therefore it shouldn’t matter if there’s significant overlap between a film about economic sanctions and university divestment and one about corporate divestment.

But whether or not you plan to watch the whole series — and why wouldn’t you, if you want to learn about apartheid? — the fact is that the two easily could have been combined into a single film that would have been better at half the length. “Have You Heard” would have benefited from judicious editing throughout: you get the feeling that Ms. Field had trouble choosing among so many eloquent witnesses, so many horrific pieces of old footage.

Film Forum in Manhattan is presenting the series in three separate programs of roughly two and three-quarters to three hours each. Program 1, consisting of three hourlong films, is best. It proceeds chronologically from the institution of apartheid in 1948 through the Sharpeville massacre, the jailing of Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress leaders, Oliver Tambo’s establishment of the A.N.C. in exile, the Soweto uprising, the murder of the activist Steve Biko and the passage of the United Nations arms embargo in 1977.

Heroes are identified, larger-than-life figures now little known to a general American audience: Mr. Tambo; Mr. Biko; the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme; the Anglican priest Trevor Huddleston; the Mata Hari of the anti-apartheid movement, Conny Braam. There are villains as well, some of them still making excuses for apartheid and complaining to Ms. Field’s cameras of how they were misunderstood.

Archival film provides a steady drumbeat of humiliation, horrible violence and transfixing bigotry. A white man on the street looks into a camera and says, “They’ve only just come down from the trees.”

Programs 2 and 3 take the story away from South Africa, recounting the various international campaigns against apartheid — the sports boycotts; the fight within the United States, particularly during the Reagan administration, for economic sanctions; and the corporate divestment campaign. The films here, in addition to covering similar ground, also feel less urgent, farther from the action. The events they depict were essential to the overthrow of apartheid, but after a while the crowds of white people marching through the streets or running onto rugby pitches start to blur together.

The seventh film, “Free at Last,” closes Program 3 by returning to South Africa for the end game, when escalating violence and economic isolation finally led to the release of Mr. Mandela and the end of apartheid.

The use of the title “Free at Last” cries out for a comparison with “Eyes on the Prize,” so here it is. “Have You Heard” gets points for passion and immediacy, in contrast to the somewhat stately “Eyes on the Prize,” but it loses them for its messiness; its literalist impulse to illustrate every point, often with random images not directly connected to the story; and its occasional cheesy luridness. Gunshots are used as transitions between scenes and replace the sounds of the hits and kicks in a rugby match.

Even at the level of average-to-mediocre television, though, “Have You Heard” tells an amazing story. If you don’t know it, or you want reminding, the clumsy storytelling can be endured.

HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG

Produced and directed by Connie Field; narration written by Jon Else; directors of photography, Tom Hurwitz and David Forbes; series edited by Gregory Scharpen, with additional editing by Ken Schneider and Dawn Lodgson; music by Marco D’Abbrosio and Todd Boekelheide; released by Clarity Films.

How Beijing won Sri Lanka's civil war

By Peter Popham

A year after the 27-year Tamil insurgency was brought to a decisive end, Peter Popham looks at how China triumphed where the West failed

A year ago, one of the world's most brutal and pitiless terrorist groups, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was hunted down and exterminated on a strip of beach in the far north-east of Sri Lanka.

In a war that had dragged on for 27 years, more than 80,000 on both sides had died, hundreds of thousands had lost their homes and the future of one of the most idyllic tropical islands in the world hung in the balance. Suddenly it was all over.

In defiance of all predictions, the war was brought to a swift and bloody end. The plight of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians caught in the middle was brushed aside: a Chinese veto prevented the UN Security Council from even debating the issue, let alone sending monitors to investigate. Foreign journalists were barred both from the conflict zone and the prison camps set up for Tamil survivors, as was David Miliband when the then foreign secretary flew in to try to find out what was going on. Local journalists critical of government action were terrorised into silence.

Then on the morning of 19 May, after a final gun battle lasting an hour, the bodies of 18 of the top Tiger leaders were found sprawled among the mangroves. Among them was the supreme leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. The war was over.

It was a great victory, the emphatic end of a terrorist gang whom no one in their right mind would mourn. But it was achieved in the teeth of opposition from the US and its allies, and at appalling human and moral cost. How had it been allowed to happen?

The answer, in one word, is "China". When the US ended direct military aid in 2007 over Sri Lanka's deteriorating human rights record, China leapt into the breach, increasing aid to nearly $1bn (£690m) to become the island's biggest donor, giving tens of millions of dollars' worth of sophisticated weapons, and making a free gift of six F7 fighter jets to the Sri Lankan air force. China encouraged its ally Pakistan to sell more arms and to train pilots to fly the new planes. And, crucially, China prevented the UN Security Council from putting Sri Lanka on its agenda.

