Book festival interview: Gordon Weiss on Sri Lanka's civil war

By Margaret Neighbour
Published: 25/8/2011

Gordon Weiss

GORDON Weiss is driving across Sydney when I call. "Don't worry, I've got a hands-free doo-da," he says. "The police here will arrest me and do terrible things to me if they see me driving holding a handset." Of course, the Australian police are unlikely to do terrible things to anyone, even if they catch them breaking the law. In Sri Lanka, however, where Weiss worked as UN spokesman in the capital, Colombo, from 2006-9, the police do terrible things all the time. According to one human rights expert, the law enforcement agencies of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government "can do whatever they like - arrest people without reason, torture people for as long as they wish, and fabricate charges which can land people in prison without bail".

UN spokesman during the bloody end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, Gordon Weiss says the organisation ‘should have pushed harder’ to save lives, especially those of trapped civilians...

Sri Lanka, says the same expert, is "one of the most violent places on earth". 
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Indian MPs slam Sri Lanka for 'war crimes'

 New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) 
The Indian opposition Thursday accused Sri Lanka of ill treating Tamils even after crushing the Tamil Tigers, while a Communist leader also flayed New Delhi for its silence on 'war crimes'.By Indo Asian News Service 

'There are increasing concerns and worries over the ill-treatment of Tamils Sri Lanka,' Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav said in the Lok Sabha during a discussion on the situation in Sri Lanka.
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Sri Lanka scraps emergency laws

By Amal Jayasinghe | AFP – 13 hrs ago

 

Sri Lanka's president announced Thursday that he was scrapping draconian emergency laws imposed nearly 30 years ago to deal with the armed Tamil separatist movement.

"I am satisfied that there is no need to have the state of emergency any more," President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a speech to parliament.

The laws, which give security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention, have been renewed on a monthly basis -- with only brief breaks -- ever since they were first imposed 28 years ago.

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