The formation of US policy on Sri Lanka under Obama administration -2

SRI LANKA: RECHARTING U.S. STRATEGY
AFTER THE WAR
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Sri Lanka stands at a critical juncture in its efforts to secure a
lasting peace. After almost three decades of separatist war, on May
17, 2009, the terrorist Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE or
Tamil Tigers) officially conceded defeat. Two days later, Sri Lankan
President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared total victory after government
soldiers killed the Tamil Tigers’ leader, Velupillai
Prabhakaran, and took control of the entire country for the first
time since 1983. With an estimated 70,000 casualties over the
years, it was a bitter and hard-fought victory, one of the few instances
in modern history in which a terrorist group had been defeated
militarily. President Rajapaksa framed the victory as part of
the global fight against terrorism, declaring in a May 19 speech before
Parliament, ‘‘Ending terrorism in Sri Lanka means a victory
for democracy in the world. Sri Lanka has now given a beginning
to the ending of terrorism in the world.’’


The war in Sri Lanka may be over, but the underlying conflict
still simmers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Sri Lanka is not
a post-conflict environment. While the fighting between the Government
and the LTTE may have ended, the reasons for the political
and social conflict (that also gave rise to youth militancy and
armed clash in the 1970s and 1980s) will take time to address.
Those root causes must be tackled soon and with a sense of urgency
to prevent the country from backsliding. Thirty years of violence
have taken a toll on the majority Sinhalese population, giving
rise to a siege mentality toward the ethnic Tamil minority.
For their part, Tamil leaders have not yet made anticipated conciliatory
gestures that might ease government concerns and foster
a genuine dialogue. Some Tamils are wary about the long-term significance
of post-war Sinhalese ‘‘triumphalism’’ and fear that they
may be marginalized in the unified country of Sri Lanka. The
Tamil middle class has been devastated, many having emigrated
years ago, leaving behind few mainstream leaders to represent
more moderate views. The situation is particularly dire for Tamils
in the North, who are trapped between living in government-run
camps and returning to homes destroyed in the war.


Real peace will not come overnight to Sri Lanka and cannot be
imposed from the outside. The country has endured decades of
trauma, and a generation of politicians and laymen know little
aside fromwar and conflict as the norm. It will take time for the
country to make the transition to a post-conflict environment amid
ongoing political and economic challenges. The country’s economy
remains fragile, requiring the International Monetary Fund to provide
a $2.6 billion loan to bolster Sri Lanka’s reserves. Government
officials have been under additional pressure as a result of the European
Union’s deliberations to suspend special trade preferences
with Sri Lanka, known as ‘‘GSP Plus,’’ unless progress is made on
human rights and political freedoms.


The political environment in Sri Lanka is not as black and white
as many outside observers believe. Despite ongoing allegations of
war crimes and human rights abuses, the Rajapaksa Goverment
has taken some positive steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in
the North, develop the East, and reduce the number of child soldiers.
Its recent announcement to allow increased freedom of movement
in the government-run camps for internally displaced persons
(IDPs) starting December 1, 2009, and shut down the camps by
January 31, 2010, is positive and welcome. The Government still
faces many legitimate obstacles in the North—such as removing
the extensive mines left by years of warfare—where the international
community can be an active partner in promoting faster


resettlement.

Serious questions remain about the Sri Lankan Goverment’s
ability to address pressing reconstruction and development needs
for Tamils and Muslims. The Government’s prolonged application
of emergency laws, lack of transparency in developing a strategy
for reconstruction and resettlement, questionable conduct during
the war, and clampdown on press freedom have undermined trust
and the prospects for greater partnership with international donors.
Though the war is over, a culture of fear and paranoia permeates
society, especially for journalists, which further erodes Sri
Lanka’s standing in the international community and hampers its
prospects for genuine peace.


The final stages of the war captured the attention of governments
around the world, particularly the United States. The
Obama administration has been focusing on the humanitarian crisis
in the North and pressing the Sri Lankan Government to take
meaningful steps toward political reconciliation and press freedom.


The United States is one of the largest donors of humanitarian aid
to Sri Lanka, including food aid and de-mining assistance.
Yet, in Colombo, the Goverment considers the bilateral relationship
with Washington to be on a downward trajectory. Most U.S.
criticisms of Sri Lankan actions at the end of the war and treatment
of IDPs have fallen on deaf ears, with Sri Lankan authorities
dismissing the U.S. posture as ‘‘no carrots and all sticks.’’ U.S. assistance
to Sri Lanka, although delivered in grants and not loans,
has attracted criticism from the Rajapaksa Goverment for its emphasis
on political reform. This growing rift in U.S.-Sri Lanka relations
can be seen in Colombo’s realignment toward non-Western
countries, who offer an alternative model of development that
places greater value on security over freedoms.


