Sri Lanka on The Huffington Post

Sri Lanka opens Tamil camps

2009-12-01T11:01:08Z

Thousands of displaced civilians leave military-run camps opened up by government.

Sri Lanka's Fonseka in poll bid

2009-11-29T03:00:52Z

Ex-army chief announces intention to as opposition candidate for the presidency.

The MTA Dining Car: Eating Club: Staten Island Ferry To Little Sri Lanka

2009-11-24T14:52:46Z

For many, the Staten Island ferry is not so much a form of transportation but rather a free, fail-safe way to entertain out-of-town guests: hop aboard, point out the Statue of Liberty, and wait in the Staten Island ferry terminal for the next boat back to Manhattan. But Staten Island is not merely a turn-around point nor an imagined place--a netherland--where Hans van den Broek plays cricket in Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. In fact, among other groups, Staten Island is home to more than 1/3 of New York's Sri Lankan population. Interesting note: while there are ethnic clashes in the mother country, Tamils and Sinhalese are at peace in Staten Island's Sri Lankan enclave (at least according to a somewhat dated City Limits article).

This month, the MTA Dining Car--a monthly eating club devoted to outer borough trekking--headed to Staten Island. The destination: Sanrasa's $11 Sunday buffet in Tompkinsville (aka Little Sri Lanka), just a 10-minute walk from the ferry terminal on Staten Island.

We gazed out of the rain-slickened ferry window, searching for the Manhattan skyline. It was the kind of gloomy afternoon in which one realizes: winter is nearly upon us once more. And yet, we knew the meal to come would warm our hearts and sinuses with hot chilis and fiery curries, chasing away the onslaught of seasonal despair.

The view from the ferry's bow: in the distance, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; in the foreground, what appears to be the kind of kiddy gate that one might use on a staircase.

Bay Street en route to Tompkinsville.

There's something vaguely Soviet about Staten Island.

On the exterior of the Cargo Cafe, thanks to the handywork of the local Budos Band, a pirate fights a fire-breathing dragon beneath a "Starry Night"-inspired sky. Previously, paintjobs by artist Scott LoBaido have included scenes of King Kong and giant parakeets with humans dangling out of their mouths. For the Cargo Cafe's interior, self-described "Creative Patriot" LoBaido once painted a portrait of Rudy Giuliani as a Roman soldier atop a rearing stallion, raising a billowing American flag with the flagpole doing double duty as a spear--which Giuliani uses to slay a demon/terrorist in the wreckage of what appears to be the Twin Towers.

Just up the street: a more conceptual painting, which the Cargo Cafe's manager thought to be a LoBaido as well.

One house still featured Halloween decorations. (Yes, that's a toy puppy with a knife in its skull.)

At long last! The Sanrasa buffet spread. Earthenware pots are to Sri Lankan food what the slow cooker is to flyover state American food: a sign of home cooking.

For the dhal, the lentils are simmered in coconut milk along with turmeric, cumin seed, red chili, and clove. Sanrasa owner Sanjay Handapangoda pan-roasts the spices himself.

Bitter gourd ("karvilla" in Sinhalese) is sliced, fried, and tossed with raw red onion, vinegar, mustard seed, and green chilis for a multilayered sweet and tangy flavor. If you assume Sri Lankan food to be a variant of Indian food, this dish will convince you otherwise.

The implicit question of the buffet is: how to stop? Returning to the buffet line "just for dessert" (see mango mousse in lower-right corner), one might then look down to see a full plate of chicken curry, yellow rice, dhal, pineapple chutney, bitter gourd, and coconut sambol (an all-purpose sweet and spicy condiment of grated coconut, chili, and lemon juice).

And yet: somehow we stopped eating, boarded the ferry, and watched Staten Island grow distant from the aft-end of the boat.

In the end, the sun came out just in time for it to set. Even if you live in New York, in moments like these, you're allowed to take photos with a tourist's unselfconscious sense of awe.

-Kiera Feldman

Anatomy of a Sri Lankan buffet plate (clockwise from the papadum): leeks, dhal, eggplant, chicken curry, potato, bitter gourd, coconut sambol, goat curry, and kingfish curry; mango and pineapple chutney, yellow rice (center).

Richard Walden: 7 Gifts that Give Back to the World

2009-11-24T14:47:09Z

This holiday season there are a number of ways you can donate to powerful causes in honor of family and friends that they would wholeheartedly endorse in lieu of a gift:

1. Water purification tablets to disaster-prone areas like Cuba, Haiti, The Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. Each $125 buys 10,000 tablets delivered by air, each of which purifies over 25 liters of water. Think of the many children whom you'll protect from diarrhea and other water-borne diseases. Recently, Operation USA sent 2 million such tablets to The Philippines after it was struck by several typhoons. Local partner nonprofits distribute the tablets to many of the residents still battling the after-effects of the storms.

2. Why stop there? Drill a water well in East Africa, Central America or South and Southeast Asia. The cost varies but figure $500 if the water table is not too deep. Or, you can dig deeper -- literally -- and allow existing wells to be deepened to reach the water table; that would average $1000.

3. Make a loan to a woman in a rural community so she can launch a small-scale agricultural, animal husbandry or fresh food preparation project. Most of us know how dramatically these loans improve lives by improving livelihoods -- $50 buys 20 chickens; $100 buys 25 chickens, a rooster, materials for a small hen house and some start-up chicken feed; $150 buys a large pig ready to reproduce while an extra $100 provides the pig a cement pig pen linked to a $250 rubber bladder and tubing so the pig's excrement can be processed as biogas to run a stove or heat a small house. The variations of what people use these loans for are endless but most microfinance groups report whole villages being rejuvenated by an infusion of small amounts of capital. The kids get their school fees paid, the family can afford health care and the projects are expanded into real small businesses. Well over 95 percent of the loans are paid back into a small village "credit bank" for relending to others who wish to follow the example of the early borrowers.

4. Vitamin A capsules save a child's sight in many parts of the world where there is a shortage of Vitamin A-rich food. Xeropthalmia is what happens when there is not enough Vitamin A in a child's diet. This not only threatens a child's vision but exacerbates a host of other diseases like malaria and jeopardizes young lives.This gift has astonishing returns on an investment of $45 per thousand Vitamin A capsules, since a child of 5 to 8-years-old only needs 2 capsules taken 6 months apart to provide long-term protection against this insidious condition. You can protect 500 kids for $45, at 9 cents per child! That's the cost of two apple martinis in a trendy club or a movie date with popcorn and parking.

5. You can send a child to school for between $25 to $150. That includes fees, textbooks, school supplies, a uniform and transportation for one child. In rural Vietnam, the average cost is $25 and in rural Nicaragua the costs total $150. For $2000 you can also pay a credentialed teacher in Nicaragua for a year; $1500 in Vietnam; $1200 in Cambodia. Oprah spent $40 million on one school in South Africa, but you can build your own large schoolroom for 50 kids in most parts of Africa, South Asia or Central America for $15,000 to $30,000. In India, poor school hygiene and water are issues in school, in many cases keeping girls from getting a primary education because they do not want to share toilet facilities with the boys. For $5000 you can drill the school water well, install two bathrooms with hygienic toilets for boys and girls, train teachers how to effectively teach hygiene and upgrade the school's food service.

6. A completely outfitted motorized 6 meter-long fishing boat with nets and hooks in post-tsunami and post-war Sri Lanka costs $3500. You know the adage about a man and a fish: The fisherfolk pay back to a village pool of capital for the next fishing family to use.

7. You may be asking by now, what about OUR kids here at home? Awesome Girls in New Orleans provides after school services to at-risk teenage girls at a cost of about $200 per girl per year. in California, nearly 200 nonprofit community health clinics receive medicines, vitamin supplements and clinical supplies donated by many American companies at a shipping cost of $25 for a 30 to 40 pound box; as more people become unemployed and lose their health insurance and access to health care, they use community clinics whose own budgets rarely allow them to pay for more than the rent and a few salaried staff -- They rely on volunteer medical staff and donated supplies to provide the essential social safety net all of us want them to have.

Operation USA, (www.opusa.org) does all of these projects and much more, including health clinics, emergency medical aid to disasters, literacy projects. The best news is that others do this, too. charitynavigator.org a the watchdog group that can lead you to the others. Just be careful of the TV preachers with slick websites who prey (not pray) on the unsuspecting by offering their own catalog of good works!

Lionel Beehner: Why A Maximalist Af-Pak Policy Will Not Work

2009-11-10T11:35:17Z

It's unbelievable, really. The US military is holding up Iraq as a model for Afghanistan. They'll tell you it took a few years to get right but by golly, Iraq is at peace with itself, with a large armed forces, a democratically elected government, and commerce flourishing. Let's replicate that "success" in Afghanistan.

Iraq is remarkably more peaceful than it was in 2006. Baghdad is safer than many U.S. cities (but, given the sad state of our inner cities, is that a good barometer?). And the government has reclaimed its monopoly on the use of force, important for any government trying to claim legitimacy.

