25 SLA killed in Mannaar clashes - LTTE and more news

25 SLA killed in Mannaar clashes - LTTE
[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 November 2007, 15:26 GMT] At least 25 Sri Lanka Army (SLA)

25 soldiers were killed and more than 60 wounded when Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) confronted the ground troops of the SLA on two fronts, at Paalaikkuzhi and at the bund of Kaddukkaraiku'lam Thursday morning from 5:30 a.m. till 12:30 p.m., field officials of the Tigers told media in Vanni Thursday evening. Tigers said they lost seven cadres in the fighting in Mannaar. Arrangements were underway to hand over a dead body of a SLA trooper, recovered by the Tigers, after thwarting the SLA movement. The LTTE has seized four automatic rifles and ammunitions in the clearing mission, they said. Four T-56 assault rifles, thirty-two magazines, four RPG shells, four propellers, PK-LMG rounds numbering 2595, four drum magazines, nine bullet-proof jackets, eight holsters, nine helmets and four box containers for PK-LMG rounds and two hand grenads were located in the clearing mission as the SLA troops were hurriedly withdrawn after sustaining heavy casualties, the LTTE officials told media.
The Tigers would hand over the dead body of a SLA soldier through the ICRC on Friday.

Civilian, 6 combatants killed in Mannaar clashes
[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 November 2007, 08:28 GMT]

A young mother was killed when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and Special Task Force (STF) commandos in Murungkan, opened fire from their positions around 8:30 a.m. Thursday. The SLA and the LTTE engaged in offensive operations at two different positions. At least three FDL positions of the Sri Lankan forces were destroyed. The SLA has suffered heavy casualties. Military sources put their casualty figures at 3 killed and 32 wounded. Meanwhile, Murungkan Police has handed over 3 dead bodies of LTTE female cadres to Mannaar hospital. The civilian victim, Surendini Imanuel, 33, mother of two, was killed at Aaththikkuzhi in Murungkan, when the SLA soldiers who were rushing their casualties to Vangkaalai helicopter landing pad, opened fired at cows that were sleeping on their way blocking the ambulances, residents said.
All the SLA and STF troopers, heavily deployed along the Mannnaar Madawaachi road in recent days, had opened fire from their positions in Murungkan area, Police sources said alluding that the Tigers had launched a preemptive strike as the Sri Lankan troops were readying for a ground offensive following an intensive artillery attack.
Heavy shelling from the Sri Lankan forces in Murungkan, Uyilangku'lam, Vangkaalai, South Bar and Tha'l'laadi installations, launched around 5:30 a.m. lasted till 12:30 p.m.
The road used to transport the wounded Sri Lankan soldiers to the Helicopter landing pad at Vangkaalai remained blocked for public access.

US condemns the LTTE attack on Anuradhapura.
Thursday, 01 November 2007

The recent LTTE attack on the Anuradhapura Air Force Base was condemned by the US.The US Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Robert Blake addressing a gathering of a administrative and executive officers participating at a workshop in promoting good governance and transparency in public service at the CTC Conference Hall, Anuradhapura recently, stated that the US Government and its people condole over the deaths of Air Force personnel in the Anuradhapura Air Force Base attack recently and also condemn the attack.
Referring to the aid offered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Ambassador Blake stated that “the USAID has since 2003 implemented various development schemes worth US$ 1.5 million in Anuradhapura and are also hoping to continue to carry out more development schemes in future in the area.”
The Ambassador further said it was a memorable and a great occasion for him to visit the historic city of Anuradhapura with it scenic beauty. He appreciated thoroughly the endeavor of the youths of the Rajarata University and the NYSC Anuradhapura in the successful implementation of the project.
The Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake, Chief Secretary A. Talakotunage, Government Agent Anuradhapura H. M. K. Herath, Additional Governments Agent Anula Indrani, Managing Director of USAID Keith Doctaters, and lecturer of the University of Colombo in political science and conflict resolutions Shanthini Jayasundara addressed the workshop. Last Updated ( Thursday, 01 November 2007 )

