ulf henricsson and speculative prejudgments

ulf henricsson the out going (today, 31st, is his last day) head of sri lanka monitoring mission (slmm) yesterday issued a statement under his own name. that statement is yet to appear in slmm website. media should be careful not to confuse his personal statements with the usual slmm press releases. in it he makes a speculative judgment that unspecified members of sri lankan 'security forces' killed the 17 aid workers of acf in muttur. the formal investigation of those killings is yet to conclude.

in support of this extraordinary prejudgment he can advance only following evidence

Firstly, the SLMM cannot find the reasons for the restrictions of movements into the said areas especially in above-mentioned circumstances acceptable, thereby strongly indicating the GoSL's [government of Sri Lanka's] eagerness to conceal the matter from the SLMM....

Taking into consideration the fact that the security forces had been present in Muttur at the time of the incident it appears highly unlikely to blame other groups for the killing....

The head of SLMM has also had confidential conversations with highly reliable sources regarding the party who most likely has been responsible for the act. The views have not proved contradictory and the security forces of Sri Lanka are widely and consistently deemed to be responsible for the incident.....

in fact it is because there was fighting going on (terrorists having captured parts of muttur) that people were not allowed into muttur. in fact it is on friday august 4th that several peaceniks issued statments calling for a halt to hostilities knowing that ltte is lossing ground. also on 4th when acf was last in contact with those killed it was informed that ltte was in control of the area they were in. btw time of death is is yet to be established. that ulf henricsson's speculative prejudgment does not refer to any postmortem report to establish that and assume that deaths took place in 4th says a lot about his sloppiness. 15 bodies were discovered by consortium of humanitarian agencies (cha, a group that includes the ltte front, tamils rehabilitation organization (tro) as a full member) on sunday the 6th. curiously they failed to notice 2 more bodies which were discovered only 2 days later near by. even their report indicate that there wasn't any attempt at cover up by security forces then in control of muttur which was mostly uninhabited at that time.

that henricsson cites 'confidential conversations' with unnamed sources as 'highly reliable' evidence is in itself enough to destroy the credibility of his statement. if he is unable to reveal his sources and the evidence to the investigation and the public he should not speculate in public too.

in other words the cited evidence in fact makes the henricsson's prejudgment unsustainable. this is made all the more ironic by the fact slmm under him has refused/delayed to list ltte's suicide bombings as ceasefire violations because there is no conclusive evidence to implicate ltte (as if there are others who use suicide bombers). double standards anyone?

in addition he has not considered several inconsistencies in the revealed details about these killings.

there is continuing confusion as to where exactly the dead bodies were found and how they were shot (from behind or front or whether they were actually shot at all, but died from a bomb explosion). to clear that forensics and examination of witnesses is required.

then there was the fact that during the 2 or more days that elapsed before 2 extra bodies were found, acf bosses in sri lanka in their numerous media appearances or in any other occasion (to police for instance) did not reveal the fact 2 aid workers were missing (they always referred to 15 aid workers only). acf staff also had trouble identifying all the bodies. one is left with the impression that acf's bosses did not know who or how many were working for them in muttur.

it is also not clear why acf staff stayed behind in their offices when almost whole of muttur left the town or took refuge in safe places like religious compounds, when ltte attacked the town. relatives say they were instructed stay by ltte (unlike most others who were told to leave by ltte. why?), while acf says they were instructed to stay by their bosses (why?).

all that leaves much work for the investigation, jumping to stupid prejudgments is simply not the way to go.

then there is henricsson's clearly biased behavior recently.
he came to an agreement about mavil aru with tigers against the governments clearly stated position, tried to implement it against the governments wishes, and then blamed the government for his failed attempt. last friday he slammed european union (eu) for listing ltte as a terrorist organization because he has advised them otherwise (as if the fact of ltte's terrorism is in any doubt to anyone).

as recent terrorist arrests in united states and canada made clear, ltte is prepared to expend huge amounts as bribes to get its way with foreign governments. so may be it is time we did some speculative prejudging about ulf henricsson's assets. or may be it is best that we leave that to investigators instead of following him to the gutter.

btw here is government's response to this prejudgement.
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still too damn busy to reply to comments. sorry. but hopefully not for long.

an operation to retake sampur?

military has reportedly launched an operation to retake sampur (sometimes spelled sampoor). army commander lieutenant general sarath fonseka speaking to associated press reportedly said "the security forces have taken this decision to retake muttur, kaddaiparichchan, sampur and thoppur to safeguard trincomalee naval base and the harbor". other media reports (as alway based mainly on propaganda), indicate the same. however since there is no official notification from military we should be careful. this may only be a preliminary operation to clear and prepare the ground for a future operation to actually capture the sampur area. as always we should wait till a situation stabilizes to know what happened and treat all 'news' (esp. ones with figures) with skepticism.

however a limited operation to take sampur is the logical next step for the military. this carries risks as well as opportunities. as i said before a realistic but morally defensible strategy to defeat ltte (defeat of ltte is a precondition whether we like it or not for real peace) requires that sri lankan government present ltte with a stalemate situation for present without initiating and avoiding as far as possible, a full scale war (a war that ltte planned from last year). it must be made clear to them that they will get nowhere militarily and they will get nowhere through negotiations as well, as long as they will remain what they are now. on the long term such a strategy will make ltte progressively weaker till either gosl is able to defeat it militarily or it changes of it own accord to an unarmed democratic political party. militarily that comes down to a sort of a fabian strategy.

that means we should not engage in large scale offensive military operations that may end in effective defeat, as operation 'jayasikurui' in the late 90's ended up being, which may make ltte and others believe it is going somewhere militarily. however that does not mean we should not undertake small limited operations "to ensure that the terrorists end up in a similar or worse off position to the one they started off prior to the violence" if "it tries to increase its power" by violence.

question is whether an operation to retake sampur will fall into that category. imo it does. area and troops involved will certainly be comparatively small. nor will there be any higher risk of this developing into a larger operation as the terrorists in sampur are more or less isolated militarily speaking. pussies may try to open a completely separate front somewhere else on the north. but tigers already launched two operations to capture jaffna during last month (both failed miserably) and another such operation is likely anyway, with or without a sampur operation. an operation to take sampur will be limited in nature.

