The war the world forgot
Mon, 1 Oct 2012-  Ellen Otzen

A man walks past a mural depicting fighting during the war in Colombo April 27, 2011. REUTERS/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds

Still Counting the Dead - survivors of Sri Lanka’s hidden war, by Frances Harrison is published by Portobello books and out on Oct 4.

In the winter of 2008-2009, the world’s attention was focused on the Israeli incursion into Gaza. A continent away – and out of sight of the media -- Karu and Gowri, a Tamil shopkeeper and his wife, were caught up in the climax of Sri Lanka’s decade-long civil war between the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and the government.

Living in the heart of rebel-controlled territory, they were bombed, starved, imprisoned and threatened with death.

Karu and Gowri – not their real names – are among the survivors of Sri Lanka’s brutal ethnic war whose stories are recounted by former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent Frances Harrison in a book focusing on 10 Tamils who lived through the conflict’s final bloody months. It is a tale which is both gripping and deeply disturbing.

By 2008, the civil war had been raging for two-and-a-half decades and the government had embarked on a  new campaign, determined to crush the Tamil Tigers’ bid for independence and end the conflict. Government troops advancing into the northern Tamil heartland met fierce resistance, amid allegations by each side of atrocities against Tamil civilians caught in the middle.

Tamil fighters were accused of using civilians as human shields and refusing to let them flee the war zone, and government forces were accused of treating civilians as though they were combatants, bombing, shelling and maltreating them on a large scale.

Gowri gave birth to her daughter in a bunker and was forced to queue for handouts as she was too malnourished to breastfeed her child.

Karu witnessed his mother being killed by a government shell and was severely injured himself. Death was everywhere and had somehow become normal. That Karu and Gowri survived and are currently living in an immigration detention centre in Australia, is mostly down to sheer luck.

Other accounts have emerged of events during the closing months of the war. Last year, a U.N. panel found credible allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, documented in British TV Channel Four’s harrowing documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.

Still Counting the Dead adds a new layer of detail to the conflict. We come to know the 10 survivors intimately and get a sense of what it was like for Tamil civilians living through the horror.

The government urged the United Nations (U.N.), a potentially inconvenient witness to what was coming, to pull out in Sept. 2008. Apart from sending in a few food convoys, the world body ultimately stood aside – perhaps, Harrison suggests, because many of its member states were happy to see what they regarded as another terrorist group defeated.

We meet Dixie, a U.N. worker posted in the rebel territory who is disgusted at the international community’s inaction. After leaving Sri Lanka, he resigned and began to speak out about the organisation’s failure to protect the people it had left behind, until the U.N. ordered him to stop.

The world was aware something untoward was going on in northern Sri Lanka – the U.N. received satellite images after its withdrawal of shelling in civilian areas.

But no one knew the full extent of the bloodshed. Aid workers were expelled and journalists denied access to the war zone. It was, Harrison told me, “a piece of history that was threatened with becoming a bit of a black hole.”

Sri Lanka’s government accused the International Red Cross of spreading panic when it spoke of a humanitarian catastrophe.  The Sri Lankan army was, it said, pursuing a “humanitarian rescue operation” with a policy of “zero civilian casualties.”

Nevertheless, the relentless offensive continued. The so-called “no-fire zones” set up for Tamil civilians were in fact the front line. There was intensive shelling of civilians.

Witnesses interviewed by Harrison said cluster bombs, prohibited by international law, were used against fleeing civilians, and hospitals in the area were systematically attacked by the army.

According to U.N. figures, as many as 40,000 people may have died in the first five months of 2009; the final death toll may be higher.

Harrison has interviewed Tamil survivors scattered across the world from Norway to Australia, gained their trust and told their story in a compelling way.

Harrison had followed the end of the war in Sri Lanka from afar, through Sri Lankan journalist friends who went into exile. But it was in 2009, when the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Sri Lanka that ignored calls for an international investigation into alleged abuses, that she decided the story of the defeated needed to be told.

“I thought the international community would take some stand. Instead I saw them congratulating Sri Lanka, literally patting them on the back, for having defeated the Tamil Tigers. To me this was shocking, a travesty of justice.