LBO >> Economy Poverty Reduction 01 November 2007 14:37:41 By Asantha Sirimanne

Sri Lanka should lower inflation to protect poor people: World Bank
Nov 01, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka should lower inflation to protect the poor and take steps to clear economic imbalances that were building up, a top visiting World Bank official said. "The rate of inflation is approaching 20 percent, and the government budget deficit and debt levels are too high," World Bank managing director Graeme Wheeler told reporters in Colombo.
Sri Lanka has fiscal deficits of more than 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and years of mis-investing borrowed money has pushed national debt above 90 percent of GDP and made interests payments one of the biggest expenses of the state.
Budget deficits are too large to be bridged by borrowings or tax revenues cause high inflation in developing countries.
Consumer prices in the capital Colombo hit 19.6 percent in October and country-wide inflation topped 21.7 percent in August.
Explicit Target
The Central Bank promised to keep inflation below 10 percent in a monetary policy roadmap published in January 2007, but a worsening budget deficit forced it to print money, driving inflation up.
The island's central bank is forced to finance the government through money printing as its governing monetary law is flawed. The government can also appropriate reserves without going to parliament.
This has prompted calls for legislated inflation targeting in Sri Lanka which will force the Central Bank to preserve the purchasing power of the currency and also make it independent from the Treasury, a process that was perfected in New Zealand.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand first gave itself a low inflation target which it had to achieve, without being distracted by secondary obligations in 1988.
Wheeler was a former director of macroeconomic policy and forecasting at the New Zealand Treasury.
"The Reserve Bank act specified that the goal of the central bank is to achieve price stability," Wheeler said.
"There were no other objectives. There was nothing there about growth, about employment, about current account deficits or anything. The soul objective of the central bank was to achieve price stability."
The inflation target, currently between 1 to 3 percent, is fixed by agreement between the central bank governor and the finance minister at the start of the term of each government.
"It has proved to be enormously effective," says Wheeler. "It has established New Zealand as, one; a low inflation environment and two; given the central bank enormous credibility." "The issue for Sri Lanka whether it adopts inflation targeting or not, or whether it makes the central bank more independent or not the key issue is that it really needs to get inflation under much greater control in order to avoid losing competitiveness and also avoid disadvantaging groups that cannot be protected, who are very vulnerable to high inflation environments."
Inflation targeting has stopped central banks and governments from giving puerile excuses such as 'cost push inflation' in order to cover-up their incompetence in preserving the value of a national currency, which economists call 'price stability'.
Paper Money Fraud
Economic analysts have described paper money inflation as a kind of legalized fraud which is used by governments in collusion with central banks to secretly steal the wages of workers and their savings and impoverish large sections of their citizenry.
Sri Lanka set up a central bank in 1951 giving the newly independent government money printing powers, but has not been able to issue a good quality currency that preserved its value.
Since then governments have bridged the budget deficit off money supply expansion and the country suffered high inflation and balance of payments problems regularly while its citizens were steadily impoverished through a sub-standard currency.
Central bank financing of the budget deficit rose to 127 billion rupees in August 2007 which was about half the country base money supply.
This hurt the poorest sections of society most who do not have assets to hedge against inflation.
In order to prevent paper money inflation, many countries have made central bank independent, given them inflation targets or abolished them altogether and moved back to currency boards, which can only issue currency against foreign reserves.
Sri Lanka had a currency board before 1951.