why recapture sampur?
as long as ltte remains in sampur, trinco and navy's operations from there will be under threat. though as i have said before what happened during ltte's attempt to take muttur and during last few weeks (when navy and trinco were subjected to artillery attacks) makes it clear that they are unable to prevent navy from operating out of trinco ( and thus supply jaffna). they came close to that only when they tried a mass sea tiger suicide attack on a troop ferry. even that did not succeed. unless they can successfully carry out several such suicide attacks or perhaps capture muttur and other strategic positions around the bay, navy will be able to carry on with its work. so it is not so much the actual hindrance as much as potential threat and general insecurity that will be eliminated if military is able to retake sampur.

getting rid of tigers in sampur will also make the area south of the bay secure, ensuring the resettlement of internally displaced people of muttur and adjacent areas. all those ngos and others 'humanitarins' who have taken it upon themselves to speak on behalf of idps should keep that in mind before criticizing an operation to retake sampur, unless they want the displaced to stay in their temporary camps forever. i know such permanent displacement is highly beneficial to some who work in ngos who provide 'help' to the idps with aid supplied by governments and others, but let us hope most of them see beyond that.

then there is the fact that under cfa sampur does not fall under ltte control. one can argue that military is merely holding ltte to account for a long neglected breach of ceasefire since sri lanka monitoring mission has patently failed to make ltte comply with cfa in regard to this breach as it had failed with all the other breaches.

risks
main risk is of course failure. let us hope military is fairly sure of its ability to dislodge the tigers from sampur. if military and its planners are not sure such operations should not be undertaken imo. even if they are successful this may take weeks if not months to complete, given that tigers are well entrenched. in fact the so called operation may look more like a siege than anything else. military and politicians must not raise false expectations. they must make it clear that this will take time. in fact that may also be why they have not said anything much about this so far.

another risk is the bad publicity generated by so called collateral damage. though it is impossible to believe after all that has happened, that there are any civilians in the tiger controlled areas in sampur, unless they are forcibly kept there to be used as human shields. government should make this point repeatedly and point out that it is allowing civilians to leave the area. and ngos and the 'humanitarians' (if they dare to go out of colombo) must try their best to evacuate those still in those areas and condemn ltte for any attempt to prevent that. it is not enough to protest after some civilians die.

in the end it is the civilians( not just in sampur, but in muttur, trinco, and jaffna ) who will gain most from a tiger less sampur so let's hope the operation to retake sampur ( if there is one now or in the future ) is a success.

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ps
welcome! especially all those who have started visiting this blog from u.s and canada after my recent posts on terrorist arrests there.
thanks for all the comments and the emails. still busy with work (was in trinco last sunday believe it or not), so sorry about not replying to comments and emails, and for not visiting other blogs. will soon (as in a day or two) do all that.

terrorists in waterloo tamil students’ association and canadian tamil congress

as two more tamil canadians are arrested for helping ltte, it is becoming clear that waterloo tamil students’ association (watsa) of university of waterloo, waterloo, ontario, canada is a breeding ground for tiger terrorists.

of the two recently arrested (ramanan mylvaganam, 29 and piratheepan nadarajah, 30), mylvaganam (computer engineering student) was vice president (internal) of watsa for winter 2004. earlier thirukumaran sivasubramaniam, 27 (computer science, treasurer fall 2002, president fall 2001 and winter 2003 of watsa) and suresh sriskandarajah, 26 (electrical engineering, president fall 2001 of watsa) were arrested. see my previous post for more details on them.

canadian press has already labeled suresh sriskandarajah, "waterloo suresh" after his own words. he founded the vanni innovation group (www.vannigroup.org) ( the website is maintained by image icon.com, suresh founded that company too). this group has since merged with tamil youth organization (tyo) canada and purportedly sent "student volunteers" to assist in various "projects" in vanni, sri lanka. what they really did (do?) was to smuggle books, compasses, global positioning system devices, computer board kits, laptop computers etc. to the tigers.

take suresh's own words as revealed in an email he sent on october 23, 2005 to those participating ( email was made public by fbi) ,

you idiots already told way too much people...pack up properly! there is lots of money being dumped on these things ... teddies and chocolates to cover up, although they are not problematic, just computer stuff...when you land in sri lanka ... only speak in english, never speak in tamil in front of singalese guys ... tell customs guys you are here on vacation and will travel around (the) whole island with your family.
you get to an army checkpoint after vayuniya. this is the most trickiest part ... you will be asked to take out the suitcases and open for them to see ... give them ... a bag of chocolate for all of them and smile. give cigarette too ... say they are (a gift) for family ... computer parts. make up some bs. ...now you go to the tigers checkpoint, only five minutes away ... tell them waterloo suresh sent you ... in kilinchchi town ... tell them waterloo suresh sent you and you need to see elil. i need to know that you arrived safely and more importantly all the things got there safely.

mylvaganam and suresh reportedly purchased submarine and warship-design software from a company in britain and night-vision equipment from a firm in british columbia using school projects as cover.

meanwhile university of waterloo spokesman martin van nierop said the university is assisting the royal canadian mounted police with the investigation. he said the school was investigating whether it may have been involved in any "humanitarian and developing-world projects" with the two men.

vanni innovation group's website indicates this was definitely the case. university of waterloo along with vanni institute of technology(vannitech), tamil children's endowment fund (tcef), tamils rehabilitation organization (tro)( the ngo named as a ltte 'front' by fbi), the economic consultancy house, international tamil technical professionals’ organization (ittpo) and microsoft corp, are listed as 'support partners'. it is clear from their websites that except for the university and microsoft others are ltte fronts, more or less.

canadian tamil congress
meanwhile along with ltte, canadian tamil congress (ctc) and its spokespersons david poopalapillai and kavitha pathinathar denied any connection with those arrested. however sahilal sabaratnam, "sahil” arrested on monday in new york (see previous post) issued a press release titled "sivaram's murder, loss to free speech" on behalf of ctc on april 29, 2005. he is designated there as director, communications, canadian tamil congress, toronto tel: (416) 662-6372, e-mail:ctc.toronto@gmail.com.

