Changing The Messenger Will Not Sell Without Showing Change On The Ground
Jehan Perera
Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga is to visit the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) next month to explain the steps taken to address accountability issues stemming from the last stages of the war with the LTTE, which the international community is pressing for. There is much faith being pinned on him as a capable and efficient public servant. However, what those in the international community who are keenly watching developments in Sri Lanka will not wish to only hear another impressive governmental presentation of facts and figures that they cannot verify. They need to believe what they are being told, and this can only come from a credible monitoring mechanism. In its absence what they will listen to is the opposition and civil society in Sri Lanka.
The message from those who are not part of the government so far is negative and not getting positive. Speaking at the opening of a rice mill funded by Australia last week at Vishvamadhu in the Northern Province, its Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran provided a summary of the issues faced by his administration. He said, “Firstly it is the fact that our Northern Province is under Army occupation even nearly five years since the end of the war. It is assessed that nearly 150,000 members of the Military are resident in the Northern Province. They occupy illegally lands belonging to our people. This denies our people access to their own lands for which many of them have documents though sometimes destroyed during the war.
“Secondly Sinhalese people from the South are being brought in secretly and made to colonise the lands belonging to our people. Even if the lands be state lands that does not give rights to any one and every one to colonize them. But the Army actively supports such moves. Thirdly our people lack security. Our women are subjected to gender harassment. Many face the worst that could happen to them and they cannot talk about it in the open. The Police are aware as to the culprits but they are powerless. Fourthly, lack of Employment. We have put up impressive roads mainly to enable the Army to travel quickly keeping the Northern Province under repression. But we have not generated Employment opportunities for those affected by the war.
