The above is what real fear, real terror and real oppression are all about.

TO BE NOTED: From Inca Kola News:

...they've got no space left in the morgues.

In Caucasia, Antioquia, medics are complaining about the heavier that normal workload of autopsies. In the period Jan 1st to April 25th 2008 there were "just" 46 murders in an otherwise sleepy old town, but this year it's got up to a pesky 102 in the same lapse. "Here we only have one autopsy table and two old storage compartments, and on average we're doing two autopsies a day", said the doc.

As for the atmosphere around the place, here are a few quotes:

"The rumours run from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, but nobody knows anything when they're asked about a crime."

"They say that two men were in a hairdressers. On hearing a woman talk about the conflict they made the hair stylist shave her bald and remove her eyebrows, and then gave her 24 hours to leave Caucasia."

"The assassins rent one house in every neighbourhood, which allow them to hide quickly once they commit a crime and we (the police) cannot enter without a search warrant."

"The people fear for their lives, because those committing the homicides are locals, young men that were born and raised here."

So, gentle reader and lover of freedom, how does the situation in Caucasia compare to the US-backed shouts of "oppression!" that comes from the mouths of theVenezuelans with painted hands as they march noisily down streets tilting against windmills? The above is what real fear, real terror and real oppression are all about. When it's the genuine article, noise is replaced by a roaring silence and you rarely get to find out about it."

"The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people."

A Sri Lanka report:

"COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan forces captured the strategic Elephant Pass base from the Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday, ousting them from their last stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula and boxing them into a shrinking pocket of land in the northeast.( THEY ARE IN TROUBLE. )

Skip to next paragraph

The New York Times

The capture of the base gives the government nearly full control of the northern peninsula, the rebels’ cultural capital, for the first time since 2000. It also puts the country’s major north-south highway completely under its control for the first time in 23 years.

The rebels are now confined to a small area of jungle around their last remaining stronghold, Mullaittivu.

In a nationally televised address, President Mahinda Rajapaksa praised the victory. “Our soldiers by this evening have been able to totally liberate Elephant Pass” from the rebels, he said.

There was no comment from the rebels, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The government, which seized the rebels’ administrative capital, Kilinochchi, last week, has promised to crush the rebel group and end Sri Lanka’s 25-year-old civil war.

But in a reminder of the rebels’ ability to cause destruction even as they suffer conventional defeats, the rebels detonated a roadside bomb( THIS WILL BECOME THEIR STRATEGY AGAIN ) in the country’s east on Friday that killed three air force troops and four civilians, said a military spokesman, Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.

The attack outside the eastern city of Trincomalee signaled a return to guerrilla tactics( YES ). The government captured the east from the rebels in 2007, but attacks in the area have increased in recent months.

On Friday, government forces marching from the north and south broke into Elephant Pass and fought heavy battles with the rebels, the military said. The base is on the isthmus connecting the northern Jaffna Peninsula with the rest of the island in the Indian Ocean.

Analysts said the guerrillas appeared to have withdrawn their artillery and heavy weaponry from the area and were sacrificing their bases on the peninsula to consolidate forces near Mullaittivu, where they will probably make a stand.

Human rights groups have warned that casualties among the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in the shrinking pocket of rebel territory were likely to mount as the government closed in on the insurgents.( THIS IS MY CONCERN )

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. The conflict has killed more than 70,000( 70,000) people.

Troops south of Jaffna were also fighting the rebels, pushing east from the Kilinochchi area, Brigadier Nanayakkara said. The troops found the bodies of seven insurgents from fighting Thursday, he said."

I would hope that the government reaches out to Tamils, to try and isolate the Tigers after this conflict winds down. Otherwise, Sri Lanka can expect a return of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks.