ctc has a history of jumping to terrorist's defense.

us congressman
democratic congressman danny davis of illinois made a trip to sri lanka earlier this year. (march 30-april 5). according to his disclosure documents(pdf) it was funded by the federation of tamil sangams in north america (fetna) and cost them around $7000. during the trip he spent most of his time in ltte controlled territory and met ltte 'police' chief. he says though he knew fetna was associated with ltte, he did not know his trip was funded by ltte.

however nachimuthu socrates arrested on monday(see previous post) was a director of fetna in 2004 and murugesu vinayagamoorthy also arrested on monday talked to the congressman last saturday .


one thing is clear, lot of people in north america ranging from microsoft to congressmen need to think twice about who they associate with.

some media sources
national post, the globe and mail, toronto sun, toronto sun 2, cbc.ca, chicago tribune, asian tribune, asian tribune 2, mod.

some details about terrorist arrests in u.s.

here are some details i was able to collect regarding the people and events leading up to the arrests made in united states during last few days.

people involved.
ci-1 - confidential informant 1, of sri lankan tamil origin living in staten island, new york. he had previously agreed to co-operate with the government after a drug trafficking conviction a decade ago and, in return for immigration status in america. he is the same person designated as ci-1 in both complaints.
uc -1 and uc -2 in first compliant - undercover fbi agents pretending to be state department officials.
uc -1 and uc -2 in second complaint - undercover fbi agents pretending to be an arms dealer and an arms expert respectively ( i will refer to the later two as uc -1b and uc- 2b to avoid confusion.

defendants:
sathajhan sarachandran, - “satha”- dob: 10/31/79

sahilal sabaratnam, - “sahil” - dob: 2/8/79
"financial guy"
class of 1998 - east york collegiate institute, ontario, canada
director, communications, canadian tamil congress, toronto, tel: (416) 662-6372, e-mail: ctc.toronto@gmail.com
a statement issued by him on behalf of ctc after the dharmaratnam sivaram (former tamilnet editor) murder was carried by "northeastern herald", now defunct (?) online publication given space in tamil canadian.com. original page there is not available but google cache is .

thiruthanikan thanigasalam, - “thani” - dob: 6/11/68

nadarasa yograrasa, - “yoga” - dob: 10/8/54

murugesu vinayagamoorthy, -“dr. moorthy”- “vinayagamoorthy murugesu” - dob: 4/24/49
a doctor based in london. uk. (not to be confused with another murugesu vinayagamoorthy, an engineer living in sacramento, usa). wife - dr. pushpam vinayagamoorthy.
lrcps 1978 glasg, lrcp 1978 edin, lrcs 1978 edin.
the green practice, forest road health centre, 2a forest road,edmonton, london, N9 8RZ
tel: 020-8805-8180, 020-8443-3937
attorney joseph kilada: "i could quantify him as a political activist"

natchimuttu socrates - dob: 11/20/51
16, heartstone drive harford , connecticut. 06070 USA
engineer of south indian origin.
owner of "ew granites & marbles", www.ewgm.us.
1547 new britain avenue , farmington, connecticut 06032
tel: 860-674-0853/800-966-8460
fax: 860-676-2861/860-678-9543
socrates@ewgm.us
son aristotle socrates : "he's a well-educated community oriented father," "charges are absurd", "they've made a gross miscalculation"
daughter thernal socrates: "we think he’s innocent and that all the charges will be dropped”, “i think this seems to be the new trend these days”, “i don’t know where this is coming from."
attorney gerald del piano: "we plan to fully and vigorously contest the charges". "outstanding member of the community who looks forward to resolving these issues as soon as possible"

vijayshanthar patpanathan, - “chandru” - dob: 4/5/62

thirukumaran sivasubramaniam - dob: 6/20/79
(former?) computer science student of university of waterloo, waterloo, ontario, canada .
sometime president of waterloo tamil students’ association (watsa)

suresh sriskandarajah - age 26
arrested separately in ontario, canada. see below for possible explanation.
personal website www.planetsuresh.com. including photos by him.
founder media-icon.com , web design company
founder vanni innovation group( www.vannigroup.org) - which sends volunteers to vanni to help in 'various projects' in conjunction with tamil rehabilitation organization(tro) and other ngos
(former?) electrical engineering student of university of waterloo, waterloo, ontario, canada .
sometime president (?)of waterloo tamil students’ association (watsa)
former student westview centennial secondary school

timeline

note: throughout the time involved authorities seem to have tracked e-mails, telephone conversations, bank accounts (including those used to launder and fund ltte activities, through ltte fronts like tamil rehabilitation organization (tro) and world tamil coordinating committee, which are mentioned by name). complaints also say these fronts also sent goods and material to ltte in sri lanka.

2004
murugesu vinayagamoorthy and natchimuttu socrates meet uc -1 and uc -2 through ci -1 and offer a bribe with up front payment of us$ 1 million to remove ltte from state department’s foreign terrorist organization list. vinayagamoorthy claims he traveled to states for the express purpose of meeting uc -1 and uc-2 under instructions from "senior ltte leadership in sri lanka". discussions continue.

2005 july
socrates asks whether they "could stop the united states government from sending arms to the sri lankan government" and "provide intelligence about this issue".

2005 september 29
in staten island, vinayagamoorthy when asked about whether ltte will continue to use suicide bombers, says "i feel i have to mention … in the event of war happening, i think it is inevitable that suicide bombing will be used."

sometime during this time an interim payment of $5500 is made to agents by natchimuttu socrates. however the scheme is put on hold ( not clear when) due to prevailing situation in sri lanka.

2005 december
natchimuttu socrates meets uc -1 and ci -1 in order to purchase a classified intelligence document with details of the investigation by u.s. and another foreign government into the tamil rehabilitation organization (tro). he pays uc -1 us$ 1000 to review it (fbi use a specially created fake document for the purpose), and then passes on the information to vinayagamoorthy.

2006 april
canada names ltte as a terrorist organization.
canadian authorities raid the toronto and montreal offices of the world tamil movement(wtm)

2006 july
nadarasa yograrasa(yoga) calls ci -1 to request that ci -1 put him in contact with a black market arms dealer. call recorded.

