''We see little being done by this government to listen to its people''

TUESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2011 

By Ayesha Zuhair
Q: Why is it that organisations such as the ICG were mute on the atrocities committed by the LTTE, and yet are now very vocal in allegations of war-crimes against the government? Is it that only state actors have to be 'accountable' while non-state actors can get away with large-scale violations of human rights? 
It is simply not true that the International Crisis Group has been mute on the atrocities of the LTTE. From our very first report the Crisis Group has consistently criticised the crimes of the LTTE. In our first report in November 2006 on "The Failure of the Peace Process", we wrote that the LTTE "continued to kill and silence opponents, recruit child soldiers and run the areas it controlled like a totalitarian regime". We strongly criticised the failure of Norway, the UNP and foreign states to do all it could to stop the LTTE's grave violations of human rights during the peace process. This criticism was repeated in our June 2007 report on "Sri Lanka's Human Rights Crisis", where we also analysed the LTTE's "deliberately provocative attacks on the military and Sinhalese civilians as well as its violent repression of Tamil dissenters and forced recruitment of both adults and children". Our May 2007 report, Sri Lanka's Muslims: Caught in the Crossfire, discussed at length the LTTE's 1990 forced expulsion of northern Muslims and massacres of Muslims in the east. Our January 2008 report directly called on the LTTE to "abandon publicly the demand for an independent Tamil state" and to "cease all attacks on civilians, suicide bombings, forced recruitment and repression of media freedom and political dissent and respect fully international human rights and humanitarian law". In March 2009 we called on the LTTE to surrender and to allow Tamil civilians trapped in the fighting to go free. In January 2010 we wrote that "the LTTE's defeat and the end of its control over Tamil political life are historic and welcome changes." Our May 2010 report on War Crimes discussed the atrocities and war crimes of the LTTE in detail. No honest reader of any of our thirteen reports on Sri Lanka can say that we have been mute on the atrocities and other crimes of the LTTE. 

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Relocation failures in Sri Lanka

Robert Muggah, 18 October 2011
The tragic consequence of internal displacement in Sri Lanka and the failure of the government to address the situation will most likely be renewed instability.

About the author

Robert Muggah is the Research Director of the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey.

There is something rotten going on in Sri Lanka. More than two years after comprehensively dispensing with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE), the government is at risk of losing the peace. Rather than reducing the presence of the armed forces in occupied areas and promoting a peaceful transition, the government is instead militarizing the country. Far from realizing the promised peace dividend, the north and east now consists of a patchwork of military installations and high security zones.     Full Story>>>

Indigenous people protest over lands grab

  18 October, 2011

Indigenous people from the remote village of Bakmeegama in the Trincomalee District have complained to authorities that their ancestral lands being grabbed by an influential Buddhist monk in the area.

The village community who claim to be descendents of earliest settlers in Sri Lanka say that a Buddhist monk is in the process of acquiring agricultural land and irrigation tanks.

Earliest settlers

They held a protest on Tuesday opposite the official bungalow of the governor of the eastern province in Trincomalee.

It was organised by Sandun Gomarankadawela, the councillor of Gomarankadawela local government body, Pradesheeya Sabha.

President's attention

He said that the protest was organised to draw the attention of President Mahinda Rajapaksa due to arrive in Trincomalee on Tuesday as the plight of these people was ignored by the governor and the Divisional Secretary. However, the president did not arrive.

The president of the Bakmeegama, Farmers Organization, P.M.Appuhamy said that they are put into a vulnerable situation by powerful forces.

“Uppuveli Hamuduruvo (monk) grabbed an agricultural tank earlier and we kept quiet but now he is going to go for another one. This can not be allowed” he said.

Many villagers said that they defied the threats they had even during the war with the LTTE and continued with their agricultural activities.

Human Rights campaigners want Canberra to investigate Sri Lanka war crime allegations

Tuesday, October 18, 2011
   O

ALTERNATE WMA VERSION | MP3 DOWNLOAD

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Efforts by human rights groups to get the Australian Federal Police to conduct a war crimes investigation into Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Australia could cause a diplomatic row at next week's Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth.

The push has already prompted calls by the International Commission of Jurists for Sri Lanka to be sanctioned at the meeting.

In Canberra, the opposition has been demanding to know whether the Government knew of allegations against the former navy second in charge, retired Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, before it accepted him as high commissioner.