“In some shape or form – whether it’s a war crimes trial or a truth and reconciliation process – it needs to be acknowledged just how dreadful the suffering of those people was during the war, and who was to blame for that.

“Obviously it’s not only one side – the Tamil Tigers also have a responsibility for what happened. And that needs to be recognized so that those people can move forward.”

A U.N. advisory panel to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for an independent international investigation but Ban has rejected this, saying he does not have the authority to order it.

IDPs left to face harsh conditions in thick jungles
BY RAMANAN VEERASINGHAM-01 OCTOBER 2012

Although the government has hurriedly shut down the Menik Farm internment camp – described as the world's largest refugee camp – in the northern Vavuniya district, over 100 war displaced families are left to face harsh conditions without any basic infrastructure facilities in thick jungles.

In what is widely seen as an image building exercise, the government on September 24 dismantled Menik Farm and 1160 war-displaced people belonging to 361 families left one-time the notorious camp in total disarray.

No assistance

According to Selvarajah Kajendren, the general secretary of the Tamil National Peoples' Front (TNPF) who visited the families, about 110 families with children and elders from Keppapilavu in the north-eastern Mullaitivu district are virtually left to die in a patch of cleared jungle in the name of post-war resettlement program.

“The government has brought these people and left them in the middle of a thick jungle. They do not have a roof to sleep under. They need to walk a couple of miles to fetch water or for schooling for their children. Their original lands have been swallowed up by the military to establish High Security Zones,” he told the JDS via phone.

According to the TNPF politician, the military has just cleared barely an acre of jungle land using bulldozer and these war-displaced people “are forced to manage their own affairs without any assistance from anybody whatsoever”.

“They are in the middle of the jungle and there are facing dangers from animals, deadly snakes and insects in the area. It is a monsoon season and these people have no place to protect themselves from the downpour or hot sun. I saw even the temporary tarpaulin tents they set up are getting blown away by the winds,” he further said.   

Government targets Geneva review

Commenting on the issue, Jaffna district parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Suresh K. Premachandran said that it was yet another attempt by the incumbent Rajapaksa regime to pull the wool over eyes of the international community, which has been pressing for the early resettlement of the war displaced civilians.

“All what the government wants to show it to the world is that the post-war resettlement is successfully completed, everybody has been settled in their own lands and that they are no more refugees in Sri Lanka. But this is not the correct situation here. This completely contradicts the situation on the ground,” MP Premachandran told the JDS.

“The government desperately wants to tell the world before the upcoming review in October in Geneva that everything is fine in Sri Lanka and that the displaced people have fully been resettled in their own lands. But there the reality is that there are still thousands of refuges in Sri Lanka. There are over 7000 war refuges in the Eastern Muttoor and over five refugee camps in the northern Jaffna district to name a few,” he said.

“Even though the Menik Farm camp is closed down there are thousands of Tamil people still remain very much as refugees. This is apart from 150,000 people taken refuge in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They too want to come back if the situation improves”.

“We, the TNA, cannot simply accept the position of the government. We will be telling the world and the international community that the government is just shifting these people from one camp to another, but not to their original places,” MP Premachandran said, urging the international community and the Human Rights organisations to act based on factual realities.

Issuing a statement on the closure of the Menik Farm Camp, the United Nations (UN) Humanitarian Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Mr. Subinay Nandy said that the UN “is concerned about 346 people (110 families) who are returning from Menik Farm to Kepapilavu in Mullaitivu District who are unable to return to their homes which are occupied by the military”.

“Instead, they are being relocated to state land where they await formal confirmation about what is happening to their land in future, and plans for compensation if they cannot return,” he said, stressing the need for an “urgent solution” for the people of Keppapilavu.

© JDS

ADD COMMENT

Anti Islamism, Muslim Rage, Roots And Future

By Imtiyaz Razak -October 1, 2012 

Dr. Imtiyaz Razak

Reports suggest that anti-American protests and violence that erupted almost two weeks ago over a poorly-made anti-Islam video spread to nearly 20 Muslim majority countries (hereafter, MMC) and other a few pockets of countries where Muslim live in non-majority status such as Sri Lanka.  Generally speaking, Muslims would define their religion as religion of peace and tolerant. Hence, it is deeply disturbing to witness violence and aggressive reactions from some Muslims to 14 minutes video.