2006 july 31
ci-1 , yoga, and sathajhan sarachandran(satha), meet in queens, new york and discuss the required weapons with specific reference to surface-to-air missiles to bring down sri lankan government's kfir fighter aircraft. satha says he is under directions from pottu amman (ltte's intelligence chief). he says there is a 'big guy ' in canada who is the pottu amman's direct contact (name of this person is still classified, not known whether he was one of those arrested ). conversation recoded.

later emails are exchanged between satha and ci -1 (under fbi direction). some extracts below.
same day from ci- 1 to satha : "met you today, thanks for meeting. i will contact my guy to see what he has, if it is ok. do you want me to send you pictures of the merchandise?"

2006 august 1
from satha to ci-1: " i am waiting for your merchandise pictures."
from ci -1 to satha: "here are photos of what my guy has available. sa-18 russian made shoulder fired. let me know if your guys are interested. give me a list of what they want and i will ask him what he can get" . two photographs of an sa-18 surface-to-air missile were attached to this email
satha forwards these emails to sri lanka quoting prices: "sa18 $75,000 us 1 reusable and 1 needle and 1 needle $50,000 us". according to fbi "needle" is code for a missile.

2006 august 7
ci -1 and yoga meet again to discuss weapons including AK-47s and truck-mounted missile systems.

2006 august 14
uc -1b calls satha posing as the arms dealer known to ci-1.
satha: "the deal is urgent. unfortunately, we need to meet fast, uh, asap"

2006 august 18
sahilal sabaratnam (sahil) , thiruthanikan thanigasalam (thani), and satha, all three of them canadians, travel to u.s by car from canada telling u.s customs they are going to a bachelor party in buffalo. another person traveling with them (suresh sriskandarajah?) was not allowed to enter u.s by customs agents because of past criminal record and travels back by taxi.

2006 august 19
sahil, thani, and satha, meet ci-1 in queens and travel to long island to meet uc-1b and uc-2b. a sa -18 surface-to-air missile along with firing tube and trigger mechanism (in a wooden crate), and two ak-47 s were brought to the room.
conversation recorded . some extracts.

thani: "we need something for kfir"
uc-1b: "You want to shoot this airplane down?"
thani: "yes"

one of the three defendants: "sometimes getting five or 10 needles is not worth it. it has to be obtained in bulk. at our rate, if we fire 10 at least two will hit."

uc - 1b: (observing the crate )" it looks like a casket".
uc- 2b : "it would put quite a few people in caskets"
defendants say "yes" and laugh.
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they also discuss weapons to destroy 'boats', unmanned aerial vehicles for jamming radio transmissions and radar, submarine design software, flight lessons, cell towers, radio controller equipment, global positioning system equipment, short wavelength radio equipment, radio and satellite equipment, air traffic equipment, cameras, computers, and a host of other items
after discussions they agree to pay $900,000-937,500 for 10 missiles (with possibility of buying 50 to 100 later)and 500 ak-47s. uc-2b is to provide training on the use of missiles in sri lanka. cargo to be delivered ship to ship in indian ocean. payment to be made using bank accounts in switzerland, st. croix, or other offshore locations

2006 august 21
of the defendants mentioned above, six are arrested in new york, two outside new york (natchimuttu socrates in his simsbury, conn., home), one in canada (suresh sriskandarajah by royal canadian mounted police in an undisclosed location in southern ontario). altogether at least 13 were arrested and eight named and seven unnamed people are charged. eight named are the first eight defendants here. no details about others.

some sources
us doj press release, usnewswire, reuters, new york times (registration free link), washington post, washington times, new york sun, associated press, upi, ny daily news, national post, canada.com, courant, cnn, sri lanka peace secteraiat, mod sri lanka, media center for national security, asain tribune, tamilnet, spur on other tro and ltte connections

feel free to point out errors or ask for clarifications.
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ps
i wrote most of this yesterday. was so busy with work that i did not have time to finish and publish it. i have the same excuse for my inability to reply to comments here or visit other blogs. hopefully i will get less busy during next day or two.

ltte bans bearing fruit?

while tigers were baned in united states, britian, india, canada, and eu, until recently those bans seem to be of mere symbolic importance (except in india). however during the last few months some foreign governments have started to act on them (as well on general anti terrorist legislation in some countries that do not specifically ban ltte), most notably in canada, australia, and thailand.

few hours ago two unsealed complaints in united states district court in brooklyn against eight recently arrested suspects revealed that fbi had been conducting extensive investigations and undercover operations against ltte. details as revealed in complaints makes for interesting reading.

suspects were accused of trying to raise funds ( through ngo fronts like tamil rehabilitation organization(tro) and world tamil coordinating committee), obtain weapons including surface-to-air missiles (with training ), bribe u.s. officials to take ltte off the list of banned terrorist organizations, and obtain an intelligence document on u.s. and other investigations into tro.

let's hope the suspects - murugesu vinayahamoorthy, nachimuthu socrates, nadarasa yogarasa, sathajhan sarachandran, sahilal sabaratnam, thiruthanikan thanigasalam among others - get the justice they deserve. and let's wish all the best to the investigations.

reuters, usnewswire.
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meanwhile in sri lankan peacenik hangouts like moju, one is sure to be at the receiving end of an unending stream of venom if one so much as breathes a word against tro. kumar rupasinghe the main organizer behind the recent so called 'peace' march which resulted in violence is in record defending tro. let's see how long they will maintain that head in sand attitude.

well done!

mayumi raheem - swimming - women’s 100m breast stroke.

chinthana vidanage - weight lifting - 62 kg category.
andrew abeysinghe - swimming - men’s 200m back stroke.
they are the first three sri lankan gold medalists at the ongoing tenth south asian games. hopefully more will follow.

for more details about the games see following two web sites (they are however only occasionally updated)
tomorrowsrilanka.com
sagtencolombo.org.lk

athletes of south asia showed what they are made of in deciding to participate in these games in spite of security concerns, unlike the flowery chickenboks of south africa.

of course south african cricketers are free chicken out if they wanted to. however, imo if international cricket council (icc) does not cancel a cricket tour and a team leaves anyway for whatever reason, opposing team should be awarded wins for the scheduled matches and icc team rankings and player statistics should changed accordingly. this should be done in addition to fines and damages awarded to sponsors and organizers.

