Commando Regiment Recruitment Posters (Old Version)The Army is also preparing to raise Task Force 3 following requirements for another Holding Division. Task Force 3 will be semi-offensive and will be deployed in newly captured areas, most likely in the northwestern theater of operations. The decision was made at the last Security Council Meeting headed by the President.
The original plan was to increase the strength of the existing Offensive Divisions to four Brigades each and to supplement the additional needs with the SLN and SLAF. All three branches of the Armed Forces have experienced unprecedented success in recruitment lately. Army basic training has also been totally revamped with freshers being trained to operate in small teams.
The SLN will be deployed in strategic areas of naval significance such as Vidattaltivu and once secured at Nachchikuda, Pooneryn, Alampil, Nayaru, Chalai etc. The SLAF will perform a specialized role in both defensive and offensive formations in support of the Army in newly captured areas.
The first recipient of a 4th Brigade was the 57 Division. In the coming months additional Brigades will be raised and subsequently deployed under the 58, 59, 61, 62, 53, 55 and 56 Divisions, based on need and priority. This will result in the addition of at least another 15,000 troops to the Army.
Special Forces Recruitment Posters (Old Version)The 3rd Squadron was added recently by combining experienced men and freshers who passed-out from the Maduru Oya Special Forces Training School on 28th June. 4 Special Forces has been very active lately. Its troops ambushed an LTTE bus killing 7 hardcore LTTE cadres injuring another 12 at Puliyankulam yesterday.
Related Articles
4 Special Forces Formed
LTTE 'DPU' under attack
476 comments:
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MR's interview with al jazeera is now posted on www.defence.lk
infinity,
I'm glad that you bring up the PAFFREL monitoring, since PAFFREL reported a number of “serious incidents”, including 14 cases of physical assault and the barring of opposition parties from 21 polling booths!
Both PAFFREL and the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) reported cases of intimidation and violence. Most complaints were lodged against the TMVP. The CMEV recorded 64 cases of election malpractices, including 48 instances of “major offences”.
The AEEA report that you cited, also alludes to this, noting "widespread reports of intimidation and violence directed both at voters and political players".
Please note that the AEEA was only tasked with monitoring election day, and just 3 days prior to it, and even then only in selected areas. The other monitoring organisations (including PAFFREL) monitored the ENTIRE election campaign, so they give more useful information. The AEEA is silent on a lot of the violence and intimidation that occured in the weeks leading up to election day (PAFFREL and CMEV do document this).
Moreover, the AEEA was only present at selected voting booths, and were clearly marked, so the government obviously had an interest in ensuring the processes appeared fair at those booths. The PAFFREL and CMEV reports were compiled based on information from non-uniformed observers, and so gives a more truthful picture.
Jaffna battlefield can almost hear firing sounds of Wanni battlfield
echolalia, as usual you make lots of noises and claims without giving any sources. More things you have read in Tamilnet and unquestioningly believe? Unverifiable claims and statements are not interesting.
I again note the sourced statement by Paffrel and more importantly the very supportive sourced statement by the international monitors. Unfortunately for your cause, the TMVP was democratically elected and is a true representative for the Tamils. Unlike the so called self-appointed "sole representative".
infinity,
I did not need to reference the PAFFREL report, because you provided a link yourself. It's here:
http://www.paffrel.lk/pdf/paffrel_interim_report_10_may_08.pdf
You selectively quoted pieces of the document that you liked, but ignored the very first paragraph, which notes:
"The election for the Eastern Provincial Council took place with serious incidents being reported
from several areas and an environment of intimidation prevailing in the province."
Does not sound like a "free and fair" election, now, does it?
The CMEV report is also available online:
http://www.cpalanka.org/cmev_10th_May_2008-3.html
The report says:
"CMEV has recorded 64 incidents of violence as at 6 pm today, 10 May. Of these, 48 have been classified as Major Offences and 16 as Minor. The majority of the Major Offences – 28 -were committed in the Batticaloa District followed by Ampara (12) and Trincomalee (08)"
It lists specific incidents.
Notice no Tamilnet sources :)
echolalia, there are always incidents of some kinds in elections. None of your selectively quoted statements condemned the election as a whole.
I on the other hand quote from the more important overall Conclusions from the report by Paffrel:
"Conclusions: Despite the shortcomings of the election and relatively low participation of about 60 percent, these elections were important in that they represented for the first time the hopes and opinion of the people of the east through an electoral process that was confined to the Eastern Province alone. PAFFREL believes that having elections in the east, although flawed, can be an important step towards empowering the people in the province to democratically determine their future."
http://www.paffrel.lk/pdf/paffrel_interim_report_10_may_08.pdf
But again, since local monitoring groups can be easily influenced or threatened, or simply be a disguised front for one the parties, the most important statement is that of the neutral international observers:
AAEA Observation Mission
"The 2008 Provincial Council Elections in the Eastern Province of Trincomallee, Batticalloa, and Ampara were conducted peacefully and in an orderly manner.""the elections were free and fair"
http://www.aaeasec.org/d_5.html
So unfortunately for your cause, the TMVP was democratically elected and is a true representative for the Tamils. Unlike the so called self-appointed "sole representative".
I also find it strange that you claim no freedom of speech in Sri Lanka and at the same time claim that local Sr Lankan groups are allowed to express very critical views of the government. Please explain this contradiction.
Well, I have been away for a day and found that there are so many comments. Had a brief run on the ones which I could read. Although we have few tiger supporters killing their neurons on HOW TO MAKE SOME SENSE WHILE SUPPORTING TIGERS, I don’t see the variety I expected, in order to study bit further into the crooked minds of Tamil Diasporah – so my thesis report on Maniac Psychology is postponed. Nevertheless I will look into the one or two which deserve an answer.
Also I notice that DW updates have stopped, and notably he/they missed the Werahera suicide bomb [not that there was much to talk about it]. So someone who has direct contact to DW better nudge him. Is he directly involved in forces, if so, the concern is double in intensity.
Amma GG;
- Lovely story
- I’m also from the south, the fringe of it along Galle Rd, and I was less than 18 in early 90s, just the diff is I didnt hv a Chally bike and didn’t play cricket often, just watched.
- I had/have frnds of all races and they seem to be OK - even tamils who live in SL. So I feel that this total mayhem is a psychological defect of diaspora who architected and sponsored the nonsense.
V4Victory:
- Are you the NGO catcher? If so this is for you.
- Who said HR is not violated in SL. It gets violated indeed. In every war zone it happens.
- Although some lunatic robots of HR-NGOs take the book of UN and compare it with every country, the sensible international community realizes that during war HR are not protected 100%.
- As per NGOs, killing a terrorist is also a HR violation. The right approach is to capture him/her alive and take to the courts. These NGO buggers are so senseless.
- And who caused the HR violation? Who is the root cause? You yourself said Pussycats also violate the HR. Had the govt left it to happen free, then they will do that in 1000 folds. So for the betterment of the ppl the govt has to stop them. That process inevitably causes other HR violations. If there is an unstoppable murderer, you need to murder him to stop murder. It is the diaspora who architected and sponsored Pussycats and hence responsible for the HR violations.
- You jump against the coming train and complain for injuries.
- Pussycats are deliberately violating HR. Govt is trying to eliminate them and indirectly HR violations happen. This is unavoidable.
[to be contd…]
infinity,
The conclusion from the PAFFREL report was not an empirical summary of facts, but rather the *opinion* of the authours. It is an optimistic and guarded opinion that they give, and note that they do NOT conclude that it was a free and fair election, but rather than they hope the mere facade of an election is a stepping stone for progress in the future.
The AAEA monitoring, while important, is constrained for 3 reasons. Firstly, AAEA monitors are clearly marked, and only spend time at designated voting booths. This limits their perspective on areas outside their monitoring reach. This leads to the second constraint: since they are clearly marked, the government can easily take measures to ensure those particular booths are relatively free of irregularities.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the AAEA only monitored closely monitored ELECTION DAY and the 3 days leading up to it (this is noted in the report). But as the PAFFREL report notes, "the relative fairness of an election cannot be determined solely by considering what occurs on
election day, as there are a number of other factors which can affect the citizen's and political
parties' ability to participate effective in the democratic process." They go on to comment that "the period of the election campaign was marked by undercurrents of intimidation although there was low overt violence during the campaign itself. As a result,
campaigning was carried out under a security environment not conducive to a free and fair
election."
PAFFREL and CMEV (one of which you yourself cited) do not suffer from these three distortions of perspective. You accuse them of bias simply because they consist of Sri Lankans, but provide no evidence for this accusation (there is no evidence). In actual fact, since their monitors are plain-clothed, and more widely dispersed amongst a greater number of voting booths, their reports provide a better estimation of the truth.
Another group called the Free Media Movement also reported ballot box stuffing, intimidation and beatings (source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0512/p99s01-duts.html)
There is no contradiction in my statement about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right to voice one's opinion, without fear of violent consequence. People can, of course, voice their opinion on matters in Sri Lanka - but if they do, they run the risk of 'disappearing'.
Bhairav,
You are one heck of a canny guy.. There was a one before you, who used the same strategy.. and he is in history now. He hardly visit this blog (remember FF)..
Look at you, You start a “reply”, and then drive all around the globe writing some crap that has no connection to the original comment you aimed to write the answer..
Sometime if you have nothing else to do then you just start to sing your old famous songs.. bla blab la.. You don’t need a theme, you don’t need music, you need nothing, you just sign..
