The Minister’s daughter has complained to senior embassy officials that Silva had forcibly dragged her into his office and tried to abuse her and that she had managed to escape after giving a good
Sri Lanka’s deputy U.N. ambassador has been dropped from a group advising Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on payment to troops participating in U.N. peacekeeping operations, the Associated Press reported today.
According to the report, the group’s chair, former U.N. deputy secretary-general Louise Frechette, said in a statement Wednesday that after consulting other members she had advised Major General Shavendra Silva “that his participation is not appropriate or helpful.”
Silva was a top commander during the final stages of the country’s civil war.
Frechette gave no further explanation, but Silva headed Division 58, which was named in a U.N. report in connection with alleged war crimes.
If members of the UNHRC in Geneva haven't heard this one, they certainly should... this government was willing to wound, kidnap, rape and slaughter journalists.
Body of reporter Shoba 'Isaippiriya' lies in foreground.
(SALEM) - As we mourn the death of Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin, in Serbia, we recall her dedicated work in Sri Lanka;
Marine Colvin - Sunday Times
where a government soldier threw a hand grenade that cost her an eye in 2001, while she reported on the fighting between Sri Lanka Army forces, and LTTE rebels from the north.
Marie was targeted by soldiers after identifying herself as a reporter. Resistance fighters with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) Tamil Tigers, said it was an act of deliberate targeting and cowardice.
"After she held up her press credentials, they lobbed a grenade at her," Marie's mother Rosemary Colvin told the Oyster Bay Pilot.
"She was arrested and tied up for 10 hours without medical care before the US State Department could get her out." This deliberate attempt to kill a civilian reporter followed by ten hours without medical care, constitutes a foul crime of war.
Timing is Everything
Now Sri Lanka's head hangs in a political guillotine as its leaders face the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, for war crime violations. Colvin's death is tragic, and her name is added to a long list of reporters, photographers and other media representatives who have been killed covering war. Sadly one of the longest lists of reporters killed in war leads us back to Sri Lanka and as I noted in my article, Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide: Killing the Messenger, One sure way to keep a national genocide out of world view is to slay the journalists who would reveal the information.
Shoba, who used the name 'Isaippiriya', has become familiar to many as
a victim of the Sri Lanka Genocide. She was a journalist, singer & actor.
While going over material sent to the newsroom this morning, I realized that I needed a new photo from the Sri Lanka Genocide of Tamils, not that I don't have several hundred, but I wanted something different, and in this process I ran into somebody I recognized. She isn't someone I actually know or had the pleasure of meeting, in fact sadly, it was a photo of her abused corpse that caught my attention. It was the body of Shoba, the young reporter who was Murdered in the horrific Genocide that raged across the north of this island from 2005 to 2009.
I have written about her, I've seen her image alive and she was beautiful, and talented, but mostly I've come to know her as a victim of the Sri Lanka army who was not only Murdered as a part of this government's ethnic cleansing program; she was raped, sexually brutalized, first.
This woman was only 27. Of course the government would tell you she was a "terrorist operative" because she worked for a television station operated by the famed Tamil Tigers. This resistance group officially known as the LTTE or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, protected the native population of Tamils, who account for only 15% to 20% of the population of Sri Lanka.
This is a shocking but extremely important video clip from Channel-4 in London, producers of 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields'
My question to all who support this war against the Tamil population is simple... was Shoba (and the tens of thousands of women killed) the real enemy, and did she deserve a bout of sexual depravity before being killed?
The argument drones on and on, Tamil Tigers are a terrorist group in that they absolutely did commit terrorist acts, a long list of them; however the violence began after Tamils had suffered 30 years of injustice. For three decades, the Tamils, who are mostly Hindu and partly Christian, practiced only a Gandhi-style form of non-violent resistance.
They did not want anything but autonomy, the desire was to form the breakaway state of Tamil Eelam and had they been able to, the Tamils would have secured among other things, equal rights and the preservation of their very culture, which was under threat on several fronts from the Buddhist Sinhalese government. It would have bruised the Sinhalese ego, but life could have gone on in harmony, I always believed that was the Buddhist way, but it is not, in the end all are the same human beings, incapable of resolving political strife without over controlling the minority population and too often resorting to violence..