“The solution to the problem of the region, the solution to the problem of Pakistan, is politics, is dialogue,”

From Bloomberg, Zardari on the tension with India:

"By Aaron Sheldrick

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari sought to ease tensions with India after a standoff over last month’s terrorist attack on Mumbai raised the prospect of war between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

“The solution to the problem of the region, the solution to the problem of Pakistan, is politics, is dialogue( PLEASE ),” Zardari said live on Geo Television Network at a memorial service for his late wife, former Prime Minister Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.

The attack on Mumbai from Nov. 26 to Nov. 29 brought to a halt five years of reconciliation started after India and Pakistan went to the brink of a fourth war( THAT'S RIGHT. THREE WARS IN 60 YEARS ) since independence. Zardari said he’s committed to fighting terrorist networks that may be trying to force Pakistan’s hand( LET'S HOPE HE IS ).

“We have non-state actors. Yes, they are imposing an agenda on us( AS IN THE MIDDLE EAST ),” Zardari said at the memorial service yesterday. “We ourselves have accepted we have a cancer. We will cure this cancer ourselves.”

Pakistan on Dec. 25 began diverting troops from tribal areas near Afghanistan to the border with India, the Associated Press reported, citing Pakistani intelligence officials. The Pakistan army’s 14th division is being sent to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, AP said.

The number of troops being redeployed may be as high as 20,000, according to domestic and foreign media reports.

The deployment was a response to a build-up by Indian ground and air forces near the border, the U.K.’s Independent newspaper reported on its Web site, citing Pakistani military and government officials it didn’t identify.

Calming Fears

Pakistan “can’t ignore certain developments on the ground and in the air,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told the Independent today.

That said, Pakistan is “pursuing a policy of defusing tensions,” Qureshi was quoted as saying. “We do not want to escalate the situation. Pakistan has no aggressive designs.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, divided between the two and claimed by both.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Nov. 26 that he had spoken with several foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Yang Jiechi of China and Iran’s Manouchehr Mottaki, since Dec. 25 to persuade their governments to ask Pakistan to tackle terrorist groups.

Building Consensus

India has been seeking to build a global consensus on action against terrorism since the Mumbai attack, which killed 164 people. India blamed the assault on “elements” in Pakistan, and Pakistan has asked for evidence to back up that accusation.

“We have indicated to them that there is ample evidence -- from log books to satellite phone records -- that elements from Pakistan were responsible,” Mukherjee said.

India and Saudi Arabia on Nov. 26 called for global coordinated action against terrorism.

“Global terrorism has to be dealt with by joint action among all countries,” Mukherjee said at a briefing in New Delhi with his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Prince Saud al-Faisal. “We agreed that whatever action has to be taken should be taken without delay.”

India’s foreign ministry advised its nationals not to travel to Pakistan following reports that several Indians were arrested in Lahore and Multan and had been accused of being terrorists.

The Indian government said that the detention of its nationals may be the work of organizations outside civilian control, without elaborating.

The U.S. called on both nations to lower tensions.

“We continue to be in close contact with both countries to urge closer cooperation in investigating the Mumbai attacks and in fighting terrorism generally,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in an e-mailed release. “We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times.”

This is no joke.

"The answer is to increase cooperation between the two countries, and to deal with the problems more proactively"

I'm someone who believes that the Mumbai attack was intended to derail Zardari's Peace feelers to India. Here's Anwar Sher on PostGlobal:

"The killing of any human being is not something one should gloat over, justify or otherwise praise, and in this vein the attacks in Mumbai are horrific to say the least. It would also seem, based on evidence so far, that some militant groups based in Pakistan carried out this attack, and Pakistan has offered to prosecute these people and some arrests have been made.

While India may suggest that Pakistan is not doing enough, the fact that there has been a state of turmoil within Pakistan for over a decade suggests that reining in these militant groups is not exactly as easy as it sounds. The charge that elements within Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have had inks to militant groups could well be true -- but is not necessarily proved beyond a shadow of doubt.

I do not think war-mongering or taking a page out of U.S. policy of retaliatory strikes is the answer in this situation.

First of all, Pakistan has its own problems with its home grown terrorist threat, losing a Benazir Bhutto to one such attack, the culprits behind which still remain at large.

