US War Crimes Unit receives list of Sri Lanka's missing Tamil surrendees

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 October 2010, 21:32 GMT]
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, submitted to the War Crimes unit of the U.S. Department of State, a list of persons known to have surrendered to the Government of Sri Lanka forces in the final stages of the war in the first five months of 2009 and who remain missing in custody as of October 2010. The list was compiled from witness statements and interview data collected by Tamil Diaspora groups in the UK.

Over 70% of those surrendees who had been previously associated with the Liberation Tigers and who are missing in custody were with the political and other administrative and non-combat sections of the organisation, including medical and finance.

Citing photo evidence, HRW calls for UN war crimes probes

Earlier this year Human Rights Watch (HRW) obtained photographs taken by a solider of the Sri Lankan Air mobile brigade of a young man tied to a tree in the custody of GOSL. He was later seen executed in a subsequent photograph. Tamilnet identified this young person as 21 year old Chandraseenan Vinothan a political cadre within the LTTE.

SLA tortures, murders LTTE surrendee

Recently a video has emerged via global social media of this young man being tortured in custody. Concerns among human rights community grow that the surrendees will have been tortured and killed contrary to the laws of war amid the significant volumes of photographic and video evidence of executions.

The alleged torture and executions of surrendees depicted in these photos and videos took place under the command of General Sarath Fonseka, a United States Green card holder. According to a deposition made by a former General in the Sri Lankan army, who is currently in the United States, the orders to execute surrendees were given by Defense Secretary Rajapakse, a dual citizen of the United States and Sri Lanka.

Further, direct testimony of surviving spouses of surrendered and missing LTTE cadres are raising further concerns among the human rights community on the wide-spread violations of laws of war, and war crimes committed during the final stages of the war.

“I have not seen my husband after Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers took him away saying that he was to be given medical treatment and I do not know what had happened to him,” Vanitha Ilanthirayan, the wife of former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spokesman Ilanthirayan (Rasiah Sivaroopan), said on 10th October to the LLRC in Batticaloa District Government Secretariat.

Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of Elilan, the former Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE, told the BBC Tamil Service, after complaining to the LLRC, that SL President should know the whereabouts of her husband and fellow LTTE officials surrendered through a Catholic Priest in Mullaiththeevu on 18 May 2009.

Photographs of disabled ex-LTTE fighters held in undisclosed locations by GOSL and believed to have been tortured have also been provided by the group War Without Witnesses to the US government.

TAG previously authenticated a video aired by Channel 4 of blind-folded, naked prisoners being executed by GOSL soldiers. The group is also in possession of photographs showing similar scenes of executions.

Commonwealth has abandoned human rights commitment – leaked memo

Leaked document obtained by the Guardian shows staff told by secretary general it is not their job to speak out against abuses

• Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 October 2010 21.00 BST
• Article history

Kamalesh Sharma, the Commonwealth secretary general, says it is not his job to speak out against abuses of human rights. Photograph: Akira Suemori/AP
The Commonwealth has abandoned its commitment to defending human rights, according to a leaked document obtained by the Guardian in which the secretary general tells his staff it is not their job to speak out against abuses by the 54 member states.
David Cameron and the foreign secretary, William Hague, have both said they will put new emphasis on the Commonwealth in Britain's foreign policy. But the organisation's London-based institutions, the secretariat and the charitable foundation, are both in turmoil, riven by disputes over their purpose and direction, and internal wrangles over the treatment of staff.
Coming soon after the well-publicised shortcomings in India's preparations for the Commonwealth Games, the latest revelations about dysfunction within the secretariat and foundation are likely to add to questions over what the Commonwealth is for. The most threatening internal rupture is over human rights. Staff at the secretariat were furious when the secretary general, Kamalesh Sharma, remained silent over a series of abuses by member states in recent years.
For example, when the Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, threatened to behead homosexuals in 2008; when government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels were accused of widespread atrocities at the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka last year; and when a Malawi court in May sentenced a gay couple to jail for being homosexual, the secretary general ignored calls from secretariat staff urging him to express concern at least.
"All those cases were all about the values the Commonwealth is supposed to stand for and we failed," said one staff member. "I feel we could become moribund."
In response to complaints from employees, the secretary general's office told his staff that the institution had no obligation to pronounce on the issue.
"The secretariat … has no explicitly defined mandate to speak publicly on human rights," Sharma's office told senior staff. "The expectation is that the secretary general will exercise his good offices as appropriate for the complaint and not that he will pronounce on them."
Human rights activists said the comments represented a reversal of the Commonwealth's tradition of speaking out over gross abuses, such as apartheid. They said the secretary general was contradicting a key policy document adopted by Commonwealth heads of state in 1995 that calls for the "immediate public expression by the secretary general of the Commonwealth's collective disapproval of any such infringement" of democratic values and fundamental human rights.
Purna Sen, the head of the secretariat's human rights unit, said yesterday: "We have been accused of being over-cautious. Our work below the radar is extremely important but we need to explore more fully where we can make public statements. Public comments need not be condemnations, but we need to defend our values."
Others question whether quiet diplomacy by the secretariat has been effective, as states have little to fear from the Commonwealth.
Danny Sriskandarajah, director of the Royal Commonwealth Society, said: "I recognise the Commonwealth often works behind the scenes, but without public achievements on its values it will lose credibility."
He added: "Many of the Commonwealth institutions were created in the 1960s and have structures and hierarchies that now seem outdated. It needs to modernise its institutions if it wants to be fit for purpose in the 21st century."
The Commonwealth Foundation, a charitable trust aimed at promoting co-operation between professional bodies in the member states, has also been split since a decision last year to cut direct funding for HIV and Aids prevention programmes by more than half.
The internal dispute came to a boil last October when the woman in charge of the programmes, Anisha Rajapakse, was suspended, escorted out of the foundation and then summarily dismissed, on the basis of allegations by an intern.
According to the foundation, the intern alleged that Rajapakse had tried to persuade her to forge a letter purported to come from a civil society group complaining about the cut in funding.
However, the intern, Elizabeth Pimentel, wrote to the foundation's board of governors in August distancing herself from the allegations.
In her letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, Pimentel said her name had been "wrongly connected" with the disciplinary action against Rajapakse, and that she had not wanted remarks she made to the management "to be construed as a complaint at any point".
She added: "My discussions have been misinterpreted and used out of context."
Rajapakse and Pimentel both refused to comment on the dispute, which is due to go before an employment tribunal in December.
Two other members of the foundation's 20-strong staff have started grievance procedures against its director, Mark Collins. A secretariat staff member said: "There is a climate of fear at the Foundation. Everyone is afraid of doing something the director does not like because of what happened to Anisha."
Collins said it was an "undesirable situation" to be the focus of so many staff complaints at the same time but denied that there was any systemic problem at the foundation.
He said Pimentel had not formally withdrawn her original allegation against Rajapakse. "At the time, she felt that an investigation was justified," he said, suggesting Pimentel had since become "fearful" over the impending employment tribunal.

