Click on to Lanka’s bloggers

By Smriti Daniel. Pic by Saman Kariyawasam. They rant and rave, they wax lyrical, they crack each other up; they spout poetry, abuse and sympathy; they analyse politics, plays and personal problems; they post videos, photographs and racy limericks. Acclamations and insults are exchanged under anonymous and unlikely pseudonyms as more and more people join the fray, choosing sides, forming allies. The keyboards click, the screens flicker, as comment after comment follows post after post. These are ordinary people made extraordinary by the revolution they lead. After all, it has already begun to change forever how we see our world. Welcome to the Blogosphere. It all began not so long ago when in December 1997 Jorn Barger coined the term weblog to describe the process of “logging the web” as he surfed. By mid-1999 the weblog had not only become quite simply a ‘blog’ it had also gathered a small but devoted following – a following that would soon turn into a multitude numbering in the tens of millions. One of the more popular blogging sites – Blogger.com explained: “A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world” – in other words, whatever you wanted to make it. “Bloggers” now “blogged” about just about anything, using not only text, but pictures, videos and even audio and music elements to make their point. Today Kottu is rife with debates and diatribes. The blog’s popularity lies, at least in part, in its almost magical simplicity. With the click of a few keys you can instantly share whatever you choose with a vast audience; you can make your voice heard, make your opinion matter, be seen, turn celebrity, stand up and be counted – at least in theory. The technology is simple, you don’t need to be a computer wizard or internet geek. You don’t even have to know anything about graphics or the programmes that make these things run. Even better – sites like Blogger and Blogsome will set you up with your very own blog for free. It’s no wonder then that in the last few years hundreds of Sri Lankans have taken to blogging like so many fish to water. Kottu - a syndicated community of Sri Lankan weblogs – boasts a blog-roll nearly 200 entries long – and numbers continue to slowly grow every week. “Sri Lankan blogging truly came into its own after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami,” says Ayeshea Perera, an undergraduate student at the University of Colombo who recently completed her thesis on blogging in Sri Lanka. She goes on to explain that “some bloggers such as Morquendi were able to send back news of badly affected areas that were as yet inaccessible to the mainstream media while other Sri Lankans chose to use blogging as a means of catharsis; a way in which to express their grief, shock and horror at what had happened.” Readers from around the globe logged on and some extracts from blogs were even featured in major international news networks. Suddenly Sri Lankan bloggers were getting global recognition. It was around that time that Indi Samarajiwa and Mahangu Weerasinghe put together Kottu – and the possibility of a Sri Lankan blogging “community” was born…the rest, to use the old cliché, is history. For Indi – who still acts as the site’s ‘janitor’ – Kottu is giving many a new blogger a chance to break in the easy way. “When I first began blogging four or five years ago, the only person who would read my blog was my mother,” he says ruefully, explaining that it used to take a long time for any blog to gather a following. In contrast, a blog on Kottu now, however new, has a pretty decent chance of being noticed immediately. For Indi as for Ayeshea, much of the charm of Kottu is simply in the way it brings people together. “The blogs on Kottu are so diverse – it’s a real mish-mash of personalities; and it is safe to say that a lot of these people may never have met let alone become friend, formed alliances etc. if not for the fact that they all blogged,” says Ayeshea. Today Kottu is rife with debates and diatribes on the subject of recent eviction of Tamil lodgers from the capital. Those arguing take both sides, speaking out with real fervour and conviction, often attempting to root themselves in measured objectivity or coherent analysis but sometimes simply just cutting loose. Commenting on the situation, Electra who has an established reputation for eloquent, passionate sarcasm blogged on Portrait: “Oh please, feed me another. As if this ‘back to where they came from’ rot isn’t the last thing this country needs. As if we can’t see that just by promoting the notion that these Tamils must ‘go back to where they came from,’ we’re strengthening the idea that this is not their country to begin with….” Indi – easily one of Sri Lanka’s most read bloggers - has comment threads that run for miles thanks to his thought provoking, unashamedly outspoken posts. In a post made awhile ago, he expanded on the idea of what living in a united Sri Lanka would really mean: “If you want a United Sri Lanka then you want to live with Tamil people. It means that you want them as neighbours, co-workers and friends. It means that