So let's turn to Afghanistan. There is a weak and corrupt government, little to no standing armed forces, and parts of the country entirely controlled by the Taliban. Okay, so Obama is expected to move in an additional 30,000-plus troops (I'm told he will make his decision before heading to China but not publicize it until afterward and that he will give McChrystal nearly the numbers he asked for, probably in the 30,000-35,000 ballpark). Then what? We stabilize Afghanistan, weed out corrupt elements in the government, squeeze the Taliban, and "clear, hold and build" the provinces. What then? Are we buying ourselves time to stand up the army? Creating space for political reconciliation? These are all buzz phrases carried over from the Iraq experiment -- just change "Sunni Arab" to "Pashtun" and "Anbar" to "Helmund" and it's basically the same set of challenges, right?

Except for one thing. Those who attacked us in 9/11 are safely ensconced in a remote part of Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Oops. Seems no matter how swimmingly our nation-building experiment goes across the border, that simple fact does not change. Nor is the Pakistani army willing to really take the fight to the extremists (though their recent assaults near Swat Valley are a welcome sign). As long as standing up to India is more important than eradicating terrorists, Pakistan will never become a reliable partner worthy of billions of dollars of aid. To the Biden types out there who ask: Why are we spending only $1 on Pakistan for every $20 we spend on Afghanistan? The answer is not to spend more on Pakistan but to spend less on Afghanistan. As Boston University's Andrew Bacevich has eloquently put it: "A sense of realism and a sense of proportion should oblige us to take a minimalist approach. As with Uruguay or Fiji or Estonia or other countries where U.S. interests are limited, the United States should undertake to secure those interests at the lowest cost possible."

I just returned from Sri Lanka, where a maximalist approach worked to eradicate a nasty insurgency. It was a mop-up operation that squeezed the Tamil Tigers onto a tiny swath of territory the size of Central Park. The army mowed down the top few tiers of the leadership but killed thousands of civilians in the process. The government was successful at splitting the Tiger leadership (A former Tiger commando leader is now a minister on national integration), a lesson for us as we contemplate trying to pry away moderate Taliban or include them in a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan. But the bigger lesson from the Sri Lankan is this: Colombo was pilloried abroad for its human rights violations and alleged war crimes. It faces a potential humanitarian catastrophe in the north, where hundreds of thousands of Tamils remain corralled in overcrowded camps. And the EU, US, and UN have called for Gaza-style investigations into what happened. Sri Lanka is lumped into the camp of nasty regimes out there: the Sudans and Burmas of the world. It will take years before its good name is restored.

So what does this mean for our Af-Pak policies? If Sri Lanka, a tiny spit of land in South Asia, was so widely denounced for its use of overwhelming force, imagine the outcry if the US tried a similar tactic to pacify Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan or Pakistan. We could wipe out the Taliban leadership probably in one fell swoop but it would not wipe out Pashtun aspirations or the other root social or economic causes of anti-US resentment. In fact, a mop-up operation of this magnitude, which would kill untold numbers of civilians, would only create more resentment. For this reason, I believe that a maximalist approach cannot work. The costs are too high. And it's not in our security interest. Better to spend the money to secure the US against a future terrorist attack, which, let's face it, is more likely to come from some sleeper cell in London, not from some bearded guy in a cave in Waziristan.

What Obama will propose is a politically expedient yet worst-of-both-worlds solution: just enough force to piss off the locals and lose their "hearts and minds," but not enough force to eradicate the threat, resulting in a slow but "acceptable" trickle of violence, enough to put Afghanistan out of mind, out of sight, at least in the eyes of most Americans. Insurgencies take time, we keep being told. It took Sri Lanka 25 years to defeat the Tamil Tigers. We should hold up neither Iraq nor Sri Lanka as an example of effective counterinsurgency. Instead we should be leveling with the Afghan government and making preparations for our eventual drawdown, not surging blindly into a conflict where we have no real vested interest.

Defiant Sri Lanken Asylum Seekers To Stay On Australian Ship Oceanic Viking

2009-11-05T11:16:57Z

The 78 Sri Lankans aboard the Oceanic Viking in port in Indonesia have declared that their "final decision" is to remain on the Australian ship.

DELHI FUNDS SRI LANKA - AID OR RANSOM?

2009-10-24T14:34:12Z

DELHI FUNDS SRI LANKA – AID OR RANSOM?

That Sri Lanka (SL) arm twists Delhi into keeping its funding tap open is ironic. SL is milking a Delhi entrapped into the Eelam conflict at the Indian tax payers’ expense. Delhi’s fear that SL may implicate the ‘Delhi trio’ in the massacre of the 20 000 civilians and white flag waving resistance leaders in May is phobic. This has snowballed to a level that Delhi even covertly offered to fund SL to offset should IMF refuse a $ 2.5 billion credit to SL. An SL Minister brought this into the public domain much to Delhi’s embarrassment. Why this predicament for Delhi?

It is the leaks by SL that uncover Delhi’s extensive covert support for SL. The leaks tactically timed ensured that the funding cuts of other nations disapproving SL’s human rights record is funded by Delhi. The latest Rp 500 crores tranche was timed to prevent the pre mature leaks of the massacres in ‘Narayanan’s no fire zone’ by the civilian interned eye witnesses. The sufferings of the IDPs behind barbed wire fenced Menik concentration camp was of no consequence. Delhi’s funding support of SL is now unstoppable. The latest Rp 500 crores is to release less than one quarter of the civilian IDPs. SL will ensure that Delhi pays up before its staged release of the rest of the IDPs.

Delhi covertly provided open lines of credit besides $ 200 million for SL to purchase weaponry especially lethal fire power that rained in the open trenches where over 20 000 civilians along with the white flag waving LTTE leadership were sheltering to cause the 15 -19 May massacres. Delhi funded RAW over flights pin pointed these massacre targets. Delhi insisted for long that its supplied SL only defensive weapons like radars but SL thankfully acknowledged receipt of lethal repainted naval gunships, helicopters gunships, Rajiv’s notorious Bofor guns and intelligence personnel on the ground in front line positions whose effective use exterminated the true protectors (LTTE) of the suffering Tamils. Will SL ever reciprocate for a Delhi that sold out its Chennai in favour of Colombo?

Delhi was a willing partner in SL’s genocide. SL used subterfuges to dupe EU into funding its civil war. SL initially used the tsunami tragedy to qualify for the EU’s GSP Plus; soon to divert it instead to fund the war that destroyed the Tamils and their resistance. During the nearly 30 years of resistance rule the Tamils were spared the brutal atrocities they experience now. SL duped EU and the West with incredible stories demonizing the Tamil resistance/LTTE as drug runners, people smugglers, extortionists and killers. The iconic SL story (of Bernard Goonetileke, SL ambassador to US) parleyed using the Washington Post radio of LTTE reaping hundreds of millions of US$ selling to Al Qaeda 130000 stolen Norwegian passports ( Jane factored this amount into their estimate of LTTE’s funding) is atypical of type of deception that SL resorts to.

For Delhi, SL uses a judicious mix of flattery and blackmail. This puzzles observers. SL apparently holds skeletons damaging to Delhi if brought out into the public domain. Delhi partnered the SL genocide including the recent massacres is public knowledge. SL adroitly exploits the north/south and sectarian divisive prejudices within the Delhi bureaucracy that Delhi gradually distanced itself from Chennai for TN’s sensitivities over the Tamil issue having no role. A DMK keen on surviving the rest of its term readily succumbed to Delhi’s (Pranab’s) pressures to tone down on the Tamil atrocities rhetoric. Delhi’s silence on the SL atrocities infected the TN political establishment; a remarkable feat for SL. Hence many view Chidambaram’s aid packages as ransom. Delhi’s plight extends beyond Bhadrakumar’s ‘Delhi trading away the LTTE leverage over SL cheaply’.

SL‘s demand that Delhi bank roll it will continue especially once EU withdraws the GSP plus benefits. Pitifully Delhi is sure to accede though it is fully aware that its funding will go towards SL’s ambitious militarization of the North (more military checkpoints dotting every few hundred meters) with improved land, air and naval bases in close proximity to TN that have serious security implications for TN and Tamilians. Delhi would have no qualms in abandoning them as it abandoned the TN fishermen to the mercies of the SL navy. Delhi’s indifference to TN’s future security leaves an embittered and betrayed Tamilians to wake up and re-examine fundamentals in its policy approaches to counter Delhi’s game plan. Is Delhi inducing the early birth of a balkanized India.

vssubramaniam

Read more: Delhi-India, India, Sri Lanka, Home News

Raj Rajaratnam Sued By Sri Lankan Victims: Galleon Group Portfolio Manager Accused Of Supporting The Liberation Tigers Of Tamil Eelam

2009-10-22T15:00:53Z

NEW YORK — A billionaire hedge fund manager charged in a $25 million insider trading case was sued by victims of violence in Sri Lanka who say he helped finance separatist rebels notorious for suicide bombings.

The federal lawsuit was filed Thursday in Newark, N.J., against Raj Rajaratnam, a 52-year-old portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with about $3.7 billion in assets.

Raja Rajaratnam, Billionaire Hedge Fund Founder, Sued For Allegedly Funding Tamil Tigers

2009-10-22T13:41:54Z

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Accused billionaire Raja Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon hedge fund, and his family's foundation were sued in a U.S. court on Thursday over allegations they provided $5 million to Tamil Tigers militants in his native Sri Lanka.