Sri Lanka: International inquiry needed to address alleged war crimes

14 October 2010

AI Index: PRE01/341/2010

Amnesty International has declined an invitation to appear before Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and calls again for an international inquiry into the evidence of war crimes and other abuses during the civil war.

In a joint letter released today, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group announced that they would not appear before the Commission, saying it did not meet international standards for independent and impartial inquiries.

“Amnesty International would welcome the opportunity to appear before a credible commission of inquiry aimed at securing accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka”, said Madhu Malhotra, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific. “We believe effective domestic inquiries are essential to human rights protection and accountability. But the LLRC falls far short of what is required”.

Like its predecessors, the LLRC exists against a backdrop of continuing government failure to address accountability and continuing human rights abuses. Amnesty International documented Sri Lanka’s long history of impunity and the failed Presidential Commission of Inquiry in its 2009 report Twenty Years of Make-believe; Sri Lanka’s Commissions of Inquiry.

“The LLRC’s mandate, its composition, its procedures, and the human rights environment in which it is operating all conspire to make a safe and satisfactory outcome for victims of human rights violations and their families extremely unlikely”, said Madhu Malhotra. “Amnesty International is particularly concerned about the lack of any provisions for witness protection and the fact that former officials who have publicly defended the Sri Lankan government against allegations of war crimes serve on the commission”.

Amnesty International has received numerous credible reports from witnesses that both the government security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) committed serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law during the armed conflict, particularly in the final months of the war. Some of their testimony was included in Amnesty International’s 2009 briefing “Unlock the Camps; Safety and Dignity For The Displaced Now”. But the LLRC’s mandate does not requires it to investigate these allegations, which include summary executions, torture, attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and other war crimes.
“The hundreds of civilians who sought to testify before the LLRC in Killinochchi in September did so without guarantees of protection or any real hope of justice. Their willingness to come forward shows the need of Sri Lanka’s war survivors for news about what happened to missing relatives and for justice”, said Madhu Malhotra. “If the Sri Lankan government is serious about accountability and reconciliation, it must be serious about truth and justice for these people. Any credible commission must be given adequate scope and resources to allow for individuals to receive a fair hearing and sufficient authority to ensure redress. It must also treat all witnesses in a safe and humane fashion.”

Amnesty International remains committed to contribute to any genuine effort in Sri Lanka to find a just way forward from the decades of civil war and human rights abuses.

Associated links:

Joint Letter to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA37/015/2010/en

Twenty Years of Make Believe, Sri Lanka’s Commissions of Inquiry

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA37/005/2009/en

Unlock the Camps

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA37/016/2009/en

Dublin Tribunal finds against Sri Lanka on charges of War Crimes

http://www.ifpsl.org/

http://www.pptsrilanka.org/The People's Tribunal on Sri Lanka

Former UN asst secretary general urges inquiry into Sri Lankan rights violations

Event Details

Lecture by Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations (6 Oct 2010)

Click for large image

Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations will speak on Wednesday 6th October at 2pm, on the topic of the "Dublin Tribunal verdict on Sri Lanka - what is to be done ?"

About Dennis Halliday
Denis Halliday resigned from his 34 year old career in the UN because of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the Security Council. Laureate of the Gandhi International Peace Award;
former United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq (1997-1998). In 2000 Dennis Halliday was jointly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize with Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness, the campaign against sanctions on Iraq.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Denis J. Halliday, a national of Ireland, to the post of United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. In October 1998 he resigned after a 34 year career with the UN. He did so to free himself of the constraints imposed on him by the Secretary-General and thereby speak out publicly on the terrible impact of UN economic sanctions on the people of Iraq. Prior to that, and from mid 1994, Mr. Halliday served as Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management of the United Nations, based in its New York Headquarters. Mr. Halliday has spent most of his long career with the United Nations in development and humanitarian assistance-related posts both in New York and overseas, primarily in South-East Asia. Following a year in Kenya as a Quaker volunteer 1962-63, Mr. Halliday joined the United Nations in 1964 serving in Teheran, Iran as a junior professional officer in the forerunner of UNDP - the United Nations Technical Assistance Board and Special Fund. From 1966 to 1972, he served in the Asia Bureau of UNDP Headquarters in New York and then transferred to Malaysia in 1972. In Malaysia, covering programmes in that country plus Singapore and Brunei, he served until 1977 as Deputy Regional Representative. In Indonesia, he continued at the Deputy level for two years until 1979, when he was asked to reopen and head up as Resident Representative the UNDP office in Samoa covering that country, the Cook Islands, the Tokelau Islands and Niue in the South Pacific. In 1985, he took up the post of Deputy Director, Division of Personnel before becoming Chef de Cabinet in 1987.