While most Tamils live in India, Sri Lankan Tamils maintain words from the language that have been dropped from India, they have lived on Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was known for so many years under British occupation, for thousands of years. When the Tamils abandoned non-violent resistance, they struck government targets at first, but combat escalated greatly, and their culture became highly militaristic, that is a fact. The terrorist acts committed by the Tamil Tigers are horrific, but they were also an eventual, ultimate reaction.
A Life Cut Short
Shoba Isaippiriya
Isaippiriya was an LTTE media specialist
Shoba's nom de plume was Isaippiriya, she was loved by many.
The Sri Lanka military designated Isaippiriya a 'Lieutenant Colonel' in the LTTE. It is a promotion she never received, in fact this young woman suffered from health problems, she was a media specialist with the LTTE who produced reports forTamilNet. She never picked up a weapon, however she would die violently at the hands of Sri Lanka Army's 53 Division, on 18 May 2009.
When Isaippiriya's body was found, she had been stripped naked, with her hands tied behind her back. She had been sexually assaulted and shot dead, as seen in a video released Channel-4 in London.
She was TamilNet's Vanni correspondent. The LTTE did confirm that she had never taken part in military operations.
Shoba, a non-combatant, also lost her 6-month-old baby girl Akal
A source told TamilNet:
“
I am able to learn through those who have been at Mu'l'livaaykkaal in the final days of war, that Shoba remained unarmed and did not take part in combat.
”
Isaippiriya, who was born in 1982, graduated from Veampadi Girls High School in Jaffna in 1996. After the outbreak of war, she continued her studies in Vanni until joining the LTTE's media division. Her family says she was a gifted dancer.
She never took a life, yet in addition to losing her own life in the war, Shoba lost her 6-month-old baby girl Akal, this happened in the last stage of the war as Sri Lanka's politicians directed the indiscriminate bombardments of civilians. Akal suffered aspiration while in a bunker during a bombing at Kfir, TamilNet reports, she was taken to a hospital and died on 15 March 2009.
Of her death, TamilNet wrote:
“
Isaippriyaa’s case is a clear instance, raising many pertinent questions on behalf of thousands of victims like her, pointing at not only towards the Rajapaksa regime for the war crimes, but also towards the war crimes responsibility of the international system, the UN and the administrations of several countries.
”
The loss of Isaippiriya is especially significant because she was a well-known media personality.
Yet her fate was the same as so many tens of thousands who perished violently and against their will, often in front of their parents and children, far before their earthly time was through. The intentional grenade wounding of Marie Colvin in 2001, and the terrible ethnic cleansing Murder and sex abuse of Isaippiriya, are two of Sri Lanka's foulest and most disgusting war crimes, not just targeting journalists, but women. That is the bottom of the barrel for any country.
Terrorism and Genocide
Regarding the acts of the Tamil Tigers, I am often asked by Sinhalese Sri Lankans, if I am aware of the history of the LTTE and the suicide missions they carried out over the years. I would venture to think that literally any writer who studies and researches this subject, would learn immediately that the Tigers are truly synonymous with the inception of suicide bombing.
However these acts listed below, as horrific as many are, do not justify the mass slaughter of up to 160,000 people, that is the number of Tamils who ceased to exist after the summer of 2009. It is true that many are being held in captivity, and also that the status a large number of these political prisoners of war, remains a mystery.
This information is from IRIN, humanitarian news and analysis - a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, published as the conflict was still raging, on 28 April 2009: SRI LANKA: Conflict timeline
A chronology of key events
1972: Velupillai Prabhakaran forms a militant group called the Tamil New Tigers (TNT).
1976: TNT changes its name to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
1983, 23 July: LTTE attacks an army patrol in Jaffna, killing 13 soldiers and sparking anti-Tamil riots around the country, leaving several hundred dead.
1985, 8 July: Talks held between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE for the first time in Thimpu, Bhutan.
1987, 29 July: Indo-Sri Lanka pact signed between President JR Jayawardena and Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi. India deploys peace-keeping force to north and east Sri Lanka.
1990, 24 March: India withdraws troops due to clashes with the LTTE killing more than 1,200 Indian troops.
1990 June: LTTE kills hundreds of policemen in the east following breakdown of talks between the Tigers and the government of President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
1991, 21 May: Gandhi killed, allegedly by an LTTE suicide bomber.