Consensus building for peace
On a first reading of the poll results, what emerges is the gap between what people perceive as the hard realities of the conflict and what they desire as the ideal outcome. What is striking is that in the midst of the contradictions in the responses, the overarching commitment to the fundamental principles of peace is almost universal
By Godfrey Gunatilleke
What are the fundamental principles that should govern a process that seeks to achieve a lasting peace? How does the public view the present military strategy of weakening the LTTE and what are their expectations of the LTTE?
What are the constitutional reforms that are likely to be most acceptable to the Sinhala majority and the Muslim minority? How can peace and normalcy be restored to the north and east?Around these four issues, the Marga Institute framed four sets of questions and conducted a public opinion survey covering a national sample of 1,800 respondents randomly selected from 18 districts in the country. The survey was sponsored by the National Peace Council and carried in May/June this year, against the backdrop of a heightened public relations campaign run by the state with Toppigala falling back to the hands of the Sri Lankan Army.
A special feature of the survey was that it was designed in the form of a deliberative poll, in which respondents were provided with the background information on the issues in the first round of the survey. This was done through a handout in which the different conflicting positions taken on each set of issues by different parties was presented with complete objectivity, avoiding bias or advocacy.
Respondents were given time to deliberate and reflect on the issues and after a fortnight, their responses were obtained on a structured questionnaire. The Institute reports that the methodology with the element of citizens’ consultation it used was received very positively by the respondents. More than 97% responded to all questions in the handout.
The four set of issues were framed to help respondents to engage in a logical process of reasoning, moving from the principles which they consider essential for peace to the current situation and future desirable outcomes.
The responses that were received provide some very valuable insights to policy makers who are currently engaged in seeking solutions to the conflict. It is not possible to convey the full complexity of the findings in this brief summary. What is highlighted here are some of the most important conclusions.
On a first reading of the poll results, what emerges is the gap between what people perceive as the hard realities of the conflict and what they desire as the ideal outcome. This conflict runs throughout the four sets of questions. What is striking is that in the midst of the contradictions in the responses, the overarching commitment to the fundamental principles of peace is almost universal.
• 99.7 % want the war to end as soon as possible and peace and security restored in all parts of the country• 72% state that there has to be a political solution regardless of the military operations• 95 % agree that such a solution must be fair and just to all communities and that all Sri Lankans should enjoy equal rights and opportunities as citizens in all parts of the country• 78 % state that resources should be distributed equitably among all communities proportional to their size• 86% state that there should be devolution of power that empowers people below the national level and reaches out to the local levelThe respondents are, however, sharply divided on the current strategy:• More than two-thirds (68%) support the strategy aimed at weakening the LTTE militarily• Nevertheless, a majority 57 % want government to offer a political solution while pursuing the military strategy• However, a majority (55%) oppose an immediate cessation of the hostilities and commencement of negotiations• In the present circumstances, 77 % do not expect the LTTE to give up its demand of eelam and enter the democratic process• Only 43% think that LTTE might give up eelam if a reasonable political solution is offered• Apparently, based on these expectations, the large majority (84%) favour a total military defeat of the LTTE and recapture of the territory presently held by it• But, even with this outcome, the large majority (89 %) think that the LTTE will continue as a guerrilla force and threaten peace and security in all parts of the island
This appears to lead the respondents (72.4%) to conclude that the best solution would be one which includes the LTTE and makes it abandon the demand for eelam and brings it into the democratic peace. This desire seems consistent with the responses to the first set of questions and the almost universal commitment to the pre-conditions for lasting peace.
The responses seem to indicate that a dramatic change in the situation is possible if the LTTE can make an unequivocal commitment to abandon its demand for eelam and enter the democratic process.
The responses to constitutional reforms point to two vital concerns – the fear of separation as against empowerment of the people and bringing government closest to the people. First, the respondents appear to be approaching a system of power sharing in relation to the scope it provides for separation and its adequacy to protect the unity and territorial integrity of the country.
• While only 22 % approved a federal solution about 49% supported the Indian model, which provided greater powers to the centre• Most of the respondents (87 %) were in favour of the provincial council system.• 70.4 % were ready to support a three-tiered system of devolution which gave adequate power to the third tier, bringing government closest to the people. In such a system, the distribution of power between the centre and province, which is close to the federal system, becomes acceptable.Finally, respondents were almost equally divided on the issue of the merger:• 51% wanted the two provinces to be de-merged and continue as separate provinces• The large majority (82%) were against the re-demarcation of the Eastern Province. It should be noted that these are primarily the responses of the Sinhala and Muslim community• The large majority of respondents (85%) were in favour of elections being held as early as possible to restore the democratic rights of the people• 64% regarded that as a means of accelerating the peace process and as many as 53% were in favour of seeking international assistance for the purpose.
When assessed as a whole, the survey provides considerable space for a constructive process of building consensus and taking the peace process forward. The responses to the first set of questions, with almost universal acceptance of the fundamental principles essential for peace, provide a clear frame of reference for resolving the conflicts and building consensus on the three sets of key issues that follow.
The points of entry for peace-building in the responses to the other three sets of questions are as follows:
• The search of the respondents for the lasting solution through a negotiated settlement that includes the LTTE• A three-tiered system of devolution that brings government close to the federal system• The high degree of support for the restoration of democratic rights as the means of accelerating peace in the north and east