A brief introduction to the Follow-up events (DCU and TCD) of the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka

The Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) (successor to the Bertrand Russell Tribunal) conducted a People’s Tribunal on the war in Sri Lanka and its aftermath in Dublin in January 2010. Following its investigations the Tribunal found the Sri Lankan government guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ten-member expert panel of judges of the Tribunal also declared that the International Community, particularly the UK and USA, share responsibility for the breakdown of the peace process. The EU was also held responsible for the obstruction of the peace process. There were over 20 witnesses who testified at the Tribunal. Many of them were surviors of the last phase of war who managed to flee the country. The former head of the Nordic monitoring mission of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in Sri Lanka gave evidence at the Tribunal Video footages from the war-torn region were presented before the panel of judges while a large number of written affidavits were also taken into consideration by the PPT.

The panel of judges comprised of internationally renowned former UN officers, academics and peace and human rights campaigners. The panel was chosen by the PPT from across the Global South and North in order to transcend geopolitical barriers and to ensure that its findings are both credible and ethically binding. The People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka (PTSL) was supported by a large number of individuals and human rights and peace organisations throughout the world. It was organised by the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL). Ireland was chosen because of its historical status as a post-colonial nation, the success of the Northern Ireland peace process, and its traditional policy of neutrality.

Please visit the following website for the full report of the Tribunal:
http://www.ifpsl.org/

http://www.pptsrilanka.org

( This contains some video footages)

Venue:
QG13

On Ban's “Abnormal” Understanding with Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa, UN Won't Answer

On Ban's “Abnormal” Understanding with Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa,

UN Won't Answer

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 1, 2010 -- The UN's stonewalling on Sri Lanka expanded on October 1 with the Spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon dodging whether Ban reached a private understanding with President Mahinda Rajapaksa that Rajapaksa could represent what Ban said in a one on one meeting about the limits of the UN war crimes panel.

“It's up to individual heads of state” to issue whatever summaries they want, Spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

But did Ban reach an understanding with Rajapaksa, that he could say things not included in Ban's own summary of their meeting? Nesirky did not answer. Video here, from Minute 47:28.

Inner City Press asked again, as it has for months, for a desciption of Ban's contacts with Rajapaksa, including before and as Ban became Secretary General.

After having promised already to provide the answer, Nesirky on October 1 said he didn't understand the question: a list of meetings? Yes, of meetings and topics and whether Ban considers Rajapaksa a personal friend.

How else to explain what Ban's adviser Nicholas Haysom called the “abnormal” summary of the two men's meeting -- which unlike other UN summaries included the President's as well as Ban's words -- and the separate understanding about Rajapaksa issuing his own summary?

Nesirky has still refused to explain how the “abnormal” summary of Ban's meeting with Rajapaksa was produced. Hayson, for one, seemed surprised to see its content.

That Nesirky couldn't or wouldn't explain how it was produced implies that Nesirky was not involved in his preparation. Who was, then?

On the question of Ban's son in law Siddarth Chatterjee's involvement in Sri Lanka, with the Indian army force, Nesirky deemed it “irrelevant” two weeks after saying he would answer it. On October 1, Inner City Press asked if Nesirky had even deigned to ask Ban or his Office about it -- that is, whether Nesirky had the answer and wouldn't provide it, or didn't even have the answer. Even this was not answered.

UN's Ban and Rajapaksa September 2010, understanding not shown

Nesirky concluded by repeating that there are a lot of other issues than Sri Lanka: the Middle East, Myanmar...

After Inner City Press agreed but noted that Sri Lanka is the only country in which Ban has been burned in effigy - and from which people protested his speech at a midtown Manhattan hotel -- and that an “abnormal” summary of his meeting with the President had been issued, Nesirky asked if Inner City Press was saying that because of the burning in effigy, the summary was different. Perhaps it was a rhetorical question.

UN Blatantly Turns Blind Eye As Sri Lanka Becomes Nation of Totalitarianism

The Seoul Times Global Views Special Contribution By Heike Winnig Tamil civilians held in internment camps in Sri Lanka With the 18th amendment in his pocket and control of the Election Commission assured, President Mahinda Rajapaksa will remain president of Sri Lanka for life. With the Sri Lankan parliament’s passing of the 18th amendment empowering this man with utter and complete command of the small island nation, Sri Lanka’s tyranny and domination is unstoppable. Sri Lanka’s future is sealed. "Rajapaksa Looks to His New Era," published on Sept. 11, 2010 by Sudha Ramachandran on Asia Times Online, exemplifies that: "By its very definition, an executive presidency is anti-democratic. In Sri Lanka, it has been more so, as checks and balances have been steadily whittled away, enabling successive presidents to function in an authoritarian manner. This has prompted calls for abolition of the executive presidency." In September 2006, an opinion on The Hindu reported that Mumbai based think-tank, Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), has confirmed what many long feared: Sri Lanka has emerged as one of the most militarized society in South Asia. The study, "Cost of conflict in Sri Lanka," says the island nation has 8,000 military personnel per one million population. Even Pakistan, of which it is said that while every country has an army the Pakistan army has a country, has only half that number, 4,000 military personnel per one million capita. The figures for other South Asian countries are: Nepal 2,700; India 1,300; and Bangladesh 1,000. Sri Lanka also had the greatest military expenditure of gross domestic product (GDP). “Even among the conflict-afflicted countries there could be very few that have witnessed the level of militarization seen in Sri Lanka. The study has established a direct linkage between the ongoing ethnic conflict and the steep rise in defense spending.” For reporters and journalists, it still is one of the most dangerous places in the world. [ full story ]