Scholars and activists have raised many questions over Muslim reactions. Some questions aimed at understanding the nature of protests. Some questions have aggressively attempted to ridicule Muslims and their faith.  This peace would attempt to understand the nature of mobilization and roots to gain often neglected side of stories of story.  Popular opinions and writings do not necessarily reflect the history, but it is key to gain some basic understanding to read the trend. Hence, this short paper would attempt to understand Muslim mobilization to 14 minutes, poorly made law budget anti-Islam video? As Ted Robert Gurr has observed, there is no comprehensive and widely accepted theory of the causes and consequences of conflict. Instead, there are many factors that can lead to tensions between groups of people.

General perceptions would blame Muslims for their reaction because they think that reaction was and is seems very disproportionate Muslims reacted disproportionately. Popular opinions that oppose Muslim reactions argue that it is an act of freedom of speech and Muslims need to be civilized to digest dissent.  But every mobilization has politico-social as well as cultural roots associated with deep-seated grievances.  Some mobilizations adopt violence and some do not.  The question is why popular mobilizations in the non-western countries often seek brutal method to send a cross the message?

The absence of ‘moderate alternatives’                                Read More

Sri Lanka Meets Ban Ki-moon, No Prageeth or Petrie Report, No Accountability?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 1 -- It was on the final day of the week-long UN General Debate that Sri Lanka's G.L. Peiris spoke, along with North Korea, Belarus and Syria.

  Like these other three, Sri Lanka spoke out against any outside interference in its internal affairs. Unlike Syria, however, Sri Lanka has largely prevailed in this request. No one has been held accountable for the killing of civilians in 2009. Peiris bragged about redeveloping northern Sri Lanka, without saying who is benefiting.

  In the afternoon, before North Korea spoke, Inner City Press waited and attended the photo op between UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Peiris. Beyond UN Photo, the only other photographers present were both affiliated with the Sri Lankan government. 

  Visible was Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona and other Mission staff, but not his Deputy, general Shavendra Silva of whose presence on the UN Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations Ban on February 8, 2012 told Inner City Press, "it was the member states that decided."

G.L. Peiris signed, Ban Ki-moon shakes, (c) MR Lee 

  After the October 1 meeting Ban issued a bland read-out:

"The Secretary-General met with H.E. Mr. G. L. Peiris, Minister for External Affairs of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. They exchanged views on the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka and cooperation with the United Nations.

"The Secretary-General noted the Government’s latest efforts to implement the recommendations of its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission as well as the steady progress and remaining tasks on resettlement efforts in the North. He also emphasized the need to find a political solution without further delay to the underlying factors of the past conflict."

  So when is the report by Charles Petrie, about the UN's own inaction in 2008 and 2009, going to be finished -- that is, released to the public? Was the crackdown on journalists, including the disappearing of Prageeth Ehaliyagoda, raised by Ban Ki-moon?

  Is it difficult to know: Ban held a so-called "press encounter" on Monday, but no questions were allowed. On Tuesday, the UN Secretariat's description of the week will be given by Ban's new Deputy Jan Eliasson at 11:15 am. 

  And late on Monday in what some called garbage time it was announced that "Due to the press conference tomorrow by the UN Deputy Secretary-General, there will be no noon briefing by the Spokesperson."

   Will Eliasson take more than 45 minutes? In the past, a noon briefing might be canceled if Ban spoke at the same time. Now, it will be cancel for the Deputy, apparently in an attempt to get correspondents to focus on the UN's own messaging rather than ask questions, for example about Sri Lanka. This is Ban's UN.

Gotabaya opens Buddhist Vihara in Kilinochchi - MoD

 01 October 2012

Plaque at Buddhist Vihara in Kilinochchi, entirely in Sinhalese.
Plaque at Hindu kovil in Kilinochchi, entirely in English.




Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has opened a Buddhist Vihara at a ceremony conducted earlier this week in the Northern city of Kilinochchi, the former administrative capital the LTTE.