In Sri Lanka, war dead don't add up
by Amal Jayasinghe1 hour, 23 minutes ago

Judging by Sri Lankan government accounts of Tamil Tiger dead after decades of fighting, there should hardly be any rebels left.
Yet the guerrillas keep on fighting, and apparently dying in large numbers -- pointing either to an unlimited pool of combatants or a government wish to boost morale by playing up its prowess on the battlefield.
Analysts suspect it is more a case of the latter.
"There is a huge propaganda war going on to show that more people are being killed," said defence analyst Namal Perera.
"The new battlefield is the media."
Retired army colonel Susantha Seneviratne agreed there was "an exaggeration of Tiger casualties," after a week in which the government has reported around a dozen dead each day.
"This is not unique to Sri Lanka. Almost every army in the world does it," he said. "It is to help maintain morale."
There is no independent verification of casualties and journalists are not allowed to travel to the rebel mini-state in the north or the frontline, but experts and analysts agree the government figures do not add up.
Sri Lanka's chief military spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, insisted official figures only had a margin of error of "about 10 percent".
"Sometimes ground troops might see a terrorist falling and count him as dead, but he may only be seriously wounded," Nanayakkara explained.
"If we get the information from (Tiger) radio communications, then the numbers are accurate."
Although government forces have made major progress in battling the Tigers over the past year, including ousting them from their last stronghold in the east, there have been embarrassing setbacks.
In March the Tigers, who are fighting for an independent homeland, carried out their first air strike on Sri Lankan forces using what were believed to be two training planes smuggled into the island in bits and flown from a jungle air strip.
Last week, an elite suicide squad of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) infiltrated a key air base and virtually wiped out the fleet of spy planes used to spot rebel movements and bases.
Since then the defence ministry has been producing a handsome Tamil Tiger body count, while government troops barely suffer a scratch.
The security forces say they killed 3,284 Tiger rebels between December 2005, when a Norwegian-brokered truce began falling apart, and September this year.
Independent estimates put the size of the LTTE force at between 5,000 and 12,000 men and women -- meaning that at this rate of killing they should soon be running out of recruits.
Senior officials have in the past claimed there were only 500 Tiger rebels left, or that 85 percent of the guerrilla army had been wiped out.
"Statistics that lie in defence of the realm," the pro-opposition Leader newspaper said in a recent headline, citing the government claims.
"The defence ministry is... lying to the people by detailing exaggerated figures of the number of Tigers killed to achieve petty short term political objectives."
The defence ministry has now removed the overall tally of rebel dead from its website, but still gives a hefty daily toll.
Sunanda Deshapriya, director at the private Centre for Policy Alternatives think-tank, said the figures were clearly being massaged.
"By projecting a high number of people killed the parties have reduced the value of life," Deshapriya said.
"Killings are now generally accepted by society as a done thing, and the more the merrier."
According to Seneviratne, who writes on defence issue in local newspapers, the high Tiger casualties claimed by the military could backfire.
"When the fighting has been going on for so long and after claiming such heavy losses if you still can't beat them, then there is a credibility issue," Seneviratne told AFP.
"The high losses indicate that they (the Tigers) have committed fighters ready to die for a cause... You only give the impression that they are a very large force. They are not."
The LTTE releases its overall death toll in the last week of November, when it observes a "heroes week" to commemorate the war dead.
Last year, they paid respects to 18,742 cadres killed since 1982.
Independent analysts believe that overall, government forces have suffered similar losses.