1993, 1 May: Premadasa killed by LTTE suicide cadres during a May Day rally in Colombo.
1995, January: Government of Chandrika Kumaratunge and LTTE agree to talks.
1995, April: Talks fail after the Tigers blow up two navy vessels.
1995, 2 December: Jaffna, the northern cultural and political nerve centre of the Tamils, falls under Sri Lanka army control.
1996, 31 January: Suicide bomb attack on the Central Bank building in the heart of Colombo kills more than 100 and injures 1,400.
1996, 24 July: Alleged LTTE bomb blast in a railway station in Dehiwela, south of Colombo, kills 70.
1996, 18 July: Army camp overrun by the LTTE near the northeastern town of Mullaitivu. More than 1,000 troops killed.
1998, 25 January: Suicide bomb attack on Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist shrine, Dhaladha Maligawa (Temple of the Tooth), in the central town of Kandy, kills 17 people.
1998, 26 September: Tigers overrun Kilinochchi army camp, killing more than 1,000 government soldiers.
1999, December: LTTE attempts to assassinate President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge; who survives.
2000, April: LTTE recaptures Elephant Pass, inflicting heavy damage on the Sri Lankan forces during the operation Unceasing Waves III.
2001, July: An LTTE suicide attack on Bandaranaike International airport kills 14.
2002, 22 February: Ceasefire agreement, brokered by Norway, signed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and LTTE leader Prabhakaran.
2002, December: Government and LTTE agree to share power at peace talks in Norway.
2003 April: LTTE pulls out of talks after six rounds of negotiations, citing inadequate steps taken to rebuild war-hit areas.
2004, 3 March: LTTE eastern military head, Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan, alias Karuna Amman, splits from the LTTE.
2005, 7 February: LTTE political head for the eastern Districts of Batticaloa and Ampara, E. Kousalyan, killed with three others in Batticaloa town.
2005, 12 August: Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar killed by suspected LTTE snipers in Colombo.
2005, 4 December: The LTTE commences claymore and grenade attacks targeting the Sri Lankan troops in the Jaffna peninsula.
2006, 15 June: More than 60 civilians killed in claymore mine attack allegedly by LTTE, targeting a civilian bus in Kebithigollewa, nearly 200km from Colombo.
2006, 20 July: LTTE closes the sluice gates at Mavilaru, south of the eastern coastal town of Trincomalee. Clashes erupt as army launches operations to gain control and succeeds.
2007, 5 January: Bomb attacks on public transport begin in Nittambuwa, about 20km east of Colombo, killing six people. Several bombs target public transport in the following months. The government blames the LTTE for the attacks.
2007, March: LTTE carries out its first air raid on Katunayake air base, about 20km north of Colombo. The Tigers also conduct an air attack on 29 April during the Cricket World Cup Final. The attack targets two fuel-storage facilities on the outskirts of Colombo. The Tigers carry out at least nine air attacks before 20 February 2009.
2007, 15 January: Military captures Vakarai, a coastal town in Batticaloa District in the Eastern province.
2007, 11 July: military captures Thoppigala, the last of the LTTE strongholds in the east after 13 years, thereby regaining the entire eastern province from the LTTE.
2007, 2 November: LTTE political wing leader SP Tamilselvan killed in an air raid by the Sri Lankan Air Force.
2008, 2 January: The government says it will withdraw from ceasefire agreement and does so on 14 January and intensifies attacks on the Tigers. The LTTE, however, states it will stick to the agreement.
2008, September: All international humanitarian agencies and their foreign staff operating in the LTTE-controlled Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts are ordered by the government to relocate to Vavuniya.
2009, 2 January: Government troops capture Kilinochchi, de-facto capital of the LTTE, after 10 years.
2009, 25 January: Mullaithivu town captured by government troops.
2009, 12 February: Government declares a 12km-long "no fire zone" (NFZ) along the Mullaitivu western coast and calls on civilians to move into it for their own safety.
2009, 20 February: The LTTE conducts a suicide air attack in Colombo.
2008 March: Sri Lankan troops launch operations to regain areas in the Vanni from the western flank. The number of civilians in the NFZ continues to grow.