You are born like this, as most tamils, I am not telling you are a idiot.. but if you like to learn the lesson that FF learnt. I am more than happy to repeat the history, because it is my way.
Echolalia;
- Pardon me for the mistake on Pauline Hanson. You’re right mate, she was a liberal, but sure as hell she went to parliament before forming her One Nation Party. [At the moment she got kicked out, there was no choice but to do so as her verbal diarrhea got past the limits of nationalism, racism and even humanity]. But I hope you got my point. Many governments get the support of racist/nationalist elements although the ideologies do not take part in the policy of that government.
- On Sarath Fonseka comments, in brief, I think his comments on this topic won’t affect anyway. If SF is talking about next military move, then you can take it as significant. Whatever SF thinks of racial variety of SL, is just his opinion. SL is not like the pussycat terror camp where super supremo decides which pizza everyone is served with. We’re a democracy, where military leaders take military decisions and politicians take political decisions. Military leaders are free to hold to their own political opinions but it is just another individual view point.
- On your history analysis of tamil separatism, you’re very wrong. It has been around from the time of British rulers. And it got mostly active after the [stupid] Sinhala only regulations of Mr B in 56 [which he tried to correct but got busted by cunning and selfish JR]. The terrorist acts got materialized after 1970 or so. Before that, tamil main stream politicians, like the ones in south, just used the nationalism as a way to power.
- I don’t blame SL tamils for having an interest for self government; many ethnic groups do have such dreams. But others try it in democratic means and believe in non-violence. Even if some brutal maniacs take up weapons, the mass does not support such moves. [For an Ex in India, almost every state has an armed terrorism move for separation, but not supported by the gen public of the state in a big way]. But the tamil terrorism is not just supported but architected and sponsored by some people who don’t even live in the community. This is the simple difference between tamils and rest.
- That means, even if the SL tamils prefer to live in one SL, they are not free to choose it. Some maniacs who left the country 25yrs ago, are dictating terms against them, using the pussycat organization in the process. Right now, reasons for their fight have changed. SL accepts Tamil as an equal language, and other religions also get same support. Right now everything is changed, except for the rusted brains of Diaspora. What we badly need is a freedom fight for the tamils from the clutches of maniac diaspora tamils.
- Again on SF comments. This guy has been talking for a while. And he stated that VP is living dead. But you guys waited all the months to pick this statement. It is the cheating part. if on the same day MR stated that every SL shud embrace each other and work for the betterment of all. You tactically miss it.
[to be contd…]
Bhairav;
- On your remark that tamils brought civilization to Sinhala aborigines.
- You are wrong. But it depends on what you mean by civilization to explain how you’re wrong.
- If you meant civilization in a general way, well we had it ages ago. Long before chola came to SL. If you compare with rest of the world, you’ll see Sinhala civilization was as good as any of its time.
- If you think “civilization” means “western civilization” then it was Europeans who brought it to us. Chola descendants were the ones who carried the box, yeah you’re right about it, but it was officially brought by the Europeans who was the master of the Chola servant.
- It wasn’t your fault that your race became the servant of europeans. Your guys inhabited a lowland stretch and had no hiding from the portugese power. So you surrendered and soon you were compelled to take their civilization and religion. By means of the education you got them both. Colonials found your lads trustable [as you were helpless] and made you control the troubling Sinhala as much as possible
- In contrast Sinhala resisted the invasion and had enough numbers and resources to do so. The fight against the invasion caused them denying the new civilization, and colonials also kept on depriving them from everything.
- So by the time of 1948 most of the high ranks of colonial system were occupied by tamils. I remember that many doctors were tamil when I was young [seventies and eighties] and I was hearing many tamil names as top govt officials.
- Beyond the level of ordinary student cheating, your chaps cheated in exams. And there have been events of teachers and paper markers of your race supporting that in order to make the head count high. And this is one reason why they ended up making two university entrance schemes – merit and district population %.
- Let’s say all that is OK, just because it is unchangeable long gone past. Look what you guys [diaspora] did. You guys you deprived your own brothers and sisters from the very education which made you the top tier of the system. Instead of doctors and engineers you created suicide bombers, and weapon technicians. Instead of great economists you created smugglers and credit card thieves. Instead of civil airline pilots you created tin-can support flyers. Instead of great traders you created ransom collectors. Instead of great civil servants you created corrupted pussycat leaders who depend on your money just like the NGO managers on UN money. You ruined the civilization you received from your master. We just did nothing special, lived life normal and we think justice has happened by means of the mental defect of diaspora afterall.
- One more thing. If tamils are so intelligent, why do the Indians take Tamilnadu as a leser educated and lesser civilized state?
- Sinhala [whom you called aborigines] and aborigines of other places have one thing in common. Their origin runs beyond the written/known history and many ppl dispute it since it is so long.
echolalia, unfortunately again a long list of unsourced claims. Probably something invented you have read on some pro-LTTE website but now dare not admit the source. Uninteresting.
I on the the other hand have given sources for my statements.
No one has said the situation is perfect in Sri Lanka. But comparatively speaking, compared to other developing nations and especially for a nation in a state of war with a terrorist "Sole represenatitve" which ignores every form of human rights, Sri Lanka scores well. Polity ranking which gives a score from -10 to 10: 6. http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/SriLanka2006.pdf Or we can look at Freedom House's evaluation. 4 out of 7 for both political and and civil liberties. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2008&country=7493 Unfortunately, Amnesty and HRW do not give any comparative rankings.
You also lie regarding what I have stated. I have not accsued PAFFREL of bias. I quoted their overall supportive conclusion.
I will respond to your only sourced statement which was regarding election incidents. Again, a number of such incidents do not necessarily invalidate the whole election. You have still not given any source from a monitoring group that have declared the election as a whole invalid.
The fact remain that the most neutral and independent monitoring group described the election as free and fair.
Sujeewa,
Thank you for your great posts..
Keep them coming...
See my blog for a fiction which I composed on NGO.
http://whisper-in-the-breeze.blogspot.com/2008/04/humor-rights.html
In fact, it has nothing to do with war. But all to do with the madness of NGO.
Sujeeva,
I didnt mention NGO so far on this blog. Did I?
Anyway, thanks for your information.
What a SLA progress on the war? The simple indicator is just to view this posted date. It is actually 7th of October.
DW cant update HOTS unless SLA move forward, otherwise most of you blame DW.
Please pass this message to SF to do something. Thanks.
Aiyo Bro v4victory !!!!
Did you read my reply to your last comment? That was yesterday?
Why silent after that?
Cheers Mate
Aiyo apino,
I couldnt find it yet. I will try anyway. It is now 496 comments. you see how much difficult to follow.
infinity,
You pointedly refuse to engage with the limitations of the AAEA report, which the other reports (by PAFFREL and CMEV) bridge.
Let me make it more clear by quoting the AAEE themselves. They write: "The small size of the AAEA Mission made comprehensive monitoring of the elections impossible, and therefore this AAEA Mission Report serves to recount events occurring only in those places that were observed by the Mission, during the period from the 8th up to the end of the counting process on the 11th of May 2008, related to the Provincial Elections conducted in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka." (http://www.aaeasec.org/d_5.html).
The observations by PAFFREL and CMEV and FFM, by contrast, were not limited to just 3 days (look at the reports I have linked), but the entire campaign. Moreover, the AAE report notes that it only looked at "10% of polling stations in their respective areas", so it is not surprising that irregularities were noticed in the other 90% of stations (by not one, not two, but THREE independent groups, all of which I have sourced in earlier posts).
In sum: it is perfectly possible to reconcile the findings of AAEA, and the other groups. They were monitoring different polling booths, over *different periods of time*. They do not contradict each other, when you take into account their methodological differences.
Regarding polity - I am not familiar with this scoring index, so I won't comment on it, though I will point out a BIG mistake in the text of the link you provided. It states "The Muslim Tamil minority, living in the northern and eastern areas of the country, have engaged the government in armed rebellion for much of the past two decades". I don't know how polity conducts its algorithms, but if it makes glaring mistakes like that, I can't say I have much confidence in this particular index. Another weakness is that it dates to 2006, while the last 2 years have seen a vast escalation of human rights abuses - so the Freedom House report is more accurate.
Freedom House, by contrast, is much better known, and I am glad you bring it up, since it notes in its preface: "Sri Lanka received a downward trend arrow due to a weakening of opposition forces within Parliament, sustained government pressure on human rights activists and other critics, and a worsening military conflict with the Tamil Tiger rebels in which numerous human rights abuses have taken place." (http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2008&country=7493)
You do realise, don't you, that on the Freedom House scale, 7 is bad, and 1 is good? So 4 out of 7 is actually a bad score, not a good one.
And according to the preface, there is a "downward trend" - so things are getting worse, not better. The score could be higher next year, in other words.
V4Victoria Bro
A smart answer!
Here it is reproduced!
v4victory, Sorry Bro, SSSOO! there is some humanity left after all!
Yes, I did repeat it, intentionally for the consumption of the English (only) Speaking DiAssPora Bros.
Nothing personal, but I'm willing to go the whole 9 yards...on this issue ( your freedom struggle and our struggle to liberate Sri Lanka of pestilence) and I limit it at that.
Lets finish this and then we can talk humanity. Not that I like it, but the nature of the thing is such, humanity and the so called struggle don't jive well. One is achieved at the expense of the other. I'm not disillusioned to think otherwise.
And any attempt to tackle both at the same time will send us both ( Sri Lankans/ Eelamist) on downward spiral....leading to incremental suffering on both sides.
So let’s work hard at our goals and I wish you well in your endeavors.