Secondly, Pakistan's society is fragmented, and divided, especially in the northwest, where more of the population lives in fear of the next terrorist strike than of the next U.S. missile strike. In this atmosphere of strife, it is easy both for militant groups to operate with relative immunity and for militants wanted by foreign governments to hide.

Thirdly, while this tragic attack against the people of Mumbai was perhaps largely carried out by Pakistani men, one cannot simply say India's entire history with terrorist attacks rests on Pakistan's doorstep, as we would be forgetting that earlier bombing attacks on the Mumbai stock exchange and elsewhere were carried out by India's own home grown brand of terrorists. In 2007, a terrible bombing of a train linking India and Pakistan, in which 63 people were killed mostly Pakistanis, was linked to an Indian group in Indore.

Sensible people on both sides of the border have to accept that terrorism is not a state sponsored act insofar as these two countries are concerned. While Pakistan has not been able to control the groups operating within its own territory for the reasons cited, it would be naive to assume cross border raids will achieve much more than to raise tensions between two countries who can ill afford a war at this stage.

The answer is to increase cooperation between the two countries, and to deal with the problems more proactively, and to create a framework of trust between each nation's secret service organizations. In reality, Pakistan gains little from sponsoring terrorist attacks against others when when its own militants are harassing the country from the inside. We must understand and appreciate that militant attacks of this sort are a problem for both India and Pakistan and that dealing with them by more saber rattling will achieve nothing but tension.

Pakistan must also work harder to clamp down on these groups, which have caused so much damage within and outside the country. It cannot just go on hoping the problem will go away with time. It is important that sanity prevail at moments like. We must find peace at these moments, not more deaths."

I find this a sensible view.

"are endangered more by the response of the UK and US governments to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, than by the terrorists "

Willem Buiter with an excellent post on human and civil rights:

"I have long held the view that our freedom, our civil liberties and human rights, and indeed our open society, pluralist political system and way of life are endangered more by the response of the UK and US governments to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, than by the terrorists themselves.

A further reminder of just how assiduously the British government has been chipping away at our freedom is provided by the arrest of the opposition spokesman on immigration, Mr. Damian Green, by counter-terrorism officers, his questioning by these counter-terrorism officers for nine hours and the search of his home and office. The ‘terrorist conspiracy’ being investigated concerned Home Office leaks."

Read the rest. It's true here in the US as well. Here's my comment:

“When challenged on this prima facie inappropriate use of the counter-terrorism command, the London Metropolitan Police confirmed that Mr Green was arrested by members of its counter-terrorism command. It said the investigation was not terrorism-related but did fall within the counter-terror unit’s remit. Mr Green was not charged with any offence but was released on bail until February.”

It’s odd how, when you give authorities power in one supposedly delimited realm, they use the power in whatever realm they happen to find themselves. This is so certain an occurrence that it can be defined in Newtonian Mechanics.

Also, didn’t the PM use terrorism rules against Iceland? What does “terrorism” mean in Britain? Let me know, because I speak a language called English.

“According to the BBC’s website, among the recent leaks that got Home Office knickers twisted so viciously were the following:”

Now, I want it clearly understood that I have no, I say no, personal knowledge about this, but I truly doubt that people this reckless with laws and language even have the common decency to wear knickers. Just my impression. No more.

You’ve written a very important post. Thank you for continuing to use this blog for serious and important policy recommendations and warnings.

Posted by: Don the libertarian Democrat | November 28th, 2008 at 6:27 pm | Report this comment

Here's his reply:

Re Don: the British government did indeed, to its eternal shame, invoke the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act to freeze the UK assets of a couple of Icelandic banks. This misuse of an instrument created to fight terrorism in an ordinary commercial/financial dispute between neighbouring countries is not just wrong, it is deeply evil. Did I hear anyone say “the end justifies the means”? Posted by: Willem Buiter | November 28th, 2008 at 6:50 pm