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update :
three more gold medals for sri lanka on 21st:
sriyalatha wickremasinghe - cycling - women's 20km time trial.
meemanage perera - cycling - men's 40km time trial.
andrew abeysinghe(his second) - swimming - men’s 100m back stroke.

physical interference in fake 'peace' activism is idiotic

today peaceniks, defeatists, ltte apologists, and a whole contradictory mishmash of people with various agendas held a 'peace ' march and a 'rally' in support of appeasement of terrorists. though to all appearance poorly organized, poorly attended, and unsuccessful, as usual, they managed get disrupted by some idiots.

media reports indicate that there was even some physical scuffling on stage. it is not clear who is responsible for all that. given that several unstable politicians from both government and opposition like dilan perera(upfa), rajitha senaratne (unp), vasudeva nanayakara (upfa) were backers of this march and that another one well known thuggish upfa politician from colombo mervyn silva and some warmongering monks, were allowed on to stage this was to be expected. at this stage it is not clear whether this was a concerted attempt at disruption, and if so with what motives. whether it was due to some people getting annoyed at the intention of the rally, a publicity stunt by the organizers , a political stunt by warmongers , a personal vendetta between colombo upfa politicians or any combination of above and other motives.

given the above facts i will not comment on the specifics in this case but confine myself to general observations.

as i said in the title i consider physical interference or banning of peacenik, defeatist, and terrorist apologist activism idiotic. they and their ideas are so hypocritical, naive, or vague, that they cannot ever hope to get any credence in the real world. all that is called for is continuous exposing of that hypocrisy, nativity, and incoherence.

after all, what intelligent and moral person is going to accept handing over of millions of sri lankans to ltte oppression, depriving them of human rights, freedom, democracy, and justice, in the false unrealistic hope that we will have 'peace' here in colombo.

let them them have their insensitive, tin eared, protests, marches and the rest of it, while people are sacrificing their lives in the north to bring real peace. there is no better argument against them than a photo of them engaged in such idiotic activity in colombo. so let them do that without physical interference.

death of children

recent death of large number of teenagers in a ltte run compound due to military bombing once again highlights why tolerating ltte and its activities will only result in horrors.

ltte through it's propaganda mouth piece tamilnet variously claimed that the compound was a 'peace village' , school, orphanage, training center for "leadership, self-awareness and first aid workshop"( lasting for 2, no 10, days) and that 43, then 61, girls died. (goto tamilnet archives and see for yourself)

government (which is engaged in beating back a pussy attempt to take over jaffna) claimed it was a child soldier training and transit camp and came out with a surveillance video from probably an unmanned aerial vehicle (though some reporters seem to think it is a satellite footage if so sri lankan military is receiving some serious help) showing brown clad people and some vehicles running from the compound after the attack.

media was not allowed in by ltte, sri lanka monitoring mission(slmm) and unicef representatives who visited said "while it did not appear to be a rebel camp, they had not ruled out the possibility they were receiving civilian defense training" and rather contradictorily "that it had been empty for some time”. while slmm said they only saw "the bodies of 19 people at a nearby hospital, most of them women around the age of 18". unicef said "they did not have access to the dead”, and "as of this time, we don't have any evidence that they are ltte cadres”. they also issued a statement saying that "according to press reports, the compound in vallipunam ...was bombed, reportedly killing as many as 40 adolescent girls. Some 100 children were wounded, many critically”, "these children are innocent victims of violence", and calling "on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm."(italics added by me)

as always media local and foreign parroted tamilnet like idiots. though after recently getting burned for doing so without properly indicating that fact, this time they were for the most part careful to include qualifications like 'rebels/pro-rebel website said”, quotation marks, etc. for a clear example of one that did not qualify them as ltte claims see here. (btw my complaints to the bbc about several instances of biased reporting (this was one i made several later) has resulted in several emails from various people from bbc and at least two regular visitors from bbc to this blog. i hope they are reading and taking remedial action.) most reports missed crucial details like inconsistency of ltte claims, lack of independent confirmation of number of deaths, qualified nature of slmm and unicef comments, etc. and most 'forgot' to mention the ltte's regular employment child soldiers.

however tendentious (with qualifications) media reports were they were nothing in comparison to the local peacenik's primary blog in sri lanka which as expected had a post consisting of ltte terrorist claims only. no more evidence is needed as to where their sympathies lie.

in the end what emerges from all this propaganda, naivety, and parroting, is that lot of young people subjected to ltte influence died.

this should have been expected because similar young people have been dying for a long time.

as unicef and others have previously noted there are more than enough proof that ltte has whole brigades of child soldiers. if past battles are any guide ltte considers them expendable sending them in waves to attack entrenched army positions knowing that most of them will die as they progressively weaken the army defenses, while keeping the veteran adult cadres as a reserve to deliver the final blow. this tactic has worked well for them in the past.

ltte probably find children easy to recruit and indoctrinate. those who resist recruitment are regularly killed.

so there is no doubt that children subject to ltte influence are at high risk of violent death, in actual combat or by government's (quite justifiable and inevitable) attacks on ltte installations.

question is what can be done to protect them from ltte.

it is here that all those who recommend appeasement and accommodation of ltte have come a cropper. most such people have shied away from condemning child recruitment. even those who have and others (like unicef) who have tried to engage ltte and persuade it to discontinue this practice have failed miserably. ltte as usual have reluctantly given its word several times with token surrender of some children, only to break it immediately afterwards. as always appeasement has not worked with terrorists.

all this only goes to confirm that only way out is to defeat the ltte (using a realistic but morally defensible strategy, not some naive pseudo realpolitik that never say how to deal with the very real military power of ltte) not wishfully hoping that ltte will come around if we gave it enough (legitimacy, power, aid, territory , or take your pick). for ltte, enough has never been enough.

as individuals who do not want to see many more such deaths,

• don't appease the ltte and allow it to continue killing and abusing children.
• don't help those peaceniks and defeatists who advocate such appeasement.
• help those who want to defeat the ltte and free the children.