2009, 14 April: LTTE says it is ready for negotiations, but the government refuses the offer, insisting it should lay down arms.
2009, 20 April: Thousands of civilians trapped in the NFZ cross into government-controlled areas where they are screened and placed in camps. Government gives LTTE 24 hours to surrender.
2009, 22 April: Former LTTE media coordinator Velayutham Dayanidhi, alias Daya Master, and the translator of former LTTE political wing head SP Tamilselvan, Kumar Pancharathnam, alias George, surrender to the military.
2009, 26 April: The LTTE declares a unilateral ceasefire as government forces surround an ever-shrinking NFZ. The government rejects the declaration, calling it a "joke". The UN estimates 50,000 civilians remain trapped in the NFZ.
2009, 27 April: Facing with diplomatic pressure to declare a ceasefire, Sri Lanka says its military is no longer using heavy weaponry and aerial bombing against the remaining few hundred rebels still fighting in the NFZ.
2009, 28 April: With more than 150,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps in Vavuniya, Jaffna, Mannar and Trincomalee, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes urges that civilians who have been screened be given the chance to leave the camps and to rely on friends and family elsewhere.
In what appeared to be another diplomatic row with the United States, Sri Lanka’s permanent mission in Geneva has written to member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) alerting them against an email purported to have originated from the US mission to the UN seeking support for the resolution on Sri Lanka. According to Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Geneva Ms. Tamara Kunanayagam the email had given the impression that Sri Lanka had closely worked with the US in drafting the resolution on Sri Lanka to be presented at the 19th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Ambassador Kunanayagam has informed the 47-member countries in writing that that the US tried to create the impression in an email that it had been in close contact with the government of Sri Lanka and the country’s mission in Geneva to work collaboratively on issues of accountability and the implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).
“It has been brought to our attention that an e-mail dated February 21, purporting to have originated from the Mission of the United States to the United Nations and other International Organisations at Geneva, signed by one Miriam Shahrzard Schive has been sent to Member States of the Human Rights Council and Diplomatic Missions in Geneva. It seeks support for a resolution on Sri Lanka supposedly sponsored by the United States, which is to be presented to the Human Rights Council Sessions in March. This e-mail creates the impression that diplomatic officials of the US have been in close contact with the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as this Mission, to work, ‘collaboratively on issues of accountability (in Sri Lanka) and the implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s Report’. It goes on to express the hope that ‘the Sri Lankan Government will work with us on this Resolution’. It obliquely canvasses the position of a co-sponsorship of a Resolution and conveys a false impression that Sri Lanka is working with the United States on this Resolution,” she said in her letter to the heads of missions of member states.
She said, “Sri Lanka categorically states that at no time has the Government or its Mission in Geneva, ever worked with representatives of the United States on any Resolution on whatsoever. It is inaccurate and misleading to seek to create such an impression that Sri Lanka was consulted, has cooperated or in any other manner been part of such a process. Indeed, Sri Lanka has started on the implementation of the recommendations of the LLRC, among other initiatives to secure peace, prosperity and reconciliation for our people, in the aftermath of the thirty year conflict against separatist terrorism. We have consistently maintained that it is unnecessary, unhelpful and counterproductive to bring any resolution concerning this matter barely two months after the publication of the LLRC Report and more particularly in the context of implementation of its recommendations.
It is unfortunate that such an unethical distortion of the true position has been resorted to by interested parties who can only be pursuing some parallel agenda, seeking to achieve some collateral gain, given Sri Lanka’s commitment to engage constructively with its partners, its forthrightness in discussing issues pertaining to post conflict recovery and the realisation of positive developments within its territory pertaining to reconciliation and development. (Kelum Bandara reporting from Geneva)
CDSL's intention of this release is not to merely react and condemn the killing of unarmed civilian in a brutal show of undemocratic authoritarian rule , but to explore the underneath socio economic factors that led to the seemingly instantaneous protest by the fisher Falk in Halawatha.
As we all very well know that fisher falks in Sri Lanka belongs to the most hardest of hardest working class and engaged in a dangerous job purely by the circumstances. Their harsh living conditions and lack of modern facilities for their job makes their living extremely tough. Steep increase of diesel prices makes their very survival at present threatened. Under the circumstances they have all the right to show their grievances. This is a fundamental right of any person living in a centralized democracy. If this right is taken away by killing the person and this is a fundamental human right violation and a crime under any pretext.