Eric Klein: The Story of CAN-DO: Enough Is Enough

2009-10-22T00:49:29Z

As I sat in a hospital bed after being hit by a drunk driver in December 2004, I watched repetitive news broadcasts about the devastating tsunami that ravaged South East Asia, leaving more than 10 million people homeless and more than 230,000 dead. I couldn't pull my eyes off the screen, absolutely floored by the magnitude of this disaster. What ensued was the largest outpouring of charitable donations, fundraising concerts, celebrity events, and compassion our world has seen.

At the time I thought to myself, "This is great, people are really stepping up" - and they did. What blew me away were the news reports a month later when those same stations now showed glaring images of people in Sri Lanka and Indonesia fighting over coconuts because they had nothing else to eat as they slept under tarps and continued to wait. That was it for me.

More than $10 billion was pledged and yet news reports continued to show communities that had never received a penny. Countless questions raced through my mind, "What happened to investigative journalism?! Why is nobody being held accountable and who the hell is in charge?"

Not one reporter answered the question of "Where did all the money go?" I was shocked that these organizations were not accountable for documenting the expenditure and results of these generous contributions. In February of 2004, less than 30% of those affected in Sri Lanka had received any aid.

I refused to sit there, point fingers, and not do something about it. Fueled by anger, frustration, and the determination to find out the truth, when I was released from the hospital, I took the money from the settlement from the accident, boarded a plane, and flew to Sri Lanka.

The exhaustive explanations about the need for even more donations shrouded the fact that not only were funds not reaching survivors, but much of the aid that had been donated was actually locked up in storage areas while people continued to suffer.

This is not to say that there weren't groups that were helping, but the majority of what I saw consisted of relief efforts stalled by red tape, bureaucracy, and countless reasons about why nothing had been done while NO ONE was being held accountable.

I've never been one to take no for an answer. Instead of walking through refugee camps for "assessments," we picked up shovels side by side with the survivors of this disaster, and together we began to rebuild.

What began as a ten day trip, turned into four months of intensive reconstruction. This resulted in the development of homes, businesses, community centers, and individuals who could begin to smile again because they realized that they had not been forgotten in refugee camps while large agencies argued about the need for additional funds.

I documented the entire process with video footage, photographs, and receipts of every single penny spent. The response was incredible as donors were able to see the faces of the people they had helped. For the first time, they could actually see their impact. I realized that there is a different way of doing things, and I had an idea how.

Direct evidence of all expenditures that achieved those results was the missing piece of the puzzle.

It was from these seeds that CAN-DO was born.

CAN-DO was born out of my own frustration with the system and the critical need I saw to hold charitable organizations accountable for hard-earned donations and to the communities they serve.

I have come to find that "NGOs" are part of a highly unregulated business sector and we need to start making them accountable. And this was not just a problem in Sri Lanka, it is happening everyday.

We keep seeing these carefully scripted scenarios on TV news and infomercials of a starving child with a bloated belly and can not help but be stirred to sympathy and compelled to donate what we can to the number flashing on our screens. But how do we know whether or not our contributions are reaching that child, all I'm saying is FOLLOW UP. Show me that same child you have been using as a poster child for years, healthy, happy, and educated. Show me some damn proof!

Now there are a number of highly reputable charities that DO provide real aid and I have no intention of discrediting them or discouraging donations. I do feel strongly, however, that there must be complete accountability.

I have continued to build CAN-DO as an example that we can cut through the red tape, document our efforts, and create lasting change, ultimately changing the face of philanthropy and setting new standards for effective relief efforts.

Every CAN-DO project has a clearly defined goal and specific measurable outcomes determined jointly with the communities to validate the impact of the programs. Additionally, CAN-DO is committed to complete accounting of every project, working with our donors at each phase through our VirtualVolunteer™ Programs.

We now have numerous successful projects in addition to the tsunami relief in Sri Lanka, including disaster relief for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Ike, the Iowa Floods, the Bigogwe floods, animal evacuation and transport missions, and more. Time and again, CAN-DO has exhibited remarkable effectiveness and unparalleled results.

Hurricane Katrina again revealed the corruption and bureaucracy that destroy effective efforts, leaving survivors waiting. Again, we proved that by never taking 'no' for an answer, we get the job done. We now have been in the Gulf Coast for more than four years. We have created more than 25 community distribution centers and we continue rebuilding homes to this day.

Based in our commitment to complete transparency and efficiency, we have remained a small, dedicated team of volunteers whose impact has continued to expand. Instead of incurring a fattened budget, we directly engage the survivors of catastrophe to become their own saviors, rebuilding their communities together. This model has proven incredibly effective and has garnered the attention of renowned philanthropists like former President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, as well as government officials, and recently was awarded with the Global Compassion Award at the UN.

To further expand our impact, we created VirtualVolunteer.tv, the first interactive, real-time video website that enables you to directly participate in relief efforts.

Today, we utilize our proven approach right here at home to address glaring human rights abuses in the nation's poorest county, the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in South Dakota. While building national awareness, our Community Revitalization Program addresses immediate survival needs while promoting long-term sustainability and improved quality of life through integrated, community-led solutions.

The first phases included the development of a community thrift store, greenhouse, and garden, completed this September. We are now developing the Veterans' Lodge and Memorial, with plans for a women's center, a learning center, skate park, and more.

I can not explain the full extent of my experiences, that feeling of reaching out and helping someone who has just survived an unfathomable disaster. But through VirtualVolunteer.tv you can experience this yourself. The realization of our own ability to make an impact is the essence of CAN-DO.

I invite you to join me.

Sources: SEC Gearing Up For Insider-Trading Crackdown

2009-10-19T02:46:35Z

Federal investigators are gearing up to file charges against a wider array of insider-trading networks, some linked to the criminal case against billionaire hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam that shook Wall Street last week, people familiar with the matter said.

Jim Luce: U.N. Ambassador Kohona: Sri Lanka Refugee Situation Improving

2009-10-13T21:55:16Z

Fourteen years after the civil war in Rwanda, refugees are still
living in mud huts. In Bosnia, following
Balkanization, people lacked heat and electricity for years.

On the Afghani-Pakistani border, millions today are living in squalor.

In all of these refugee populations, disease was and often remains
endemic. Food and water scarce.

In contrast, last spring a government moved mountains to help
its people.

I witnessed the end of three decades of violence in Sri Lanka, as
the government finally overcame the world's largest terrorist organization,
restoring peace in to the island.

The enemy had been formidable.
Known as LTTE, referred to as the Tamil Tigers, it has its own army,
navy, air force, and suicide commando units (see
my HuffPost story, Explaining the Tamil Tigers).

The Tamil Tigers used child soldiers and women suicide bombers to
wage their violence but unsuccessful battle against the Sri Lankan people.

The Tigers used 300,000 of their own people as human shields to
protect themselves from the advancing government troops. Over 100,000 people died in the conflict, the
majority of them non-Tamils.

The Tigers mined their
own farms, fields, temples, roads – and fired upon Tamils trying to escape to
the government forces.

At the end of the
conflict, 250,000 Tamils were left – many of them near the beach where the
final defeat occurred. These refugees
became the responsibility of the Sri Lankan government.

The government began
immediately to house them, lay water pipes, build sch

ools and health clinics. But the Sri Lankan government cannot solve
this situation alone.

Interviewing the Sri Lankan Ambassador to
the U.N., then the Foreign Secretary, last spring in Colombo. I also met the Sri Lankan
Ambassador in Washington who was also in Colombo (right).

According to the Sri
Lankan Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Palitha Kohona, who granted me an
exclusive interview for the Huffington
Post last week in his New York office, 54 NGO’s are now operating within
the camps.

I have known Palitha for
years and have spoken with him on these issues repeatedly.

“The problem is that we
refuse to permit IDP tourism,” Palitha told me.
“These internally displaced people (IDPs) deserve dignity.” They are not, so to speak, a museum exhibition
or animals at the zoo. “We flatly say
‘No’ to refugee camp tourism.”

“We need help. All legitimate NGOs, with adequate funding,
are welcomed to assist us help these people,” the Ambassador said.

U.N. Security General Ban-Ki Moon visited the refugee camp shortly after the
conflict ended.

The International Red
Cross (IRC), which assisted during the conflict by providing food and medicine
and visiting prisoners, is negotiating now with the government on how best to help
at this stage of resettlement.

“There is a new mandate
being worked out with the IRC to assist with medical facilities and improving
conditions throughout the camps,” Palitha said.
He noted that currently 130 Sri Lankan physicians are operating within
the camps.

Currently 130 Sri Lankan
physicians are operating within the camps.

Major problems stand in
the way of simply releasing all of the internally displaced people (IDPs).

The areas
around the camps and in indeed much of the North has been mined by the LTTE. The de-mining process, as Princess Diana
reminded us, is excruciatingly difficult, lengthy, and when it fails, leaves
dead or maimed civilians.

The
international community is helping remove them, but far more help is needed. Over one million mines remain.