'sole representative' at work again?

the deputy secretary-general of the sri lankan government's peace secretariat, ketheesh loganathan (who was a former eprlf member) was shot dead few hours ago. with last week's failed attempt on life of a senior epdp member pussies are clearly redoubling their efforts to claim the tamils' sole representative status with violence.

they obviously think that slavish acceptance of that status by ngo peaceniks is not worth much and only physical elimination of tamils who do not accept their version of the truth will do.

when will peaceniks learn that acceptance of ltte as tamils' sole representative merely on a claim backed by terror, amounts to depriving tamils of their rights? can anyone who presumes to stand up for human rights as some peaceniks claim they do, accept this?

it's one thing if government accepts this as a temporary and pragmatic way to get tigers to talks. but everyone who wants human rights, freedom, justice, and democracy, (and thus real peace) to prevail in sri lanka should condemn that acceptance and ltte's insistence on it unambiguously.

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ps
meanwhile, dbs jeyaraj whose writings are much admired and indeed plagiarized by peaceniks at cpa, is back with his ltte propaganda.
the only argument (other than those taken from fantasy world of conspiracy theories that is) he can advance in support of his claim that government is supposedly engaged in a 'genocidal' war, is that sl military did not stop the mavil aru operation after the alleged 'unconditional opening' of the sluice gates by terrorists. as i pointed out earlier, until civilian engineers of the irrigation department have unimpeded access to the gates without interference from terrorists, now and in the future, the opening cannot be called unconditional. conditional access to water is a war crime. only ltte propagandists and their naive believers will accept arguments like that.
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update
added the picture as well as the link to media release from scopp.

air attack on palaly - propaganda?

above image of palaly airbase was saved from my google earth. (click on it to enlarge)

late yesterday tigers claimed their 'aircraft' flew over the base and fired rockets (given that pussies have some kind of air capability this is a possibility). military denied that claiming it was 'bogus propaganda'.

in this connection it is interesting that tamilnet posted a pic very similar to the above in their report without giving any credit to google earth ( in fact the pic is named palaly airbase aerial view).

when dealing with tigers, people especially journalists, should be careful that they do not get taken in by the propaganda. as i have already pointed out they are quite capable of using whatever is at hand (in that case the icrc) to add credibility to what in the end are false reports.

as i said before nobody can say how ongoing military operations will end up, who is winning, or even the number of causalities, even if we have eyewitnesses in the area. results should only be judged when the situation stabilizes.

so we can now say military was able to drive terrorists out of muttur, but people who parroted claims by both sides that each was in complete control of the town during the battle itself were giving false information.

when someone gives you specific information about an ongoing operation be very sceptical.

update:
ministry of defense scores a point about this after comparing the time of tamilnet report with reported time of the attack. it seems the tamilnet reported even before the 'attack'.

for air attack on 03/26/07 see this post

jayadeva uyangoda - terrorist boot licker

if anybody needed any proof that peacenik jayadeva uyangoda was a well trained terrorist boot licker read his latest post on water blockade at focus lanka. his own words prove how slavish and how blind these peaceniks have become.

they are so well trained by the ltte that even outsiders like me can predict their behavior with complete accuracy. on july 27 i asked whether after deliberately staying silent during the time government did not do anything , "will they come out of their cocoons to denounce government and excuse terrorists as usual" now that the violence has started ? (i asked the same here too in a dedicated post). lo and behold. they have done exactly that.

i can hear big pussy saying, "good dog!"

i left a comment there which is yet to appear; i left the same comment with minor editing in the moju post dealing with this. you may read it there.

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ps

while people are rightfully making a big issue of killing of the 17 aid workers in muttur by unknown persons (however giving credence to allegations of relatives who were not there is taking it too far) . there is not much action taken about the muslim civilians held or killed by the ltte as alleged by other muslim refugees. ltte is also reportedly holding some tamil refugees from moving into government areas. reportedly they are being used as human shields to protect their increasingly untenable artillery positions.

hmmm. does that mean we can make another prediction? will peaceniks denounce government if these civilians are killed when government attacks those positions?

alternative

nobody wants war. only self styled 'saints' with limited experience about other people will even think that anybody except real nut cases will prefer war.

however that does not mean we should prefer peace at any cost, especially at the cost of human rights, freedom, justice, and democracy. we have no right to hand over fellow sri lankans to a megalomaniac bent of creating a personal dictatorship ( ltte is certainly not fighting on behalf of tamils, insistence on sole representative status is a good indication of that) on the blood of others, including children, in order that 'we' in colombo can have 'peace'.

imo such a peace is as morally repugnant as war.

so what is the alternative?

i have expressed my personal opinion on this in various comments in this blog and others as well as in some blog posts. this one for instance. but i thought i will devote a post exclusively for it.

for me due to reasons i set out above, appeasement of ltte in order to obtain peace is morally unacceptable.
in addition given ltte instinctively prefer violence and threats when they want something, regardless of any agreements they have signed or whatever obligations they were under (as demonstrated by the recent water blockade and the fate of ceasefire agreement from the first) i doubt whether even a nominal 'peace' may result from such appeasement. appeasement of other terrorist groups and violent fascists is one of unending failure down the ages.

i also believe that given the limited resources of the country and our unwillingness to concentrate all our resources on behalf of the war effort, we probably (we can never be certain) cannot win a full scale war. we can and have contained the terrorists (a highly creditable achievement for our military given the difficulties some very resource rich countries are experiencing against much weaker opponents) but i doubt whether we can exterminate the ltte by military force alone.
nor do i support putting the country on a war footing with full concentration of resources for war (with conscription, curtailment of political rights, etc. that such a situation would involve) unless as a last resort.

what to do then?

unfortunately there is no easy answer to that.

in my opinion the ultimate result should be an effectively defeated and/or contained ltte, without initiating and avoiding as far as possible, a full scale war. to obtain that result sri lankan government should aim at,