B B C-Sri Lankan government urged to say sorry for war years

23 September 2010 Last updated at 12:34 ET
By Charles Haviland BBC News, Sri Lanka

Both the army and the Tamil Tigers are accused of human rights abuses

A business leader in Sri Lanka has called on the government to apologise for itself and on behalf of previous regimes for suffering during the war.

It was the latest in a series of submissions given to a government-appointed commission examining the final years of the conflict.
It has also emerged that witnesses in the north accused the armed forces of killing civilians in shell attacks.
The government says that defeated Tamil Tiger militants are to blame.
Former Ceylon Chamber of Commerce President Chandra Jayarathne said that after its victory celebrations last year the government should have undergone what he called a "process of atonement".
He said that he hoped the commission would lead to a "public expression of regret and apology on behalf of all the leaders and governments of the past, specifically to the war victims and to the nation at large".
Mr Jayarathne also said that, among other things, there was a perception that disappearances and arbitrary arrests were still continuing.
According to accounts emerging from the panel's visit to what was the Tamil Tigers' last stronghold earlier this week, a Tamil civilian who fled the war zone accused the navy of repeatedly shelling refugee boats as they crossed a lagoon to escape, even though they shouted that they were civilians.
Eight people were killed.
In separate testimony, a woman also described how her daughter and son-in-law were also killed by shells as they fled.
Witnesses accused the Tamil Tigers of violently trying to stop them from escaping.
The BBC was barred from the proceedings in the north - these accounts came from Tamil-language newspapers.

More on This Story

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B B C- Rights groups chastises Sri Lanka over rebel detentions

27 September 2010 Last updated at 07:00 ET

The ICJ says detention of nearly 8,000 former Tamil Tigers violates international conventions

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) says Sri Lanka has failed to adhere to international law in detaining suspected Tamil Tigers.

The watchdog says the detention of nearly 8,000 rebel suspects for months without a trial is perhaps "the largest mass detention in the world".
It urges Sri Lanka's donors and the UN to urge Colombo to improve its human rights situation.
It also questions the reasons for continuing the state of emergency.
The human rights watchdog says there is a "legal vacuum" over the detention of former Tamil Tiger "surrendees".
There has so far been no response to the report from the Sri Lankan government.
The ICJ says that the donor support for Sri Lanka "must be provided only on condition of compliance with international law and standards, or else risk complicity in a policy of systematic mass arbitrary detention".
The ICJ however recognised the progress made in terms of releasing displaced people from camps and in releasing 565 former child soldiers after rehabilitation.
The government argues that the threat posed by the Tamil Tigers still exists despite their military victory over them in May 2009.
It says it is important to keep the state of emergency until the process of vetting them is over.
Addressing the UN General Assembly last week, President Mahinda Rajapaksa called for a rethink of international rules governing the conduct of war.
But the watchdog questions the reasons for maintaining emergency regulations and the Preventing of Terrorism Act (PTA).
"Conditions on the ground cannot be considered to give rise to a threat to the life of the nation so far as to justify a state of emergency," the ICJ said.

UNROW Calls for Establishment of War Crimes Tribunal for Sri Lanka

September 23, 2010 By UNROW Staff

Tamil refugees in Sri Lanka, September 2008.

In 2009 the multi-decade conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government ended in a devastating battle. The Sri Lanka government had pushed the rebel group, as well as Tamil civilians who were not affiliated with the group, into a small region in northeastern Sri Lanka. Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group reported thousands of civilian deaths, as the government indiscriminately bombed the region, and the rebel group did not allow civilians to leave for safer areas. Although there is international concern about the crimes committed by the rebel group, less attention is being paid to those perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government.
On September 22, 2010, the UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic, based out of the American University Washington College of Law, released a new report calling for the establishment of a new international tribunal to prosecute those most responsible for the crimes committed during the conflict. A press release and link to the report is below.
—————
Human Rights Group Calls on the United Nations to Establish War Crimes Tribunal for Sri Lanka
September 22, 2010—The U.N. panel appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should promptly recommend the establishment of an international tribunal for war crimes committed by Sri Lankan security forces against Tamil civilians, states a white paper released today by the UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic (UNROW) at American University Washington College of Law.
On behalf of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, which is represented by UNROW, UNROW demands that justice be given to the Tamil population victimized by the Sri Lankan government.
Evidence indisputably shows that Sri Lankan security forces committed grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law against the Tamil civilian population during the civil war, notes the paper. Sri Lankan security forces willfully and deliberately bombed or attacked Tamil civilian hospitals, schools, and other non-military buildings, as well as “safety” or “no-fire” zones. There is ample evidence demonstrating that the Sri Lankan government targeted Tamil civilians in an effort to destroy their culture and population. Nearly 7,000 civilians were reportedly killed in the five-month period from January to April 2009 alone. Such attacks on civilians are prohibited by international humanitarian law.
The Sri Lankan government has denied any responsibility for civilian deaths. In June 2010, the Secretary-General established a three-member panel to advise him on the Sri Lankan government’s efforts to implement accountability measures for alleged human rights violations. But the Sri Lankan government has prevented the panel from being admitted into the country. During the summer, government officials led chaotic protests against the panel.
The panel’s work is now officially under way. The open hostility of the Sri Lankan government toward accountability, however, shows that Sri Lanka is unlikely to implement any forthcoming recommendations from the United Nations, noted UNROW’s paper.
“The U.N. Security Council has an opportunity to reaffirm its intolerance of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations by establishing a temporary international tribunal to investigate and try alleged Sri Lankan war criminals,” states the paper. Moreover, UNROW stressed that the U.N. Security Council has the authority and a wealth of precedents to establish a tribunal pursuant to its mandate to maintain and restore international peace and security.
The accountability process must not be entrusted, in any measure, to the Sri Lankan government. Only an international tribunal—bringing with it impartiality, independence, and expertise—can provide the justice that the Tamils need and deserve. The paper calls attention to the features that are necessary for such a tribunal.
Contact UNROW by phone at 202-274-4088, email at unrowclinic@wcl.american.edu, or mail at UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic, American University Washington College of Law, 4801 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 to obtain copies of the white paper.
An electronic copy of the report is available here (.PDF).