Let me put it another way. Let’s think of this blog as a Gypsies Musical Show. Thus the audience here will be Gypsies fans and the songs sung are meant for the consumption of said fans. Songs may be meaningful, and may be downright silly, but as fans we like em’ all!
We are happy bunch singing along with a occasional hoot or two from a drunken fan ( mind you we have them). Now lets imagine we are singing “ Nayaka Waddage Duwa Gomari Hada Kari……”, and one of our DiAssPora Bros come crashing with “Adi Ennadi Rakkamma….”…………. give me a break , what do you expect from the fans.
The decent fans will remind the DiAssPora Bro’s that he is in the wrong musical show singing the wrong song to wrong crowd. And we have done that.
But just like any sample of fans we too have few fans with short fuses and all. These guys will dispense with the pleasantries and tell th DiAssPora singers to go hang.
An intelligent DiAssPora Bro will respectfully leave the show and may go to his “BonyM or Bony Mennon” show….you should try that. Really good one too.
Is that what is happening here. Hell No!. DiAssPora Bro now tries to grab the guitar from “Piyal Malli” and tries to sing “Hutch Hutch Kothahe…oops sorry Kutch Kutch Hothahe”.
Man! its luck if the DiAssPora Bro leaves with his pants still covering his posterior.
Even Sunil Aiya might resort to vulgar comments.
Hope this clarifies it.
Cheers
P.S. When all this over, you are welcome to share a good cup of toddy (Raa Polkatta) with some hotly boiled manioc cum lunuimiris…..in Kalutara. Conversely I would like to try some Kitul Raa in Kili or Jafna….
October 10, 2008 6:32 PM
Some more bad news for the DiAssPora Dreamers!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Heavy damages to LTTE in MI-24 air assaults- Kilinochchi
Sri Lankan Air Force, MI-24 air and ground combat helicopter gunships launched simultaneous attacks at an LTTE bunker construction site, Saturday (Oct11), Northeast of the Akkarayankulma Tank bund, Kilinochchi, reportedly causing heavy damages to LTTE at around 1.30 p.m.
The air assaults were launched in support of the advancing 57 Division troops and intercepted enemy communication has revealed heavy damages to LTTE, Air Force Spokesperson Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said, speaking to defence.lk.
Spotting an LTTE construction site with heavy earth moving vehicles, the MI-24 flyers made simultaneous raids engaging the enemy targets at close distance, the sources said. According to available information, a heavy vehicle was completely damaged which is believed to be an excavator used for the construction of the earth bund at the target site, the sources said.
Continuous pleas for casualty evacuation was heard through the LTTE communication circuits and this alone confirms a toll in the expected number of damages to LTTE, the sources further said.
The 9th squadron, MI-24 helicopter gunships have recently made decisive assaults at LTTE, engaging in close combat missions. The use of the MI-24's in close combats, supporting the advancing ground troops have been effective, during the past few months, defence observers state.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
V4Victoria Bro.....
Why silent ne meya?
Mokada parana record eka Kadilarda?
Come Ko meya!!!
Cheers Bro
Apino
I read your comment. As per your argument, you all have been trying to remind us that we are singing in the wrong crowd . You define this blog as pro-MR blog and Anyone come to this blog has to pray MR & Co otherwise you will use vulgar language to chase us away.
If it is your opinion, fine. I think still DW says it is unbiased blog. If DW officially eventhough it is personal blog, say, that apino's view is DW view, then I am ready to be away. I think most of tamil friends do the same as me.
I understand that some rude guys would be expected in any crowd, but not the same guys all the time.
Anyway, thanks apino for your openness.
I asked you to give a source showing that an election monitoring group have condemned the election as a whole. Still no such source. There are always some incidents, especially in developing nations. Incidents do not invalidate an election as a whole.
So all the monitoring groups seem to agree that there were incidents but that these did not invalidate the election as a whole. Give a source if arguing otherwise.
Regarding Freedom House, again, 4/7 is quite good for a developing nation in a state of war with a "sole representative" ignoring every kind of human rights. Some worsening of the situation is only to be expected in an outright war. Let us not forget that there was, for example, very large scale systemtic censorship of the news in Western nations during WWI and WWII.
From the FH report:
"Elections are open to multiple parties, and fair electoral laws and equal campaigning opportunities ensure a competitive political process.
While elections are generally free and fair, they continue to be marred by some irregularities, violence, and intimidation, and the LTTE generally refuses to allow free elections in areas under its control. The independent Center for Monitoring Election Violence reported that the 2004 parliamentary elections were considerably less beleaguered by violence and malpractice than previous polls. The European Union’s Election Observation Mission noted that the 2005 presidential vote proceeded fairly smoothly in the south, despite some inappropriate use of state resources and biased reporting by both state-run and private media outlets. However, voting in the north was suppressed by the LTTE, which enforced a boycott through acts of violence including grenade attacks on polling stations and the buses intended to carry voters into government-controlled territory."
"The LTTE does not permit free expression in its domain and terrorizes a number of Tamil journalists and other critics.""The LTTE has effective control over roughly 10 percent of Sri Lankan territory and operates a parallel administration that includes schools, hospitals, courts, and law enforcement. The Tigers raise money through extortion, kidnapping, theft, and the seizure of Muslim property, and have used threats and attacks to close government schools and other facilities in their self-styled Tamil homeland. The LTTE also imposes mandatory military and civil-defense training on civilians in its areas. After a respite during the ceasefire period, the rebels have resumed summary executions, political assassinations, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, and the forcible conscription of children, all of which remained areas of serious concern in 2007. The Tigers typically deny involvement in such activity, despite clear evidence to the contrary."
Unfortunately, HRW and Amnesty do not make comparisons between nations. Then they would probably reach similar conclusions to Polity and Freedom House.
The President invites LTTE to participate in peace negotiations at the APC. Karuna himself at APC recalls the following.
He (Karuna) recalled his own participation in several rounds of talks with the Government held under international sponsorship. They had come to an understanding to accept a federal system as a solution. However, Anton Balasingham, without consulting Prabhakaran had issued a statement stating that they were willing to consider a federal system. When he discussed this with Prabhakaran he rejected the idea of federalism. He wanted the talks dragged for at least five years till the LTTE obtained enough arms to strengthen itself further.
That was when he decided to leave the LTTE.
infinity,
How many incidents does it take to invalidate an election? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?
There is no number, of course. Instead, there is a spectrum of irregularity, and the Eastern Province elections were on the bad end of that spectrum, even by Sri Lankan standards. For instance, the PAFFREL report states: "One of the controversial features of the elections was that the TMVP, which is a former militant
group, continued to retain its arms on the grounds of self defence. The basic requirement for a free and fair election is that all the contesting parties are unarmed and not in a position to
intimidate both their political rivals as well as voters who will be fearful to cross the path of the
armed party" (http://www.paffrel.lk/pdf/paffrel_interim_report_10_may_08.pdf)
Now tell me, if a basic requirement of a free and fair election is flagrantly violated, can that election be considered free and fair? I think not.
Also notice that armed militants carrying guns and intimidating voters is not a routine feature of democratic elections, even by Sri Lankan standards (at least not in the south).
By the way - notice that the presence of armed TMVP is not even mentioned by the AAEA report. In fact, the AAEA report does not specify any specific cases of violence/intimidation at all, whereas the other 3 groups do. This is not because of any fault with the AAEA, but because their methodology, was much more limited. For example, PAFFREL monitored 574 polling stations (http://www.paffrel.lk/pdf/paffrel_interim_report_10_may_08.pdf)
whereas AAEA monitored less than 100! (http://www.aaeasec.org/d_5.html#counting)
Not to mention that PAFFREL monitored a much longer electoral period than AAEA. In other words, PAFFREL provides a more holistic survey of the election.
As for SL's Freedom House score, 4/7 is not good. In fact, it is so bad that Freedom House campaigned against Sri Lanka getting a seat on the UN Human Rights Council! (source: http://www.sibernews.com/news/sri-lanka/-2008050710851/)
Your belief that civil wars justify human rights violations is invalid, as human rights are inalienable (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).
Dear Bro V4Victory
Aahh….finally we have reception…and answer too.
Let me clarify few things as my Gypsies Musical Show analogy is open for interpretation…or Twisting!!!
a) I never said we are MR/GR/SF fans….by we are Die-hard fans of Sri Lanka as we know it……complete Sri Lanka North South East and West and anything in between. As protector of that Sri Lanka….SLDF is our hero! Politicians may come and go….but mother Lanka remains. Sorry to disappoint you…we don’t have PERSONALITY CULTS!!!!!
b) Nope mate, A DiAssPora Bro conducting a civilized argument will not be attacked by vulgarity. And if you look up ( I mean literally scroll up) you would see our Eminent Bloggers are having a good time with your DiAssPora Bros who are civilized enough to express themselves decently.
c) But like the situation in Sri Lanka, we do have few DiAssPora Monkeys who would make occasional forays in to this blog and use abusive and rude comments….often one liners/ two liners sans substance….mass produced too. As a result of these buffoons, the good ones too will get thrashed. We have no time ask questions …like…Err Mate…Are you Civilized? Nope…..Shoot first and ask questions later…..we are at that stage. Sad but true.
d) Nothing personal Bro, but we won’t miss you guys here. We hate each other too much. Don’t take my word; you are at the liberty to ask this from any Sri Lanka fan here. So please let us mind out own business….after all what we say/do here will not effect the outcome. It will be decided at the battle fields in Vanni.
e) I would not go that far. DW is the master of this blog and his word is final. For all I know, I may be a Gonna come tomorrow morning. One more thing, as a kid I was told by my good parents, that when you are at somebody else’s, place behave nicely…don’t go opening up their larder and the sort. Coz one’s behavior is the mirror of his upbringing and values.