• preventing ltte gaining any more power, militarily, politically, diplomatically, or financially.
• avoidance of military action involving the regular military as long as above objective is achieved.
• doing everything possible to proactively reduce ltte's power without jeopardizing the above two objectives

that means holding the ceasefire as long as ltte hold it. if it tries to increase its power by some violent action( such as blocking water, killing military personnel etc) government should respond robustly, in proportionate and limited manner, to ensure that the terrorists end up in a similar or worse off position to the one they started off prior to the violence.

government must also do everything in its power to diplomatically isolate ltte, discredit ltte's claims to legitimacy, break up its support networks, counter its propaganda, etc.

on no account should government enter into any substantive agreement in relation to devolution of power with the ltte. that would only increase ltte's power. government must make it clear to both ltte and international community that as long as ltte remains what it is, it will not enter into any such agreement. the government should never legitimize ltte's claim to represent north east tamil community.

instead it must make it clear that very real tamil grievances can only be addressed through democratically elected tamil representatives not through ltte. it must request international community to put pressure( not that it will work at present) on ltte to change itself and disarm in order to claim any legitimate political power. government may propose and/or implement measures to address those tamil grievances unilaterally (since democratic tamil representatives from ne are non existent at present) as a temporary measures as long as ltte is unable to profit from them. government must do its best to help and protect alternative tamil political leadership.

how would ltte respond to such a policy?

options available to them are limited in such a situation.

one option is to hold the ceasefire and talk to government knowing well no substantive agreement will be on offer. this has the added risk (from ltte point of view) of progressive weakening of their organization, due to the stalemate and stagnation during ceasefire. there is reason to believe this was already underway during the last few years and that their deliberate drive for war this year, apparent from last presidential election, was partly motivated by an attempt to counteract this. so given the dead end why would tigers even consider this option? mainly because of their desire to hold on to what they have already acquired ( illegitimately ) since they can be sure government won't try to take those away by force as long as the ceasefire holds.

but ltte won’t take the above option as long as they have a military option. that is why government must respond robustly and make sure ltte does not gain anything by military actions. government must respond in proportion to the ltte's violence and must be prepared handle the full range from small scale breaches of ceasefire to full scale war, if ltte so prefers. while military may be unable to win the war outright, it can certainly force ltte to a stalemate. the end lesson must be clear: ltte won't get anywhere by military actions.

the third option for ltte is to disarm and transform itself into a democratic political party. this is highly unlikely at present and as long as present leadership is in place.

given options available to ltte, we can expect it to alternate between the first option (talks that go nowhere) and second option (military actions that go nowhere) until ltte progressively become weak and flexible enough to choose the third option.

imo what i described above is the only viable alternative to war (that won't get us anywhere) and 'peace' (that won't get us anywhere either) and it is certainly less morally repugnant than either the war or the peacenik peace.

government policy

the present buffalo administration as a result of a combination of several factors ( influence of jhu/jvp warmongers , pressure from international community, economic situation of the country, actual military reality etc. ) has somehow stumbled on to a policy similar to above described alternative. i don't think they deliberately planned for it. as i said it may be the only viable policy and as result all governments that come to power will be forced on to it eventually. let’s hope they recognize that policy's essential features and aims and understand the available options when implementing it.

under such a policy sri lanka will go through alternating periods of high and low intensity conflict for several more years, we will have to get used to that reality, because everything else is worse.

mavil aru open? and is it really unconditional?

tigers claimed they opened mavil aru sluice gate yesterday. there are conflicting reports, as to whether this is actually the case and whether water is flowing. see daily mirror report (from lanka newspapers.com). we will know that for certain today.

it is quite possible that given their position became untenable after their failure in muttur, tigers preempted the military and opened it themselves in a last ditch effort to stop the military operation. they tried the same thing using norwegians on sunday.

however government should stick to its stand that the gates should be opened unconditionally. tiger claims that it is unconditional does not make it unconditional. it becomes unconditional only if irrigation department employees can access the sluice gates without any interference from terrorists now and in the future. it is government’s duty to ensure this and that people who depend on the water from irrigation works it maintains are not subject to whims of pussies when they want to make demands in the future.

if sri lanka monitoring mission members, other civil representatives, or journalists, wants to make sure and claim tigers have opened the gates unconditionally they should accompany irrigation department officials (not terrorists) to the gates unimpeded by any interference from tigers.

contrast 2 - the genuine and the fake

first (from lankanewspapers.com) shows a march of people deprived of water in mavil aru area about 10 days ago. march was prevented from proceeding to the sluice gates by military due to security reasons

second pic (from people for peace blog - note: pic is remotely hosted. i did not upload it to my blog, that is legal i think) shows the peacenik protest on friday. there will be another such protest today.

i call peacenik protests fake because,

• they were deliberately silent during the period when water was blocked. as i asked on the day air strike started, "now that the violence has started will they come out of their cocoons to denounce government and excuse terrorists as usual? let us wait and see". well, they have come out on cue and started protesting, now that ltte is in trouble. even bloggers who are now supporting the protest did not protest the blocking of the water.

• peaceniks called for an immediate halt to hostilities on friday. at that time ltte was in control of certain sections of muttur, a stop to fighting would have allowed them to secure and reinforce those positions. resulting more or less permanent ltte presence would have prevented mostly muslim residents from returning, and would have put the government in the difficult position of having to initiate hostilities all over again to dislodge them (from newly entrenched positions). luckily there was no halt and ltte was driven away. by saturday military was in complete control of the town.

• the official document setting out the purpose of the protest only calls for negotiations to start about water; it does not call for immediate release of the same. in other words it tries to legitimatize what is in effect a war crime.

• some of the placards and promotions for the protest say things not called for in official document that stated the purpose of the protest. i find that hypocritical.
  