B B C-Tamil language disserves due recognition

Tamil language disserves due recognition

	Ven. Dr.Bellanwila Wimalaratana

A leading Buddhist monk has claimed that Tamils have had to face numerous difficulties as they have not been able to use their mother tongue as desired.

The Ven. Dr.Bellanwila Wimalaratana Nayaka thera said that it is high time that the Tamil language be given due recognition.

The Venerable Dr Bellanwila Wimalaratana thera, the Viharadhipathi of the Bellanwila Raja MahaVihara who is also the Vice chancellor of the Sri Jayawardanapura University was giving evidence at the Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation.

Unjust

“We must sincerely admit that Tamils have been unjustly treated on language issue” said Dr Wimalaratna thera.

The prelate said that although Tamil is accepted as an official language even today many Tamils are deprived of using Tamil when conducting business.

The Ven.Wimalaratna pointed out that fair language use would help promote the concept of Sri Lanka citizenship among Tamils.

Referring to the past, the prelate said that it is not correct to blame the Language policy of 1956 which promoted Sinhala, for the current lapse of giving due recognition to the Tamil Language.

“Accepting Sinhala as the state language is not the issue, that was a necessity, but Tamil should have been given due recognition” said Venerable Dr Bellanwila Wimalaratana

Tamils intimidated

	Mavi Senathi Raja

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Mavai Senathiraja has complained that those Tamils who gave evidence at the Commission had been intimidated by comments made subsequently by the army.

Parliamentarian Mavai Senathiraja said that it was unfair for the military to comment on evidence through media. He pointed out that if necessary the military could also give evidence at the Commission.

Atrocities committed by srilankan government against Tamils
http://www.srilankanatrocities.com/

Sri Lanka bans BBC from covering civil war hearings

17 September 2010 Last updated at 22:58 ET

The public hearings are due to hear from Tamil civilians displaced by the civil war

The BBC has been blocked from covering public hearings about Sri Lanka's civil war in former rebel-held territory.

For three days, civilians will have the chance to give evidence on life under the Tamil Tigers or LTTE.
The government says the Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation is working to prevent a repeat of the conflict.
A senior defence ministry official said he could not allow the BBC to attend the sittings, due to start on Saturday.
An important part of the commission's work is to meet ordinary Tamil civilians who were displaced by the war and suffered severe trauma, injury or the loss of close family members.
This weekend the panel will travel to Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu - a former Tamil Tiger heartland in the north of the country.
The panel will travel to the lagoon which was the scene of some of the last fighting and across which many people fled from the guerrilla-controlled zone.
Many of the hearings on this trip will be held in public but the defence ministry has rejected an application by BBC News to witness the panel's activities on this leg of their mission.

The military liaison officer declined to give any reasons.
In August, the BBC attended panel hearings in an unrestricted part of the north but was not allowed to attend its meetings in camps with refugees and suspected former rebels.
Sri Lankan government officials regularly accuse journalists, both foreign and domestic, of bias against the administration.
On Monday, a newspaper editor told the commission that he believed such perceptions were made worse by the systematic restrictions on reporters wishing to travel in the north.

UN Happy Talk from Ban & Spokesman, No Sudan, No Sri Lanka or Congo Accountability

UN Happy Talk from Ban & Spokesman, No Sudan, No Sri Lanka or Congo Accountability

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 13 -- Ban Ki-moon and his team, trying to manipulate the media, will attempt to use the upcoming UN General Debate to nail down a second term for “Mister Ban,” UN

UN Happy Talk from Ban & Spokesman, No Sudan, No Sri Lanka or Congo Accountability

Rajapaksa’s new powers are unnecessary and dangerous,

Sri Lanka's constitutional amendment

Sri Lanka's constitutional amendment

Eighteenth time unlucky

Mahinda Rajapaksa’s new powers are unnecessary and dangerous

Sep 9th 2010 | from the print edition

NATIONAL constitutions come in two main types. Some are prescriptive, enshrining freedoms, curtailing the powers of the state and generally hampering would-be dictators. Others, however, tend to the descriptive, and are often revised to catch up with changes that have already happened. Into this class can be put Sri Lanka’s 1978 constitution, this week amended for the 18th time, with unseemly haste.