Cheers
P.S. I have no superiority or inferiority complex. For God Sake all I want is to have decent existence in this bloody earth. It gives me no thrill to kill the next Tamil I see and jack-off at the sight of a suicide bomb/ innocent victims of air sorties. But if anybody threatens that ( our Sri Lanka) I will hold nothing back….and in fact .…I will retaliate disproportionately so my sons won’t have to do that again. We are humans and that works for humans.
I don’t know about your Eelam, but once we clean the mother land of this pestilence, KIA will be open to all…..including you……..I have good Tamil friends to do otherwise. So lets be done with killing (fast too) and let the survivors live in peace.
echolalia, so you still cannot find a source showing that even one the election monitoring groups declared the whole election invalid. Your own very personal opinion some incidents invaldiates everything is not very interesting. Please continue this if you have a source.
Paffrel in the overall Conclusion which I have cited several times was generally positive. See above if you missed it.
FH's score of 4/7 is quite good for a developing nations in a state of war. As shown from my quotes the elections were generally free and fair. Again, for example, the Western nations had systematic censorship of news during WWI and WWII.
Also, why this double standard? Where are your criticism of the LTTE atrocities? Do you really want the Tamils to live in an ethnically cleansed version of North Korea ruled by dynasty of dictators?
infinity,
Can you explain how an election result can be fair when an armed militant group, given free sway by the military, is able to openly carry arms while it is campaigning in the weeks before the election?
Can you also explain how the TMVP was able to win in areas dominated by Sinhalese and Muslims? Do you really think Muslims and Sinhalese would rush, in large numbers, to vote for a party led by the man who has massacred their people for the last 25 years? (source: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11377053)
Note that none of the groups we have spoken about declared the election results to be 'valid'. PAFFREL does not say anything about the *election result* being valid, it merely expresses optimism that there may be more democracy in the future. This is not the same as saying the *election result* is valid.
Likewise, the AAEA did not actually make a ruling on the *election result* - such a claim is outside their jurisdiction, because of their limited methodology. All they could comment on was the 10% of electoral booths they monitored (compared to >50% for PAFFREL - see source in my previous post), for the 3 days they monitored. Hence there is NO statement in the AAEA report about the electoral process overall, simply about the polling station. If you read their 'objective' section (see link in previous post), they make clear the limitations of their study.
You yourself must be keenly aware of these limitations, since you've acknowledged there were violations, and yet the AAEA report makes no mention of these violations! How do you reconcile this in your mind, without accepting that the AAEA was severely underresourced?
As I said, the question of 'validity' refers to a spectrum of irregularities, ranging from no violations to widespread fraud and violence. The typical role of election observers, with sparse numbers and limited numbers, is not to designate and election as 'invalid' (this is very rare, because election observers are typically only invited to countries if the governments know they will receive a favourable opinion). Instead, the role of election observers is to document irregularities.
This is what the 4 groups have done - they have documented irregularities. If you think that the government can violate a "basic requirement for a free and fair election" (PAFFREL), and that the election result can still be valid, then that is a very weak position to argue from.
Again, human rights are inalienable as enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to which Sri Lanka is signatory. It is not for governments to pick and choose which rights to grant people. Rights are not 'granted'.
No one (or very few) people here are denying LTTE atrocities, so there is no sense discussing them here. It would be different in another context, of course.
echolalia
/*
The basic requirement for a free and fair election is that all the contesting parties are unarmed and not in a position to
intimidate both their political rivals as well as voters who will be fearful to cross the path of the
armed party
*/
By this standard no one will be in a position to contest. The problem here is PARRAFEL sets a different standard to TMVP. If only unarmed are allowed to contest, SLFP, EPDP, TULF even TNA would not be in a position to present themselves to the voter. Some candidates from SLFP for example walk around with a small army of around 200 body guards. Security is assigned according the level of threat to their lives. The security of TMVP would have been according their own threat level assessment.
Even then there is no rule anywhere politicians must be unarmed when they contest. Even if there were, their right to live easily precedes all other 'rules'.
One reasonable expectation from an election is people must be free to exercise their voting rights without intimidation. The other, even if there were violations, as long as the final result is not impacted the election can be deemed fair. This was the conclusion by PARRAFEL was I believe.
echolalia, since you seem to have missed my quotes I will repeat them.
AAEA Observation Mission
"The 2008 Provincial Council Elections in the Eastern Province of Trincomallee, Batticalloa, and Ampara were conducted peacefully and in an orderly manner."
"the elections were free and fair"
http://www.aaeasec.org/d_5.html
Paffrel
"Conclusions: Despite the shortcomings of the election and relatively low participation of about 60 percent, these elections were important in that they represented for the first time the hopes and opinion of the people of the east through an electoral process that was confined to the Eastern Province alone. PAFFREL believes that having elections in the east, although flawed, can be an important step towards empowering the people in the province to democratically determine their future."
http://www.paffrel.lk/pdf/paffrel_interim_report_10_may_08.pdf
That armed groups have participated in elections generally seen as acceptable is nothing new: IRA, PLO, Hamas, Nepal etc.
You are wrong,the AAEA certainly mentioned that not evertyhing was perfect, for example "There are still occasional LTTE incursions into the territory, as well as widespread reports of intimidation and violence directed both at voters and political players"
You are wrong in avoiding mentioning the atrocities of the LTTE. The reality is that the Tamils cannot choose between another democratic state and Sri Lanka. The choice now is between VP's fascist dictatorship, to be inherited by his son, and Sri Lanka. You have to choose sides. So which one do you prefer?
The South Indian politician's real agendae are now coming up:
Zee news, Saturday, Oct 11, 2008. Chennai, Oct 11:
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on Saturday said that India should demand extradition of LTTE Chief V Prabhakaran if he was caught in the ongoing offensive by the Sri Lankan Army.
"India has the moral responsibility and right to punish him," Swamy told reporters here.
He said that Prabhakaran was doing "no good" to the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils by waging armed rebellion against the island's Army. "He should surrender as the LTTE is only using the innocent Tamils as shields against the Lankan Army," he said.
The Tamil people were falling victims of crossfire between the Army and the Tigers, he said.
[One more thing. If tamils are so intelligent, why do the Indians take Tamilnadu as a leser educated and lesser civilized state? ]
Sujeeva,
You have blew it right here. TN is the topmost industrialized state in India, and contributes to the one third of Indian economy. I'm sure you are familiar with the G7 countries term, if you want to call one of the Indian states in G category, TN is G1. Until late 90s, students of other states were flooding into TN universities since lack of institutions and infrastructure from their states, most notably, Andrapradesh folks migrated to TN for jobs and education. Due to the IT boom, other states realized the importance of higher studies, and they started to build it in numbers. IIT of madras is used to be full of Tamils, then so many Telungu students started to flood over there. Then comes the changes in Andrapradesh where they started to build universities equivalent of ITT in the name of NIT, i believe the the name is correct. If you compare IIT of India in the ranks of MIT,Harvard,Cambridge and Oxford, NIT is not far behind.
The problems with the Southerners are that they can be good architects of the product, but they cannot sell it- that's where Northies came to picture and become the spokesperson of the product of Southies. Northerners started to get more credit for what Southerners did. Eventually they claimed the superiority over Southerners. Mind you, IT hub of Bengalore used to be fully Tamil city even though it resides in Andrapradesh. I regularly interact and coordinate my onshore team with the offshore team in B'lore for my current project, and surprised about the number of Tamils work for this global company.
The problems with the TN Tamils are lack of leadership qualities. They always tend to worship something from outside.
Stop undermining Tamils bcoz they are Tamils.
[You are born like this, as most tamils, I am not telling you are a idiot.. but if you like to learn the lesson that FF learnt. I am more than happy to repeat the history, because it is my way.]
History,
I'm up for any game. Just tell me what kind of game you want to play whether an offensive game or conservative style of defensive or counterattacking. Whatever it is, i'm sure, you will give away enough fumbles to the opponent to score just as what Sujeeva did earlier who engineered the most time consuming drive from his own zone then fumbled at the 10 yards line of opponent by calling TN as backward state.
echolalia
You seem to forget the fact that the conflict and everything surrounding it, the whole environment, is one which evolved over a long period of time. What you have in SL is a brutalized society, one which is sick and is trying hard to overcome that sickness, while suffering strong and often unpleasant side effects from its efforts to overcome the sickness.
Yet you glibly choose to condemn the patient and the treatment for the evidence of the sickness and the side-effects. What amazes me is the miles and miles you've travelled in this thread alone to do so. What makes you tick?
For anyone involved in conflict resolution, understanding the processes is a fundamental necessity to be successful to any extent. Try to understand the sickness, the treatment, the side-effects and the fact that all three are innocent of guilt.
Sri Lankans yesterday and today did not choose to be evil, or compulsive violators of others' rights. If we did, we'd not hire minorities, deny them our vote and not even patronize their businesses. Neither the Sri Lankan government nor its people do any of these.
Time for a reality check dude.
Let's hope the Navy would have some high recolution cameras on board when they find the latest LTTE arms ship.
Perhaps we could have some female naval ratings in bikinis play with the guns.
Hi Apino,
few things you have written still confuse me. I may be wrong.