Rights campaigners have revealed to PM that they began preparing a legal submission to the Federal Police only after it became clear that both Sri Lanka's government and the United Nations were not going to proceed with an investigation into claims of war crimes in the final stages of Sri Lanka's civil war.
Full Story>>>

Sri Lanka raises defence spending

 
A Sri Lankan child looks out of her dilapidated home at a slum in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Oct. 17, 2011. A little over 20 percent of the nations people live below poverty line according to the last available census. (AP Photo/ Eranga Jayawardena)
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Sri Lanka raises defence spending

 

Sri Lankan soldiers are seen here during a ceremony to mark the army's 62nd anniversary, …

Sri Lanka on Tuesday announced it would raise defence spending by over five percent in 2012, more than two years after the government ended a decades-long ethnic conflict with Tamil rebels.

The government allocated 230 billion rupees ($2.1 billion) for the calendar year 2012, up from 215 billion rupees ($1.92 billion) estimated for defence expenses in 2011, according to official figures tabled in parliament Tuesday.

Sri Lanka has maintained that it needs to keep defence spendinghigh, to repay hefty instalments on military hardware bought to fight the separatist Tamil Tigers.

Government forces crushed the rebels in May 2009, ending what had become Asia's longest-running ethnic conflict that claimed up to 100,000 lives since 1972, according to UN estimates.

According to figures tabled in parliament, nearly half of the 2012 defence budget will be spent on the army to maintain its 200,000 personnel.

President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also finance minister, is due to unveil the full 2012 budget on November 21, when he is expected to announce new revenue raising proposals to meet state expenses.

The government's 2012 expenditure was estimated at 2.22 trillion rupees ($20.1 billion), while revenue was estimated at 1.115 trillion rupees, resulting in a budget deficit of 1.105 trillion rupees.

Australian police study Sri Lanka 'war crimes' dossier

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

War-torn island's former navy chief is named by witnesses in documents filed in Perth

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent

WEBGRAB

Footage of alleged war crimes committed during the civil war in Sri Lanka

•  ENLARGE

Police in Australia are examining a so-called "war crimes" dossier of information that claims to confirm Sri Lankan forces bombed and shelled civilians during the country's civil war.

And activists have called on the Australian authorities to make use of laws that allow the police to charge people with war crimes for offences committed outside of the country.

Just days ahead of a meeting in Perth of heads of Commonwealth nations, activists claim information gathered from witnesses now living in Australia provides sufficient evidence for the authorities to act against those responsible for what took place two years ago.

Local media has claimed Sri Lanka's former naval chief, Thisara Samarasinghe, who is currently Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Australia, is named in the dossier. He has denied any wrongdoing either by him or his forces.

"Those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009 must not be allowed to go unpunished," said John Dowd, president of the International Commission of Jurists, Australia (ICJA).     
  Full Story>>>

Welioya goes to Mullaitivu

TUESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2011 01:00
For administrative purposes the government has placed the Welioya Divisional Secretariat under the purview of the Mullaitivu District Secretariat and separated it from the Anuradhapura District, officials said yesterday.

They said this was done as part of a plan to re-demarcate the boundaries of all the Grama Seva Divisions and the Divisional Secretariats in the country.

Welioya is an area occupied by a Sinhala population of 9004 and during the war it was administered by the District Secretary of Anuradhapura because Mullaitivu was not accessible to the people at the time.

The Public Administration Ministry has appointed a committee comprising several former District Secretaries to make recommendations for the re-demarcation of boundaries of all the Divisional Secretaries and the Grama Seva Divisions in the country and the creation of new ones if and where necessary.

Ministry Secretary P.B. Abeykoon said the committee would submit its report with all necessary recommendations before the end of this year. He said the committee was expected to visit all the districts and to identify the areas to be demarcated with new boundaries.

When asked whether a new district would be created, he ruled out such a possibility at this time.

A Welioya Divisional Secretariat official said the District Secretary of Mullaitivu had been overseeing the administrative affairs of Welioya for the last two months. 

Vavuniya District Secretary P.S.M. Charles said she had asked for the establishment of two more Divisional Secretariats in her district for administration purposes.