Thousands
of Tamil Tigers tried to blend into the civilian population to escape war crime
charges, and to attempt to reconstruct the Tiger cause, continuing Sri Lanka’s
conflict.

According to government,
12,700 IDP’s self-identified themselves as combatants, and an estimated 8 to
10,000 more remain hiding in the camps. Of
the 250,000 IDPs, 167,000 have now been cleared and are ready to return to
their homes as soon as possible.

The Tigers
buried weapons throughout their former territory. Every day the government discovers buried
guns throughout the north and eastern provinces where the Tigers had controlled.

The Tigers
removed much of the roofing of the civilian population’s homes before the end
of the conflict, both to force Tamils from their homes and to steal materials
to create ad-hoc camps. The government
is trying to repair the damages so that Tamils can return to their homes.

The Tigers
destroyed water and electrical connections throughout their territory, which is
now being replaced by the government.

Although the government
has built some housing, the majority of the quarter million refugees live in
tents provided by the U.N.

The monsoon rains that
sweep Sri Lanka are not seen by the government as an insurmountable problem for
the camps. “We have known these rains
for thousands of years. They come every
season. To Sri Lankans, they are normal
and we know how to live with them,” says the U.N. Ambassador.

The U.S. and E.U. are
assisting the U.N. in reconstruction.
India, Australia, and Japan provide assistance directly to the Sri
Lankan government.

The Ambassador welcomes
assistance from the international community to help his government deal with
this humanitarian crisis brought about by the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lanka has never been an affluent nation,
and the global economic crisis has hurt it as much as any other country.

I personally have been
saddened to witness too many unknowing people give the Sri Lankan people
advice. Talk is cheap. Talk based on ignorance or prejudice is dangerous.

What the people of Sri Lanka
need now is concrete assistance. Anyone
can criticize. The questions remain: Who
is willing to help? And how?

Edited by Ethel Grodzins Romm.

Anuradha K. Herath: EPRLF-P Gen. Sec. Sritharan to Diaspora: This is No Joke, Battlefront Not on Toronto Streets

2009-09-26T17:28:47Z

For decades, T. Sritharan, general secretary of the Eelam Peoples' Revolutionary Liberation Front-Pathmanabha wing (EPRLF-P), engaged in politics covertly. Under the watchful eye of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), he and his political party struggled to get their politically moderate message across to the people of the north and east. Despite the LTTE's claim of being the sole representative of the Tamil people, there were those who disagreed. Those dissenters were often suppressed.

"Our people couldn't live anywhere," Sritharan says. "Our people were living only in a very low-profile way. They couldn't (engage) in any political activities. Anybody thinking against the LTTE, they kill. That is the problem. LTTE not only killed political leaders, they also killed intellectuals, even NGO people. They also killed [politically] left people and trade union people."

The EPRLF (before it split into two groups), along with other Tamil political parties, was banned by the LTTE in 1986. But Sritharan managed to survive the LTTE's ruthless elimination of those it considered Tamil moderates. Today, Sritharan and his party are allied with the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, working to address the grievances of the Tamil minority in post-war Sri Lanka.

In an interview in Colombo that lasted nearly two hours, Sritharan spoke candidly about the issues facing Sri Lanka's Tamil population.

The Diaspora

For decades, the Sri Lankan diaspora -- both Tamil and Sinhala -- played a crucial role in the conflict. Political scientist Christine Fair wrote about the Tamil diaspora communities in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics in 2005.

"As has been noted, the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora has been a fundamental component of the Tamil insurgency," she writes. "It has been the backbone of the LTTE's global operations and has been a financial lifeline of the militancy."

The last stages of Sri Lanka's 30-year conflict with the LTTE saw massive protests staged in capitals around the world against the government's military offensive. Toronto was a key flashpoint. According to some estimates, the city has a Tamil population of approximately 200,000, including many LTTE supporters. Thousands from Toronto's Tamil diaspora poured on to the streets to protest, forcing road closures and disrupting civil life.

Now, with the military struggle over and the LTTE defeated, Sritharan says the diaspora will have to assume a new role.

"The Tamil diaspora in the last 20 years, a section of the diaspora, supported to build up the LTTE war," he says. "They also, right or wrong, contributed a number of children. Now, their contribution [must be] to the upliftment of the people and their lives. They must contribute very positively."

"[In] their countries also, different kinds of people are available. Different societies also tolerate each other. Living in another country, your experience, your education (and) your wealth must be shared locally."

Speaking emotionally about the numbers of Tamil people killed, injured and widowed through the conflict, Sritharan accused the Tamil diaspora of not understanding the realities on the ground.

"They think the children are poor peoples' sons and daughters," Sritharan says. "Some people in Toronto, in LTTE uniforms, rallying [demonstrating]. The ordinary soldier from the Sinhala south is also from a poor peasant family. These children are from poor families. These people are also fighting in the front. It is not some school program or sports meet."

Sritharan's contention is that diaspora communities have the luxury of observing from a distance. They have the luxury of free speech in countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia (with large Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora populations) to protest and speak out without having to face dangerous consequences. But they have "no sentimental attachment with the land," Sritharan says, and the children of poor Tamil and Sinhala families end up fighting for the cause.

"The battlefront is not on Toronto's streets," he says. "This is not a bloody joke. These kinds of people also exploit the ordinary peoples' life and limb."

Working for Peace

On Sept. 7, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), widely known as the LTTE's proxy party, met with President Rajapaksa for the first time since the defeat of the LTTE. The TNA consists of five Tamil political parties: Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi, All Ceylon Tamil Congress, Tamil United Liberation Front, EPRLF-S (Suresh wing led by Suresh Premachandran) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization. The focus of the meeting was the humanitarian crisis in the north, particularly the resettling of internally displaced persons.

Sritharan did not attend this meeting but says he spoke about the issue with President Rajapaksa when he attended an all-party meeting July 2.

"I mentioned to (President Rajapaksa), you also played a good role in the latter part of the 80s on human rights," Sritharan says. "You also played a historical role for 20, 25 years to eradicate the Tamil fascism. In the same way, you will try to devolve the powers to the other communities, Tamils including other communities, as well as value the peoples' respect and dignity."

Sritharan believes President Rajapaksa faces pressure from the People's Liberation Front (JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaya parties against devolving power, but he is hopeful.

"Now the government must take some risks," says Sritharan. "Peace is the main agenda. Free the people from camps. Celebrate the peace. At that time, if one or two LTTE (members) create problems, the people will punish them. Now if the (existing) situation continues, that is a fertilized ground."

Sritharan calls on the government to release from IDP camps those who can easily be identified as not being a threat -- families with five or six children, widows, pregnant women and the elderly.

"Now people also want to live," he says. "They want their children educated. They want jobs. They want peace."

Read more of the interview with EPRLF-P General Secretary T. Sritharan here.

Ellen Susman: Balancing Your Life and Human Rights

2009-09-23T10:55:50Z

This week the United Nations will convene world leaders to discuss topics from global warming to the spread of nuclear weapons. Among the meetings will also be the United Nations Human Rights Commission of which our South American neighbor, Chile, is a member.

Last month I was privileged to go to Chile with a small delegation from Human Rights Watch. Very often the delegations visit countries in which there are ongoing situations of human rights violations, like the wrongly named Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan or Angola to name a few in Africa. Or perhaps Kosovo, Mexico, Burma or Sri Lanka. This organization covers the world, and by focusing international attention where human rights are violated, gives voice to the oppressed, while holding the oppressors accountable for their crimes.

Our visit to Chile was an anomaly in that Chile has a very good record in human rights following the awful days of the Pinochet regime in which many people lost their lives and were "disappeared."

We had appointments and met with the Ministers of Finance, Economics and Foreign Affairs. We had a spectacular luncheon with President Michelle Bachelet . We discussed Chile's involvement in the U.N. and the stability of their country.

But the visit that made the largest impression on me was a trip to the feared Villa Grimaldi.
This detention and torture center was created and used during the Pinochet regime, and became one of the most frightening places in Santiago - a place where rape, torture and disappearances were common. Beginning around 1974, the Villa was used first as a headquarters for the Pinochet Intelligence Brigade, and then as its operations center. Operatives would bring prisoners there for initial interrogation, and then, use devices specifically designed for various types of torture. Besides electric shock, the interrogators used to submerge a prisoner's head in water, or hang them from a bar. Boiling water, beatings and occasionally drugs were also used to gather information.

The Villa administrators took our delegation for a tour and Gabriele Salazar; a survivor who managed to endure capture in this place joined us.

Gabriele's story:

Gabriele stood before us, a small sight woman with a thick black braid that hung down the length of her back. We stood around her in front of a model of the Villa under glass. Gabriele's story began with the detention of both her and her husband on Dec. 31,1975 after they came home from celebrating the New Year. Blindfolded, she was put on a bus. As the bus bounced along, her blindfold slipped a bit, and she could see the massive gates in front of her and knew that, as she feared, the Villa was her destination.

As soon as she arrived she was stripped, raped and taken to one of the torture rooms. She said that rape was common --a lmost an initiation. All women were raped upon entering, and she was no exception. Then she was taken to a torture room, placed on a metal bed and given electric shock treatment. Next, she was taken to a tiny cell.