Thu, 1 November 2007 20:27:27 LBO >> Economy Alarm Bells 01 November 2007 16:20:12

Sri Lanka's weak rule of law alarming for economy: World Bank

Nov 1, 2007 (AFP) - A top World Bank official on Thursday urged Sri Lanka to cut a political deal with Tamil rebels to help spur economic growth which has been hit by an "alarming" disregard for the rule of law.
"The conflict remains a major obstacle to Sri Lanka achieving its full potential," the World Bank's Managing Director Graeme Wheeler said after meeting community leaders in Sri Lanka.
Wheeler said the community leaders told him numerous stories of unlawful killings and disappearances linked to more than three decades of bloodshed between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels. Human rights groups regularly accuse both sides of abductions, murder and torture.
"The large number of reported killings, abductions and disappearances and weakness in the rule of law are alarming," Wheeler said.
"I would like to emphasize the vital need to seek a political solution to the conflict as soon as possible," he told reporters here at the end of his two-day visit to inspect some of the 480 million dollars of projects supported by the World Bank in Sri Lanka.
Renewed violence since 2005 has also slowed the 26-billion-dollar economy, with the Central Bank lowering its 2007 year-end growth forecast to 6.5 percent from an earlier estimate of 7.0 percent.
The outlook for 2008 has been trimmed to 7.5 percent growth rate from 8.0 percent.
Wheeler said Sri Lanka, which is groaning under a 1.29 billion dollar defence budget this year, must push for economic reforms and make an effort to stamp out inflation, which hit 19.6 percent in October.
"The rate of inflation is approaching 20 percent and the government budget deficit of around 8.5 percent (of GDP) and debt levels are too high," he said.
Sri Lanka's public debt remains high at 93 percent of gross domestic product, while interest payments absorb almost a third of government revenue.
"Government spending is dominated by two things -- interest payments on debt and significant proportion of spending towards security related issues," he said.
"If Sri Lanka can move towards a speedy political solution they can reduce the spending on other development issues."