Rajapaksa went on to praise the Sri Lankan armed forces for their support in constructing the Buddhist Vihara. According to the Ministry of Defence, 

“Secretary Defence thanked the Maha Sanga for safeguarding Buddhism and Buddhists and the immense support given by the Maha Sangha to the tri forces personnel and government leaders.”

The Defence Secretary was also quoted as saying,      

"These types of religious activities show the rise of the Buddhist people".

Whilst also in Kilinochchi, Rajapaksa declared open a renovated Hindu Kovil, greeted by schoolchildren singing the national anthem, decreed to be sung only in Sinhalese almost 2 years ago.

Rajapaksa also unveiled a plaque at the entrance of the kovil, above which flies the Sri Lankan flag. It is written entirely in English.
The plaque at the vihara however, was written in Sinhala only.

The National Security State

Sunday 30 September 2012

The National Security State reigns supreme even three and a half years after the end of the war. A military camp erected in a remote hamlet of Keppapulavu in Mullaitivu has prevented 110 families among the last batch of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), who were released from Menik Farm from returning to their original village. This misguided decision, which betrays the current regime’s over-reliance on the doctrine of national security state, has now landed the very government in a controversy over its handling of the IDPs. Sadly though, the negative coverage has, in fact, overshadowed what could otherwise have been a significant achievement of the government, i.e. the shutting down of the Menik Farm IDP camp which at its height housed nearly 300,000 IDPs under crowded and shoddy conditions. These developments are taking place in the wake of the scheduled Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Sri Lanka to be taken up at the United Nations Human Rights Council next month. The scheduled UPR, of course, influenced the government’s decision to dismantle the IDP camp. 
To begin with, the decision to shut down the camp is a milestone in the post war resettlement and rehabilitation process. 
However, that salient achievement has now been dwarfed by the controversy over the forced relocation of 110 families, who, according to some sources, have been forced to resettle in a cleared jungle with only tarpaulins for shelter. (See page 5 for our coverage of Menik Farm.) It is understandable that the government wanted to project the closure of the camp as proof of its commitment to the post war reconciliation, thereby assuaging concerns of the international community. But now it finds itself at the receiving end of negative publicity for the ‘forced relocation’ of IDPs. 
The root of the problem lies at the government’s over-reliance on the doctrine of national security state. The leading characteristic of a quintessential national security state is the primacy of place held by the military in the affairs of the state. The role of the military in a national security state is not merely confined to defending the nation from internal and external enemies of the state. The military there plays an all encompassing role in civilian life and wields an overwhelming power in deciding the direction of the political, social and economic lives of the citizens; Democracy and political pluralism are viewed with suspicion and, perhaps with contempt, despite the false appearance of the state to be democratic. 
The Sri Lankan State has retained some of those characteristics even three and a half years after the end of the war. The government spends US$2.1 billion or over 3.5 per cent of the GDP to maintain a large peace time military. That is a much higher percentage of the GDP than the rising China, or India annually allocates for defence. In contrast, Sri Lanka’s education budget for 2012 was a paltry 1.9 of the GDP, while other lower middle income countries spend over 4 per cent of the GDP on public education. (See the excellent analysis on the topic by Dr. Kumar David elsewhere in these pages). 
Military officials continue to call shots in the civilian administration in the north and the east. Military imperatives continue to reign supreme in post war Sri Lanka, despite the absence of a clear security threat, measured by any rational assessment. 
Those skewed priorities in peace time, in effect, question the integrity of the current regime and the sincerity of its expressed commitment for reconciliation and peace building. 
If the government’s efforts for a true and meaningful reconciliation is to be successful, the north and the east should be demilitarized; the military should make themselves progressively redundant from civil administration, and the social fabric of a free and democratic society should be rewoven. 
To achieve those objectives, it is imperative that the government rethinks about its obeisance to the national security state. 