" They concentrated on various political groups. Immediately you were tortured and put on a metal bed and electricity was applied until you collapsed. Then they threw you down into this swimming pool and put your head under the water again and again. In the bottom of the tower, they held you down and strung you up like an animal. People were kept in little houses or towers. You could hear what was going on, even if you could not see. The guards ran over people in cars. They tortured them for 3-4 hours. Normally, you did not know what happened to people."

During the first two weeks, the guards brought the prisoners beautiful lunches, but she refused to eat. It was too contradictory. They took her to a hospital when it appeared she might die from malnutrition and gave her intravenous feedings until she regained her strength. She argued about this. And said, "Why? The faster I don't eat, the faster I die."

As she gave us a tour and showed us the where the cells, the tower and rooms had been, she wept. But she said that the few guards who had shown some kindness were the ones who made you believe in humanity.

Around us, the birds chattered constantly, telling their version of what they had seen. Of the 4,500 people who came through the Villa, 25% were women.

Gabriele said that over time some prisoners would find ways to illustrate their stay. They would draw stars, birds, and trees to remind them of freedom. She said they could often smell the roses outside through small cracks in the walls, and it was a harsh fact -- relief for some and pain for others. When asked how she managed to sustain torture, she said, " You don't know how you are going to be. You just do it one minute at a time. It's not in your head. It's in your heart. There is no ideology that will sustain you -- just heart.

"I come every time people ask to this place because of them [the ones who died] -- because I am alive. I owe my life to them and all who fought. I knew as many others did, that because of your work [human rights] people knew we were here, and alive. We knew eventually there would be accountability. We knew we weren't forgotten. Human Rights helped keep us alive. It is very important. In the end, it changed me. I am whom I am because of what happened. "

Gabriele had two years of psychological treatment after she was released. She is witness for at least seven people who died or disappeared.

As we left through the main gates, the ghosts of the disappeared and departed swirled among us. It was cold. We could feel their spirits. We will remember.

David Harris: The Goldstone Report: Three Strikes and You're Out!

2009-09-18T12:50:27Z

It began earlier this year, after Israel's military operation in Hamas-ruled Gaza to stop rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli towns and villages.

Predictably, the inaptly named UN Human Rights Council went to work. This is the Geneva-based body that replaced the dysfunctional UN Human Rights Commission in 2006.

Other than replacing "Commission" with "Council" in the name, however, there's been no change. In fact, the current incarnation does even less to protect human rights.

Or, put differently, it creates even more ways for oppressors to protect themselves while creating convenient whipping boys. And whipping boy number one, not surprisingly, has been Israel, which has few enough friends to begin with among the Council's 47 members -- and even fewer when it requires showing a shred of moral backbone in the politically-expedient halls of multilateral diplomacy.

Thus, Israel has had the dubious distinction of being deemed so radioactive as to be in need of a separate agenda item in Council deliberations. All other 191 UN member states, saints and sinners alike, are grouped together elsewhere. That doesn't allow much room to consider serial human rights abusers from Cuba to Iran to Zimbabwe.

Speaking of which, what has the Council done about massacres in Darfur? Well, after months of grappling with circle-the-wagons resistance from fellow Arab countries, the Council managed to adopt a resolution voicing concern about events there. But wait, that's not the end of the story. In a new definition of chutzpah, the resolution thanked the Sudanese government, the sponsor-in-chief of the killings and displacement, for its cooperation.

After Sri Lankan troops recently unleashed their lethal power against Tamil separatists on the strife-torn island, indiscriminately killing an estimated 20,000 people, many of them civilians, what did the Council do? It adopted a resolution drafted by Sri Lanka itself welcoming the outcome!

So it goes. The real victims of these travesties? Those who suffer human rights abuses, who desperately need a global forum to act on their behalf. And the UN itself, which can't find a way to separate its duties to monitor and protect human rights from the grim realities of politicization and double standards.

So, when the Council decided to "consider" Israel's entry into Gaza, the result was a foregone conclusion. Context? No way. Balance? Forget about it. The verdict? Already in. The Council's previous focus and actions on Israel ensured all three.

Strike one.

But, as hope springs eternal, maybe, just maybe, this time it would be different. It wasn't.

The Council adopted a measure to investigate what happened. But just to remove any lingering suspense about what the inquiry might reveal, the charge was to pursue Israeli "violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law." In other words, the outcome was pre-cooked.

That Israel had absorbed thousands of attacks from Gaza in recent years didn't warrant consideration. Nor that Israel had shown admirable restraint until December 2008, something few other countries would have done in similar circumstances. Nor that Israel pulled out totally from Gaza in 2005, giving local residents their first chance in history to govern themselves. Nor that Hamas took over Gaza after a violent clash with the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Nor that Hamas, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, is openly bent on Israel's destruction.

Strike two.

In fact, Mary Robinson, who, as a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wasn't exactly known for her warm disposition toward Israel, turned down an offer to lead the Council's investigation.

"Unfortunately, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution seeking a fact-finding mission to only look at what Israel has done, and I don't think that's a human rights approach," Robinson said in March.

But the Council was not to be deterred. A panel of four, led by Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa, was created. Goldstone insisted that he had received verbal assurance that he could investigate all sides in the conflict, but the authorizing resolution wasn't amended to reflect any such pledge.

And among his three fellow panelists was Christine Chinkin of London. Any semblance of impartiality went out the window in January, before the panel was even created. Ms. Chinkin signed a letter published in The Sunday Times (UK) that accused Israel of "collective punishment of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants," "aggression," and "prima facie war crimes." Yet those judgments weren't considered enough to disqualify her.

Strike three.

None of this is to suggest that Israel should be immune from scrutiny or is incapable of error. Neither is the case.

It is to suggest that Israel, as a democratic country which places a premium on the rule of law and an independent judiciary, has the capacity to examine allegations of misconduct -- as it has in the past, and as it must.

It's also to suggest that if the international community claims a role for itself in such matters, then it needs to be consistently applied around the world and impartially structured, leaving the conclusions to the end, not the beginning.

And finally, this story ought to be a cautionary tale for the United States, indeed all democratic states engaged in warfare today, especially in asymmetrical situations against non-state actors.

Whether it's Hamas or the Taliban, these groups don't give a hoot about international human rights or humanitarian law, yet they're not averse to seeing the rules of the game applied to the other side.

They use innocent civilians as shields. Terrorists callously embed themselves in population centers, including schools, hospitals and mosques, inviting attack, so as to trigger cries of revulsion from the likes of the UN Human Rights Council. And right on cue, there's the Council.

Biased UN body. Biased mandate. Biased panel. Three strikes and you're out. Once again, the UN Human Rights Council whiffs on a chance to do good.

Amnesty International Urges Action on Sri Lankan Detention Camps

2009-09-15T20:00:44Z

The Sri Lankan government declared victory back in May when they defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers. The problems continue, however, as 280,000 civilian refugees have been forced into overcrowded detention camps. Amnesty International alleges that the civilians' rights are not protected and that many men have disappeared after being screened for LTTE sympathies.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called conditions in the camps "appaling," and thus Amensty Int'l is asking concerned citizens to sign a letter urging the Sri Lankan government to put the camps under civilian control and allow freedom of movement for those who wish to leave.

The text of the letter, titled Unlock The Camps:

Early in 2009, over 280,000 civilians fled the war zone in northeast Sri Lanka as the Sri Lankan military reconquered all the territory held by the opposition Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and killed their senior leaders, thus ending the 26-year-old conflict. Since the conclusion of hostilities in mid-May, the displaced civilians have been held in overcrowded, military-run internment camps. The Sri Lankan government will not allow the civilians to leave the camps until a screening process to detect suspected LTTE fighters among the civilians has been carried out. Aid agencies, journalists and human rights observers have not been given full access to the camps. Without independent monitors in the camps, the civilians are at risk of human rights abuses from the security forces.

I call on the Sri Lankan government to immediately allow the displaced civilians freedom of movement: those who wish to leave the camps should be free to do so. The camps should be placed under civilian, not military, management. Aid agencies, journalists and human rights observers should be promptly provided with full, unhindered access to the camps to carry out their functions and prevent possible abuses.

Anuradha K. Herath: Sri Lanka's New UN Ambassador Says Sri Lanka Has a New Circle of Friends in the East

2009-09-15T10:06:47Z

Sri Lanka's former foreign secretary Palitha Kohona is currently in New York, accepting his new post as Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United Nations. Less than one week before leaving the country, Kohona gave a wide-ranging interview to journalist Ranjit J. Perera of Sri Lanka News Network. In it, Kohona says that as western countries began to pull away from Sri Lanka during the height of the conflict, the government turned to new friendships in the east.

"The Millennium Challenge Account of the U.S. was summarily withdrawn from us," he says in the interview. "So, in the circumstances, either we had to succumb to acknowledge blackmail and compromise with terrorism, or look for other friends, which we did."

Acknowledging the vital support given to Sri Lanka by countries such as India, China, Iran and Libya, Kohona says the shift to eastern partners has been very successful.

"We shifted our focus from our traditional contacts towards the east, and we were very successful," Kohona says. "In fact, we hardly felt the pinch of the withdrawal of western development assistance."

