Rajapaksa regime is nearing JR regime in oppressing students’ movement – SSU
FRIDAY, 22 MARCH 2013
When compared with J.R. Jayawardene regime Mahinda Rajapaksa regime is way ahead in the attempt to privatize education and is nearing that era in its moves to oppress the student movement says the National Organizer of Socialist Students’ Union (SSU) Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa.
Speaking at a media conference held at the head office of the JVP at Pelawatta today (22nd) Dr. Jayatissa said discussions are being held with parents, teachers and the working masses in the country to build a force that would defeat the moves of the present government aimed at destroying free education.
Speaking further the National Organizer of SSU said it is necessary to draw the attention of the masses for the attempt by the present regime to privatize education including the university system in the country and repression of student movement so that the government could have a free hand in destroying education opportunities of the poor masses.
He said the government is gradually withdrawing from education and is carrying out the policy of privatization through Ministers S.B. Dissanayake and Bandula Gunawardene. He pointed out that already private universities have been established and permission has been given to start more private universities. The only challenge for the government in establishing private universities is the lack of a bill to make them legalize. He said despite getting a private university bill approved by the Attorney General’s Department, the bill was defeated with the mediation of university teachers and students. He said the regime could get the bill adopted with the distorted 2/3rd majority the government has amassed illegally. However, the masses in the country that cherish education could defeat such a bill added Dr. Jayatissa.
He said, “The government has begun militarizing the education sector to prevent any opposition to the privatization policy it wants to pursue. University students are given a military training to alienate them from struggles. Students are instructed not to join the students’ movement. Also, principals are given military training and offered the rank of colonel to justify military intervention in the education sector. The principals are indirectly made a group of persons administered by defense ministry circulars.
We call upon the masses to come forward on behalf of democracy and the right of free education for their children.”
Members of the National Committee of the SSU Rangana Devapriya, Prasad Thisitha Kumara and Buddhika Heshani too were present.
Is international pressure failing in Sri Lanka?
Recent war returnees in Jaffna District
BANGKOK, 21 March 2013 (IRIN) - The UN Human Rights Council approved on 21 March a second resolution requesting the Sri Lankan government to do more to address alleged wartime rights violations, but observers question whether such resolutions can create meaningful change.
The latest resolution, sponsored by the USA, is similar to last year’s, calling on the Sri Lankan government to “to fulfill its public commitments, including on the devolution of political authority, which is integral to reconciliation and the full enjoyment of human rights by all members of its population.”
The new resolution calls on Sri Lanka to formally respond to UN “Special Rapporteurs” - investigators working on behalf of the UN - who have pending requests to visit the country to cover such issues as minority rights; freedom of peaceful assembly and association; freedom of opinion and expression; extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and enforced or involuntary disappearances, according to the latest report on Sri Lanka by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
The resolution once again put the onus on the Sri Lankan government to act on allegations. Instead of the international investigation that Pillay called for in her report, the resolution called “upon the Government [of Sri Lanka] to conduct its own independent and credible investigation into allegations of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.”
Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka project director at think tank International Crisis Group (ICG), told IRIN the resolution was unlikely to change much. “The latest resolution is unlikely to have any immediate impact in Sri Lanka,” but he added:
“If the [Sri Lankan] government does continue to ignore these international concerns, I expect the pressure will grow, with an increasing chance that in the next year or two the Human Rights Council will authorize an international investigation and that other international bodies will take stronger action.”
The assessment was shared by Rukii Fernando, a member of the Rights Now Collective for Democracy, a Sri Lankan NGO. “Although the resolution falls short of expectations, it's a step in the right direction, in the context that wheels of international justice turn very slowly,” he said.
In March 2012, the US introduced a similar resolution to the Council that sought a roadmap from the Sri Lankan government on how it would implementrecommendations from the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) - a Sri Lankan government-appointed body that investigated the conduct of military and rebel operations during the final months of the country’s civil war (1983-2009).
According to the UN, tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives from January to May 2009, many of whom died anonymously in the carnage of the final days of the war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland.
In her latest report on Sri Lanka, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay said, to date, the government “has not adequately engaged civil society in support of a more consultative and inclusive reconciliation process”.
Pillay renewed calls for an international investigation into allegations of rights abuses and wrote that despite progress in resettling more than 400,000 war displaced, and work on highways and other infrastructure projects in the former northern war zone, “considerable work lies ahead in the areas of justice, reconciliation and resumption of livelihoods.”
Colombo-based advocacy NGO Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has accused Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government of selectively carrying out LLRC recommendations in the National Plan of Action (NPA), approved in July 2012. The NGO wrote of a “disconnect between suggested activities and the problems on the ground”.
Analysts say the lack of answers and action on those who went missing, were killed or were abused during the conflict, as well as lack of power devolution to ethnic Tamils in the north’s former war zone, have stunted progress on accountability.
Colombo countered claims of selective implementation by arguing the NPA is an evolving process with “short, medium and long term goals”, Minister of Plantation Mahinda Samaraisnghe, leader of the Sri Lanka delegation to Geneva, said in his address to the Human Rights Council on 27 February.
Keenan agreed the 2012 resolution has hardly achieved anything apart from increasing domestic criticism of the government’s alleged inaction on the LLRC recommendations. And the 2013 one would have been more effective had it given wider investigative powers to the UN Human Rights Commissioner - which it did not - he added.
2012 resolution “rather weak” Full report