Menik Farm, Japanese Americans and an official apology

The underlining rationale of Menik Farm at its outset was preventive detention. The camp was set up to intern 300,000 odd residents of the former Tiger territory of the Wanni, some of whom might have actively collaborated or sympathized with the decimated Tamil Tigers. 
The movements of the residents of Menik Farm internment camp were tightly controlled during the first six months of the camp. The tactic of preventive detention deployed in Menik Farm has historical precedents, one such example being the mass relocation and internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans in the United States during the Second World War.  
Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were interned in camps in 1942, after imperial Japan attacked the Pearl Harbour. The Roosevelt Administration feared that Japanese Americans would collaborate with the imperial army during a possible Japanese attack against the US.
It took a three decade long campaign for the surviving former interns to receive reparations and finally an official apology from Washington. Finally, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the US government. Under the 2001 budget, the United States Congress, also decreed that the 10 sites on which the internment camps were set up were to be preserved as historical landmarks: “Places like Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Amache, Jerome, and Rohwer will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency.”
Last week, Sri Lanka dismantled the Menik Farm internment camp. However, the suffering and humiliation endured by 300,000 Tamils who had been interned there would not go away. The Sri Lankan State and its political leadership ought to do a great deal of soul searching vis-à-vis its treatment to its Tamil citizens who were involuntarily housed in Menik Farm. 
At the moment, the government and its leaders would find an official apology in this regard as ‘belittling’ of its military victory. However, every great nation has, at one point of time, acknowledged wrongdoings in the past. 
If Sri Lanka is not yet prepared to do that, it will do so one day. That day will denote Sri Lanka’s coming of age in its full democratic political transition. That will be the day Sri Lankans of all ethnic communities can proudly claim that they are part of one great nation.

As Manik Farm Is Shut Down, Sri Lanka Should Apologize To Its Tamil Citizens Interned In The Camp

By Colombo Telegraph -October 1, 2012 

Sri Lankan English language newspaper Lakbimanews in its editorial has advocated that the Sri Lankan government should apologize Tamils who had been interned in the controversial mass internment camp Manik Farm, which was closed down after three and half years in existence.

“At the moment, the government and its leaders would find an official apology in this regard as ‘belittling’ of its military victory. However, every great nation has, at one point of time, acknowledged wrongdoings in the past.”

“If Sri Lanka is not yet prepared to do that, it will do so one day. That day will denote Sri Lanka’s coming of age in its full democratic political transition. That will be the day Sri Lankans of all ethnic communities can proudly claim that they are part of one great nation, ” Lakbimanews editorial written by acting editor Ranga Jayasuriya stated. Below we produce the editorial in full

The National Security State

Ranga Jayasuriya

The National Security State reigns supreme even three and a half years after the end of the war. A military camp erected in a remote hamlet of Keppapulavu in Mullaitivu has prevented 110 families among the last batch of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), who were released from Menik Farm from returning to their original village. This misguided decision, which betrays the current regime’s over-reliance on the doctrine of national security state, has now landed the very government in a controversy over its handling of the IDPs. Sadly though, the negative coverage has, in fact, overshadowed what could otherwise have been a significant achievement of the government, i.e. the shutting down of the Menik Farm IDP camp which at its height housed nearly 300,000 IDPs under crowded and shoddy conditions. These developments are taking place in the wake of the scheduled Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Sri Lanka to be taken up at theUnited Nations Human Rights Council next month. The scheduled UPR, of course, influenced the government’s decision to dismantle the IDP camp.

To begin with, the decision to shut down the camp is a milestone in the post war resettlement and rehabilitation process.

However, that salient achievement has now been dwarfed by the controversy over the forced relocation of 110 families, who, according to some sources, have been forced to resettle in a cleared jungle with only tarpaulins for shelter. (See page 5 for our coverage of Menik Farm.) It is understandable that the government wanted to project the closure of the camp as proof of its commitment to the post war reconciliation, thereby assuaging concerns of the international community. But now it finds itself at the receiving end of negative publicity for the ‘forced relocation’ of IDPs.

The root of the problem lies at the government’s over-reliance on the doctrine of national security state. The leading characteristic of a quintessential national security state is the primacy of place held by the military in the affairs of the state. The role of the military in a national security state is not merely confined to defending the nation from internal and external enemies of the state. The military there plays an all encompassing role in civilian life and wields an overwhelming power in deciding the direction of the political, social and economic lives of the citizens; Democracy and political pluralism are viewed with suspicion and, perhaps with contempt, despite the false appearance of the state to be democratic.