Read the Full Story

Venkat Srinivasan: The Magic of Immigrant Charm

2009-09-12T12:50:40Z

The customer, dressed in whites, looks flustered as she stares at the menu on the "NY Dosa" cart at Manhattan's Washington Square Park. She asks the man behind the cart details about his dosa's ingredients.

"Rice and lentils, only," he explains. She isn't convinced and asks again.

"All vegan, just rice and lentils," he assures her. Hesitant but now a little more satisfied, she gets her dosa packed.

"That lady," he points to her as she leaves. "She's Jewish-American, you know. I've seen her before. It's for Yom Kippur."

It was Rosh Hashanah actually, but that's not the point. Serving a long line of hungry customers at a busy square in downtown Manhattan, Thirukumar Kandasamy, it would seem, knows his constituency. Nobody knows him by that name though.

"I don't care how people refer to me," he says, laughing. "The news guys, they call me Thiru 'The Dosa Man' Kumar!" Then, a little Shakespearan touch.

"For some people, name's a big thing," he reflects. "I am always happy. Nothing's too big a problem."

Credit Adi Narayan

Every morning, Thiru starts work at 5 a.m., preparing food for the day at a kitchen in Queens. He hitches his cart to his roomy 1986 black Chevy, drives across the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan and sets up by 11 a.m. at Washington Square. "I completely rebuilt it myself," he says, pointing to his truck (Thiru used to race and rebuild motorcycles). The sign, "NY Vegan Dosas - Price Range Inexpensive", is painted on the Chevy's rear, along with subway directions to his location.

Facing New York University's quaint law school building, Thiru's cart is an icon in this leafy neighborhood. It is frequented by artists, hipsters, students, dogs and their owners, tourists walking off the beaten path, and shutterbugs taking photos of the park's giant squirrels. The cart is a crowd-puller in itself, embellished with a "Little Vegan Monsters" sticker, a label guaranteeing "No Transfat, No Dairy Products, No Animal Products," and at least 30 articles about him from around the world. A movie poster cutout of Kamal Hassan herding a cow is mounted on the side.

And then, there's Thiru and his food. Before he scoops up a cup of batter to make the crisp, thin 'rice and lentil crepes,' he leans over his pushcart to check the number of unsold bottles of water. Then, in a swift motion, he simultaneously pours the batter into a frying pan, spreads it evenly with the cup in his right hand, sprinkles olive oil from a bottle in his left hand, and shouts, "Doll-uh, doll-uh, cold wat-uh."

That's water for a dollar. In reality then, Thiru never really markets his dosas.

"Lots of water left," he tells his new assistant, Maguba. "You set it up?"

"Yea, I did," replies the young girl with soft eastern European accent.

"Then why didn't you push it on the side?" he asks, pointing out that she should have sold a bottle to everyone who bought food. "Gotta be fast, fast!"

Thiru doesn't really need to market his dosas anymore. After being a finalist for two years, he won the 2007 Vendy Award for Best Street Cart Vendor in New York City. He's been covered by Time Out New York and has appeared on Oprah Winfrey's website. A regular wrote a Rastafarian song about him titled 'Dosa Man.' Another designed an "NY DOSA" T-shirt, and Thiru markets those too, along with his water, for about $15 each. Tourists bearing stories about him from East Asian publications pose with him for photographs. Thiru, a 40-year-old first generation Sri Lankan-American, is a star in his own inimitable way.

He sports a thick moustache, a beige cap with an 'Om' stitched on it, and a wide smile. He wears a gold chain around his neck, a silver-tinged earring in one ear, and a weathered green apron over his black jeans. And he chats up everyone. "He takes time to chat with each customer," says V.V. Ganeshananthan, an author who recently had Thiru cater the book party for her new novel.

Thiru's dosa lunches cost $6 at the most (a lunch elsewhere in that part of Manhattan will probably cost around $10). By using olive oil and avoiding any milk products, he an lay claim to the healthiest dosas around. By selling them on a street corner in an area of Manhattan known to be favorable to experimentation, he also guarantees himself a market and distinguishes himself from every other Indian restaurant in the city.

Two other recent and unrelated events seem to favor Thiru and vendors like him. The economic recession hit everyone, either directly or psychologically. "The recession is making people cook more," said Ruth Reichl, the editor of Gourmet magazine, speaking in March this year to a group of students at Columbia University's journalism school. Reichl was also convinced that the American market was going to see a change in food trends. The magazine's March issue had a Korean food spread, and Reichl felt the success of movies like Slumdog Millionaire meant that Indian food would be one of the upcoming trends, to the extent that one believes in them.

The apparent hunger for all things South Asian and the economic recession's ripple effects that tempts people to realize again the value of cheaper food both come at the beginning of another New York summer. Locals flock to the parks, tourists flock to New York. The stars seem to be aligned for South Asian street food in New York.

In the gridlock of graduate students, bankers and entrepreneurs in downtown Manhattan, Thiru stands alone as a street entrepreneur, an immigrant who started with little and redefined success in the restaurant business.

Thiru arrived in New York City in 1995 via the green card lottery -- the U.S. offers 50,000 visas annually to individuals from underrepresented countries. "I applied on a whim," he says, in Tamil. "The future wasn't great in Sri Lanka for me."

He had many jobs in Sri Lanka, including being a diving instructor and working at a travel agency in Colombo. In New York City, Thiru worked a series of jobs, in construction, at a gas station, an iron factory, and then finally, a restaurant. After a lengthy wait for a city vendor license, he set up his dosa cart in 2001.

Krishnaraj Kaviraj Das, a yoga teacher, has visited Thiru's cart since he started seven years ago. "I just didn't find his taste and texture replicated elsewhere," he says. Thiru makes Das a special large dosa and lets him decide how much he should pay for his food. He cuts special deals with other old friends like Kostain, an artist. "I help him set up the stall," says Kostain, "and in return, he gives me food for free."

It hasn't been an easy business for Thiru either. While carts have lower overheads than restaurants, city approval can take three to five years. Thiru estimates that operating his 25 square-feet cart costs as much as $24,000 per year, including licenses, taxes and running expenses. While he does not disclose how much he makes annually, his food remains relatively inexpensive and he is the only earning member in his family. "I have no margins," he says. "I have only once increased my dosa price by $1 over the last seven years."

The city laws are stricter for street vendors than restaurants. "A restaurant that puts up its sign on the sidewalk may be fined a maximum of $100," says Sean Basinski, founder of the Street Vendor Project, organizer for the Vendy Awards. "But a vendor who obstructs a path may be fined $1,000."

But the unfavorable vendor laws don't tempt Thiru to operate a dosa restaurant instead. "Nothing unique about a dosa restaurant," he retorts. "Vegan dosa cart, I'm the only one in the U.S."

It is a pride that manifests itself when he talks about his daughter, who started freshman year at Columbia University this month. "Hard work pays off," he says, adding that he intends to write a book in 2010 on his story.

It is nearing the end of another busy weekday afternoon. "We have only masala dosa and plain dosa left," he tells an approaching customer.

"Masala dosa," she replies.

"Sure thing. I'm going to add the roti inside the dosa too, O.K.?" He mashes the potato-filled roti appetizer and spreads it within a plain dosa. An unsold appetizer and an unwanted dosa morph into something that leaves both of them happy.

"End of day special," he tells her. "For $4. For you, anytime, miss." It would have usually cost $6.

How does he gauge how much to cook, day after day?

"According to the weather, man. Today's a rainy day, Saturday, no events around here. I bring only one tray of samosas."

The next how brings up a smile on his face. "I've been doing this for seven years," he says.

At 4 p.m., Thiru has his own first bite for the day. "Talk to me, girl. This is New York," he tells Maguba. He laughs out loud. His food is sold out.

He gets up to clean the cart, and wipes off his running nose, sniffling intermittently in the drizzle. "I didn't wear jacket while cooking," he says. "Got wet in the rain." His black ski pants keep him dry waist down.

"Ready , ready, quick," he says to Maguba, pointing at the cart's metal surface. "Yesterday I did everything, you weren't there. You got to wash it today. You didn't clean underneath."

"I am cleaning, I am cleaning," Maguba says, with some annoyance.

"Did you clean the door?"

"Where, outside?"

"No, inside. Gimme, gimme. I'll clean outside."

"Seri, seri," says Maguba, in Tamil. O.K., O.K.

Thiru and Maguba put all the empty containers on the truck. He drives the truck up to the curb, attaches his cart to the hitch on the rear bumper, and gets in, ready to drive, while Maguba covers the boxes with a tarp and jumps onto the passenger seat. Loud Tamil hip-hop blares from the open windows. Thiru looks at his gas tank.

"Tomorrow got to do gas," he says. He smiles as he pulls away onto the road once more, to get groceries for the next day. "Today's O.K. Fast, fast, faaaast!"

Doug Bandow: The Scandal of International Religious Persecution

2009-09-06T07:44:11Z

In today's globalized world, dictatorships have an ever harder time hiding their repressive practices. Just witness the tragedy of Iran carried out in front of the world's eyes. The list of oppressors is long: North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Burma, Sudan, Cuba, and the Central Asian countries are among the world's most dedicated human rights abusers.