RIGHTS-SRI LANKA:Civil War Brutality Hits New Lows
IPS Correspondents
COLOMBO, Nov 1 (IPS) - While Sri Lanka’s minister for human rights Mahinda Samarasinghe has denied allegations by a top United Nations official that torture is ‘routine’ in the country, there is little doubt that the renewed civil war has resulted in brutality hitting new lows.
In a report on his visit to the island in October, U.N. special rapporteur on torture Manfred Novak said it was ‘’widely practiced,’’ and noted it was ‘’prone to become routine in the context of counter-terrorism operations, in particular by the terrorism investigation department.’’
Reacting to Novak’s report on Wednesday, Samarasinghe claimed that Sri Lanka had a "zero-tolerance" policy on torture. But he said the report was being studied by the government and that action was being taken against officials who beat up prisoners for speaking to the U.N. official.
But government claims and denials on the subject of torture and human rights have a hollow ring to them. For example, it first denied that the naked bodies of Tamil Tiger rebels killed in an attack on an airbase near Anuradhapura were displayed in public on Oct. 23, and then ordered an enquiry after pictures of the incident began to circulate.
Eyewitnesses say that the bodies were transported in an open tractor trailer from the airbase to the morgue and photographs and video footage corroborate the fact that crowds were allowed to gather around the trailer.
"It should never have happened in any case, it is a callous act of disregard for international conventions," Sunanda Deshapriya of the Colombo-based think- tank, the Centre for Policy Alternatives, told IPS.
Deshapriya, however, feels the display of the bodies and attempts to muzzle the media were part of a wider erosion of civic rights. "What we have witnessed in the last 20 months is the gradual erosion of civil rights in the name of fighting a terror group," he said.
Novak’s report said: ‘’Over the course of my visits to police stations and prisons, I received numerous consistent and credible allegations from detainees who reported that they were ill-treated by the police during inquiries in order to extract confessions, or to obtain information in relation to other criminal offences. Similar allegations were received with respect to the army.’’
"The government took serious note of observations made by the special rapporteur relating to the allegation of corporeal punishment at Bogambara Prison and allegations of torture by the police’s terrorist investigation division -- supposedly in retaliation for communication by the detainees with Novak. In the former case, disciplinary proceedings have commenced against the prison official concerned and, in the latter, detainees have been examined by the judicial medical officer," a government statement said.
Novak has proposed the establishment of "a field presence of the office of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights with a mandate of both monitoring the human rights situation in the country, including the right of unimpeded access to all places of detention, and providing technical assistance particularly in the field of judicial, police and prison reform.’’
U.N. human rights high commissioner Louise Arbour, another visitor to the island in October, has also called for the establishment of a field presence of her office in Sri Lanka to stem mounting rights violations.
"What the office could contribute would be a presence in Sri Lanka, acting under a full mandate, which could offer some technical assistance whilst filling the information gap. That would go a long way to satisfying the desire of Sri Lankans for a proper understanding of the situation in their country," Arbour told the U.N. General Assembly last week.
International backing for the establishment of such an office has increased since Arbour’s visit. U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs R. Nicholas Burns and under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs Paula Dobriansky expressed concern when they met with Sri Lankan activist Sunila Abeysekera who won the Human Rights Watch’s human rights defender award for 2007.
"Under-secretary Burns and under-secretary Dobriansky expressed great concern about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, observing that the Sri Lankan government needed to work far more intensively to end such grave human rights violations as extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and torture, as well as on-going media censorship by government security forces," the state department later said of the meeting.
However, activists like Abeyasekera do not see a quick end to the turmoil in Sri Lanka. "This is the worst it has ever been. We have a humanitarian crisis as well as a human rights crisis," she said soon after the award was announced in October.
She along with three colleagues resigned as advisors to a government ministerial committee on human rights during Arbour’s visit to the country.
The government of President Mahinda Rajapakse has consistently rejected calls for the setting up of any international human rights mission in Sri Lanka and is bent on militarily defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil (LTTE), which has led a two-decade-old armed struggle to carve out a separate state for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of the island.
In July, following pitched battles with the LTTE, the Sri Lankan army declared the liberation of the east from militant control and is now concentrating on the Wanni, a swath of territory in north that has traditionally been the stronghold of the Tamil minority.
But as the fighting shifts to the north, the LTTE has shown signs of making good on a promise to carry the war into Sinhala areas in the south. On Oct. 22 an LTTE commando squad attacked a major airbase near Anuradhapura supported by rebel aircraft, destroying, according to a military statement, four training aircraft, three helicopters and a surveillance plane.
Ten airmen were killed at the base while four others died when a helicopter crashed nearby. At least 20 members of the LTTE squad were killed in the fighting and some of their bodies were placed on display in Anuradhapura while being taken to a morgue the next day.
The raid on the airbase was the third involving the LTTE's air wing into Sinhala areas since a surprise raid on a military installation near the capital in March. A second raid in April resulted in extensive damage to an oil storage depot outside the city.
According to the defence ministry figures, a quarter century of conflict has left more than 70,000 people dead. After fighting intensified under the pro-Sinhala Rajapakse government two attempts at peace talks in Geneva failed with the LTTE insisting that a peace settlement must recognise a separate homeland for Tamils, who make up 8.5 percent of the 20 million population.
On its part, the Rajapakse government has rejected any settlement that could divide the country and has indicated preference for a military solution to the conflict.
‘’But the government’s victories in the east have been accompanied by the spread of fighting in the north and outside of it in the south," Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council, a Colombo-based advocacy group, said.
The LTTE has indicated, through its air attacks, a willingness to take on the Sri Lankan military in the pursuit of its stated objectives. "We take decisions based on the ground situation... it is what happens on the ground that determines our moves. Offense could be the defense," LTTE military spokesman Rasiah Illanthariyan told IPS.
A continuous military push is likely to push up casualty figures, Perera warned. "It is tragic that history is repeating itself with catastrophic consequences to the lives of people and to the economy, but the military and political leaders of the country fail to learn from the past."
(END/2007)