you want to see their language and hear their music and eat their food and do all the fun and annoying things that come with living together. It means that they deserve the same security, rights and common decency as any fellow citizen. Both posts generated some heated debate, with bloggers coming out of the woodwork to make their opinions heard. Some comments were supportive, many were not. Some were altogether vicious and pointless. Not surprising really, considering that this is an open forum. But it does have you begging the inevitable question of who, if anyone, controls the blogs. Who stops someone from being abusive and violent? To take it a step further, how much of what you read can you really trust? The answer is very little according to Ayeshea. “You can pretty much write anything you want,” she says, however, “whether you get read or not, is another thing altogether.” Admitting that you have to be prepared for some very aggressive responses to your blog, particularly if it is a political topic, Electra says that tolerance is often key to staying a blogger. And a sense of humour always helps. As David Blacker, a regular on the now defunct Moju said in a post: “The short months here on Moju have been quite amusing. I’ve never actually been called a government stooge, a Tiger sympathiser, an NGO-backside kissing peacenik, a war criminal, as well as a jaded defeatist in such a short period before. Roll on.” Some communities do have rules for participant blogs, as Indi makes clear on the Kottu website. “In terms of libel, it’s basically not cool to personally attack people to the point of (seriously) threatening violence or publishing phone numbers, addresses, and revealing anonymous identities. There is a lot of rough and tumble on Kottu, but there is a grey line.” Now and then, the occasional bloggers nicknamed “Trolls” will inch towards that very same line – posting messages that are inflammatory, insulting, incorrect, inaccurate, absurd, or off-topic, intended to provoke a reaction from the others. Case in point being the notorious blog Pada Show which absolutely delights in mocking and reviling every blogger he/she comes across from a safely anonymous position. The anonymity which allows someone to say whatever they want also means many bloggers experiment with several online ‘personalities’. Blogger Agradevadutha freely admits to maintaining several different blogs ‘authored’ by entirely fictional characters. “It’s fun,” he says simply. While it’s obvious that the anonymity can be very liberating, blogs are far from being limited to mind games and angst ridden diaries. Increasingly, blogs are also serious sources of information and news. In Sri Lanka, the site ‘Groundviews’ allows aspiring ‘citizen’ journalists to cut right past mainstream media to discuss and analyse current events. “Groundviews has become a place people go to get news, views and perspectives that they can’t get anywhere else,” says Sanjana Hattotuwa, editor of the site. With nearly 30 registered contributors the site logs an average of 500 visitors every day – a number that only shoots up every time there is a newsworthy incident, he reveals. Here, as in Kottu, Trolls are given short shrift. Other bloggers find yet more innovative uses for their blogs. Tracy Holsinger, for instance, used her blog very effectively to promote her recent play ‘Chatroom’. Posts featuring pictures of the cast at their first dress rehearsal drew over 200 viewers. For Tracy and her fringe theatre company Mind Adventures this sort of publicity is invaluable, not least because big advertising budgets are still an impossibility. Nazreen Sansoni, Director of the Barefoot Gallery uses her Barefoot blog to publicise events, while husband Dominic Sansoni is one of many photographers including Alefiya Akberally, Yanik Tissera, Isuru Perera and Devaka Seneviratne who maintain photoblogs. Despite their increasing popularity, it will take blogs quite some time to go entirely mainstream in Sri Lanka. This is in most part because “a lot of things have to come together before a blogger is born… internet access, some knowledge of blogging, knowledge of English, etc,” explains Ayeshea. Though the time when the Sri Lankan blogging community will be a force to be reckoned with is still very much in the future, it’s obvious that they have already begun to take their first steps. “The voices are overwhelmingly young, vibrant and passionate,” says Sanjana and each and everyone revels in the freedom blogging gives them. In the end, everyone has a different reason for blogging says Electra. For some it’s a love of writing, or a desire to keep up a political commentary; for others it’s the pleasure of being in the know or wallowing in the diverse personalities and opinions that the internet offers… “but it’s mostly because they feel secure with the unstinted freedom of expression,” she says, adding, “on your blog, you’re allowed to be yourself and express your mind, and you can rest assured that no one will disrespect that to an extent in which they have the power to take your space away, or forbid you from blogging ever again.”