Most people think of political and civil freedoms when it comes to human rights. And the two are fundamental, to be sure. But most governments which violate these forms of individual liberty also suppress religious freedom.

Indeed, there is a good argument for treating religious liberty as the first freedom. If a government is unwilling to protect basic freedom of conscience when it comes to religious faith, then it is unlikely to tolerate political free-thinking either. In contrast, persuading repressive governments to carve out room for religious worship and practice may act as an important step in creating protected personal space.

Unfortunately, many nations violate this idea. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issues an annual report summarizing the state of religious liberty around the globe. It makes for sober reading.

The USCIRF recently highlighted 27 nations. It recommended that the State Department designate 13 nations, those responsible for "particularly severe" violations of religious liberty, as "countries of particular concern" (CPCs). The Commission named another 11 states to its "Watch List" for engaging in "serious violations" and thus deserving close monitoring. Another three were cited for tolerating abuses and thus were deemed to warrant attention. The State Department tends to follow most USCIRF recommendations, but often with a political twist: in January it provided waivers for Saudi Arabia, America's number one source of oil, and Uzbekistan, seen by Washington as an important military partner.

The Commission's recommended CPCs are Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Burma (or Myanmar) is a top contender on anyone's list of most misgoverned lands. Conditions have worsened over the past year. The Commission reported: "Burma's military regime continued its policy of severely restricting religious practice, monitoring the activity of all religious organizations, and perpetuating or tolerating violence against religious leaders and their communities." Largely Christian ethnic groups, such as the Karen and Karenni, continue to suffer in a war which has raged for decades in eastern Burma.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea likely is worse. Observed the USCIRF: "there is little evidence that the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion exists in North Korea." The regime uses government-controlled religious federations to advance its political objectives. Alas, "anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious practice faces official discrimination, arrest, imprisonment, and possibly execution."

Eritrea is another top persecutor. That government, explained the Commission, "continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom." Most at risk are members of faiths outside of the four officially recognized religions: Sunni Islam, and Coptic, Catholic, and Evangelical Christian. Some of the violations of religious freedom reflect an attempt to protect the Coptic Church, which has links to the government, from new evangelical and Pentecostal denominations.

Iran is one of the great Islamic persecutors. The USCIRF reported that "The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused." Unfortunately, just as political freedom is being circumscribed, religious liberty has been deteriorating. At particular risk are Baha'is, Sufi Muslims, and evangelical Christians. The situation likely will grow worse as the regime's political base shrinks, forcing it to increasingly rely on force to survive.

One of the greatest--and most tragic--ironies of the Iraq war is that through it Washington set in motion the destruction of the historic Christian community in that ancient land. Noted the Commission, "particularly since 2006, there have been alarming numbers of religiously-motivated killings, abductions, beatings, rapes, threats, intimidation, forced resettlements, and attacks on religious leaders, pilgrims, and holy sites." Everyone is vulnerable, especially during violent surges, but religious minorities, particularly Christians, Sabean Manaeans, and Yazidis, are at greatest risk.

Communal violence in Nigeria is common, yet, warned the USCIRF, "The response of the government Nigeria to persistent religious freedom violations and violent sectarian and communal conflicts along religious lines has been inadequate and ineffectual." Additional problems include "the expansion of sharia (Islamic law) into the criminal codes of several northern Nigerian states; and discrimination against minority communities of Christians and Muslims."

Pakistan, one of the American government's most important allies, is home to what the Commission termed "the largely unchecked growth in the power and reach of religiously-motivated extremist groups." However, religious persecution precedes recent events. Discriminatory laws are in place and, reported the USCIRF: "Sectarian and religiously-motivated violence continues, particularly against Shi'a Muslims, Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus, and the government's response continues to be insufficient, and in some cases, is outright complicit."

Although religious repression has ebbed since the days of the Cultural Revolution, the People's Republic of China "engages in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief," explained the Commission. There is a "growing 'zone of toleration' for religious worship and charitable activities," but the authorities continue to attempt to maintain control of religious practice. Step outside of the narrow prescribed limits, and "some religious adherents were detained, imprisoned, fined, beaten, and harassed."

Saudi Arabia, noted for its suppression of political dissent and women's rights, also is essentially totalitarian when it comes to religious worship. Despite promises of reform, the royal government "persists in banning all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam and even interferes with private religious practice." According to the Commission, the regime also "continues to be involved in supporting activities globally that promote an extremist ideology, and in some cases, violence toward non-Muslims and disfavored Muslims."

During Sudan's civil war, which lasted until 2005, the regime in Khartoum, explained the USCIRF, was "the world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion or belief." Even today "The government of Sudan commits egregious and systematic violations of freedom of religion or belief in the areas under its control."

Although repression in Turkmenistan has eased since the death of President Saparmurat Niyazov, the Commission cited the government for "its systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom." Indeed, religious practice was virtually banned as Niyazov's personality cult expanded.

Another problem Central Asian republic is Uzbekistan. Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, reported the USCIRF, "fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, have been under assault." Backed by a willingness to arrest dissenters, the government "severely limits the ability of religious communities to function and facilitates the Uzbek government's exercise of a high degree of control over religious communities and the approved manner in which the Islamic religion is practiced."

There has been some progress in Vietnam, leading the Bush administration to lift the "country of particular concern" designation in 2006, as part of Congress' approval of that nation's entry in the World Trade Organization. Yet, observed the Commission, "Individuals continue to be imprisoned or detained for reasons related to their religious activity or religious freedom advocacy; policy and government officials are not held fully accountable for abuses; independent religious activity remains illegal; and legal protections for government-approved religious organizations are both vague and subject to arbitrary or discriminatory interpretations based on political factors." Further, repression continues apace for some smaller religious groups.

These are merely the worst persecutors. The Commission placed on its Watch List Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Conditions have been worsening in Afghanistan with the resurgence of the Taliban. The government of Belarus has systematically violated human rights since it emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Castro regime in Cuba treats religious organizations as a threat to its authority. Discrimination and violence against Coptic Christians and "non-conforming Muslims" is rife in Egypt. Indonesia has made progress towards democracy, but violence against religious minorities has increased, often with the acquiescence or even tacit support of the authorities.

In Laos, reported the USCIRF, "there have been arrests, detentions, forced renunciations of faith, and forced evictions from villages." The Putin/Medvedev regime has expanded state control over religious groups in Russia. There is no effective government in Somalia, where "radical interpretations of Islam are increasingly manifested." Attacks on religious liberty have been growing more serious in Tajikistan. Turkey limits the practice of Islam and discriminates against non-Muslim faiths. In Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's increasingly authoritarian tendencies have, warned the Commission, "created an environment where Jewish and Catholic religious leaders and institutions are at risk of attack."

Finally, the USCIRF pointed to Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and Sri Lanka as worthy of scrutiny. All have hosted threats to religious liberty and sometimes tolerated violence against religious believers.

Although Washington cannot make fighting religious persecution a central element of U.S. foreign policy, it can include religious liberty as an essential aspect of its promotion of human rights. In particular, any dialogue with Muslim governments concerned about the treatment of Islam in the West should include a discussion of how those same regimes treat Jews, Christians, Baha'is, and other religious minorities. If the authorities in other nations are unwilling to protect the most basic freedom of conscience regarding religious faith, they are unlikely to be reliable defenders of broader political and civil liberties.

Stephen C. Rose: Moment of Truth In Afghanistan, Iran, Israel-Palestine, Southeast Asia, Africa, FSU

2009-08-31T11:15:39Z

http://ow.ly/npFP Afghan War Needs New Strategy: US Commander McChrystal

I include many areas where the world faces huge challenges, including the former Soviet Union (FSU).

We make a mistake when we segment challenges. One boat rocks others. We may not be gaia but there is some truth to our interdependence.

In all these situations, violence is active or incipient. In all of them, there is no solution being proposed that promises an end to the prospect of more of the same.

To cite examples:

There is every possibility that Iran will remain firm in refusing to stop enriching uranium and this will activate Israel eventually. If that happens the US may not be far behind.

There is every chance that the civil violence (if that is not an oxymoron) in many areas of the FSU will continue and that worsening economic conditions there will exacerbate conflict. Again involving other nations including the US.

In Africa there are at least five situations in which any notion of rights and decent behavior is a pipe dream without international action that would involve the US.

In Asia, Burma and Sri Lanka are merely the most conspicuous examples of continuing repression. I have not even mentioned North Korea.

And in Afghanistan we have the head US military man suggesting that with more resolve and manpower we can succeed -- a truth that is no more likely to hold than the belief that Iraq will be a stable and unified democracy over time.

No serious thinker following Nietzsche and living through the Holocaust believes that the world can permanently weather a continuation of the dynamics which gave rise to the cataclysmic wars of the 20th Century.

We cannot weather full economic breakdown and a global nuclear winter.

How then are we to proceed?

I see no way other than for our President to declare a global emergency and address the underlying issue of a global military-industrial complex and a reliance on force that is fueled by governments still operating with 20th century notions that the sword is the instrument of peace and justice.

