NightWatch

For the Night of 30 June 2009

North Korea: The UN World Food Program (WFP) reported it has reached an agreement to expand its work in North Korea. The North Korean government has agreed to permit the UN to distribute food in 128 of the 200 counties. Previously it only had access to 50 counties. The agreement means that the agency will be able to feed five million people, WFP said. Fifty more international monitors will oversee aid distribution and they will be given unprecedented access to rural areas.

The first 38,000 of 500,000 tons of food aid promised by the US arrived today in North Korea. South and North Korean press treated this shipment as partial payment for progress in nuclear negotiations. One press source last week mentioned that the US also paid over $3 million for the demolition of the Yongbyon reactor cooling tower last Friday.

The expansion of WFP access is an indirect measure of the gravity of the hunger crisis. It is the first independently verifiable evidence that the crisis is a serious as UN officials have warned.

Sri Lanka: The commander of Sri Lanka's army, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, told the press today that the Tamil Tigers have been defeated as a conventional force. "They have lost that capability, although they are fighting with us, not in the same manner like earlier. They had the defensive lines, we couldn't move even one kilometre for two or three months. That kind of resistance is not there any more. This present Tamil Eelam capability of fighting as a conventional army - we have already defeated them," he said.

The occasion of the press conference was the success of operations liberating the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka from Tamil Tiger domination. Fonseka said government troops were advancing steadily into the rebel-held north and within a year the Tigers would lose large areas and their control over the population. He said the Tigers would be reduced to nothing more than a “rag-tag terrorist outfit” in a year’s time.

The northern region is the last stronghold of the Tigers. Fonseka estimated 4,000-5,000 Tiger fighters remained from about 8,000 in August 2006 when the ceasefire degenerated into serious fighting. Fonseka told the press his forces have killed 9,000 Tigers since August 2006 and sustained 1,700 troops killed.

This is tonight’s guardedly good news.

The Tamil Tigers have fought the government actively since about 1983. Over 70,000 people are reported to have died in the fighting. During most of the past 25 years the Army had too few forces to operate effectively against the Tigers. When the insurgency began in 1983, the Army had 40,000 soldiers.

The chart below is an update to the 9 May 2007 chart on the status of the Sri Lankan insurgency. Fonseka returned to duty in July 2006 after recovering from an assassination attempt that seriously wounded him in April 2006. By the end of the summer 2007 he had eliminated the Tigers from the eastern province which was the farthest advance of the Tiger movement and shifted forces to contain them in the north. His operations have been methodical and effective, aided by defections from the Tigers and by Indian naval patrols that have reduced support from India’s Tamil Nadu State, across the Palk Strait.

Country	Government Forces Committed	Enemy Strength	Govt : Enemy Ratio	Status
Sri Lanka (May 2007) Northeast Tamil region (Tamil separatists)	118,000 Army soldiers	6,000	19 : 1	Rebels hold large areas of northeastern Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (June 2008)	157,000 Army soldiers	4,000-5,000	31 -39:1	Rebel defense of northeast slowly collapsing

Today’s upbeat statement might raise expectations unduly, but Fonseka has not been prone to exaggeration. The Tigers will still stage terrorist bombings and other attacks, but the conventional military phase of the fighting should end this year in the loss of a secure base. If Fonseka keeps to his schedule, he will have made Sri Lanka the second South Asian nation to end a serious, chronic insurgency in the past 20 years.

Pakistan: The following was reported in the Daily Times of Pakistan today.

“The government is crowing about the fact that its measures are so popular with the local tribal population and its power so awesome for the obviously chickened-out militants that not a single bullet has been fired at the security forces.

And now the truth: It's all hogwash. It's a drama being staged to placate a nervous public, please the cooperative militias by giving them sufficient advance warning, and confuse the Americans who of late have been displaying the audacity to ask for verifiable deliverables against all the money they have been pumping in for the last eight years. A desperate appeasement attempt for the visiting Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Boucher, if you may.”

The reporter was traveling in the Khyber Agency operational area at the time of his report. He said that the Frontier Corps destroyed abandoned buildings and vehicles. The entire operation was faked. The Corps force arranged peaceful passage through the sub-districts adjoining Peshawar before the operation and the militants resumed their control of the roads near Peshawar after the paramilitary force moved on, according to Mohammad Malick of the Daily Times.

Tribal militiamen in Kurram Agency kidnapped and later released 44 Frontier Constabulary policemen today, after a 25-man “jirga” negotiated with the kidnappers. After the successful late night negotiations the policemen were released and handed over to the jirga and the political officials.

Increasingly kidnappings and other acts start to resemble organized extortion operations. Money or other valuables are exchanged every time a jirga is involved.

Turkey: The chief prosecutor of the Turkish Court of Appeal will make his first oral presentation 1 July to the Constitutional Court, arguing the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party violated the secular constitution, Reuters reported. The Constitutional Court will sit twice — on Tuesday to hear the chief prosecutor of the supreme court of appeals present his indictment in person, and on Thursday to hear senior AK Party members argue in their defense. All the commentaries indicate the AK Party leadership expects to lose the case and the party to be ordered disbanded.

One commentator wrote that few people believed that the indictment would amount to anything more than a warning to the government which has already weathered numerous battles with the secularist Establishment over the role of Islam in Turkey. After the Constitutional Court overturned the law permitting women to wear headscarves on university campus, the public consensus is that the Court will order the Party to disband and bar up to 71 leaders from public office for five years.

The Court’s ruling is not expected this week. Nevertheless, the AK Party remains highly popular, especially outside the major cities, according to Turkish news services. An order to dissolve the Party is likely to lead to early elections and significant protests.

Peru-Bolivia: Peru recalled its ambassador to Bolivia on 30 June in response to Bolivian President Evo Morales' comments alleging the presence of U.S. military bases in Peru.  Morales congratulated Ecuador on Saturday for its decision not to renew a lease for a U.S. military base in its territory, while alleging that the U.S. government "is moving its military bases to Peru."

Morales’ is now blaming his neighbors as well as the US for his internal policy setbacks. Bolivia complained today that the US was wrong to suspend aid to Bolivia just because the two countries have policy differences. Hunh?

End of NightWatch for 30 June.