Indeed, Sri Lanka’s geopolitical position has evolved considerably.
As Western countries became increasingly critical of the Sri
Lankan Government’s handling of the war and human rights
record, the Rajapaksa leadership cultivated ties with such countries
as Burma, China, Iran, and Libya. The Chinese have invested
billions of dollars in Sri Lanka through military loans, infrastructure
loans, and port development, with none of the strings attached
by Western nations. While the United States shares with the Indi-
ans and the Chinese a common interest in securing maritime trade
routes through the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Government has invested
relatively little in the economy or the security sector in Sri
Lanka, instead focusing more on IDPs and civil society. As a result,
Sri Lanka has grown politically and economically isolated from the
West.


This strategic drift will have consequences for U.S. interests in
the region. Along with our legitimate humanitarian and political
concerns, U.S. policymakers have tended to underestimate Sri
Lanka’s geostrategic importance for American interests. Sri Lanka
is located at the nexus of crucial maritime trading routes in the Indian
Ocean connecting Europe and the Middle East to China and
the rest of Asia. The United States, India, and China all share an
interest in deterring terrorist activity and curbing piracy that could
disrupt maritime trade. Security considerations extend beyond sealanes
to the stability of India, the world’s largest democracy. Communal
tensions in Sri Lanka have the potential to undermine stability
in India, particularly in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu,
home to 60 million Tamils. All of these concerns should be part of
our bilateral relationship.


The United States cannot afford to ‘‘lose’’ Sri Lanka. This does
not mean changing the relationship overnight or ignoring the real
concerns about Sri Lanka’s political and humanitarian record. It
does mean, however, considering a new approach that increases
U.S. leverage vis-a-vis Sri Lanka by expanding the number of tools
at our disposal. A more multifaceted U.S. strategy would capitalize
on the economic, trade, and security aspects of the relationship.
This approach in turn could catalyze much-needed political reforms
that will ultimately help secure longer term U.S. strategic interests
in the Indian Ocean. U.S. strategy should also invest in Sinhalese
parts of the country, instead of just focusing aid on the Tamil-dominated
North and East.


The Obama administration is currently weighing a new strategy
for relations with Sri Lanka. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee
has closely followed events on the ground this year, including
a hearing in February and a staff trip to Sri Lanka in November.
In an effort to stimulate a larger debate on U.S. policy toward
Sri Lanka, the committee staff prepared this bipartisan report examining
recent developments and proposing recommendations for
U.S. policy towards Sri Lanka. The recommendations include a
broader and more robust U.S. approach to Sri Lanka that appreciates
new political and economic realities in Sri Lanka and U.S.
geostrategic interests; continuation of de-mining efforts in the
North; and promotion of people-to-people reconciliation programs
throughout the country.

The formation of US policy on Sri Lanka under Obama administration -1

SRI LANKA: RECHARTING U.S. STRATEGY
AFTER THE WAR

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
DECEMBER 7, 2009

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
BARBARA BOXER, California
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania
JIM WEBB, Virginia
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
BOB CORKER, Tennessee
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
JIM DEMINT, South Carolina
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
DAVID MCKean, Staff Director
KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
UNITED STATES SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,
Washington, DC, December 7, 2009.
DEAR COLLEAGUES: The administration is currently evaluating
U.S. policy toward Sri Lanka in the wake of the military defeat of
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the world’s
deadliest terrorist groups.


It has been six months since the end of the war, and the Sri
Lankan Government is dealing with a humanitarian crisis in the
North where hundreds of thousands are still displaced and homes
and infrastructure are destroyed. The Government faces many
challenges in transitioning to peace, and the international community
can help.