President Obama needs to declare a restructuring of the moral apparatus of the world. Realpolitik must be seen as the politics of negotiation and peace. Religion must be seen as the proximate capacity to dream, not as a license to kill. Economies must be made to create sustainable communities, not fortress societies.

Only the leadership of courageous persons can accomplish the movement needed today. Specifically, in Afghanistan we need to understand that there cannot be a military victory, period. In the future the only real victories will be those of aroused peoples who insist that the ways of war be permanently shelved. This will mean more movements like those in Iran following the most recent elections.

The President needs to stand at the helm of a global civil rights movement. He needs to show that realism is not inconsistent with this. He needs to hark back to Eisenhower and identify the military-industrial complex as the true enemy of civilization.

This is a moment of truth. This is not one person's belief. It is the stance of all who have lived under the lash of the global war machine. We must reject the leadership of those for whom belief in force has overcome belief in themselves.

The moment of truth is a reappropriation of who we are and of our inherent possibilities.

http://stephencrose.wordpress.com

Sri Lankan Journalist Given 20 Years In Prison On Charges Of Violating Anti-Terror Law

2009-08-31T08:34:44Z

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- A Sri Lankan reporter singled out by President Barack Obama as an example of persecuted journalists around the globe was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison on charges of violating the country's harsh anti-terror law.

J.S. Tissainayagam's articles in the now-defunct Northeastern Monthly magazine in 2006 and 2007 criticized the conduct of the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels and accused authorities of withholding food and other essential items from Tamil-majority areas as a tool of war.

Tissainayagam's conviction, 17 months after the ethnic Tamil reporter was arrested, was the first time a journalist was found guilty of violating the country's Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Rights groups have accused the government of waging a broad crackdown on media freedom that has continued since it routed the rebels and ended the nation's quarter-century civil war in May.

Tissainayagam, who has been labeled a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was arrested in March 2008 and indicted five months later under the anti-terror law.

During his World Press Freedom Day address in May, Obama highlighted Tissainayagam's case as an example of journalists being jailed or harassed for doing their jobs.

On Monday, High Court Judge Deepali Wijesundara said Tissainayagam's articles violated the law because they were aimed at creating communal disharmony. She also found him guilty of raising money for a publication whose articles violated the anti-terror law and sentenced him to 20 years.
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"The constitution guarantees media freedom, but no one has a right to deliberately publish false reports that would lead to communal violence," prosecutor Sudarshana de Silva said in his court filing.

Defense lawyer Anil Silva said Tissainayagam had always fought for human rights.

"He was never a racist and he at no time tried to arouse hatred," he said in his defense filing. "Now he has been punished for what he wrote as a journalist. This will be a lesson to other journalists too."

Silva said his client would appeal.

"There is no press freedom in this country today, even after the war is over," said Sirithunga Jayasuriya, a local media rights activist. Tissainayagam's conviction would set a bad precedent for media across the country, he said.

International media rights groups say the government has used emergency laws to silence public criticism of its conduct and has failed to investigate violent attacks -- and killings -- of journalists.

The government has denied the allegations.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 11 Sri Lankan reporters were forced to flee the country in the past year, and Amnesty International said at least 14 Sri Lankan journalists and media workers had been killed since the beginning of 2006.

In June, the government said it would re-establish a powerful press council with the authority to jail journalists it finds guilty of defamation or inaccurate reporting.

Nimmi Gowrinathan: "We Don't Want Development, We Want Our Rights!"

2009-08-27T16:09:43Z

The message shouted from an elder woman inside Zone 2's internment camps in Sri Lanka was clear as she angrily harassed a humanitarian worker attempting to install latrines that would signal a longer, more permanent, residence in unlivable internment camps . It's a message that is perhaps best directed at the United Nations and donor countries who, in the case of Sri Lanka, have chosen "access" to hundreds of internally displaced civilians over "advocacy" in their best interests.

With small pockets of civilians uprooted by a bloody end to Sri Lanka's protracted civil war resettled in their home districts, the majority of the 300,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) from the minority Tamil population remain in sprawling internment camps with dwindling supplies of fresh water, quickly spreading communicable diseases, and up to three families in one tent . The camps are, however, equipped with ATM machines -- reinforcing within the camps what has become obvious outside of the camps. Those with money have power.

The actors with money: The Government of Sri Lanka (2.5 billion US$ wealthier after the approval of a recent International Monetary Fund loan), the UN, and donor countries (primarily China). Since they have neither the money nor the representation to influence their own destiny, Tamil civilians must rely on the UN as their voice. It is an option many in the camps trust less than the promises of a militaristic regime responsible for their captivity. Most of the animosity is directed at Secretary General Ban Ki Moon- who was notably silent as their loved ones perished in the final days of fighting. In a leaked memo, Norwegian Deputy Ambassador Mona Juul says of Sri Lanka, "the Secretary-General's moral voice and authority have been absent."

Why the silence? Perhaps because discussions in the Security Council of Tamil civilian lives were relegated to the basement of the UN, as opposed to Darfurian lives which are allowed consideration on higher floors. Perhaps because Sri Lanka was never an item on the Security Council Agenda, despite having the votes necessary. Some speculate it is the hardline position of the Secretary General's advisors, bolstered by a Human Rights Council debate deeming the Sri Lankan war an "internal matter". Officially, the UN laments that its lack of leverage on behalf of the affected civilians is derived from the growing influence of China and India on the island. In broad macroeconomic terms the Asian powers, capitalizing on the ill-gotten gains of peace, are certainly engaged in a fiscal duel for dominance in Sri Lanka. However, in development aid, most of their funds are dispersed through the UN - and a quick survey of any of the camps will reveal that UN tents far outnumber those provided by the Chinese government. The omnipresence of UN staff on the ground should imply a natural mandate in the debates around resettlement, but it is a power the organization has been hesitant to embrace.

It must be noted that in these internment camps there are sympathetic government soldiers (one lieutenant reportedly consistently siphons off food from rations to ensure children in his care are well-fed), and committed local UN staff -but all are beholden to a leadership which seems deaf to their concerns. While outside humanitarian groups are not (are never) entirely innocent, in Sri Lanka they too have been subsumed under the dominance of the UN (recently accused of not sharing crucial information). What is the message being conveyed by the actions of power players at the UN? That in a "post-conflict" environment, only a victor's justice is available to a marginalized constituency.

Talking heads and a growing number of colored rubber bracelets have tried to convince us that "development" will solve all problems, ethnic or otherwise. But what happens when in order to maintain a presence in a country, and access to displaced civilians, the largest outside "development" actor forgoes its responsibility to advocate for rights guaranteed in the Geneva Convention? While the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are no longer the focal point for Tamil nationalism, separatist sentiments remain high among a population who will no longer accept the exchange of humanitarian aid for political rights.

The assassinated Sinhalese journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga predicted in January of this year, "A military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era." As Tamils around the world are now being recruited into "power-sharing" discussions and "trust-building" exercises, it is important to recognize that a significant amount of power remains in the hands of the UN, an institution that the minority Tamils once trusted with their lives.

The monsoon rains this fall are predicted to trigger a humanitarian crisis as every existing concern outlined by human rights groups (poor sanitation, collapsing tents, lack of medical care) will be exacerbated by massive flooding. Local and international NGOs have warned that no amount of money poured into the overcrowded camps will prevent the loss of thousands of civilian lives. Logistically, at least 100,000 (approximately 1/3) of the displaced civilians must be evacuated to their original homes in the Northern and Eastern districts before the onset of the rains. It seems that only when the international community recognizes the limits of "development" will Tamil civilians, inadvertently, be granted the most basic of rights- the right of return.

Sri Lanka Video Shows Executions, Alleges Report

2009-08-26T12:28:46Z

The Sri Lankan High Commission has denied its forces carried out atrocities against ethnic Tamils after a video apparently showing a man being executed by Sri Lankan soldiers was aired on British television.

The footage, appearing to show a man dressed in Sri Lankan military uniform shooting a naked, bound and blindfolded male, was broadcast by Channel 4 News.

A second man was also shown being shot dead later in the footage, said to have been taken by a soldier using a mobile phone.

Corpses could also be seen in the background.

Continue reading at Al Jazeera.

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Sri Lanka rejects 'execution' video

2009-08-26T02:16:21Z

Row flares after video apparently showing killing of naked Tamils is aired in UK.

Read more: United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, Home News

Sri Lankan Army To Train Pakistan Military

2009-08-23T14:01:22Z

Sri Lankan Army officially agreed to Train Pakistan Military on tackling Insurgency Operations Newly Appointed Sri Lankan Army Commander Lt.General Jagath Jayasuriya said.According to him After the Sri Lankan Military Succesfully defeated the LTTE Rebels Pakistan Military requested from Sri Lankan Army to whether they can send their Miltary Cadets for Sri Lanka to train on Counter Insurgency Operations.

Besides Pakistan Military Sri Lanka already offeing Military Tarining to Countries like India,United States Of America,Bangladesh and the Philliphenes according to the Lt.General Jayasuriya.

Sri Lankan Army is now Conducting Specialists Courses lasting up to Six Weaks for the Armies of an Interested Countries.