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.

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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.

Sri Lanka government bars media acces to IDPs to cover up the faults

(December 06, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka government has decided to postpone opening of the IDP camps and the newly resettled villages in the island's Northern Province to media and NGOs in order to cover up the weaknesses in the way the people are treated, analysts say.

Although the tension on IDP camps in Vavuniya have ebbed with recent resettlement and  granting of permission for the IDPs to go out of the camps temporarily, there are allegations that the government has resettled some IDPs in temporary mini camps and many IDPs have not given the promised facilities for resettlement.

Foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama declared in a BBC interview Tuesday that the media now had full access, prompting a flood of requests from reporters to travel to the former war zone in the north.However, AFP reported that restrictions on visits to the northern district of Vavuniya where the government maintains its camp complex remain in place despite them being declared "open" on Tuesday.

"The restrictions on journalists to visit displaced people in camps have not been relaxed yet," Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told reporters.

Pressed for a date when the camps would be open to the media, the minister said: "We are trying to lift the ban on media access, but it will take time."

"The media is not allowed to go into the camps," the defence ministry's media centre chief Lakshman Hulugalle said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said they had also been denied accesss to the camps and there had been no relaxation of the restrictions despite Bogollagama's announcement.