Local Nation With Hamas and International Support with Fatah

More Sensitive Issue in Palestine

Hamas is freedom fighters of Palestine. The founder Sheikh Ahmed Yasin strictly followed a policy “No War within Muslim Organizations and Parties” this was an excellent policy of Hamas. This was made them more comfortable with all other parties which have different attitude and ideology in Palestine. But after the last general election

Hamas got the power of the parliament by using same democracy which is following by all over the democratic countries. But the western world in back of Israel has made several struggles to continue the power. They band the economy and helpings. Nearly more than 2 years hamas passed a hard situation in their own country, finally they came to know that Western world need to keep the power by PLO and FATAH not with Hamas. The two other second parties have also played a tricky game. This is the reason of present conflicts. Hamas has decided to wipe out the FATAH from Gaza strips and got the power, for me this is not fit that much for Hamas. Because their going to break the great policy, but according to the Hamas’s Statement they are justifying this attempt. But the situation is completely different that mean we can find Local Nation with Hamas and International Support with Fatah. Most of the International countries especially western world and the Israel don’t like Hamas Because of its stand on Israel. But Most of the Local nations Like and support Hamas because of its stand on Israel. Then the question is which Democarcy is????

Abbas appoints new Palestinian PM

Abbas appoints new Palestinian PM

Fayyad, a former World Bank economist, was finance minister in the national unity cabinet [AP] Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has appointed Salam Fayyad, an independent parliamentarian, as prime minister of an emergency government. After the announcement on Friday, Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader, called for dialogue with Abbas and Fatah after Hamas's virtual takeover of the Gaza Strip. Fayyad was finance minister in the unity government between Hamas and Fatah which Abbas sacked on Thursday. In Gaza, meanwhile, the looting of Fatah security force buildings continued and Hamas supporters celebrated even as Ismail Haniya, sacked as prime minister, ordered an end to reprisals. Fayyad is former World Bank employee who has good relations with the West, and Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said that he is thought of as a safe pair of hands. Bishara said: "He is not a strong man in Palestinian society and is not known for his charisma or vision. He is known as a correct accountant, not a reckless investment banker." Dialogue call The appeal for dialogue from Meshaal, the chief of Hamas's political bureau, came at a news conference in the Syrian capital Damascus, where he lives in exile, within hours of an Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo to discuss the crisis. Witness accounts Voices from Gaza He said Hamas had no option but to use force to wrest control of Gaza in fighting that killed dozens of Palestinians. He said: "What is needed now is to deal with the Palestinian schism. Hamas is for Arab sponsorship of a dialogue in the Palestinian national interest. "The lack of security drove the crisis toward explosion. What happened in Gaza was a necessary step. The people were suffering from chaos and lack of security and this treatment was needed." Haniya's stand Before the announcement of Fayyad as his replacement on Friday, Haniya said he remained open to dialogue with Abbas. Your Views "If you ask me Fatah and Hamas are the same: both seek power and both want to obtain it through violence" sepharad, montreal, Canada Send us your views If you are in the Gaza Strip, you can also mail your opinions to: Gazacrisis@aljazeera.net He said: "I still stress that the door is open to restructure Palestinian relations on the basis of national values." Earlier Haniya said that the "unity government" would continue to function despite being sacked by Abbas. He called his dismissal and the declaration of a state of emergency on Thursday "hasty". Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said: "We know that he can carry on leading the government in the Gaza Strip with the Hamas ministers who are in the Gaza Strip. "We do not know how they will be able to fund the government, how they will bring in food and supplies or how they will be able to have any influence in the West Bank." Chaos Hamas, now in apparent full control of Gaza, declared clemency for all Fatah members and security forces on Friday, after seizing several senior officials, a spokesman for the group's military wing said. Meshaal said on Friday that Hamas had no option but to wrest control of Gaza [AFP] Civilians poured into the presidential compound in Gaza City on Friday, hauling away fridges, satellite dishes and doors, as Hamas fighters fired shots into the air in an attempt to disperse them. Portraits of Abbas and his predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat, lay on the ground as Hamas fighters showed reporters pools of blood where they said two of Abbas's guards shot themselves rather than surrender. A Fatah official said the guards were killed. Johnston steps In another development on Friday, Hamas said it had made contact with the captors of Alan Johnston, the kidnapped BBC journalist, and was taking "serious and practical steps" to win his release. BBC reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped three months ago in Gaza [AP] Abu Obeideh, a spokesman for Hamas, said his group "will not allow anyone to attack journalists or foreigners, because they are helping our people". When asked whether the use of force is possible in winning Johnston's release, Abu Obeideh said all options are open. Johnston, 45, was seized in Gaza three months ago by a group believed to have some links to Hamas, and a message purporting to be from his captors has demanded the release of prisoners, including a cleric being held in Britain.