The Sri Lankan State has retained some of those characteristics even three and a half years after the end of the war. The government spends US$2.1 billion or over 3.5 per cent of the GDP to maintain a large peace time military. That is a much higher percentage of the GDP than the rising China, or India annually allocates for defence. In contrast, Sri Lanka’s education budget for 2012 was a paltry 1.9 of the GDP, while other lower middle income countries spend over 4 per cent of the GDP on public education. (See the excellent analysis on the topic by Dr. Kumar David elsewhere in these pages).

Military officials continue to call shots in the civilian administration in the north and the east. Military imperatives continue to reign supreme in post war Sri Lanka, despite the absence of a clear security threat, measured by any rational assessment.

Those skewed priorities in peace time, in effect, question the integrity of the current regime and the sincerity of its expressed commitment for reconciliation and peace building.

If the government’s efforts for a true and meaningful reconciliation is to be successful, the north and the east should be demilitarized; the military should make themselves progressively redundant from civil administration, and the social fabric of a free and democratic society should be rewoven.

To achieve those objectives, it is imperative that the government rethinks about its obeisance to the national security state.

Menik Farm, Japanese Americans and an official apology

The underlining rationale of Menik Farm at its outset was preventive detention. The camp was set up to intern 300,000 odd residents of the former Tiger territory of the Wanni, some of whom might have actively collaborated or sympathized with the decimated Tamil Tigers.

The movements of the residents of Menik Farm internment camp were tightly controlled during the first six months of the camp. The tactic of preventive detention deployed in Menik Farm has historical precedents, one such example being the mass relocation and internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans in the United States during the Second World War.

Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were interned in camps in 1942, after imperial Japan attacked the Pearl Harbour. The Roosevelt Administration feared that Japanese Americans would collaborate with the imperial army during a possible Japanese attack against the US.

It took a three decade long campaign for the surviving former interns to receive reparations and finally an official apology from Washington. Finally, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the US government. Under the 2001 budget, the United States Congress, also decreed that the 10 sites on which the internment camps were set up were to be preserved as historical landmarks: “Places like Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Amache, Jerome, and Rohwer will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency.”

Last week, Sri Lanka dismantled the Menik Farm internment camp. However, the suffering and humiliation endured by 300,000 Tamils who had been interned there would not go away. The Sri Lankan State and its political leadership ought to do a great deal of soul searching vis-à-vis its treatment to its Tamil citizens who were involuntarily housed in Menik Farm.

At the moment, the government and its leaders would find an official apology in this regard as ‘belittling’ of its military victory. However, every great nation has, at one point of time, acknowledged wrongdoings in the past.

If Sri Lanka is not yet prepared to do that, it will do so one day. That day will denote Sri Lanka’s coming of age in its full democratic political transition. That will be the day Sri Lankans of all ethnic communities can proudly claim that they are part of one great nation.

Mannar Bishop speaks out the truth

Mannar Bishop speaks out the truth

September 30, 2012 
by Our Special Corespondent reporting from Colombo

( September 30, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) His Lordship, Bishop of Mannar Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph addressed a discussion meeting of Christian Solidarity Movement, headed by Rev. Fr. Sarath Iddamalgoda today at the Centre For Society and Religion ,Colombo .The main theme was to discuss the sufferings of the people faced by the North and East provinces. The Christian Solidarity movement has been sharing the grievances of   these people since the war ended. The discussion forum was attended by a large crowd including   Rev. Fathers, Sisters, Lawyers, laymen including Human Rights activists. The welcome speech was done by Rev. Sr.Mary   Helen Fernando.  

           

Thereafter His Lordship, Bishop of Mannar Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph addressed the gathering said that  at first I must thank you  the Christian  Solidarity Movement for the tireless efforts to  look at  the grievances of  our people in the north and east , thank you very much in the name of the Christ. Even though we are waiting for a political solution to the actual grievances of the people in the north and east, still there is no political solution.