/*
b) Nope mate, A DiAssPora Bro conducting a civilized argument will not be attacked by vulgarity.*/
Why you say DiAssPro to denote tamil diaspora, then you say Good DiAssPro too?
/*
One more thing, as a kid I was told by my good parents, that when you are at somebody else’s, place behave nicely*/
To whom you say this advice particularly? To me or To all tamils, in your word, all DiAssPro?
Infinity,
Parroting isolated quotes from a report do not mean anything when you divorce them from the objectives and methodology of the report. The AAEA had 2 major shortcomings (which PAFFREL and CMEV did not suffeR) neither of which you have been able to refute: 1stly, it only examined 10% of booths, and 2ndly, it only monitored 3 days of the election process. The report itself highlights these significant shortcomings. Whilst this does not make the report useless, it does mean that the quote you are so fond of, does not (and cannot) refer to the entire election process, but rather to just 3 days and 10% of booths. The conclusion about the elections being “conducted peacefully and in an orderly manner” or “free and fair” necessarily only refer to these 3 days and 10%. This is indisputable. Or do you think the AAEA had magical powers like telepathy or time travel?
PAFFREL and CMEV, on the other hand, between them examined over 50% of booths, over a much longer period. It is no surprise, then, that they refuse to declare the election process ‘free and fair’ or ‘peaceful’ or ‘orderly’. Note that the PAFFREL quote you use, says nothing at all about the election being any of these things. It simply expresses the hope of the authors that there will be democracy in the future.
The AAEA’s mentioning of “widespread reports of intimidation and violence” is not actually a part of their own monitoring, if you read the report. Those comments are in the Legal Framework background section. The actual sections that document the findings of the AAEA monitoring team say nothing about the irregularities reported by PAFFREL and CMEV. You cannot account for this except by concluding one of the following: (a) PAFFREL/CMEV were lying, (b) AAEA were lying or deliberately omitted important details (I consider barring opposition members from 21 booths an important detail, do you?) or (c) PAFFREL/CMEV were exposed to a larger number of violations, since they were at more booths and monitored the election over a longer period.
C seems the most likely scenario.
I am not aware of any elections ever held under conditions where armed IRA, PLO, Hamas etc members were able to intimidate voters, or where opposition members were barred from entering 21 polling booths (as the PAFFREL report states about the Eastern Province election), and still being declared valid by monitors. If you know of any examples, please enlighten us.
Trying to suggest that Tamils (and others) must choose between the LTTE and the current regime in Sri Lanka (4/7 on Freedom House, and on a downward trend), commits the logical fallacy of ‘false dilemma’. In fact, there are always other choices, and people fight for them, putting their lives at risk, every day.
echolalia, you still have not find even one source showing that even one the election monitoring groups declared the whole election invalid. Your own very personal opinion that some incidents, which always happens in especially developing nations, invaldiates everything is not very interesting. Since no one of the monitoring groups declared the election invalid and the international monitors praised it it was a least generally acceptable. Please continue this if you have a source.
The fact remains that in reality the Tamils will live in an inherited fascist dictatorship ignoring every form of human rights if Sri Lanka does not recapture the areas. Exactly what would a realistic alternative? VP has systematically murdered all Tamils opposing the "Sole Representative".
infinity,
You have not found a source declaring the whole election process valid, either. On the contrary, what you have found are 3 different sources that document violent irregularities in the election process, one of which even stated that a basic requirement of democratic elections was violated. Yet you still believe the election process as a whole was valid.
I repeat: none of these sources, including the AAEA, states anything about the validity of the election process as a whole. If you wish to conclude the election was valid, based on a 3-day study of 10% of polling sites, that is your prerogative, but it is not a very scientific way of looking at the evidence. Or do you deny this?
So what is left is the evidence of irregularities, and whether or not these irregularities invalidate the election process as a whole. None of the 3 sources we have been state an opinion on whether the election process as a whole was valid, or invalid. So it is up to us to look at the evidence and make a judgement. You, it seems, would prefer not to do this, but rather to blindly and selectively quote from reports, without taking the time or effort to consider what the actual parameters of those reports are. Again, this is an unscientific approach.
There are also others who did this, like the international media. On that score, I would draw your attention to the fact that the international media's coverage of the election was overwhelmingly cynical (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/10/asia/AS-GEN-Sri-Lanka-Election.php, http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/05/10/voters_in_eastern_sri_lanka_worry_about_future/).
A CMEV representative actually commented that "At almost every station, stuffing is taking place" (in one particular area). (source: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/05/10/voters_in_eastern_sri_lanka_worry_about_future/?page=1). CMEV called for a revote in those areas, which was not held of course.
Given that a "basic requirement" was violated, that opposition MPs were barred from over 20 voting stations, and flagrantly unrealistic election results (such as the TMVP winning in Sinhala and Muslim dominated areas - see source I cited), it is clear the election process as a whole was invalid.
Are you really trying to tell me that, in spite of all the above facts, you consider the election process as a whole, free and fair?
If you are, then I suppose your understanding of democracy is a whole lot shallower than mine.
echolalia, I have shown that the international monitors found the elections free and fair. You have no source arguing that that all of the elections were invalid. Incidents happen in all elections. Please return if you do. Your own personal opinions and speculations are not very interesting.
AAEA Observation Mission
"The 2008 Provincial Council Elections in the Eastern Province of Trincomallee, Batticalloa, and Ampara were conducted peacefully and in an orderly manner."
"the elections were free and fair"
http://www.aaeasec.org/d_5.html
Paffrel
"Conclusions: Despite the shortcomings of the election and relatively low participation of about 60 percent, these elections were important in that they represented for the first time the hopes and opinion of the people of the east through an electoral process that was confined to the Eastern Province alone. PAFFREL believes that having elections in the east, although flawed, can be an important step towards empowering the people in the province to democratically determine their future."
http://www.paffrel.lk/pdf/paffrel_interim_report_10_may_08.pdf
Unfortunately you continue ignoring the atrocities of the LTTE. Why this double standard?
The fact remains that in reality the Tamils will live in an inherited fascist dictatorship ignoring every form of human rights if Sri Lanka does not recapture the areas. Exactly what would a realistic alternative? VP has systematically murdered all Tamils opposing the "Sole Representative". You have to choose sides. Which one do you prefer?
***Dictatorship of Elam/LTTE***
*Dictatorship
*Ethnically cleansed
*No free press
*No freedom of speech
*No freedom of movement
*No freedom of assembly
*No elections
*One party
*All tamils expressing dissenting views systematically assassinated
*Attacks civilians in order to to create ethnic hatred
*Racist ideology and racist education of the population
*Forced conscription and use of torture against deserters
*Child soldiers
*Use of civilians as human shields
*Numerous large scale criminal activities in other nations - and then demanding that the same nations should support the LTTE and reward its leader with a personal dictatorship
*No control or insight of any kind of where collected funds go - so safe to assume a large scale corruption at many stages and very large personal Swiss Bank accounts for LTTE leaders inside and outside Sri Lanka and their relatives and cronies
*Recognized as a terrorist group in large parts of the world
*VP wants his son to follow him as dictator so his people/serfs can live under such glorious conditions forever
The Terrorists' War against Sri Lanka
The LTTE in brief
Taming the Tamil Tigers
***Sri Lanka***
*Elected government and president with regular elections.
*Numerous political parties with very different views. Just look at the different websites of the parties, including that of the TNA.
*Freedom of expression
*Freedom of assembly
*Freedom of movement
*Numerous ethnic groups living together
*Numerous newspapers expressing very different views often criticizing the government- like the Sunday Leader frequently quoted by the pro-LTTE websites
*Volunteer army
*Attacks military targets
*Many development projects, local elections resulting in democratic Tamil leaders, and settlement of almost all IDPs in the East
*Internationally recognized state
*Support or no serious condemnations from almost all other governments. Give a source for a government seriously condemning Sri Lanka if claiming otherwise.
We can look at the widely respected Polity ranking which gives a score from -10 to 10: 6. http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/SriLanka2006.pdf
Or we can look at Freedom House's evaluation. 4 out of 7 for both political and and civil liberties. So can certainly be improved but better than many other developing nations.
"Elections are open to multiple parties, and fair electoral laws and equal campaigning opportunities ensure a competitive political process. While elections are generally free and fair, they continue to be marred by some irregularities, violence, and intimidation, and the LTTE generally refuses to allow free elections in areas under its control. The independent Center for Monitoring Election Violence reported that the 2004 parliamentary elections were considerably less beleaguered by violence and malpractice than previous polls. The European Union's Election Observation Mission noted that the 2005 presidential vote proceeded fairly smoothly in the south, despite some inappropriate use of state resources and biased reporting by both state-run and private media outlets. However, voting in the north was suppressed by the LTTE, which enforced a boycott through acts of violence including grenade attacks on polling stations and the buses intended to carry voters into government-controlled territory." http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2008&country=7493
infinity,
Once again, none of your sources declare the entire election process valid.
You seem to be confused about the AAEA. Let me repeat for the fifth time, the AAEA did not declare that the entire election process was valid, but merely the small fraction of it they monitored. They even note how small that fraction is in the report you cite. Therefore you cannot use the AAEA report to validate the entire election process.
PAFFREL and CMEV had a much wider reach, and neither of those organisations concluded that the election was free or fair or valid. Why do you think they did not do this? In fact, neither group had anything positive to say about actual electoral procedures, but merely expressed hopes for future progress.
Ultimately, you believe the words 'valid', 'free' and 'fair' can legitimately characterise an election characterised by:
- violations of a "basic requirement for a free and fair election" (PAFFREL quote)
- Prevention of opposition members from entering 21 booths
- Blatantly impossible results (like the TMVP winning in Sinhala areas)
- In some areas, ballot stuffing occuring in "almost all areas".