Power struggle in bloody muddle as Palestinian crisis deepens

The battle for Gaza is raging with Palestinians using their guns meant to ensure their liberation from Israeli occupation to kill each other in a self-destructive madness. It is a civil war in the making -- and a power struggle, too. Reports indicate that the situation in the Gaza Strip - a 360 square km patch of land where 1.5 million Palestinians have been squeezed into - is turning favourable to Hamas, the Islamic group which has locked horns with Fatah led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was in February this year that the two sides signed a power-sharing agreement in the Muslim holy city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia. But instead of peace, Palestinians saw bloodshed. The current spate of violence that has killed more than 70 people is the second time that clashes went out of control since the Makkah deal, in terms of which the important portfolios of interior, foreign and finance were given to neutral parties and the two rivals formed a unity government.

Last month too, hundreds died in the inter-Palestinians clashes, the first since the unity government was formed.

Fatah was to be blamed for triggering last month's clashes. It dishonoured the spirit of the Makkah deal when President Abbas deployed 3,000 policemen loyal to him to wrest control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas. The Interior Ministry, which according to the Makkah deal, was headed by a neutral person, was not consulted. Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi under whose purview such deployment should come, resigned in protest saying he had little power over matters of security.

A series of ceasefires were mooted and adopted but before the blood on the floor could dry, shots were fired to indicate that the game was not over.

The question that arises is: why is Fatah hell-bent on weakening Hamas in Gaza? If Fatah wants to increase its political fortunes and defeat Hamas in the next assembly elections, it should try to win the hearts of the Palestinians living in Gaza. Even if Fatah justifies its action saying that Hamas should be checked to resurrect the peace process with Israel, violence is not the answer. It is said that Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahalan is giving orders from Cairo, where he is recuperating, to his men to go all-out and bring Hamas to its knees while Abbas talks to Hamas leader Khaled Meshal regarding a ceasefire.

The situation exposes the weakness of Abbas who has little control over his own men.

The problem with Abbas is that he tries to be president of a militant society which has been living with violence for the past eight decades or so. Since the Ottoman Turks were defeated in the First World War, the lot of the Palestinians has been one of misery accentuated by the humiliation of being occupied and being ruled by foreign powers - first the British and now the Israelis.

Even as the Palestinians undergo untold hardship for the whole world to see on television screens, more harm is being inflicted on them with Israel grabbing more and more land by building a security barrier across the West Bank. What's sad, the western world led by the United States has little sympathy for the Palestinian people. There is very little political support for the Palestinian cause in the West where rightwing anti-Arab racists masquerade as liberals.

The West promoted Abbas who in turn showed the West that he too was a liberal. He did not don the military uniform which Arafat refused to part with till his death. He tried to introduce democratic ideals to the peace-starved Palestinian people living in abject poverty, little realizing that democracy was not priority number one for the Palestinians. He tried to renounce violence while his people died in violence perpetrated on them by Israel.

Abbas' civility was seen as a sign of weakness by the Palestinian people who believe that what has been taken from them through violence can be taken back only through violence.

After Arafat's death, Abbas became the head of the Palestinian Authority — an institution set up under the 1993 Oslo peace deal to administer areas from which Israel would withdraw. But he inherited an administration tarnished by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. The end result was the Palestinian people handed an easy victory to Hamas in the January 2005 elections.

Instead of honouring the people's verdict, the West imposed sanctions on the Hamas regime. It withheld humanitarian and development aid to Palestinian areas while Israel refused to release taxes it collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. The West and Israel demanded that Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel and all agreements the Palestinian Authority had signed with Israel.

The standoff led to a collapse of the Palestinian economy with the authorities finding it difficult to pay the salaries of public servants who account for nearly half the Palestinian work force. The collapse of the economy only expedited the inter-Palestinian civil war, which Arafat with his political astuteness averted when Israel demanded that he disarm Hamas and other Islamic militants. But Abbas walked into the trap.

Latest reports indicate that Hamas has taken over the Fatah headquarters in Gaza. One senior Abbas aide said, "Gaza is lost", while others say the Palestinian Authority President would make a major announcement. There is speculation that he will dissolve the unity government and declare emergency or form an emergency cabinet.

