Saturday, September 10, 2011Army insists those found guilty were prosecuted, case closed
Officials in Haiti have said that UN peacekeeping soldiers from Sri Lanka who had been accused of sex-crimes in 2007 had even raped children as young as 7 years old.
The Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN) was quoted by The New American website as saying that most of the 114 Sri Lankan soldiers deported to Sri Lanka from Haiti in 2007 for sexual abuse and rape were not punished. However army spokesman Brigadier H. A. Nihal Hapuarachchi told The Sunday Leader that the soldiers who were found guilty in the case have been prosecuted.
He said that a full inquiry had been carried out over the allegations and the legal process was followed to deal with those found guilty
The military spokesman further added that there was nothing pending in relation to the incident.
“In 2007, it was discovered and reported that girls as young as 13 were having sex with U.N. peacekeepers for as little as $1 in Haiti,” The New American website quoted Ezili Dantò, president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN) as saying. “Moreover, Sri Lankan soldiers were accused of systematically raping Haitian women and girls, some as young as 7 years old.”
The UN claims “dozens” of its soldiers had been punished for sexual abuses in the country in recent years. But based on publicly available figures, critics say many more have escaped justice, the website said.
“If only a dozen UN peacekeepers were punished for sexual abuse and rape, then that means, for instance, most of the 114 Sri Lankan soldiers deported back to Sri Lanka from Haiti in 2007 for sexual abuse and rape in Haiti did not get punished,” Dantò wrote citing other examples as well.
Several Sri Lankan soldiers are still serving in Haiti as peacekeepers and Brigadier H. A. Nihal Hapuarachchi said that more are expected to be sent from Sri Lanka early next year.
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
Emergency rebranded? New laws grant sweeping powers
Sunday 11 September 2011
By Namini WijedasaThe Government Press last week printed four sets of regulations under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and backdated them August 29, presumably to cater to the weeklong period of illegality during which these laws were missing.
The regulations have been gazetted by the Defence Minister under Section 27 of the PTA which states that “every regulation made by the Minister shall be published in the Gazette and shall come into operation on the date of such publication or on such later date as may be specified in the regulations.”
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