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contrast 1

why government was right not to accept conditional opening of mavil aru

after government forced ltte to retreat from muttur, ltte was faced with dilemma. are they going to hold on to the mavil aru and continue to deny water to villagers and thus risk being forced away from there as well, or come to a 'deal' whereby they agree to open the sluice gate but leave themselves in control of it. they decided on the latter. given their earlier stand, this imo shows their military weakness at the moment. so they came to a deal for conditional opening of slice gate with the visiting norwegian envoy.

however sri lankan government was unable to agree to this. in this regard government was consistent throughout. it made it clear from the first that it is not willing to accept conditions and opposed using water as a negotiating tool.

imo government is correct. if government accepted ltte conditions and left ltte in control of sluice gates, it would have been,

• putting itself under a perpetual ltte backmail threat.
• legitimatizing what is in effect a war crime.
• throwing away whatever military advantage it is having at present
• failing to control a public utility which it maintain at its expense.

given all those reasons government did not have a choice.

pussies trap slmm?

surprising thing in all this was that norwegians and sri lankan monitoring mission (slmm) thought government would agree to a conditional opening. that shows either a complete lack of understanding about the ground situation and government's concerns, or a pro ltte bias. that head of slmm ulf henricsson went to mavil aru just hours after so called deal to implement it, without informing government he was going there (breaking proper procedure) and before government agreed to any deal, shows a callous disrespect and disregard for government's opinion.

was he trying to prevent government's freedom of action and freedom to disagree to the deal, by going there and presenting government with a fait accompli? one is left with strong suspicions. it was lucky then (not just in regard to his own life but for government) that he was still not there in person when government resumed the ground operation.

in this regard slmm head's statement that "it seems some people want war rather than water", coming after tommy lekenmyr's (slmm chief of staff) statement that "it is quite obvious they are not interested in water. they are interested in something else. we will blame this on the government" shows the same deficiency in understanding and can only lead one to confirm those suspicions. no wonder that warmongers call norwegians white tigers. in this case they were very close to being that.

imo however norwegians fell into a pussy trap with their eyes open. pussies are past masters in this game of making use of naive foreigners. on august 3rd for instance, they tried to make use of international committee of the red cross (icrc) for ltte propaganda when they claimed they have 40 bodies of military personnel and they would be handing them back through icrc. fortunately icrc had more sense than slmm and denied this immediately.

tolerating terrorists

from the beginning this crisis showed yet again why it is impossible to tolerate or deal with a terrorist group. when they have demands to make their first resort is violence and threats (such as cutting off water). quite in contrast to any interest group operating in a democracy, who would have tried to work through the system. that method is of course slow, messy, and even corrupt, and the result will be a compromise at best. but that is what it means to respect other's opinions and interests. terrorists are incapable of that. they are unable to compromise and respect only the guns and bombs.

water is a basic human need; it should be made available unconditionally. submitting to terrorist conditions is too high a price to pay, government should not pay it. government should not accept water at any cost any more than it should accept peace at any cost. it’s about time that peaceniks whatever their skin color learned this.

if terrorists want to declare a full scale war, in order that they can keep their right to hold water hostage, let them.


update:
director training of special task force, senior superintend of police upul senaviratne was killed this morning in kandy due to a claymore mine blast.

war - what is happening?

note: above map does not pretend to be exact and is only a rough guide. click to enlarge

with regard to my factual reporting of the events of the war i have made it a principle not to write down the first story that came my way, and not even to be guided by my own general impressions; either i was present myself at the events which i have described myself or else i heard them from eye-witnesses whose reports i have checked with as much thoroughness as possible. not that even so the truth was easy to discover: different eye-witnesses gave different accounts of the same events, speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories.
book 1, 22. history of the peloponnesian war - thucydides (one of my favorite books btw)

it’s a pity that most reporters do not follow in the footsteps a historian who reported on a contemporary conflict 2400 years ago. reports about current (and on going) fighting in trincomalee district is a good example. no one can give casualty figures or assert who is controlling what while the fighting is taking place, but some people pretend to. government and ltte does that for propaganda purposes. accounts of the eye witnesses (including ones i have spoken to myself) are contradictory. media just repeat these almost certainly false figures or narratives. in fact only thing we can be certain is that they are inaccurate. that is why i will not relate what i heard ( besides i cannot produce my eye witnesses, as such others cannot verify my account and it becomes useless as i have said earlier ) .

so how do we know what happened?

there is nothing to do but to wait till the situation stabilizes, as it probably will in a few days, if we want to go into details.

in a general sense however we can say the following.

• government's ground operation to take over the sluice-gate of the mawilaru anicut is moving at snail's pace (if that) at present but this was expected. this operation reportedly had several prongs and some of the prongs moving in from different directions seem to have joined up with each other.
• ltte artillery attacks (originating in sampur area) on navy movements were unsuccessful. only time they came close to success was in their attack on 'jetliner' ferry carrying 800+ military personnel, but that was a suicide mission like the one on day before wesak. even that failed. this failure on the part of tigers is probably the most significant event militarily. some analysts feared before this that ltte's was capable of effectively blockading trincomalee harbor, thus cutting off supplies to troops in jaffna.
• ltte launched attacks against several army camps and muttur town 2days ago. indications are they were not successful against the army camps. it may be that ltte didn't plan to overrun them in the first place, but merely to distract them. on the other hand their raid on muttur was successful initially. military was certainly not in complete control of the town by august 2nd night, that does not mean ltte was in control either. situation probably changed by last (3rd) night after government sent in reinforcements. military seem to have got the upper hand there but we can't be certain till situation stabilizes.

how do we judge who won?

that can only be done if and when situation is stable.
if at that point sluice-gates are open without government giving in to ltte demands and muttur and other areas under government control are free of pussies government would have won.
let's hope they do.

make cable tv a basic human right!

dear friends,

we intend to start an online petition to request that cable tv which is a basic human requirement (even more so than water) be made an inviolable human right enshrined in the constitution. let’s put an end to the grave injustice committed on people of sri lanka by holding cable tv hostage.

government which has started a war on behalf of water is silent on this more pressing issue. this is unacceptable and discriminatory. even the pussies are silent on this. and bbc is yet to write a biased story about it.

time has come to say 'enough' and do 'something'. so let us gather at the nearest rooftop kopi kade and draft this petition. meanwhile you can start by leaving comments on this subject on all the sri lankan blogs, do not mind if the subject of the thread is totally different. make sure your spam comments are better than this specimen.

thank you for your time!

xxx



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i hate spam.

note:
i have been informed by admins at cbnsat forum that they had nothing to do with the recent comments that were left on blogs about the online petition.