But Abbas will have to seek parliamentary approval if he wants to extend the life of the emergency cabinet. Given the rising animosity between the two sides, it is unlikely that Hamas which controls parliament will vote for the extension. The move will only aggravate the crisis with the violence spreading to the relatively peaceful West Bank, where Fatah is said to be stronger.

One possibility is that the current clashes will lead to the division of what is left of Palestine -- with Hamas ruling Gaza and Fatah the West Bank. The ultimate victor in this violent power struggle among the Palestinians is Israel. The clashes will only delay efforts to revive the Palestinian peace process. In other words, Israel will continue to occupy Palestine, build more settlements and alter the path of its security wall across the West Bank, thus grabbing more Palestinian land.

The truth is that with each passing day, the Palestinians are losing more land and the resolution of the Palestinian crisis will become more and more difficult, if not complicated. Israel would also not agree to a 'one nation two people' solution because if the Palestinians were incorporated into Israel and the Palestinian refugees are allowed to return, it will give birth to an Arab-majority Israel. Israeli leaders say their country is a Jewish state and should remain a Jewish majority country.

What Israel and the West are trying to impose on the Palestinian people is a two-state solution living side by side. But they are not going to restore the 1967 border. The West and Israel are now talking about new ground realities. This means the future Palestine state will be whatever remains after Israel takes all what it wants from the areas it is now occupying.

Compounding the present crisis is a move to send an international peacekeeping force to Gaza. Both the United Nations and the European Union are in favour of such a force. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also given his nod. But it is unlikely that Hamas which virtually controls Gaza will agree.

The international force, to be formed in terms of a United Nations Security Council resolution, may have a mandate to disarm all militants. This will result in the Palestinian crisis taking a different turn -- of course a violent turn.

Another Bush legacy: Return to arms race

By Ameen Izzadeen

Fact box: Missile shield Extensions in Europe to the US missile shield, which President George W. Bush said is not aimed at Russia, will complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain. Washington says the shield is aimed at protecting its territory and that of many of its European allies against attack by "rogue states", in particular Iran, but also North Korea. Designed as a defence against ballistic, or intercontinental, missiles that can fly more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles), the shield includes a ground component of eight missile interceptors in Alaska and two others in California. Outside the United States, a radar base has been set up in Fylingdales in Britain, and Thule in Greenland, which is Danish territory. Britain also said on February 23 that it might be willing to have missile interceptors stationed on its territory. To complete the shield, Washington announced on January 22 that it wanted to install 10 interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic, which would be linked to an early warning radar, probably in the Caucasus. The interceptors, to be set up in an area the size of a football field, would destroy their targets at extremely high altitude through sheer speed and carry no explosive head, the US experts have said. The radar system was operating in the South Pacific and was to be dismantled for transport to the Czech Republic. Total cost estimates for the European extensions range from 1.6 to 2.5 billion dollars. Iran does not currently have missiles capable of reaching the United States -- which would cross Europe on an almost polar trajectory if fired in that direction from the north of the Islamic republic. But US experts say they are planning for well into the future, given the time needed to build the shield.

George W. Bush is doing it again - dragging the world towards another conflagration. He fired the first shot, paving the way for the possible return of the Cold War that had kept the world divided into two power blocs for four decades until the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s.

Is the Bush administration so naïve as to assume that Russia would not see the threat posed by the US moves to set up missile defence systems in the Czech Republic and Poland? A few years ago, when Sri Lanka wanted to buy hi-tech Chinese radars to beef up its air defence systems to counter the threat posed by the air wing of the Tamil Tiger guerrilla, India shot down the move and forced Colombo to accept an outdated Indian radar system as a gift. The reason: India did not want the Chinese to come to Sri Lanka with powerful radars and pry into what was going on in Indian airspace. The radar equipment the United States will install in the Czech Republic will be much more powerful than what Sri Lanka was to buy from China.

Russia's angry reaction to the US missile defence system is totally justified. The United States assures that the missile defence shield is not targeted against Russia but against rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. But in terms of realpolitik, such assurances mean very little. If the United States is keen on intercepting Iranian or North Korean missiles, it should have first discussed the matter with Moscow since the US plan posed a threat to Russia's national security.

In an imaginary world of only two states which co-exist peacefully while maintaining balance of power, if one state suddenly adds more weapons to its arsenal, obviously the other will feel insecure. This will certainly set off an arms race which will continue until balance of power is restored.