Sri Lanka is an important partner and friend to the United
States, so we asked two of our Senate Foreign Relations Committee
(SFRC) staff members, Fatema Z. Sumar and Nilmini Gunaratne
Rubin, to evaluate U.S. policy towards Sri Lanka. Ms. Sumar and
Ms. Rubin traveled to Sri Lanka with the extensive support of the
American Embassy in Colombo and the Sri Lankan Embassy in
Washington, DC, to conduct a week-long fact finding mission November
2–7, 2009, to see firsthand how the country was
transitioning after the war. They met dozens of government officials,
opposition party leaders, non-governmental organizations,
journalists, international donors, foreign diplomats, academics, civil
society leaders, business people, internally displaced persons
(IDPs), and Sri Lankan citizens in a variety of settings. In addition
to Colombo, they traveled throughout the country, including visiting
the IDP camps in the North, viewing demining activities in
the Northwest, seeing areas rebuilt after the December 2004 tsunami
and fighting in the East, and meeting local government officials
in the South.


Their report provides significant insight and a number of important
recommendations to advance U.S. policy in Sri Lanka. We
hope it will help stimulate debate on the nature of the U.S.-Sri
Lanka relationship and American interests in South Asia.
Sincerely,
JOHN F. KERRY,
Chairman.
RICHARD G. LUGAR
Ranking Member.

Sri Lanka's computer literacy up; UN e-government rankings down

(December 08, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's computer literacy is up from 9.7 percent in 2004 to over 16 percent today, government sources say.

IT and IT enabled services sector is also the fifth highest export earner at 213 million dollars in 2007 from negligible activity five years ago, industry sources point out.

But five years of work has made no discernible impact on improving the overall efficiency of government services however, says Rohan Samarajiva, head of think tank LirneAsia in his column 'Choices' on Lanka Business Online.

Sri Lanka slipped in the UN e-government rankings from 94th place in 2005 to 101st place in 2008.

The danger of Bonapartist rule in Sri Lanka -Wije Dias

(December 08, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Wije Dias, a probable candidate of the upcoming presidential of Sri Lanka, says the candidacy of General Sarath Fonseka in the January 26 presidential elections in Sri Lanka is a sharp warning to the working class of the advanced preparations for police-state rule on the island. Amid a deepening economic crisis, powerful sections of the ruling elite are backing Fonseka, the common candidate of the main opposition parties, as the means of imposing new economic burdens on working people.

Following are some excerpts from a recent article he posted in World Socialist Website.

"Before he resigned last month, Fonseka was Sri Lanka’s top general. Under President Mahinda Rajapakse, he waged a brutal war of attrition against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was defeated in May. In the final months of the conflict, an estimated 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed by the military’s indiscriminate bombardment of LTTE-held territory. After the LTTE’s collapse, the army herded more than 250,000 civilians—men, women and children—into “welfare camps” where they were illegally detained until December 1.


"Following the end of the war, Fonseka, who had been closely involved in the ruling politico-military cabal, fell out with Rajapakse, not over their joint war crimes, but over who should take the credit. Rajapakse provoked deep resentment in the officer caste by thrusting himself forward as the architect of the victory in order to bolster his fragile ruling coalition and win a series of provincial council elections. Fonseka became the mouthpiece for this bitterness, particularly after he was shunted out of his post as army chief into the largely symbolic post of Chief of Defence Staff. His secret negotiations with opposition parties became public last month. When Rajapakse announced early presidential elections, Fonseka was put forward as their common candidate.


"Fonseka is not a member of any political party. While he undoubtedly has reached election agreements with the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), he will not be bound by their policies or party discipline if elected. This situation is unprecedented in post-independence politics in Sri Lanka and underscores the profound degeneration of parliamentary politics. After decades of civil war and pro-market restructuring, the two main bourgeois parties—the UNP and Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLPF)—are widely distrusted and despised. The Sinhala chauvinist JVP, after acting as a political safety valve for public frustration and alienation, rapidly lost support after joining a SLFP coalition in 2004. Last year it suffered a debilitating split.


"The norms of parliamentary rule have already been stretched to the limit. Rajapakse presides over an unwieldy coalition of 17 parties, all of which have posts in what is one of the world’s largest ministries. As a result, he has increasingly sidelined cabinet and parliament and operated through a cabal comprising his brothers, close political cronies, trusted bureaucrats and generals. His extensive powers as executive president have been further enhanced by the ongoing state of emergency that allows arrest without trial, censorship and the suppression of industrial action. His regime has flouted the constitution on several occasions and ignored the rulings of the country’s High Court.