As common practice for millions of families in Sri Lanka today, the economic circumstances forced his wife to seek work in the Middle East leaving the small children without a mother at home. This is not an isolated cause that one family has to endeavour in Sri Lanka. These are extremely tragic circumstances common to hundreds of thousands of families today in Sri Lanka. These unavoidable tragic conditions are created by utter mismanagement, corruption and irresponsible policies of the rulers present and past of Sri Lanka.
One has to look at the deceptive nature of the real economic situation in the country that led to this tragic event. The only policy decision that released to the public prior to this event was the floating of Sri Lanka rupee against the US dollar. You can make judgment on how this translated to a 37% increase of diesel price and 49.1 % increase of kerosene price. The regime has been maintaining the rupee value arbitrary not based on any economic principles but by pure glorifications purposes as we see in many so-called development projects and other areas in the society. Money wasting Mihin Air, Hambanthota port, Norochchaile Power Stations, Maththala Air Port etc. are a few to be mentioned.
Until a vast majority of Sri Lankan understands the underneath reasons for these tragic events these will be the norm for the Sri Lanka.
Barely a few days ahead of the opening of the session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Sri Lanka has begun a no-holds barred attack on its “enemies,” is making fervent appeals to countries it considers friends, and is galvanising support back home in a bid to cash in on siege mentality it is trying to create.
The issue at the Rights Council relates to Sri Lanka’s unwillingness to admit to civilian deaths during the end stages of Eelam War IV (January- May 2009). While one pro-Sri Lanka academic, Rohan Gunaratne, put the number killed at around 1500, a few in the Sri Lankan hierarchy have admitted to deaths being in the range of 2,800 to 3,000. The United Nations Secretary General’s Expert Panel on Accountability issues in Sri Lanka has said that upwards of 40,000 civilians were killed. The second issue relates to Sri Lanka delaying any kind of political solution to the Tamils of the northern province, where the Tamil Tigers held sway for over three decades.
The UNHRC session will witness a resolution against Sri Lanka, which will cite the lack of progress on the promises it had made earlier on a political solution to the Tamils of the Northern Province, and also on make adverse comments on the complete absence of accountability and respect for human rights during the end stages of the war. The United States has made it clear that it will support a resolution of this nature. Canada, United Kingdom, and most of Europe, are likely to demand greater accountability for war crimes.
In Geneva, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L.Peiris warned on Wednesday that any adverse resolution on Sri Lanka will impede the process of reconciliation at this crucial juncture. He held consultations with a wide range of diplomats, while another Minister, and President Mahinda Rajapakasa’s Special Envoy on Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, revealed ahead of leaving for Geneva that a task force would be set up to expedite the Human Rights action plan. Mr.Samarasinghe, the head of the delegation in the last session of the UNHRC, came under attack for his proposal from the opposition though. The Opposition Leader in Parliament, Ranil Wickramasinghe, asked how such a national action plan could by-pass Parliament and reach Geneva.
At another plane, stopping short of accusing United States of mischief, Sri Lankan Permanent Representative to the United Nations Tamara Kunanayakam said on Wednesday that an e-mail “purporting to have originated from the Mission of the United States to the United Nations and other International Organisations at Geneva, signed by one Miriam Shahrzard Schive has been sent to Member States of the Human Rights Council and Diplomatic Missions in Geneva.”
She said that the e-mail “creates the impression that diplomatic officials of the U.S. have been in close contact with the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as this Mission, to work, “collaboratively on issues of accountability (in Sri Lanka) and the implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s Report’.” She said that Sri Lanka has “continued to openly and comprehensively brief the international community in Geneva and elsewhere of all recent developments… We have received wide spread support on the endorsement of the principle, that a domestic mechanism must be given the time, space and given the necessary impetus to achieve its objectives.”
Meanwhile in a widely publicised move, Mr.Rajapaksa met Tamil National Alliance Leader R.Sampathan, in a bid to find some common ground. The talks between the Government and the TNA on finding a political solution had all but stalled, and both the have since reworked their positions, after meeting with representatives from the US and India.