Tell me, how can the above characterise a "free and fair" election, except in the realms of imagination?
Also, explain why Freedom House, which you are so fond of citing, says Sri Lanka has a downward trend on freedom scores, and why did Freedom House lobby against Sri Lanka's inclusion on the UN Human Rights Council?
In other words, do you agree with Freedom House that democracy in Sri Lanka is getting worse, not better? If you do not agree with this, why are you citing their scoring system?
e! chola lia..,
/*
Therefore you cannot use the AAEA report to validate the entire election process.
*/
Yes. They didn't and no one else did. I am just going with your argument, as per you with any report you CANNOT tell that a election is free and fair.. unless you have ulimited resource and money to cover each and every person who has to voting power..
But let's assume that the whole election is a fraud. So what? At the end it is a Tamil who hold the Chief Minister post in East.
Next time in the north election why don't you cut couple of more hands and show us how to do a free and fair election?
echolalia, your personal opinions regarding that incidents invalidate everything is not interesting. You have not been able to find a single monitoring organizaiton invalidating the whole election. In contrast, such organizations condemn the whole elections as fraud if they think so Return when you have sources.
Unfortunately you continue ignoring the atrocities of the LTTE. Why this double standard?
The fact remains that in reality the Tamils will live in an inherited fascist dictatorship ignoring every form of human rights if Sri Lanka does not recapture the areas. Exactly what would a realistic alternative? VP has systematically murdered all Tamils opposing the "Sole Representative". You have to choose sides. Which one do you prefer?
infinity,
As far as I know, only three groups monitored the election - AAEA, PAFFREL, and CMEV. None of these groups delcared the entire election process valid, nor did any declare the entire election process invalid.
You seem to confuse monitoring 3 days of an election and 10% of booths, with monitoring the whole election process. The two things are not the same.
This means that in order to make a judgement, one had to look at the evidence accumulated by the three groups. You refuse to do this, instead blindly quoting AAEA out of context. In particular, you refuse to engage with the most salient features of the PAFFREL report. This is unscientific.
history,
No, the point is that the AAEA report never set out to make a sweeping conclusion about the entire election process. It was not resourced well enough to do that. There have been other electoral monitoring groups that have been able to make such judgements about other elections, but this is not one of them. There is just no way to comment on how 'free or fair' an election is when you examine just 10% of voting areas over just 3 days.
echolalia, if an election monitoring group finds the whole election to be fraud and invalid, then they will say. You have found none who did so. I have given sources showing the international monitors, despite some incidents that happen in all election, to be overall free and fair.
You also seem to think that all incidents were due to pro-governments groups. That is false, many were due to LTTE attacks and and from other parties.
Also you ignore that the incidents involved only a very small minority of polling stations that Paffrel monitored. Paffrel :"In the large majority of the polling stations, conditions were relatively peaceful and voting took place without incident. "
That you refuse to discuss the alternative to Sri Lanka is unfortunate. In reality the only alternative is the fascist dictatorship of VP, and thereafter his descendants as a new dynasty, since he has systematically murdered all Tamils opposing the "Sole Representative" even if they also oppose Sri Lanka. Whatever problems Sri Lanka may have are small compared to the complete and open denial of all human rights in LTTE controlled territory.
infinity,
echolalia, if an election monitoring group finds the whole election to be fraud and invalid, then they will say.
Equally, if they find it fair, free, and valid, they would say. The AAEA in fact, based on the elements of the election process they monitored, did conclude this. Why do you think PAFFREL and CMEV did not conclude the same as the AAEA? Do you think that maybe it could anything to do with the fact they observed a much larger swathe of the electoral process, and so could not go so far as to deem it free, fair and valid?
Also you ignore that the incidents involved only a very small minority of polling stations that Paffrel monitored. Paffrel :"In the large majority of the polling stations, conditions were relatively peaceful and voting took place without incident."
Again, you're missing the point about the need to assess the entire election process, not just voting day. Not to mention that in a close election, like the Eastern Province was, even incidents in a few voting stations (in this case it was a lot more than a few) can have major consequences for the outcome.
Regarding the lead up to the election, the PAFFREL report states: "the period of the election campaign was marked by undercurrents of
intimidation although there was low overt violence during the campaign itself. As a result,
campaigning was carried out under a security environment not conducive to a free and fair
election."
Note that they have actually stated here, directly, that the campaigning was not carried out in a manner befitting a free and fair election. Do you still think that PAFFREL believes the election process was free, fair and valid?
Paffrel as I have noted above in their general conclusion gave general support for the election. I also noted above they found not problem in the large majority of in the large majority of the polling stations.
You ignored my comment that "You also seem to think that all incidents were due to pro-governments groups. That is false, many were due to LTTE attacks and and from other parties."
You ignored my commment "That you refuse to discuss the alternative to Sri Lanka is unfortunate. In reality the only alternative is the fascist dictatorship of VP, and thereafter his descendants as a new dynasty, since he has systematically murdered all Tamils opposing the "Sole Representative", even if they also opposed Sri Lanka. Whatever problems Sri Lanka may have are small compared to the complete and open denial of all human rights in LTTE controlled territory."
infinity,
First of all, I have found the smoking gun you have been insisting on. It is a report by CaFFE (campaign for free and fair elections) which you can read here: http://www.caffe.lk/Eastern_PC_Election_Report-5-20.html
This report appears superior to any of the others, in terms of monitoring election day itself, because it covered 80% of polling stations (they also had a separate pre-election campaign report, which was also interesting, but for the moment we'll focus on election day).
The report concludes thus:
"Finally the CaFFE observes that the eastern Provincial Elections, which was held on the
10th May 2008, was not at all 'free and fair'. This is due to the reason that it was very
clearly shown that dominance of rule of law had been over taken by a dominance of
violence."
Can't get much clearer than that, can you?
Case closed.
As for attacks by other groups, again, I'm glad you raise this point. CMEV as it turns out documented the attacks attributed to each political group. They even provide a nice bar graph on page 16/19: http://www.slideshare.net/cpa/cmev-interim-report-of-eastern-provincial-council-elections-may-2008
Notice how violations by TMVP and UPFA outnumber violations by ALL other groups COMBINED? Also, notice how there is only 1 violation by the LTTE (see page 4)? What are these 'attacks' (plural) that you speak of?
Regarding alternatives to the LTTE, I will discuss that further with you in the other thread.
echolalia , Caffe again reports that in the large majority of polling stations there were no incidents. Many of these incidents these were done by anti-government groups. So their conclusion is strange. Which brings credbility to the accusation that they are biased towards the UNP or simply a front organization for them.
As noted groups do condemn election if they deem them unfair. The other monitoring groups did not, including the international monitors who are they only neutral ones. True, they could only see a smaller samples but they were allowed to go to any place they wanted so their observations was not cherry-picked.
Looking at the data we can see that all monitoring groups agree that in the vast majority of monitoring stations there were no incidents at all.
infinity,
You were earlier uninterested in my 'opinion' on the reports we have discussed, yet now appear very happy to give your 'opinion' on the CAFFE report. As it turns out, your 'opinio'n that CAFFE may be a UNP 'front' is baseless; unless you can provide evidence. What is your evidence?
You have continuously cited PAFFREL. I have just discovered that PAFFREL actually concluded that "it is not possible for PAFFREL to conclude that this
election was a free and a fair election"! (source: http://paffrel.lk/pdf/3rd_interim_report_12_may_08.pdf).
So that's both PAFFREL and CAFFE concluding that the election could not be deemed free or fair.
Next, CMEV. The CMEV report was much more negative than PAFFREL - PAFFREL, remember, had a glowing conclusion in the report you quoted earlier (yet they still did not conclude the election was free and fair!). CMEV had no such glowing conclusion. In fact, as it turns out, CMEV demanded a re-poll in Valachenai, Kathankudi Pottuivil and Thiryai due to "serious concerns in respect of violence and malpractice" (source: http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20080518/spotlight-2.htm). No such re-polls were ever held - how strange!
Moreover, CMEV rejected the conclusion of the AAEA report, for the same reasons that I stated earlier (the reasons which you found 'uninteresting'). The National Co-ordinator of CMEV, D.M.Dissanayake, stated that "It is not correct to assess the situation in the whole of the east by assessing the situation only in 17 booths in Trincomalee," in his rejection of the AAEA report (source: http://www.themorningleader.lk/20080514/news.html)
There you have it. CAFFE, PAFFREL, CMEV all rejecting the the suggestion that the election was 'free and fair'.
All you have to fall back on is the AAEA report, which was limited in its numbers and scope. It had only 17 observers. PAFFREL alone had 2144 monitors, deployed over 1072 polling stations, and monitored a longer period of the election. This is not to mention CAFFE and CMEV, which had even bigger numbers.
It seems that in the face of all the evidence, you are clinging to the smallest study of all.
You quoted PAFFREL earlier, approvingly. I am convinced you are now going to change tact, since it turns out they could not conclude the election was free and fair. I suppose they must be pro-UNP, huh?
And I guess CMEV and CAFFE must be pro-UNP too?
I am not disagreeing with AAEA, or even stating that it is pro-government. I believe that what they observed was exactly what they say. However, they clearly did not observe nearly as much as the CMEV, PAFFREL and CAFFE, who had much larger numbers to deploy.