"In launching his campaign, Fonseka branded Rajapakse a “tin-pot dictator” and embraced the call by the UNP and JVP to abolish the executive presidency. No credence can be placed in this promise or the attempts by the opposition parties to dress up the general in democratic clothes. Political leaders have routinely pledged to abolish the executive presidency while in opposition, only to shelve the promise on taking office. Rajapakse’s immediate predecessor Chandrika Kumaratunga promised to end the executive presidency before taking office in 1994, only to use its sweeping powers to arbitrarily dismiss an elected UNP government in 2004.


"Unlike previous Sri Lankan presidents, however, Fonseka has no political party or any substantial following of his own. If elected, he will be compelled to use his presidential powers to the full as he attempts to balance between competing political forces. His main constituency is not the opposition parties that are backing him and certainly not the voters. He is a mouthpiece above all for the state apparatus, particularly the officer corps of the country’s huge military, and for sections of the ruling elite who have become increasingly frustrated that their economic agenda has been blocked. Fonseka is emerging as a classic Bonapartist figure—a strongman, who appears to rise above the political fray, claims to impose policies for the good of the nation, and who is a stepping-stone to a naked military-police dictatorship.


"In his incisive analysis of the regimes in Germany that preceded the Nazis in the 1930s, Leon Trotsky explained that Bonapartism emerged only under definite conditions. “As soon as the struggle of two social strata—the haves and the have-nots, the exploiter and the exploited—reaches its highest tension, the conditions are given for the domination of bureaucracy, police, soldiery. The government becomes ‘independent’ of society. Let us once again recall: if two forks are stuck symmetrically into a cork, the latter can stand even on the head of a pin. This is precisely the schema of Bonapartism,” Trotsky wrote. By its very nature, such a system of rule is unstable and temporary.

Read full article

Mediate to stop abuse of public property in Sri Lanka president's campaign for re-election -Opposition

(December 08, Colombo - Lanka Polity) The United National Front of Sri Lanka urges the Election Commissioner Dayananda Disanayaka to use the powers vested in him to curb the misuse of state powers and property in the campaign of ruling party candidate Mahinda Rajapakse.

The abuse of government property is in the peak with beginning of the presidential election. The state services, police and the state-owned media are the mostly misused sectors. The misuse of state property ranges from the photocopier belonged to the local government authority to  forks and spoons of the Temple Trees, the official residence of the President. The numerous parties in Temple Trees agenda are also abuses of public property. Further, various kinds of opening ceremonies are also abuses of powers since they are timed for political propaganda.

Recruitment, transfers and promotions etc. of the public officials are suspended when an election is underway in line with the election regulations. However, the government blatantly violates these laws to manipulate state powers for political purposes. The government forces the Ministry secretaries to allocate funds to recruit persons to use them in election campaigns. The using of ministry allocated vehicles and fuel for the political propaganda is another major abuse and corruption.

"According to the 17th amendment, the Election Commissioner must take action to curb abuse of public property," points out the United National Front. "The constitution has granted powers to the Election Commissioner to take action if any political party, person or independent group misuses the state property Further the election commissioner has powers to take action on police, state media and state services."

The United National Front urges the Election Commissioner to take actions against the abuse of state powers and property to guarantee a free and fare election  United National Front is inviting to all the political parties, civil society and non governmental organization to act to stop the corruption of current government. 

US official here to encourage post-war reconciliation

(December 07, Colombo - Lanka Polity) The highest-ranking US envoy to arrive in Sri Lanka following the war victory of the government will arrive in the island today.

Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, will visit Sri Lanka on Monday and Tuesday. 

He is expected to encourage post-war reconciliation, US State Departmentofficials said Friday.

Blake, formerly the ambassador to Colombo, will meet with government officials, political leaders and civil society, State Department added in a statement.

Sri Lanka's relations with the United States and other Western nations soured earlier this year as troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, who waged a bloody campaign for a separate homeland.US was concerned about the safety of the non-combatants.

However, Sri Lanka government accuses the Western nations are plotting against them and assisting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) that was militarily defeated this year.

A draft of government policy for the broadband sector coming this year

(December 07, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka is to compile a government policy for the internet broadband sector, says  Sri Lanka’s Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRC).

Priyantha Kariyapperuma, Director General of TRC says that a draft is to be published before the end of the year for public comments.

Internet subscribers are estimated at 1 for every 100 people (in 2007), up from 0.2 in 2000, says a recent World Bank report.

The World Bank points out that the penetration of broadband services contribute to economic growth.


"For every ten percentage point increase in the penetration of broadband services, there is a 1.3 percentage point increase in economic growth," said Tenzin Dolma Norbhu, a World Bank ICT policy specialist.