We as followers of Christ, we should go towards the path of truth, Justice and reconciliation. Everybody should agree with the fundamental rights of minority groups of the country, like Tamils. They are also equal citizens of Mother Lanka .we also have a very rich language, (Tamil) and a culture. Everybody must respect this even though the due rights are not given now. Some says if the Tamils need the rights, they should go to Tamilnadu in India. We are not Indian citizens; we need to live peacefully with the other people of Sri Lanka. Chinese and Tamil languages are classical languages of the Indian sub continent. While respecting the other languages of the country, we would like to gain the due place for our language too. When you take the School system, they have classified that into Sinhala schools and Tamil Schools thereby discrimination commenced. In 1956, All Ceylon Buddhist Conference started telling that we in Sri Lanka only having the Sinhala possession and the Tamils and Christians are their enemies.

 In India when they invented their National Constitution, thanks to the efforts of Minority Group leader, Dr. Ambedkar, a constitution which guarantees the rights of the minorities had been made, with the blessings of all. That is why, such a big state having so many nationals co-exist in India. In Sri Lanka all the previous governments by way of making habitats etc. in the predominantly Tamil areas, they tried to convert the Tamils to an absolute minority. We are against this. Our Language, nation, destroyed, grievances privileges and rights abolished. In short big nation destroyed the minorities. Even today it is the same.

 North and East people  had a national economy of their own. Tamils needed a self governing rule under a united Sri Lanka. The south political leadership knows this but they do not like to empower our peoples as they fear to do that just because due to greediness of power. So even now, this pathetic situation must end. We request this not to suppress the Sinhala nation but to enable our people to get rid of this pathetic situation in the name of truth and Justice.

Sri Lanka our nation is suffering from a big cancer. If not treated at the right time, which is now we cannot go further and everybody may have to suffer as a result. Therefore pl. brings reforms and enables all citizens to live peacefully in this island. Many questions were being asked from the gathering and a healthy discussion held.

Buddhist dhamma school opened in Jaffna peninsula

[ Monday, 01 October 2012, 03:57.15 PM GMT +05:30 ]

With the support of military personal the first Dhamma school in Jaffna will be opened today in a bid to popularize Buddhism in the northern peninsula after the war, said the defence ministry.

The Tamil Buddhists Association is organizing arrangements for the school, which will be opened by the mayor and the district secretary of Jaffna. Chief Incumbent of the Naga Vihara and the Jaffna district Army commander was also present at this event. Group of Tamil national continuously supports the government to spread Buddhism in Jaffna peninsula.

GL assigned the task of attacking the Chief Justice

Monday, 01 October 2012

External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris has been assigned the task of carrying out the campaign against the Chief Justice after the meeting convened at Temple Trees last Friday with the UPFA party leaders and the SLFP lawyers to decide on bringing a Doshabhiyoga against the Chief Justice had failed, sources from Temple Trees said.

Peiris at the time was in New York participating in the UN General Assembly. The President had telephoned him. “This is a problem created by you. It was you who recommended Shirani to me. You cannot ignore this situation now. It is your responsibility to sort this issue. You will have to start working on this as soon as you return to Sri Lanka,” an angry President had told Peiris.

Disgruntled and angry over the failure to receive the response anticipated by him from the UPFA party leaders and the SLFP lawyers on bringing a Doshabhiyoga against the Chief Justice, the President has now put the removal of the Chief Justice and the Secretary of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) at the top of his agenda. Sources said the President was also engaged in gathering views of visitors to Temple Trees about this issue.

Take Right Lessons From Asia

By Jehan Perera -October 1, 2012 

Jehan Perera

The increase in the economic rate of growth that has taken place in the Sri Lankan economy since the end of the war puts it amongst the better performing countries. Colombo has now got facilities that the more demanding international visitor has come to expect, and indeed it is more pleasing to the eye than many other capitals most particularly in its wider Asian neigbourhood.  What is happening today in Sri Lanka also reflects trends elsewhere in its neigbourhood,   In responding to criticisms of its human rights record, the government is quick to delink Sri Lanka culturally from the Western societies from where most of those critics come.  Instead it affirms closeness with Asia, and Asian models.  But not all these Asian models are either replicable or worthy of replication.