Suddenly, thanks to China's diplomacy, the hectoring of the US and Europe didn't matter any more. After nearly 500 years under the thumb of the West, the immensely strategic little island in the Indian Ocean had a new sugar daddy – one with a very different conception of its duties. Sri Lanka's "traditional donors" had "receded into a distant corner", the country's Foreign Secretary, Palitha Kohona, told The New York Times in 2008. "Asians don't go around teaching each other how to behave," he said. "There are ways we deal with each other – perhaps a quiet word, but not wagging the finger."

Money, arms and diplomatic cover are necessary preconditions for taking a war to its logical conclusion, but they are not enough. Also required is ideological cover: a casus belli that must go beyond the thirst for revenge, communal hatred or the urge of the majority to impose its will permanently on the minority. It must be possible to sell it as a just war. For this purpose, as Bob Dylan recognised a long time back ("With God on our side"), religion comes in handy.

Enter the Sinhalese Buddhists.

We in the West by and large have a pretty foggy understanding of Buddhism, but one thing we know for certain is that Buddhists are for peace. So the idea that the war party in Sri Lanka – not just in the past five years but throughout the years of independence – was identifiable with Buddhist monks does not sound right. It's like finding Trappist monks engaged in a talk-athon or Orthodox Jews running a pork pie factory.

Buddhists don't do war. Look at the Dalai Lama: for 50 years he has strained every fibre to prevent Tibetan resistance to Chinese oppression turning violent. He has a great line on this challenge: "In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher."

Up close, Sinhalese Buddhism looks as harmless and pacific as any other variety. Visit any temple in the country during Poya or full moon day, a monthly national religious holiday on the island, and you will find scenes of perfect serenity as families dressed all in white offer food to the monks in their saffron robes, then picnic under the trees or stroll around the whitewashed stupa.

By contrast, listen to the words of the Venerable Athuraliye Rathana in 2002: "There are two central concepts of Buddhism," the monk said, "compassion and wisdom. If compassion was a necessary and sufficient condition, then the Buddha would not have elaborated on wisdom or prajna. Hitler could not have been overcome by maitriya [compassion] alone. Today there is a discourse about peace in Sri Lanka. It is an extremely artificial exercise and one that is clearly being orchestrated under threat of terrorist attack."

Imagine those words coming from the mouth of the Dalai Lama and you get an idea of how sharply the views of some Sri Lankan monks diverge from the pacific Buddhist norm. He is not saying "bomb the hell out of the Tigers, as the Allies destroyed Hitler". But the implication is clear enough.

How did Sri Lankan Buddhism veer off so sharply from the other schools? Buddhism was born in northern India in the 6th century BC, and spread throughout the subcontinent and beyond. But eight or nine hundred years later it began to lose ground to new schools of devotional Hinduism, which steadily supplanted it. Eventually it disappeared from the Indian mainland altogether.

Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka watched this process with alarm, and hatched a way to stop it at the coast: they wrote a new book of scripture, the Mahavamsa, to establish indissoluble links between the historical Buddha and their island. The Mahavamsa claimed that the Buddha had visited Sri Lanka three times and had declared it "dhammadipa", "the island of righteousness" – a sort of Buddhist Promised Land, where the Sinhalese should rule and Buddhism should be unchallenged. The Mahavamsa, although not accepted by scholars as a core teaching, helped to ensure that the island remained Buddhism's last remaining outpost in the subcontinent. But there was a price to pay: a vein of intolerant chauvinism, inimical to the religion elsewhere, became part of its permanent baggage.

After independence in 1948, Sri Lanka's Buddhists established themselves as a fierce, intimidating nationalist presence. Although the fourth prime minister, Solomon Bandaranaike, had done the Buddhists' bidding in making Sinhala the official language, he temporised over Buddhists taking over schools run by Christians. So in September 1959, a monk called Talduwe Somarama pulled a revolver out of his robes and shot him dead.

When Mahinda Rajapaksa won the general election of 2004 to become Prime Minister, the Norwegian-negotiated ceasefire of 2002 was already unravelling. One year later, he became President, but even though the island's peace was increasingly fragile, it was still unclear where his policy was headed. His party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (founded by Bandaranaike), was, like the opposition, still supposedly committed to the stuttering peace process. The champions of all-out war were limited to 10 newly elected monk MPs and another small extremist party.

Then, in August 2005, the Tigers assassinated Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's highly regarded foreign secretary, himself a Tamil, and peace quite suddenly disappeared from the scene. The following April, the Tigers abruptly cancelled scheduled peace talks in Geneva, and six days later Rajapaksa's new army chief, General Sarath Fonseka, was nearly killed by a Tiger suicide bomb. As the war shadows deepened, monks were again on hand to hurry things along.

On 21 July, the Tigers shut off sluice gates to a reservoir near Trincomalee in the north-east, depriving nearly 30,000 people, many of them recent Sinhalese settlers, of drinking water and water for their fields. A group of politicised monks rushed to a temple near the reservoir and announced that they were going to march on the Tigers' lines and fight them to the death.