“Re-demarcation of boundaries is needed everywhere in the country. For example, there is a divisional secretariat for 100 Grama Seva Divisions in one particular area whereas there is one for 50 Grama Seva Divisions in another area. These disparities exist all over the country, not in the north and the east alone. We have to sort them out,” she said.  

Batticaloa District Secretary S. Arumainayagam said the committee would meet him on October 24 to discuss on the changes and requirements in his district in this respect. He said that some local politicians had put forward their proposals asking for new divisional secretariats. (Kelum Bandara)

Truth vs Hype: Should Rajiv's assassins die?

Gandhi assassination case: Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan, held in Vellore Jail. They have earned a temporary reprieve from the High Court which has kept open the question of whether they should live or die. The answer was never going to be easy, but it has been further complicated by a host of volatile factors - from the debate over death penalty, to those questioning the evidence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, to the competitive politics of radicalism in Tamil Nadu, and the emotional charge of their families fighting for a reprieve

Colombo responsible for attack on JUSU Leader: Jaffna university students

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 October 2011, 17:37 GMT]
The successive SL governments in Colombo have been subjecting the student leaders of the University of Jaffna to state terror and harassment and the student community is not going to give up voicing for the rights of Eezham Tamils, said student leaders who addressed the gathering of more than 1,000 students at the University grounds Monday. The students carrying placards against the SL military boycotted their classes and came together in a meeting of condemnation against the attack on Student Union leader S. Thavapalasingam by alleged SL military intelligence operatives on Sunday.

Attackers alleged to be SL military intelligence operatives on Sunday followed the 24-year-old student leader in 8 motorbikes and severely attacked him with iron rods. Mr. Thavapalasingham was rushed to Jaffna Teaching Hospital. His condition was improving on Monday, according to medical sources.

All the student leaders in the past have been subjected to death threats by the SL military and its agents, the protesting students said. ‘Although this trend still continues, the student community is not going to give up voicing for the democratic rights of the Tamil people,’ was the message reiterated by the student representatives who addressed the protesting students Monday.

Male and female students from all the faculties of the Jaffna university took part in the protest. The students staged demonstration across the faculties inside the University premises after the meeting. The protest had brought the entire administration of the University to a standstill.

Hundreds of SL policemen were deployed around the premises of the University while the students were engaged in protest.

Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) leaders did not give any details of future protests but said they will let the media know about their next action in the due course of time.

Related Articles:
16.10.11   University student leader attacked in Jaffna 

Aid worker blasts Sri Lankan government

By Robert Peck
Monday, October 17, 2011

An international aid worker and United Nations representative is speaking out against violence in Sri Lanka and the government’s role in it.

In front of 28 students and faculty members gathered at the Yale School of Medicine Friday afternoon, U.N. representative Nimmi Gowrinathan discussed the difficulties that nongovernmental organizations face in pursuing their missions. Throughout the talk, she drew on examples from aid she helped administer after the Sri Lankan Civil War. While three attendees interviewed said they found her perspective interesting, two said her speech was too one-sided.

Gowrinathan began by describing what she argued are large-scale Sri Lankan human rights violations. In 2009 the Sri Lankan government came down hard on an opposition force called the Tamil Tigers with widespread violence against the group, she said. During this purge, tens of thousands of Sri Lankan civilians were also killed, injured, raped or displaced, Gowrinathan said.

After the government declared victory over the Tigers in 2009, various nongovernmental organizations entered the country. Though their role is to provide aid and medical care to affected citizens, Gowrinathan said they often face opposition from the government. For instance, she said, the Sri Lankan government does not allow NGOs to administer prenatal care to pregnant women out of fear that aid workers would discover the largely unpunished rapes across the country.

Gowrinathan said that if the Sri Lankan government discovered that a nongovernmental worker was speaking out publicly about rights violations of this kind, the government would ban that worker’s NGO. She added that this is true in nearly every nation that engages in rights violations. Gowrinathan said volunteers usually avoid speaking in public about their concerns to avoid this outcome, even if it means leaving the stories of the Sri Lankan victims untold.

“I’m just at a point now where I’m speaking out publicly about the concerns that I have,” she said. “Sri Lanka won’t let you inside the country if you find out you’ve criticized them.”

In addition to this “tell or don’t tell” concern, aid organizations also tend to have trouble generating funds for their work, Gowrinathan said. Public donations often depend on how the public views a given disaster, she said, meaning that source of funding is often unreliable.