A negative side can also be discerned that is liable to invalidate the repeated declarations by government leaders that Sri Lanka will be a regional hub for the better things of life, such as education, trade and finance.  This is due to the erosion in the Rule of Law, the essence of which is to treat people alike and according to the laws that currently exist without making exceptions.  Confidence in the Rule of Law also holds the key to the long term investments in the economy that are necessary for the economy to take-off to a new level of development. Accompanying impunity is corruption where established procedures are neither followed in spirit nor substance, and which permits enrichment of a few at the expense of the many and is reflected in increasing economic inequalities which affect both the middle and working classes.

Where there are conditions of impunity and no regard for the Rule of Law the expected foreign investments will not be forthcoming.  Not only are investors reluctant to take the risk that they will be at the receiving end of lawless behavior.  They also come under pressure from human rights groups who name and shame them for investing in countries whose governments violate human rights.  The government’s failure to put the issue of war crimes behind it is a deterrent to foreign investment.  The example of South Africa during the period of apartheid stands out as a case study where even multinational corporations who place profit first came under pressure to withdraw, and when they did the death knell fell deservedly on the apartheid government. The more recent example is Burma, where the military government has become more flexible in the face of international political and economic pressure.

PAST LESSONS                                       Read More

Lanka navy destroys TN fishermens nets

Oct 01, 2012

The Sri Lankan navy allegedly damaged fishing nets of several Indian fishermen in mid-sea and two of them returned ashore on Saturday.

After a 14-day boycott, 687 mechanised boats had ventured into the sea for fishing on Saturday. But the Lankan navy surrounded some of the boats and cut off the fishing nets of 18 boats in the high seas. They reportedly warned the Indian fishermen not to enter Lankan waters again.

N J Bose, General Secretary of the TN Coastal Mechanised Boats Fishermen Association, said the fishermen could not lead a peaceful life due to the mid-sea attacks. They returned ashore with a poor catch, he added.

Lankan national held under Passport Act

Dhanushkodi police on Sunday arrested a Sri Lankan national, identified as Anusan alias Anoj of Thalaimannar, under the Passport Act for not possessing valid documents to enter the country. Police said Anusan sneaked into Dhanushkodi on Saturday in a fibreglass boat.

However, he was forced to alight in neck deep water near Arichalmunai from where he managed to reach the shore.

He was subsequently detained by Q Branch police who conducted an inquiry with him.

They said that Anusan was a smuggler and he had smuggled perfumes and other goods to Taiwan and some other countries.

He was then handed over to the Dhanushkodi police who registered a case under the Passport Act.

Anusan was later produced before a court which remanded him to judicial custody.

SRI LANKA: Too many jobless youth in former war zone

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

Jobless in Jaffna

COLOMBO, 1 October 2012 (IRIN) - Finding paid work - especially for youths - is still difficult in Sri Lanka’s former conflict zone in the north even after three years of peace and massive infrastructure projects, experts say, pointing to the region’s anaemic private sector as a main cause. 

Although official employment data for the region is unavailable, experts in the area estimate that up to 30 percent of the north’s population is unemployed, as opposed to a national rate of 4 percent. Based on the most recent census in 2001, 28 percent of the country’s population is between the ages of 10-24, and there are some 280,000 youths in the former war zone, according to a 2012 government estimate. 

Most people who work in what is known as the Vanni - which includes the districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu plus parts of Jaffna, Vavuniya and Mannar - do so only sporadically, according to a March 2012 report released by the government, UN Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme. 

“Daily labour was the most common income generation activity [when the study was conducted], this being the main source of income among 37 percent of the population,” it said. 

The main problem is a near non-existent private sector there, said Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, the principal researcher at Point Pedro Institute of Development, based in Jaffna District. 

“[The] bulk of the development activities are large-scale public investments in infrastructure… employing skilled and semi-skilled labour from the south, as well as under-employed Sri Lanka Army personnel.” 

Private companies have reported a “wait-and-see” strategy on investing in the north, still viewing it as a risky frontier, given the shortage of skilled workers, lack of investment incentives and unknown returns. 

Sivathambu Navarathanaraja, secretary of the Kilinochchi District Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, said while government and humanitarian agencies provide vocational training and other assistance like farm equipment and seeds, youths in the Vanni still struggle. 

Few companies in north                           full report