The Sri Lanka described in the revised charter is not a pretty place. It is one where the forms of parliamentary democracy are preserved but the substance has become subordinated to almost untrammelled presidential power. With the opposition divided, his rival in the presidential election in January in detention and his popularity still high, President Mahinda Rajapaksa already seems monarch of all he surveys.

The amendment changes the constitution in two main ways. The first is to remove the bar on the president’s serving more than two six-year terms. First elected president in 2005, and then re-elected with a thumping majority in January, Mr Rajapaksa has in fact not even started his second term. But he seems to be settling in for the long haul.

As government spokesmen have pointed out, however, Sri Lanka’s voters will at least have the chance to turf him out in six years’ time. That is why it is the second change that is more pernicious. It is (such is the way of descriptive constitutions) to overturn the 17th amendment. This was an admittedly muddled attempt to curb the powers of the “executive presidency”, partly through a “constitutional council”. After the latest change, the constitution will both grant the president immunity and also give him final authority over all appointments to the civil service, the judiciary and the police. He is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Almost the only formal constraint on him—electoral considerations aside—is an obligation to show up in parliament once a quarter.

Sri Lanka, goes the argument of Mr Rajapaksa’s cheerleaders, needs a strong executive to seize the chances of peaceful development offered by last year’s victory in the 26-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers. But confusingly they also point to that victory—grasped with a ruthlessness that shocked many of Sri Lanka’s foreign friends—as evidence of the virtues of a powerful presidency. Indeed, whatever problems Sri Lanka’s political system suffers from, the weakness of the presidency, which is already directly responsible for over 90 institutions, is not one of them. Quite the contrary: Mr Rajapaksa himself, before he tasted its benefits first-hand, used to campaign for the abolition of the executive presidency.

His new vision of further strengthening the president’s powers has been greeted with an outcry from Sri Lanka’s liberals, but few mass protests. The public must feel bewildered by it all. The change was pushed through as an “urgent” parliamentary bill in under two weeks from the draft’s first appearance, thanks to Mr Rajapaksa’s recent acquisition of the requisite two-thirds majority. Such important changes should have been put to a referendum. Mr Rajapaksa might well have won one. But a campaign would at least have thrown the issues open to public debate and scrutiny.

Because he can

The only urgent compulsions facing Mr Rajapaksa and his brothers (two have senior jobs in his government and a third is the parliament’s speaker) are those of parliamentary arithmetic and personal popularity. Still basking in the glow of military and electoral triumphs, the president has done in haste what he knows he can get away with. That he has preferred to put the consolidation of his family’s power ahead of a sorely needed national reconciliation with an aggrieved Tamil minority is a decision Sri Lanka will repent at leisure.

U.S. says Sri Lanka amendment undermines democracy

– Sat Sep 11, 10:25 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Saturday condemned Sri Lanka's passage of a constitutional amendment granting the president vast new powers, saying it undermined democracy.
Sri Lanka's parliament on Wednesday voted for the measure sought by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which removes a presidential two-term limit and grants him more power over appointments to the police, judiciary, public service and electoral commissions.
"The United States is concerned that this constitutional amendment weakens checks and balances and thus undermines the principles of constitutional democracy," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in a statement.
Crowley called on Rajapaksa's government to take steps to strengthen independent institutions, increase transparency and promote national reconciliation in the Indian Ocean nation, which is recovering from a long civil war.
The government argued the constitutional change was justified to give Rajapaksa, whose second term ends in 2017, time to build Sri Lanka's $42 billion economy after victory over the Tamil Tiger separatists last year.
Opposition and rights groups criticized the measure as a blow to democracy and a step toward dictatorship by Rajapaksa, who parlayed last year's victory over the rebels into a re-election to a second term in January and a landslide for his United Peoples Freedom Alliance party in parliament in April.
However, critics accuse him of stifling dissent, jailing opponents and disregarding the rule of law as he holds an office with almost unchecked control of the government.
Sri Lanka's relationship with Western nations was strained earlier this year after it objected to a decision by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint an independent panel to assess whether crimes were committed during the final months of Sri Lanka's war against the Tamil rebels in May 2009.
Rights groups said the U.N. panel was necessary because Sri Lanka appeared unwilling to seriously investigate possible abuses itself.
The government denies any war crimes took place, but rights groups say that both the government and the Tamil Tigers were guilty of human rights violations that resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths.
(Reporting by Andrew Quinn; editing by Vicki Allen)

Sri Lanka urged to ensure safety of detained former asylum-seekers

Sri Lanka urged to ensure safety of detained former asylum-seekers

© Robyn Stevenson">

Two of the men were detained on Christmas Island before their forced return to Sri Lanka

© Robyn Stevenson

3 September 2010

Amnesty International has called on the Sri Lankan government to ensure the safety of three men who have been tortured and jailed following their forced return from Australia in 2009.

Two of the men, Sumith Mendis and Lasantha Wijeratne, were transferred to a hospital to be examined by a judicial medical officer on 1 September amid claims that they were beaten and tortured following an alleged new attempt to migrate to Australia. It is not clear if they are still in hospital or have returned to prison.

All three are at risk of further abuse from guards and prisoners when they are returned to prison where Sumith's brother, Indika, is already being held.

"This is an appalling situation that calls into question the actions of both the Sri Lankan and Australian governments," said Madhu Malhotra, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for Asia.

"Both governments are culpable in the forced return and mistreatment these men have endured, and both must bear responsibility for the results of their policies and procedures."

