The Tamil Tiger leadership has accused the Sri Lankan government of trying to make political propaganda out of the tsunami relief effort by exaggerating the amount of aid it is sending to Tamil-controlled areas.
In a fierce attack, SP Thamilselvan, the political head of the pro-autonomy guerrillas, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also called Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga "inhumane" for claiming they had lost too many cadres in last week's disaster to be able to resume the armed struggle.
In an interview with The Guardian at the LTTE headquarters in the northern town of Kilinochchi, Thamilselvan said he was rejecting an invitation from Kumaratunga to serve on the all-party taskforce for disaster management which she created last week.
"Since no constructive steps have been taken to help the north, we believe it is a propaganda trick. We think she wants the international community to believe that she is not discriminating against the north. Only a small amount of aid has started arriving here compared to the relief pouring into Colombo airport," he said.
The LTTE has set up two taskforces, which are operating in Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu, a badly affected coastal town where around 3,000 people died. They are recognized to be distributing aid efficiently.
While the LTTE is willing to let the government cooperate locally on relief work, it is not prepared to develop the symbolism of national unity which the president has been pushing. Thamilselvan's comments also undermine hopes expressed by analysts in Colombo that the crisis could reduce the two sides' suspicions and build trust.
"They want to maintain very clearly that they're a separate entity and a state-in-being. Joining the national taskforce would look as though they'd given up those pretensions," said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the director of an independent think tank, the Center for Policy Alternatives.
Since a fragile ceasefire began three years ago, UN agencies and foreign NGOs have set up in Kilinochchi. The Tigers are appealing to them to send disaster relief directly.
"A very negligible portion of aid has come from the government. It's our historical experience that this region is not helped, but people expected something better after this disaster," Thamilselvan said.
"If the conventional wisdom is that the LTTE's military and particularly its naval capability has been battered, and military strength is their leverage at the negotiating table, they will have to make hard choices: to negotiate only when they have recouped or do it sooner from a position of relative weakness," Saravanamuttu said.
Harim Peiris, the presidential spokesman in Colombo, rejected the charge that the LTTE area had been neglected. He said that up to Monday night his ministry and the social services ministry had provided Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu with 1,000 tonnes of food for 75,000 homeless people, compared with 65 tonnes for Galle and 91 tonnes for Habantota, two southern cities where 147,000 people have lost their homes.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not