Thu Feb 23 2012 Wendy Gillis and Josh Tapper Staff Reporters A lengthy investigation into a multi-million dollar auto-insurance scam led to the arrest of 37 people Thursday, many in the South Asian community, with police cracking down on an escalating problem that’s made the GTA Canada’s phony collision capital.
In early morning raids across the GTA — part of an investigation dubbed Project Whiplash — police arrested dozens, laying a total of 130 charges stemming from 77 collisions police say were staged and have helped send insurance premiums skyrocketing in the province. Additional arrests are expected.
“The victims of this crime are all of us who operate motor vehicles,” said Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair at a news conference to announce the arrests.
Auto insurance fraud costs Ontario drivers as much as $1.3 billion per year, between 10 and 15 per cent of all premiums, according to a recent report by the Auditor General of Ontario.
Toronto police Chief Bill Blair said the arrests in an alleged car insurance scam on Thursday were a “very important result for every citizen of Ontario,” since insurance fraud increases premiums province-wide. Full Story>>>
UNITED NATIONS, February 23 -- Twenty seven days ago Inner City Press began asking the UN and then various countries' missions to the UN how they could accept as a member of the UN "Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations" General Shavendra Silva, whose Division 58 is repeatedly named in connection with war crimes in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka.
Then, on the afternoon of February 22 Silva was told by the Group's chair Louise Frechette that his participation is "not appropriate." While much reported, few noted the inaction and refusal to speak of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his head of Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, which continued even after Silva was barred.
At the UN's noon briefing on February 23, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey if at least Ban had any comment on Silva and his barring, and whether Ban supports the decision of Louise Frechette.
Del Buey said, "the advice continues to be it is a member state decision." He said that Ban has "taken note" of the development, but it's a member state decision. Video
here, from Minute 5:09.
Now as Inner City Press predicted, Sri Lanka is using Ban's passivity, which stands in contrast to, for example, his comments on the decisions of the "member states" on the Security Council.
Several Permanent Representatives of members of the Asia Group, where Sri Lanka got the SAG post after encouraging Saudi Arabia, Nepal and Fiji to drop out, told Inner City Press that Sri Lanka had written to them about Frechette's decision. "It's their side of the story," one of the representatives said.
Late in the afternoon of February 23, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona told Inner City Press, on the record, that "Frechette is outside mandate and has no authority" to bar Silva.
Inner City Press asked why, then, Silva had said not a word during the more than two hour meeting. He was under instructions, Kohona said.
Another Asia Group Deputy Permanent Representative told Inner City Press the Group will be ill-represented on the Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, to which Asia countries are major troop contributors, if its representative can't speak, or "is a distraction."
Kohona maintains that Silva will represent the Asia Group, despite what other Asia Group representatives have said, some on the record and some on background.
The representative of a major Western member of the Security Council marveled to Inner City Press about the tenaciousness of Sri Lankan diplomacy, saying it sprung from "rear guard lobbying for more than twenty years."
Another told Inner City Press that Sri Lanka had been trying to "make a trade" of pulling Silva back in exchange for changed positions at the upcoming Human Rights Council session in Geneva. "That's unacceptable," the representative said. We'll see.
Kohona spoke Thursday afternoon on Sexual Violence in Conflict, praising the UN envoy on the topic, Margot Wallstrom. Only five hours earlier, when Wallstrom came to the stakeout, Inner City Press asked what she thought of Silva as an adviser, and what had to date happened. Video here, from Minute 6:19.
Wallstrom said there "should be consequences" for "atrocities," and that "I understand that this is what has happened, that he has now been banned from this group. Exactly how that has happened, I do not have all the detailed information.... I think that was probably the right thing to do... I think it is important to make statements and clearly position yourself on these issues."
Watch this site. Already, a Sri Lankan diplomat has complained to Inner City Press, by what right does Fechette point the finger given her role in the UN Oil for Food scandal? Forthe record, Frechette intervened directly by phone to bar UN auditors from forwarding their investigations to the Security Council, as detailed on page 186 of the 219-page interim report Paul Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee released February 3, 2005....
Footnote: Earlier in the Silva process, Inner City Press asked High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay about Silva, and get her on camera to say she was concerned, and had written to Ban Ki-moon.
Quickly, some who had done no work on the issues tried to grab it, to save face. But even then Human Rights Watch argued that it was not Ban Ki-moon's fault.