It was merely a stunt: as one Sri Lankan journalist who covered the event recalled, "they did not have the numbers or the public support to take on the LTTE during the march. As they were walking they were stopped by the military." But it succeeded in sparking the new war: the air force attacked Tiger positions on 26 July, after which ground troops began the operation to take charge of the gates. The war's final phase was under way.

Like it or not, the pax sinica is spreading across the world: in return for getting the West off Sri Lanka's back, the Chinese got to build a new port at Hambantota on the south coast, a vital link in the "string of pearls" they are constructing across the Indian Ocean, from Burma to Pakistan. But just as significant as the success of the Chinese is the failure of the Western model.

The annihilation of the Tigers took practically everybody by surprise. Sri Lanka had been battling it out against the improvised forces of the Tigers since 1983, but victory never seemed close. Under its charismatic founder and leader, the Tigers fought with fanatical zeal in jungle terrain that was ideal for guerrilla warfare, and the government troops, with their cautious, conventional tactics, were no match for them. Whenever victory seemed on the cards, heavy pressure from India and the West brought the two sides to the negotiating table. A ceasefire signed in 2002 was greeted by the outside world as a major step towards achieving a federal solution. That agreement slowly unravelled, but when the war restarted informally in July 2006, the Tigers still controlled nearly one-third of the island.

By spring last year, the Tigers had lost nearly all their territory and were boxed into 85 square kilometres of jungle – but even then, outright government victory seemed improbable.

Why? Because however brutal their tactics, the Tigers had succeeded in establishing the idea that the Tamils, discriminated against for many years by the Sinhalese majority, were entitled to their own homeland. The conventional wisdom held that this war neither could nor should have a military outcome, but a diplomatic one. Like errant children, both sides would eventually come round: a ceasefire, peace talks, some kind of settlement imposed by pressure from the West and facilitated by the Norwegians was the only way out of the mess, however unsatisfactory. The Tamils would run their side of the island, the Sinhalese would run theirs.

There were plenty of arguments against such a resolution. For one thing, the island's Tamils are by no means confined to the north and the east. Under British rule, Tamils were favoured for government jobs; today Tamils constitute a majority of the population of the capital, Colombo. At the other end of the social scale, tens of thousands of poor Tamil peasants were brought in under the Raj as indentured labour to work on the tea estates. Both Colombo and the estates were well outside the region the Tigers wanted for its sovereign state. But in a small island polarised between warring ethnic groups, and with a history of ethnic cleansing on both sides, what sort of future could Tamils outside "Eelam" look forward to?

But the prospects for Tamils who found themselves inside the state that Prabhakaran wanted to carve out of the island were hardly more promising. During his 25 years in control, the guerrilla leader had been distinguished by one characteristic above all: utter ruthlessness. He had eliminated every possible rival for power, killing all moderate and pacific Tamil leaders as well as those who favoured the gun. He had subjected Tamils both inside the island and in the diaspora to punitive taxes to fund his war, and had forced thousands of families to give up their children to fight as soldiers. He had ordered pogroms against Muslims in the area he controlled, forcing thousands of them to flee, as well as massacring Sinhalese civilians.

Within the ranks of his guerrilla army he demanded total dedication, inventing the suicide bomb as a weapon of war and requiring his cadres to carry cyanide capsules so they could kill themselves rather than submit to enemy interrogation. On the rare occasions he appeared in public, including his one and only press conference in 2002, he always wore military fatigues, cultivating the image of the single-minded guerrilla leader – but family snaps unearthed after his death showed him living in luxury.

His challenge in 2002 was to convince the world that the man who had ordered the assassinations of both the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and the Sri Lankan president, Ranasinghe Premadasa, was capable of re-inventing himself, Sinn Fein-style, as a civilian leader worthy of international respect. But it was a transformation that proved well beyond him: his reflexive response to any crisis remained the same – to murder the people he held responsible. The idea that a man of his kidney could run a plausible democratic state was one of the sicker jokes of the decadent period of US diplomatic hegemony.

But even if Prabhakaran had turned out to possess the political gifts of a Gerry Adams, there is a strong argument to be made that the West had no business trying to dictate peace terms to the legitimate government of the island, faced with an astonishingly brutal insurgency.

The reuniting of Sri Lanka under Sinhalese domination fills many in the minority community with foreboding: a Tamil businessman in Trincomalee told me that he fears the arrival of another wave of government-sponsored Sinhalese colonisation. He also talked of how the new arrivals impose their symbolic presence by installing Buddha statues.

There was plenty wrong with the Sri Lankan polity in the years after independence, and there is plenty still wrong with it today. In the words of the then UN high commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, now president of the International Crisis Group, after her visit in October 2007, it is a country where "the weakness of the rule of law and prevalence of impunity are alarming". But the idea that these wrongs could be righted by splitting this small island down the middle into two armed camps, and putting one of the halves in the pocket of a homicidal maniac, is one of the crazier ideas to have gained currency in our times.