Arms race: The cost

During the Cold War era — from early 1950s to early 1990s - the US-led Western bloc and the Soviet Union-led Communist bloc were engaged in a senseless arms race at the cost of the welfare of the people who inhabited the world. Arms races feed mutual suspicion and thus contribute to the build-up of tension or even lead to war. If a country reduces its defence expenditure, the money saved could be used for the welfare of its citizens, improve the country's infrastructure or the advancement of science.

A country that eventually wins the arms race becomes arrogant and wants to dominate the rest of the world, interpreting its intervention in the affairs of other countries in terms of national interest. Such a country refuses to believe that war is morally wrong.

The United States under the Bush administration is not the first country to fit this description. History is replete with examples that show the winner of arms races becoming aggressor.

But the advocates of America's missile defence shield may argue that war preparedness is war prevention. E. H. Carr in his book 'Twenty-Year Crisis: 1919-1939' advises policymakers not to be carried away by ideal norms which have not been tested or proved to be useful. He finds faults with the utopian international order - which was advocated by US President Woodrow Wilson and which existed from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second. As diplomats and scholars during this period believed in idealism or utopianism based on moral values, power politics was ignored. The man who thought in terms of power-politics was Hitler, while other European powers and the United States dreamt of a just world based on international law. Hitler's rise was largely due to the failure of his European rivals and the United States to nip in the bud the threat posed by the Nazis.

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States foreign policy has been guided by those who put power politics before moral values. They advised that moral values should be pursued in international relations only if such an approach helps increase US power and serves its national interest. So it is not surprising that the United States is coming to the neighbourhood of Russia, a nuclear power, ostensibly to counter the threats posed by Iran and North Korea.

In response to the US missile defence shield, Russia last week test fired a ballistic missile with multiple warheads. A missile with multiple warheads is difficult to intercept. Russian President Vladimir Putin at this week's G-8 summit in Germany told Bush that Russia was unhappy over the US decision to install a missile detection radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland. He told Bush that they could, instead, share a radar station in Azerbaijan if the United States felt threatened by Iranian missiles and wanted to intercept them. Bush is reported to have said that he found the Russian proposal interesting. But analysts said it was unlikely that the United States would change its original plan.

The missile-defence crisis has brought US-Russian relations to its lowest ebb since the Cold War ended. Besides the missile-defence row, the two countries have been taking contrasting policy stances over a number of global issues. Russia is opposing a US-backed UN plan for independence for Kosovo, a Serbian region with an Albanian majority. Russia has criticized the United States' arms shipment to Lebanon to help the Fouad Siniora government fight the Islamic militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp. Russia has also hit back at US criticism at Putin's crack down against opposition figures in Russia. Washington also accused Russia of being a bully to its neighbours.

Russia is also smarting over the loss of its prestige as a superpower and Putin has not tried to hide his desire to make his country a force to be reckoned with in the international arena. The rise in oil prices has helped Russia to overcome its economic woes and made Putin confident that his goal of making the county a superpower once again is not unattainable.

Putin in an interview in February charged that the US was an imperialist power. He repeated the charge a week before his departure to the G-8 summit and said Washington was starting a new arms race by building a missile shield in Europe. Meanwhile, relations between Russia and Britain are also strained over the poison killing of former Russian spy Alexander Litveninko. Britain demanded that Russia extradite the prime suspect, former KGB agent Andrey Lugovoy, to face trial in London. But Lugovoy, backed by the Putin regime, told a news conference that Litvinenko was poisoned by British intelligence.

These developments point to a possible return of the Cold War. But it is unlikely that the present crisis will aggravate to the levels of what the world witnessed after the Second World War. The Cold War then was a clash between communism and capitalism and the two superpowers were backed by one country or another. The ground reality today is that despite the rhetoric, Russia has to catch up a great deal to become a military match to the United States.

The human rights situation and humanitarian space in Sri Lanka

European Parliament Committee on Development – Public Hearing

Tuesday, 5th June, Brussels

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Participants & Colleagues,

It is indeed a pleasure to be in Brussels this evening.

We have watched with interest from Colombo your engagement in particular, as a development partner and a friend in promoting peace.

I preface my formal presentation with a few a contextual facts relating to my requested presentation .Since Independence from Britain, Sri Lanka has contended with the challenges of governance of for a multi-ethnic society with competing demands of majority and minority interests, together with accompanying pressures of a plural society with significant development goals. Close upon three decades of civil strife, regional disparities in economic dividends for growth and peace with the impact of the Tsunami of 2004, has left the country with deficits in the realm of human security. A deficit which has resulted in conflict affected regions becoming isolated from the development framework, a national yearning for a return to normalcy and to manage expectations from Peace.