Sumith Mendis and Indika Mendis were detained in 2009 at the Christmas Island detention centre after the boat they were crew members on was stopped by Australian authorities and found to be carrying Sri Lankan asylum-seekers.

They were deported to Sri Lanka and promptly arrested and handed over to the Central Investigative Department (CID).

Sumith Mendis was released, but Indika Mendis was tortured in CID custody, sustaining severe ear injuries before being transferred to the notorious Negombo prison where he was held for eight months.

On 14 August 2010, the brothers were arrested again, apparently on suspicion that they were again planning to migrate to Australia. Sumith Mendis was then tortured by the CID for six days, experiencing beatings and psychological abuse.

On 22 August, the brothers were taken to Negombo prison, along with Lasantha Wijeratne, another Sri Lankan who had also been deported from Australia and tortured in custody.

Following examination by a judicial medical officer, Sumith Mendis and Lasantha Wijeratne were transferred to the hospital.

They now face the risk of abuse by both prisoners and guards when they are again taken to Negombo prison unless authorities take the necessary steps to ensure their safety.

"The Sri Lankan Authorities must ensure that all three men are not subject to any more torture or ill-treatment, either at the hands of the CID or prisoners or guards in Negombo prison," said Madhu Malhotra.

"The Australian government must re-examine its claims that asylum-seekers returned to countries they are fleeing from are not subjected to torture and mistreatment."

Read More

Australia asylum suspension could harm world's most vulnerable (News, 9 April 2010)

Sri Lanka is still denying civilian deaths

• 

All attempts to investigate atrocities in the Tamil Tiger conflict have been stifled, despite promises made to Ban Ki-moon

• 
• Peter Bouckaert Sunday 5 September 2010 16.59 BST
• 
  

During the Vietnam conflict, the US military developed some creative ways to increase the numbers of Viet Cong insurgents it claimed to have killed. "If they're dead, they're Viet Cong," meant that any Vietnamese killed by American soldiers would automatically count as enemy fighters.
Sri Lanka's defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has taken such creative accounting to new heights. The United Nations reported that at least 7,000 civilians were killed and tens of thousands wounded during the final months of the brutal conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in May 2009. But Gotabhaya has repeatedly cast aspersions on the idea that there were any civilian casualties.
In his recent statement before a Sri Lankan commission looking at lessons learned from the war, Gotabhaya claimed that injured Tigers "changed their uniforms into civilian clothes" and that the Tigers must have suffered at least 6,000 dead and 30,000 injured – suggesting those counted as civilian casualties were really just Tamil Tiger fighters who had shed their uniforms.
As for the widespread war crimes and human rights abuses by both sides reported both during and after the conflict by various UN agencies, the US state department and human rights organisations, the defence secretary seems to be suffering from severe amnesia. He told the Lessons Learned Commission: "No complaints about human rights violations or abuses by the army were brought to my notice. None at all."
Despite the promises made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in June 2009 to investigate wartime atrocities, as well as Sri Lanka's international legal obligations to investigate alleged laws of war violations, the president and his brothers in power have not lifted a finger to do so. The president often appears stunned when other governments both praise the government's victory yet insist on accountability for laws of war violations.
Gotabhaya also proclaimed that the military operation was a really a "humanitarian intervention" in which "we took great care to avoid [endangering] civilians … our military had to stop operations and give protection to people, food convoys." In practice, however, rather than protecting civilians, the government blocked access by humanitarian organisations. The International Committee of the Red Cross complained publicly that it was unable to reach those most in need.
There are genuine concerns that the Lessons Learned Commission will serve only to whitewash allegations of serious abuses, and that its conclusions will be used to brush off calls for an international investigation. The panel's mandate is deliberately limited: its main responsibility is to understand the reasons for the collapse of the 2002 ceasefire agreement, and there is no express mandate to investigate laws of war violations.
The government clearly wants to avoid an honest attempt to find the truth. During a BBC interview in June, Gotabhaya threatened to have the commander behind the final military offensive, Gen Sarath Fonseka, executed after he promised to co-operate with investigations into wartime violations. The government took Fonseka – who earlier this year unsuccessfully ran against the president – to court martial, where he was convicted, essentially cutting him off from any capacity to challenge the Rajapaksa version of events.
The government announced in June that it will deny visas to the members of a UN expert panel established to advise Secretary General Ban on mechanisms for accountability. For those who didn't get the message, protests against the panel led by a government minister outside the UN compound in Colombo should have: this government has no interest in investigating abuses and providing victims a measure of justice.
Add to this the continued suppression of government critics, civil society, and media, the restricted access for independent monitors to the northern and eastern parts of the country where the fighting occurred, the lack of information about an estimated 8,000 suspected Tamil Tiger fighters currently detained in "rehabilitation camps," and the conditions are ripe for a complete rewrite of history.
What the Lessons Learned Commission makes of the testimony it receives remains to be seen. One would hope that it would see the government's version of events for what it is: a cynical fabrication designed to avoid scrutiny. Unfortunately, there is every reason to fear that the panel will believe the story that is being spun by the Rajapaksa brothers, which basically runs to the formula from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland: "Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't."

'Anti-Tamil ideology, international meddling make reconciliation impossible'

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 14:42 GMT]

In a recent paper titled "Why National Reconciliation in Sri Lanka Is Not Possible," Brian Senewiratne, a renowned physician and an Australia based Sinhala expatriate, says although he had realized that ‘national reconciliation’ in Sri Lanka was ‘totally unrealistic’, after witnessing the major human rights violations inflicted upon the Tamil people, what has made the reconciliation really ‘impossible’ was the most serious recent slaughter of Tamils with features of genocide. In addition, what makes reconciliation ‘most unlikely’ is ‘international meddling’ and ‘power play’, he argues. The 78-year-old member of the Bandaranaike family, who is a long-time defender of the Eezham Tamil cause, also argues in his paper that even the real development of the Sinhala areas is not possible if the ‘developmental power’ is left in the hands of those in Colombo.