You are very fond of the fact that the AAEA had international monitors. Actually, PAFFREL had more international monitors in its team than AAEA (19 compared to 17), and they concluded that the election was NOT free or fair (source: http://www.themorningleader.lk/20080514/news.html)
Also, note that the CMEV and PAFFREL are presented as 'independent' (not partistan) by the mainstream international media (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/10/asia/AS-GEN-Sri-Lanka-Election.php). If you want to discredit them, you will have to provide evidence.
Game over.
Paffrel did not state that it was not a free and fair election. Nor did cmev condemn the election how a whole. Only Paffrel did and they have been accused of being an UNP front. How could the whole election be a fraud when there was only problems from all sides at a small minority of polling stations?
Looking at the data we can see that all monitoring groups agree that in the vast majority of polling stations there were no incidents at all. So how can the whole election be a a fraud?
The most important and neutral group was the neutral international observers. Yes, they could go anywhere they wanted. So not a selective result. They concluded that the elections were acceptable.
Infinity,
- PAFFREL concluded "when we consider all these overall matters, it is not possible for PAFFREL to conclude that this
election was a free and a fair election" . The "overall matters" are clearly listed on page 4, and include the sorts of violent acts I've discussed (report at http://paffrel.lk/pdf/3rd_interim_report_12_may_08.pdf_
Do you still think PAFFREL concluded the election was free and fair? You did seem to think so a few posts ago.
- You earlier cited PAFFREL to try to support your own argument. Now you are saying that PAFFREL can be accused of being a UNP front. If you thought that PAFFREL was pro-UNP, why did you cite their report earlier? I think you just changed your opinion once I showed that the above quote. You seem to have a double standard, where you only like reports if they suit your argument. This is unscientific.
Note that when I disagreed with AAEA, I did not accuse them of being 'biased' (as you have done for PAFFREL and CAFFE, without evidence). I simply pointed out their methodological limitations. You cannot use that argument for PAFFREL, CAFFE or CMEV, because they were methodologically superior to AAEA.
- CMEV disagreed with the AAEA's conclusion that the election was free and fair; they said "It is not correct to assess the situation in the whole of the east by assessing the situation only in 17 booths in Trincomalee" . If they disagreed with that conclusion, then they did not consider it free or fair.
- CAFFE concluded that the election was "not at all 'free and fair'" .
So all 3 of the above monitoring groups concluded the election could not be deemed free and fair. CMEV and PAFFREL stated this directly, CMEV stated it indirectly by rejecting the AAEA's conclusion.
If you are interested in why these groups declared the election not free or fair, you should read their reports. The PAFFREL report actually answers your question (read their conclusion on page 3 and 4).
On this score, I think I should point out to you something you might not realise - the Eastern Province election that we are discussing had a very high number of incidents, even by Sri Lankan standards. PAFFREL counted 106 incidents, compared to 68 during the the entire Local Government Election for the whole country in 2006, and 172 incidents for the whole country in the 2005 Presidential elections.
Explain why PAFFREL's international observers (numerically larger than AAEA's) are more 'neutral' than AAEA's. Note that independent, neutral sources like the international herald tribute have designated PAFFREL as independent. So I don't see any reason to trust their credibility any less than AAEA. I trust their findings even more, since they were able to collect more data. If you have extra information that exposes them (and CAFFE, and CMEV) as UNP stooges, please share.
If we look at the Paffrel report we see that at around 90% of the polling stations there were no incidents at all. The other monitoring organizations agree with this assessment. How then can the election as a whole be a fraud?
Please stop lying regarding my statements, I have not accused Paffrel of being pro-UNP, I said that others have accused Caffe of this. Paffrel in the final words of their report stated "However, we consider that even under these difficult circumstances, this election held for the first time in the history of the Eastern Province has been one important step that opens the doors of democratic governance to the people in the East."
The international monitors are the most neutral and reliable ones since they are the least affected by threats or influence compared to local organizations. True, they saw a smaller sample but they could go anywhere they wanted so it was not possible for government to selectively show only good polling stations etc. So their conclusion which general found the election to good is the most trustworthy one.
Again, how can the election be fraudulent when there were only problems of various kinds by various parties at only 10% of the polling stations?
I also not that your statement "It is not correct to assess the situation in the whole of the east by assessing the situation only in 17 booths in Trincomalee" is false.
From AAEA
"The Trincomallee group conducted in-depth observations of the elections in 37 polling stations; the Batticalloa group observed 29 polling stations; and the Ampara group observed 31 polling stations. Less in-depth observations were conducted in other polling stations. The ability to observe polling stations was limited by both the small size of observer groups and the distances between polling stations. The polling stations observed were chosen at random.
With the groups covering approximately 10% of polling stations in their respective areas, it is believed that the sampling was of sufficient size."
(A well known sinhala tiger, Dr. Jayalath, doing his last duties to LTTE!)
Jayalath J in last ditch attempt to save Kilinochchi
Wed, 2008-10-15 04:09
Geneva, 15 October, (Asiantribune.com): Sri Lankan politician and one of the leaders of the United National Party , Dr Jayalath Jayawardana MP, has arrived in the Swiss capital in a last ditch attempt to prevent the fall of Tamil Tiger bastion - Kilinochchi to the rapidly advancing Sri Lankan security forces. Reportedly, Dr Jayawardana, immediately on arrival in Geneva, met the head of Swiss Tamil Forum, which is a front organization of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Dr Jayawardane sought appointments with several top executives of the United Nations institutions in Geneva, reliable sources said.
He met senior officials of several International Non Governmental Organization (INGO) Headquarters based in Geneva and appealed to them to mobilize the international community to call for an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka, the sources said.
The sources added that Dr Jayawardana is scheduled to fly to Rome from Geneva to call on Pope Benedict in order to influence the Vatican to issue an urgent appeal to stop the ongoing military operations in Sri Lanka.
Mr K Sivajilingham, MP representing Tamil National Alliance was also in Geneva to meet UN officials and INGO heads on behalf of the LTTE to call on the international community to bring about a ceasefire in Sri Lanka to prevent the fall of Kilinochchi.
Sri Lankan community in Switzerland expressed disgust at the attempts made by Dr Jayawardana. "I can understand TNA MP Sivajilingham who is a proxy of the LTTE appealing on behalf of the terrorist organization," a leading member of the community said. "But, how can a UNP member like Jayawardana who represents a Sinhala majority constituency could act in this partisan manner trying to safeguard the top hierarchy of a terrorist organization that has caused immense damaged to the country and the society?" he lamented.
Sri Lankan community is highly perturbed over the mission of Dr Jayawardana on behalf of the LTTE at a time when the terrorist movement is losing its centre of power. "All Sri Lankans should accept the fact that regaining government control over the north will be the best thing for the country and the people. East is an example. People in the East – Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim – are now enjoying democratic rights and the province is witnessing speedy development in all fronts. Similarly, once the military task is over, the North also will be developed and it will benefit the Tamils of the north. And at a time like this what is Dr Jayawardana's mandate?" an analyst said.
"Is it Dr Jayawardana's strategy or is he acting for the UNP? That is a question, the UNP leadership will have to answer".
infinity,
I did not lie about your position at all. A few posts up, you wrote: "Only Paffrel did and they have been accused of being an UNP front"
You also accused CAFFE earlier of being a possible UNP front. What is your evidence that PAFFREL and CAFFE are fronts of the UNP?
Let me repeat the facts: 3 independent organisations (PAFFREL, CAFFE, CMEV) all rejected the AAEA finding that the election was free and fair. These 3 organisations have been labelled independent by the foreign press, such as the international herald tribune. For your convenience, you have decided to ignore their findings.
You ask why they made the conclusion that the election was made free and fair, based on numbers. As I've explained to you many times, the election process is not just election day. PAFFREL in particular pointed out the intimidation and thuggery leading up election day. That was a big part of the reason PAFFREL concluded "it is not possible for PAFFREL to conclude that this
election was a free and a fair election" (my italics). They discuss this in their concluding remarks.
In summary, 3 out of 4 independent monitoring groups concluded the election was not free and fair. The only contrary group, AAEA, was also the smallest group.
If you tested a new drug on 10 people, and none of them had any side effects, you might conclude it is safe. But if another study tested the same drug on 1000 people, and showed that many people were dying from the drug, what would you do? Would you take evidence from the smaller study, or the larger one? In this case, we actually have three larger studies. All the evidence is against your position.
echolalia, right I meant that caffe has been accused by others of being an UNP front which is true.
As noted in my last post the statement you quoted from CMEV is false: "It is not correct to assess the situation in the whole of the east by assessing the situation only in 17 booths in Trincomalee" is false."
From AAEA
"The Trincomallee group conducted in-depth observations of the elections in 37 polling stations; the Batticalloa group observed 29 polling stations; and the Ampara group observed 31 polling stations. Less in-depth observations were conducted in other polling stations. The ability to observe polling stations was limited by both the small size of observer groups and the distances between polling stations. The polling stations observed were chosen at random.
With the groups covering approximately 10% of polling stations in their respective areas, it is believed that the sampling was of sufficient size."
http://www.aaeasec.org/d_5.html
Such obvious lies means that this group is not reliable. Regardless, I fail to see any condemnation of the election as a whole in the cmev reports. Quote and source please.
All the election groups found incidents, many not serious and from various parties, in only a very small percentage of the monitored poll stations. For example, Paffrel found incidents in less than 10% of polling stations. So obviously these did not mean that the election as whole was a fraud.
Regarding the pre-election period, also here it is not the case that some violence and pressure etc invalidate the whole election. No elections are perfect.