Dividends from peace

The dividends from the Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2002, resulted in approximately 100,000 families being resettled in their original habitat, 55% of mine clearance, totalling 35,832, 825 square metres of land, externally funded projects, estimated at Rs. 43,620.43 million , domestic fund utilization for restoration work in the North-East from 2002 – 2006 estimated at Rs. 3,056.00 million. Agriculture land was brought back into active production, rice production increased by about 90,000 metric tons per year and water supplies restored to approximately 20,000 families. People across the country began recovering their lives, economies and futures. Collectively we renewed our faith in peace as a means to erase conflict and to development. The onward progress has now stopped due to the resurgence in conflict.

Absence of peace

War derogates human rights and our country has not been immune. The Ceasefire Agreement was said to have frozen war. It has melted now, garrisoning in places people with terrifying consequences. A focus on human rights must have a focus on human lives. Accompanying losses to life, forced displacement, involuntary disappearances, reports of abductions, hostage taking for ransom , conscription, fear of attacks which disrupt day to life and stringent measures adopted to secure cities and urban life run counter to civil liberties of sections of our populace, which in turn accentuates existing cleavages amongst stakeholders and communities.

Humanitarianism

Reaching the vast expanse of displaced persons has posed harsh challenges to humanitarian agencies, with new regulations and procedures on access, a natural evolution and companion in times of conflict. Humanitarian agencies are neutral – in their principles and partisan to people in need, in their activities. It has resulted in some agencies, employees and families coping with direct assaults, intimidation and threats. Neutrality has come under fire. Though it remains as such and as long as there are people in need with access to affected people at the forefront of concern.

Amidst these challenges, humanitarianisms must persist to reach those who cannot run anymore, those who do not know where to run, those who cannot offer their children sufficient protection and those children who wonder why they are scared everyday of their lives. Equally our actions are called to account by all. A call which needs to be met with the highest of standards expected of us.

While we may not be able to bring about miracles, the humanitarian community in Sri Lanka has overcome obstacles of significant size and nature, and this strength should be a telling sign of the potential to reverse the devastating circumstances for many people.

In seeking progress we must catalogue our successes. We have seen progress amidst the challenges. A few reminders: engagement of multilateral and bilateral agencies and their investments, willingness of humanitarian action to weather conflict, development of frameworks for relief, rehabilitation and reconciliation, scintillating draftsmanship of a proposal for final settlement of conflict and constitutional change, engagement and dialogue by all stakeholders on challenges to human security, civic voices, calling to account derogation from human rights within Sri Lanka and realization of the limits of impunity given global trends.

Call for peace and hope

The search for human security away from conflict and indignity is global and ceaseless. The demands of human security include a balanced view of tragedies that are the result of terrible omissions as well as dreadful commissions.

In short a celebration of life as opposed to a memoriam for life. We must make it that much harder to justify destruction as a means to conquer one another and make dialogue, conciliation and accommodation a means to find solutions too many competing and justifiable claims from the peoples of our country.

Human rights will realize in large measure with the ebb of conflict and a focus on development. Such a common quest requires the enterprise of adversaries who are stakeholders of today, it is for the interlocutors and investors to bring out about this commonality of vision which together may assist us all to justifiably feel one day that we did what we had to when we had to.

We thank you!

Four hours of US-Iran talks produce more questions

Four hours of US-Iran talks produce more questions

At last the ice was broken in the US-Iran relations. On Monday, the two countries' ambassadors in Iraq met face-to-face to discuss Iraq's future. The talks were the first in 28 years after the two countries broke diplomatic relations in the wake of the Iranian people's revolution led by Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini.

US ambassador Ryan Crocker shook hands with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi Qumi at the high security Green Zone office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad for four hours.

The meeting was businesslike but the undercurrents were hostile though the two countries agreed to discuss nothing but Iraq.

As to who set the agenda for the meeting, both sides claim the credit. The United States said that it was at the request of Washington that the meeting was narrowly confined to the Iraqi situation.

But the Iranians say it was they who set the stage and set the agenda too.

The Iranians say their officials had higher morale and gained the upper hand throughout the meeting.