We disagree: Sri Lanka only had the hutzpa to submit Silva because Ban had shown himself so weak, had in a closed door meet with Mahinda Rajapaksa berated his own staff, as exclusively reported by Inner City Press.
But Human Rights Watch some time ago decided to go soft of Ban, refusing even to summarize the topics of director's Ken Roth's meeting with Ban. On February 23, HRW's Roth offered praise to Ban offering the Syria envoy post to Kofi Annan, meetings with whom WERE summarized (to say nothing of the Sri Lankan diplomats resurrection of the UN Oil for Food scandal, above). There is decay all over - watch this site.
Norway has joined other nations in calling for an investigation into civilian deaths in the country’s long and bloody civil war. The UN resolution wants answers to questions about, among other things, what happened to the thousands killed in the last months of the war.
When it finally ended in 2009, after 27 years, most of the leadership of the guerilla movement LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers, was killed. So were as many as 40,000 civilians, and now the US, Norway and several other countries want Sri Lankan authorities to account for them.
“There are many who wonder what happened to their loved ones,” Erik Solheim, Norway’s government minister for foreign aid, told newspaper Aftenposten last week. Solheim also served as a UN special envoy to Sri Lanka while the civil war was still going on.
Solheim said the new Sri Lankan government won the war “but now needs to win the peace.” The UN is expected to demand a long-term plan for how Tamils and Singhalese can live in peace on the island nation.
Sri Lanka and the West head for a showdown over human rights
A fake, says Gotabaya
BURY the past. Those killed nearly three years ago in the last, savage days of Sri Lanka’s civil war will never return. Foreign and local critics who harp on about horrors are doing down a fragile country. “Any sensible person will realise the advantage our people got. Today there is no more killing, fighting. It is peaceful, people are free.”
So argues Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s defiant and powerful defence secretary (and brother to the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa). But for the first time since the end of the war in 2009, the Sri Lankan government may be forced to answer for its actions to the United Nations’ human-rights council. This week, a Sri Lankan delegation arrived in Geneva, for a council session starting on February 27th. America (with European support) is expected to propose a resolution, calling for the government to report on both how it is fostering better ties with Tamils and its inquiries into possible war crimes. Full Story>>>
The Sri Lanka government has urged the general public to come to streets against what it called a “Western conspiracy” to topple Mahinda Rajapaksa government.
(Lanka-e-News-23.Feb.2012, 11.45PM) Acting Minister of media Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena addressing the meeting to reveal Cabinet decisions said, the MaRa regime henchmen and cronies are also going to take to the streets and stage protests Island wide on the 27th against Geneva conspiracy and Govt. saboteurs . Parties supporting the Govt. and civil Organizations shall be participating in these demonstrations ,he added.
This warped minded Minister identifies the people who took to the streets against the unbearable fuel price hikes imposed by the Govt. as saboteurs and describes as Geneva conspirators , those who have pressurized the Govt. to duly and legally implement the acceptable proposals of the LLRC. This nincompoop of a Minister must be assuming that the LLRC was appointed by Geneva Council. He is so stupid and ignorant that he does not know that the LLRC was appointed by the regime chief , and therefore it is the latter’s responsibility to implement the recommendations in its report .
It will be possible for the people to witness with their own eyes whether the police ‘dogs’ and scoundrels will chase away / shoot / kill /tear gas and hold the water hoses at the protestors of the Govt. on the 27th . The oppressed people can also see whether an injunction order from the court will be obtained to stall the protests . The govt. of course took all these measures and even went to the extent of killing and injuring critically innocent peaceful people when they staged protests against unconscionable and ruthless fuel price hikes and tariff increases.
During the people’s uprising against Gaddafi in Libya, those who were hired supporters of Gaddafi in the city of Tripoli staged protests like the MaRa regime’s supporters are now trying to organize on the 27th. Ultimately Gaddafi and his henchmen had to hide in drains only to be finally caught and killed like stray dogs in the streets. When trying to hold protests imitating Gaddafi knowingly or unknowingly , may MaRa , his Yapa and unscrupulous ‘waparayas’ be warned that they will also soon have to meet with the same fate as did Gadafi and his family .
Friday February 24, 2012
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