The most serious issue against the fairness of the election would seem to be unfair advantage due to access state media. However, there are many anti-government newspapers like the Sunday Leader and other media present in Sri Lanka.
Yes there were two armed groups present, TMVP and LTTE. Disarming TMVP would leave them helpless to LTTE terror. As noted earlier there has been many elections seen as acceptable were groups participating have been armed, like Nepal. Obviously it will be difficult to hold perfect elections as long as LTTE continues with their terror against anyone who dares to think that they are not the "Sole Representative" which excludes democracy automatically.
Which again brings us to the only realistic alternative to Sri Lanka. A terrorist group which openly rejects democracy and is ruled by a dictator who ignores every form of human rights. If there are problems in Sri Lanka with human rights, then this should be compared with the total absence of these in the alternative.
Sri Lanka - VP's dictatorship
Many parties - one party
Many government critical groups and newspapers - no critical voices allowed of any kind
Elected government - dictator who plans to make his son dictator after him
Volunteer army - Forced conscription with torture of deserters
Freedom of movement - Pass system prevent civilians from leaving a war zone
Freedom of assembly with lots of ant-government rallies etc - none allowed at all
infinity,
Your opinion on whether the pre-election violence was high enough to invalidate the election is not interesting. The fact is that PAFFEL, CAFFE and CMEV disagree with you. They think the level of violence was enough to say the election was not free or fair. AAEA did not monitor many pre-election days, so they have no stance on this important point.
You said there are groups who accuse CAFFE of being pro-UNP. Who are these groups? Quote and source please. What is their evidence?
PAFFREL reached the same conclusion as CAFFE. Are they also pro-UNP? If so, quote and source please.
Yes, the CMEV spokesperson made an inaccurate statement about the AAEA report. This does not invalidate their own report. You also made a mistake earlier when you said PAFFREL was accused of being pro-UNP, when you actually meant to say CAFFE. Does that mistake mean that everything else you say is rubbish?
Anyway, the point the CMEV spokesperson made is still true: the AAEA had far, far, far fewer monitors on the ground compared to the other monitoring groups. Even 97 stations is far, far, far less than the other groups. PAFFREL alone looked at 1072 voting stations, and had many more observers than AAEA.
Explain to me your maths - how 97 bigger than 1072?
The CMEV spokesman rejected the AAEA conclusion that the election was free and fair. Therefore, logically, the CMEV thought the election was not free and fair. I provided the source of their statement earlier.
But even if you exclude CMEV, there are still two groups, PAFFREL and CAFFE, that concluded the election was not free and fair. How do you account for this, especially when these groups analysed more information than AAEA?
You note that all the groups found incidents. AAEA did not seem to notice any specific violent incidents (they mention reports, but they do not give specific examples of things they themselves observed). Their report mentions lots of specific incidents, but these were minor incidents - if they had actually observed violent incidents, they would have reported them. Why would they specifically report minor events, but not major events like violence? The only explanation is that there was no violence at the polls they visited. As we know from PAFFREL, CMEV, CAFFE, there were many violent incidents in other places.
You speak of LTTE terror in the Eastern Province election. Quote and source please? The CMEV report only records 1 incident of LTTE violence during the whole election (http://www.slideshare.net/cpa/cmev-interim-report-of-eastern-provincial-council-elections-may-2008).
Almost all the violence was from the TMVP and UPFA.
If you tested a new drug on 10 people, and none of them had any side effects, you might conclude it is safe. But if another study tested the same drug on 1000 people, and showed that many people were dying from the drug, what would you do? Would you take evidence from the smaller study, or the larger one? In this case, we actually have three larger studies. All the evidence is against your position.
Also, regarding human rights, and Sri Lanka's relative position compared to other country's, the ACHR ranks it the worst in South Asia: http://freechoudhury.com/images/ACHR.html
"The South Asia Human Rights Index 2008 finds that under the ACHR’s index scoring system Sri Lanka (with 52 points) is the worst human rights violator in South Asia...The indexing system is based on comparative assessment of nine thematic issues crucial for the enjoyment of human rights: political freedom, right to life, judiciary and administration of justice, status or effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions, press freedom, violence against women, violations of the rights of the child, violations of the rights of the minorities and indigenous/tribal peoples and repression on human rights defenders."
echolalia, do you really think that some incidents of various kinds by many different parties at less than 10% of polling stations as reported by Paffrel invalidates everything? All the monitoring groups agree that only a very small minority of polling stations had any incidents at all.
Here is one accusation of bias by Caffe: http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/08/07/pol01.asp
You state "The CMEV report only records 1 incident of LTTE violence during the whole election " and give a link to some dubious non-CMEV website. Give a link to a CMEV report stating this please. Not that CMEV is trustworthy considering their fabrication regarding AAEA noted above.
The only group that really could be neutral and not influenced was the international monitors. True, they saw a smaller sample of polling stations, but they were selected at random so it was not a deliberate selection by the government. A statistical sample is enough to draw conclusions.
Let us quote the final conclusion of Paffrel in full: "When we consider all these overall matters, it is not possible for PAFFREL to conclude that this election was a free and a fair election. Moreover, we see the escalation of violence during the election day, including attacks by the LTTE on civilian targets, as an attempt to defeat democracy. However, we consider that even under these difficult circumstances, this election held for the first time in the history of the Eastern Province has been one important step that opens the doors of democratic governance to the people in the East."
I partially agree, obviously it will be difficult to hold perfect elections as long as LTTE continues with their terror, which has occurred both before and after the election day, against anyone who dares to think that they are not the "Sole Representative" which excludes democracy automatically.
Which again brings us to the only realistic alternative to Sri Lanka. A terrorist group which openly rejects democracy and is ruled by a dictator who ignores every form of human rights. If there are problems in Sri Lanka with human rights, then this should be compared with the total absence of these in the alternative.
echolalia , you note that ACHR rank worst regarding Human Rights in South Asia. "Sri Lanka (with 52 points) is the worst human rights violator in South Asia followed by Bangladesh (45), Bhutan (43), Pakistan (41), Maldives (23), Nepal (24) and India (24)."
Quite possible, in a ranking excluding Myanmar and Afghanistan from "South Asia". Not really surprising for a nations who has to fight a large scale war against a terrorist "Sole Representative" who openly reject democracy and ignores all form of human rights in their territory. If there are problems in Sri Lanka with human rights, then this should be compared with the total absence of these in the realistic alternative.
Sri Lanka - VP's dictatorship
Many parties - one party
Many government critical groups and newspapers - no critical voices allowed of any kind
Elected government - dictator who plans to make his son dictator after him
Volunteer army - Forced conscription with torture of deserters
Freedom of movement - Pass system prevent civilians from leaving a war zone
Freedom of assembly with lots of ant-government rallies etc - none allowed at all
infinity,
As I stated before, and as PAFFREL states in its report, it is not simply events during election day that invalidate an election, its a combination of election day and events in the days leading up to it. You'll notice that PAFFREL notes a large amount of charges - we have only discussed violence and ballot stuffing, but there were many other things too (e.g. media, state spending). All these things contributed to their decision.
There is an irony in your argument - think that 10% of voting stations was 'big' enough for the AAEA report. Yet violence in 10% of voting stations is not 'big' enough for you.
If you want to talk about statistical samples, larger statistical samples are better than smaller ones. They give more 'power' - that is, the ability to detect a significant difference.
CMEV report can be found here: http://cmev.wordpress.com/category/presentation/. It is exactly the same thing I cited earlier.
Your argument that CMEV is not trustworthy is invalid. You have made factually incorrect statements here too (about PAFFREL being accused of being pro-UNP), but that does not invalidate every single thing you say. Note that you have not shown any evidence of CMEV inaccuracy in their actual report.
The article about CAFFE being pro-UNP provides not one shred of evidence, so it is rubbish.
echolalia, you write "The article about CAFFE being pro-UNP provides not one shred of evidence, so it is rubbish." Nor is there any actual evidence for the claims Caffe makes, for example.
It is a difference between writing the wrong name in a hasty entry in a blog and making a long completely falsified claim about another group in a report. This clearly shows that cmev in not be trusted.
Many of these incidents, which happened in less than 10% of the polling stations according to Paffrel, were not very serious, like a holding a political speech on election day. In over 90% of the poling stations where no incidents. All the groups agree that there were incidents at only a small minority of stations.
Let us quote the final conclusion of Paffrel in full: "When we consider all these overall matters, it is not possible for PAFFREL to conclude that this election was a free and a fair election. Moreover, we see the escalation of violence during the election day, including attacks by the LTTE on civilian targets, as an attempt to defeat democracy. However, we consider that even under these difficult circumstances, this election held for the first time in the history of the Eastern Province has been one important step that opens the doors of democratic governance to the people in the East."
True large samples are better, but one can draw valid conclusions from a good small sample. A good small sample is always better than a larger one that is biased or inaccurate. The international monitors were most neutral observers compared to local groups easily influenced by threats.
Sri Lanka - VP's dictatorship
Many parties - one party
Many government critical groups and newspapers - no critical voices allowed of any kind
Elected government - dictator who plans to make his son dictator after him
Volunteer army - Forced conscription with torture of deserters
Freedom of movement - Pass system prevent civilians from leaving a war zone
Freedom of assembly with lots of ant-government rallies etc - none allowed at all
Looking at Freedom House's ranking, Sri Lanka scores 4/4. Better than many other Asian nations. VP's dictatorship would score 7/7 since their are no rights at all in his dictatorshp. This would place Elam at the same ranking as North Korea and Myanmar.
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