Gowrinathan said funding gaps prompt NGOs to turn to the U.S. government for help. Although the U.S. government has a strict rule that no aid can go to designated terrorist organizations — even when their members are victims — Gowrinathan said working with terrorists is a fact of life for many NGOs.

“All NGOs that work in terrorist controlled areas work with [victims who are members of] terrorist organizations,” Gowrinathan said. “[They] have to — it’s their area.”

Gowrinathan said withholding funding because it could fall into the hands of terrorists can exacerbate the situation. Without this aid, many displaced victims are likely to join terrorist groups because they see no alternative, she said, adding that rape victims are particularly apt to turn to terrorism because the cultural stigmas surrounding rape leave them with no hope of building a family.

Three listeners said they found Gowrinathan’s words insightful, while two others said that they were skeptical of her claims.

Erika Linnander, associate director of the Global Health Leadership Institute, said she enjoyed the talk because Gowrinathan was so willing to field questions.

But Heshika Deegahawathure ’14, a Sri Lankan citizen by birth, said he felt that Gowrinathan’s talk was somewhat biased against the Sri Lankan government. He added that terrorism is a serious problem in Sri Lanka, and the government should not be accused of human rights violations simply for trying to combat it.

“I have talked to Sri Lankan military officials — I have my security clearance pass [to do so] in my backpack right now,” he said. “They did not intentionally hit civilian populations. The [Tigers] was a terrorist organization which intermingled with the civilian population.”

The Sri Lankan Civil War began in 1983.

Rights groups bring UN's Nambiar into 'war crimes' probe

SundayTimes
Acting UN special envoy to Burma, Vijay Nambiar, is facing calls from two Sri Lankan rights group to be included in an investigation into events which took place during the final stages of the military operations in Sri Lanka.

The charges were submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the US-based Tamil’s Against Genocide (TAG) and the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET). They refer to Nambiar’s time as the UN’s Chief of Staff when he was sent to Colombo to aid negotiations towards the end of the fighting.

The submission by the two groups, TAG and SCET, asks “whether VIJAY NAMBIAR was in fact an innocent neutral intermediary or in fact a co-perpetrator within the negotiation-related community.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has however rejected calls for an inquiry into Nambiar, despite the Chief of Staff’s own assertion in May 2009 that, “As far as the UN is concerned, where there are grave and systematic violations of international humanitarian law , these are things which should be looked at by the international community, by the United Nations.”

This reluctance of senior members of the UN to investigate possible human rights violations will likely concern Burma observers, particularly given that Than Shwe visited Sri Lanka shortly before the incident and is alleged to have offered his Sri Lankan counterpart anti-insurgency “advice”.
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Sri Lankan envoy fires back at Canada for backing calls for war crimes inquiry

By: Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press
10/16/2011
OTTAWA - Sri Lanka says Canada is falling for terrorist "propaganda" with its newfound criticism of the Asian country's human-rights record and its demands for an international inquiry.

"We are not happy about the statements being made. … We want Canada to see the correct situation," High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara told The Canadian Press in a recent interview.

Wagiswara's remarks are the first public rebuttal of the hard line the Conservatives have recently adopted against the Sri Lankan government.    
Full Story>>>

Protest in Vavuniya

MONDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2011 12:18
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and several other Tamil parties have commenced a protest in Vavuniya focusing on three main issues.
Vauniya MP Sivasakthi Anandan said that the protest began this morning and will continue till evening today.
New Assistant Government Agent Divisions (AGAD) are being created within the Welioya AGAD in the Mullaitivu District and attempts are being made to settle Sinhalese persons in the area, the former TNA MP stated. 

The other two issues he claimed were that people from the South are being settled in the North and East, without resettling IDPs in those areas, and also for land in the North-East to be registered to the people in those areas.