They say that victory was theirs from the moment the process started. The Iranians say the Americans, caught up in the Iraq quagmire, were sending informal requests through various diplomatic channels for talks but Tehran insisted that they would only respond to an official request.

According to Iranian news reports, the US then submitted such a request through the Swiss embassy in Tehran. Iran then put forward two conditions — a strict focus on Iraq's security and the presence of Iraqi officials as the third party.

In practice, it was Iran that set the agenda, the reports said.

It is clear from the statements of U.S. officials, including the article by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns published in the Boston Review, that the main reasons for the US to talk to Iran were the U.S. entrapment in the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan, internal disputes in the U.S. government, Israel's humiliating defeat in its 33-day war against Hezbollah, and other regional and international problems of the United States, the reports said.

That the United States agreed to talk to its arch foe is indicative of the Bush administration's desperation. Last year, the Iraqi Study Group — a bipartisan expert panel — proposed that the Bush administration talk to the Iranians. But the White House was adamant — until the Iranians gave up their nuclear ambitions the Americans would not talk to them. But Monday's meeting shows that the White House now sees wisdom in the study group proposal.

The heat on the Bush administration is really increasing. The anti-war cry is getting stronger and louder in the United States. The administration's military "surge" in Iraq have only exacerbated the crisis with more and more US troops being killed. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill approving funds for the Bush administration's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the passage of the bill came along with caveats. Several Democratic Party members said they favoured an early US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

The Bush administration policy, especially its scant respect for international law and issues such as climate change, has made the United States the most unpopular country in the world followed by Israel. It stands stripped today before the international peace community for the lies it uttered in the build-up to its invasion of Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction which the Bush administration cited as its reason for the invasion were nowhere to be found in Iraq. However much the corporate US media tried to protect the Bush administration and project Bush's war as a just war, the alternate media — especially the internet-based news groups and bloggers — and a handful of independent mainstream journalists have exposed the Bush administration's charade.

When the going got tough in Iraq, the Bush administration wanted excuses. First it blamed Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. The Bush administration named them Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Iraqi Shiites, who comprise 60 percent of the population, the pro-US Kurds who make up 20 percent and even most Sunni Arabs are not friends of al-Qaeda. Yet the Bush administration was unable to rein in this handful of Sunni Muslim foreign fighters of al Qaeda although it had the support of 2000,000 coalition troops. So it started pointing its finger at Iran.

The US Defence Department has alleged that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are active in Iraq and supplying armour-penetrating explosive devices that have become a deadly weapon in the hands of the Iraqi resistance forces, be they Shiites or Sunnis.

Iran may or may not be playing a role in fuelling the anti-US insurgency in Iraq. But the reality is that as long as the United States stays in Iraq, it will be a threat to Iran's sovereignty. Iran's rapidly progressing nuclear programme is being viewed by the United States and Israel as a direct threat to them. No one could rule out the possibility of either the United States or Israel or both launching an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iraq, aware of these realities, does not want their country to be used as a battleground for settling scores. So the Nouri al-Maliki government in Baghdad is a strong advocate of a US-Iran meeting.

Iran has been an opponent of US occupation in Iraq and of late has been calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops. Then why should they hold talks? Have the Iranians decided to help the Bush administration in return for some concessions such as a promise not to pursue tough sanctions on Tehran? For four hours they discussed and in the end there was nothing much to tell the media. The two ambassadors who took part in the talks said the talks were positive. US ambassador Crocker said: "As you surely know among diplomats, you don't need a lot of substance to take up a lot of time."

Iranian ambassador Kazemi said Iran had offered to train and equip the Iraqi security forces to create a new military and security structure and to build Iraq's devastated infrastructure.

Iran, being the powerful neighbour of Iraq, is certainly an influential factor in Iraq's politics. It gave tacit support for the United States when the sole superpower invaded Afghanistan first and then Iraq which was under Saddam Hussein, the nemesis of the Iranian regime.

Now that the US has got rid of Saddam and pro-Iranian politicians calling the shots in Iraq, one would expect that Iran obviously wants the US out. Has the Iranians compromised on this oft-stated policy?

Helping the Iraqis to rebuild their country with security for all the Iraqi people is certainly a noble goal, but if the Iranians step in with selfish ends — for instance, forcing the Americans to adopt a soft approach on the Iranian nuclear dispute — to extend a hand to the United States - then they would be doing it against the will of the Iraqi people who clamour for freedom from occupation or the shame of occupation.