Dr Brian Senewiratne

“I firmly believe that without this international meddling, the IMF included, left to the Sri Lankans, there might well have been a negotiated settlement and national reconciliation,” Dr. Senewiratne writes, recalling a proposal he put forward as far back as 1984, in which he advocated a 5-State solution.

“The divisions between the Sinhala majority and the brutalized Tamil minority is deepening. So are the divisions between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ in the Sinhala South. This division is set to get worse as a totally corrupt, ruthless and despotic regime implements the inhuman conditions demanded by the IMF.”

“The less fortunate are certainly 'spiraling downwards into crime and chaos'. Unfortunately, they do not have a powerful vocal expatriate community to jump up and down for them. That is the problem of being poor which I have seen, and sympathized with, for years.”

“The role of the expatriate Tamil community, now more than a million, is to get the facts across to the international community that the Sri Lankan government is lying and has no intention of national reconciliation. To do this, the facts must be known, which is why I have put these together in this publication,” he further writes in his 27-page paper.
. Full story >>

• Full text: Why National Reconciliation in Sri Lanka Is Not Possible

Sri Lanka's presumptive war-criminal to take UN job in New York

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2010, 00:02 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative (DPR) to the United Nation's post in New York, vacant following the recall of previous DPR, Bandula Jayasekera, after an alleged sexual harassment scandal, is reported to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, former 58th Division commander, who has been accused of committing war crimes by his former General Sarath Fonseka, Inner City Press reported. Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law, commenting on this reported UN job said, "the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) is trying to sanitize and immunize their genocidaires/war criminals and thus regularize it all."

Shavendra Silva

The reported appointment follows two similar appointments of alleged war-criminals, Major General Jagath Dias as a diplomat to Germany, and the Chief of Staff of Sri Lanka’s forces during the war, Donald Perera, as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Israel.

Currently a member of Sri Lanka parliament, Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Sarath Fonseka in an earlier media interview had said, Gen. Silva "had received orders to shoot at sight LTTE suspects who came with white flags to surrender to the army during the final stage of war.”

• Report: Satellite images confirm PTK attacks (5Mb)

Shavendra Silva's 58th division was one of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) divisions that had been the longest embedded division in prosecuting the final war. Starting in September 2007 in Silavaturai in the western coast, Silva's division was instrumental in displacing civilians from the western shores to the eastern killing fields in Mullaitivu in Jan 2009, according timeline published in Sri Lanka Government controlled Daily News.

The slaughter of civilians took place during the first five months of 2009.

• Barak Appoints War Criminal Yaron

Professor Boyle said Israel adopted similar tactics in appointing Brigadier General Amos Yaron, who had alleged complicity in the Sabra and Shatila camp massacre in September 1982, to Military Attache post in U.S. and Canada. While Canada refused Yaron's appointment, U.S. due to intense lobbying by Arab-Americans, held up the appointment for three months before accepting Yaron's credentials.

A spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group said, "While issues related to Diplomatic Immunity may keep the war-criminals, once appointed, from being prosecuted, civil action would still serve to highlight the duplicity of International Organizations in accommodating alleged criminals in their staff positions, and will also keep Sri Lanka's war-crimes issue alive. Massacre of 40,000 civilians is an atrocious crime, and no effort on the part of Sri Lanka, except accepting an independent international investigation, would help to absolve the alleged war-criminals holding high positions in Sri Lanka from culpability to the alleged crimes."

Chronology:

27.08.10 Sri Lanka's presumptive war-criminal to take UN jo..

01.08.10 Dias case filed in European Court, German Ambassad..

24.07.10 Tamils sue Germany for accepting alleged war crime..

21.07.10 Tamil Country Councils, TAG announce legal partner..

:

At UN, Sri Lanka Move to Place Alleged War Criminal As Ambassador Questioned

At UN, Sri Lanka Move to Place Alleged War Criminal As Ambassador Questioned

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 25 -- Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN post, vacant following Bandula Jayasekera's department triggered by a sexual harassment scandal, is now reportedly slated to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, who “was allegedly among those mentioned by MP Sarath Fonseka in a media interview where he had said that the former 58 Division Commander had received orders to shoot at sight LTTE suspects who came with white flags to surrender to the army during the final stage of war.

At the UN on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, about this reported appointment and that of General G.A. Chandrasiri to replace Palitha Kohona as Permanent Representative. Video here, from Minute 53:36. While Nesirky said he wouldn't comment on hypotheticals, when Inner City Press asked if Ban would have some discretion to not accept credentials when presented, Nesirky said he would look into it. Shavendra Silva is clearly a witness to the war crime events about which Ban has appointed a (stalled) three member panel to advise him. Would appointing him an ambassador give him de facto or de jure diplomatic immunity? UN's Ban takes credentials from Kohona- is acceptance automatic? Inner City Press also asked Nesirky if the four month “clock” of Ban's panel of experts had finally begun. No, Nesirky said, the clock has not started but it is being wound. But why so slowly? Watch this site. Later on Wednesday Inner City Press asked a Sri Lankan diplomat about the reported new Deputy Perm Rep and Perm Rep. “It's not yet confirmed,” he answered, adding that the entire staff of the mission in New York might be replaced. * * *