TNA parliamentarians Mavai Senathirajah, Suresh Premachandran, S. Adaikalanathan, E. Sarawanabawan, MP Sivasakthi Anandan, TULF Leader V. Anandasangaree, PLOT Leader S. Siddharthan, TELO Political Wing leader M. K. Sivajilingam several others were part of the protest. (R. Suganthini, Krishan and Kapil)   Pix by Romesh Madushanka, Kapil



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President’s saffron robe donating pooja at Sri Maha Bodhi for and on behalf of Duminda

(Lanka-e-News -16.Oct.2011, 11.55P.M.) President Mahinda Rajapakse performed a saffron robe handing over pooja at the Anuradhapura Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi invoking blessings for the speedy recovery of kudu Duminda Silva who murdered Bharatha Lakshman and is now undergoing treatment at the Jayawardena Hospital. He has also allegedly implored the deity to solve Duminda’s criminal problems.
Full Story»>

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EU Shocked By Video

 Monday, October 17, 2011

By Jamila Najmuddin

• HRW says allegations not against country but the government 

Member states of the European Union (EU) were shocked by the contents of the video “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” which was screened at the EU parliament last week.

The Sri Lankan government had last week raised strong objections to the airing of the video at the EU saying the contents are false and misleading.

However the South Asia Director for Human Rights Watch Meenakshi Ganguly told The Sunday Leader that it was important to ensure that diplomats are informed about the reality of what happened during the war. The screening of the video at the EU was organized by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a few members of the EU parliament.

“We, together with other human rights groups, organized screenings and talks in a number of cities. The audience was left shocked by the brutality that was documented. We have worked for a long time on Sri Lanka. When we documented abuses by the LTTE, whether it was forced recruitment, the use of children in combat, or the extortion from the expatriate Tamil community, the Sri Lankan government acknowledged our findings to be fair. Unfortunately, that changed during the military campaign, when we found excesses by government forces,” Ganguly said.

She said that the documentary, produced by Channel 4 television in Britain, together with the report of the panel of experts appointed by the UN Secretary General, provides rather a strong and indisputable account of the violations.

“Contrary to what the Rajapaksa administration might suggest, efforts to address human rights violations are not directed at criticizing a nation, but a government that might be responsible for great wrong doing. The violations that occurred during the military campaign will impact on the future of the Sri Lankan people, who have already suffered years of violence and a divided community. For effective reconciliation, there has to be accountability,” Ganguly added.

Australia police get Sri Lanka war crimes dossier

  Australian police were Monday examining a war crimes dossier alleging Sri Lankan authorities bombed and shelled civilians during the country's civil war, which ended in 2009.

Prepared by the International Commission of Jurists' Australian chapter, the brief contains testimony from Sri Lankans now living in Australia that they were attacked by government forces during the conflict.

"The substance... is eyewitness evidence which shows the bombing and shelling of civilians, in particular in the no-fly zones, and a whole series of attacks on civilians, contrary to the stance taken by the Sri Lankan government that, in effect, they were not targeted," said ICJ Australia president John Dowd.

"Initially they said there was no loss of civilian life in the last few months (of the conflict), which is clearly nonsense," he added.

The evidence was initially collected for an independent war crimes tribunal but because one had not been established Dowd said the ICJ decided to pass it to Australian police "who have the power to investigate such matters".

Police confirmed they had received the submission and were reviewing it.

"Therefore it is not appropriate to comment further," a spokeswoman told AFP.

Australia can prosecute war crimes committed in other countries including "acts of torture committed outside Australia by a public official, or a person acting in an official capacity or at the instigation of such a person," she added.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd had also received a copy of the brief, according to his spokeswoman, who said Australia "takes allegations and investigations of war crimes seriously".

Rudd said Australia had urged Sri Lanka to act on United Nations findings of "credible evidence" of war crimes through its Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), due to report in November.

"Australia and the international community will closely examine the LLRC report, due in November 2011, before considering whether further options should be pursued," his spokeswoman said.

The UN's Human Rights Council should also "revisit the matter", Rudd added.

Dowd denied local media reports that the brief named President Mahinda Rajapakse and former Navy chief Thisara Samarasinghe, now Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Australia.

"We haven't talked about anybody, and we've not identified anybody, nor do we intend to in our submission," Dowd said.

"We have set out the evidence that is available and that evidence is a matter for the Australian Federal Police. It is a matter for them... to comment on who might be the person they investigate."

Samarasinghe did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for comment, but strongly denied any crimes when contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald.

"There is no truth whatsoever of allegations of misconduct or illegal behaviour," said Samarasinghe.

"The Sri Lanka Navy did not fire at civilians during any stage and all action was taken to save the lives of civilians from the clutches of terrorists."

Sri Lanka has persistently denied that its troops committed any war crimes while battling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who were crushed in an offensive that ended in May 2009, bringing the 26-year conflict to a close.