MR for more women’s participation in Pakistani politics

Anoma - Chandrika and Shirani to enter the politics: Mahinda regime faces threats

THURSDAY, 04 APRIL 2013 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa stressed the need to increase women’s participation in politics in Pakistan, an official statement said.

This was revealed during a courtesy call on President Rajapaksa this morning at the Presidential Secretariat, the visiting Secretary of the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jilal Abbas Jilani, the external affairs ministry said in a statement.

“The President and the Secretary also talked about the upcoming general election in Pakistan and the need to increase women’s participation in politics,” the statement said.

The visiting Secretary had told the President that “there is a marked difference” in Sri Lanka from when he last visited during the war in 2005.

“There is a peace and tranquility one feels,” Mr. Jilani said, adding that the difference is not only with the end of the war but with development activities as well. He further said, “We deeply appreciate and admire the manner in which your government has been able to take care of terrorism.”

President Rajapaksa thanked Pakistan for its continuous support both during and after the war, stating that Pakistan played a crucial role in assisting Sri Lanka during decisive points. While conveying “greetings and very best wishes” from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Mr. Jilani said, “

Mr. Jilani thanked President Rajapaksa for Sri Lanka’s support to Pakistan including during the dengue epidemic that Pakistan faced in 2011.

Following a request by the Pakistani government, Sri Lanka sent a dengue eradication team that assisted with a needs assessment and training of Pakistani medical personnel, the statement added.

Those wearing Kurahan shawl mislead us say farmers

THURSDAY, 04 APRIL 2013

A large number of farmers in Pollonnaruwa District who sold their paddy harvest to Multi Purpose Cooperative Societies (MPCS) and Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) have not received their monies yet say reports.

Some farmers have handed over their paddy several days ago but have not received money from these institutions.

It is revealed that the amount that has to be paid for the farmers in Polonnaruwa District for paddy bought by 9 MPCSs and the PMB is about Rs.150 million. Rs.100 million has to be paid for paddy bought by the MPCSs.

Farmers who have handed over their stocks of paddy to state institutions say they would not be able to celebrate New Year this time.

"How do we buy clothes for our children? Buy things for the New Year? If we don't get our money soon we would not be able to celebrate the New Year. Those wearing the 'Kurahan shawl' asked us not to fear anything. A farmer's son who washed his hands at the water course and handed over his nominations doesn't care about us now," said farmers.

The Asst. Commissioner of Cooperative Development in Polonnaruwa Ms. J.A. Hemalatha admitted that there was a delay in paying for paddy stocks bought by the MPCSs in Polonnaruwa due to the treasury not releasing due funds.

‘Where every prospect pleases, man alone is vile’

‘Where every prospect pleases, man alone is vile’

Devanesan Nesiah-4 Apr, 2013

Image courtesy Aaron Joel Santos

Groundviews

The title of this article is a line from a beautifully haunting hymn written by Bishop Heber of Calcutta who, clearly, had an imperialistic mindset.  He visited our island in 1825, and the hymn must have been written around that time.  The next line reads, ‘The Heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone’.  Because of the racism implicit in it, this hymn is no longer sung in most churches.  But in the light of the extended anti-Muslim hysteria sweeping the country, we may need to pose the question, ‘are we vile?’ Are Sri Lankans a nation?  Are we one people? Are we a law abiding democracy?  Are we a model of friendly co-existence?  Till a few decades ago the answers would have been a resounding no to the first question and an emphatic yes to each of the others.  But now there are some fanatical groups claiming be Buddhists who seem determined to reverse each of these answers.  We do remain the Isle of Serendipity, but at the pace at which we are destroying our physical environment, even this claim may soon ring hollow.

Language and religion are not the only categories of a people – there are many others.  There are twenty million people in our island and each of us is, in several respects, belongs to one minority category or another.  During the twenty years of civil war the Tamils in the North and East suffered terribly; many yet do, as the recent attack on the TNA meeting in Kilinochchi reminds us.  From time to time Christian Churches and clergy have come under grave physical attacks; the latter include several Sinhalese.  But now the community singled out for attacks, sustained over many months, is the Muslims.  Many seem to regard the Muslims as a community outside the pale.

When the anti-Tamil July 1983 pogrom sponsored by sections of the state occurred, there were Sinhalese, Muslims and others who went out of their way at great cost and risk to themselves to defend, protect and sustain Tamil families.  Within a few days the attacks were over although, as could be expected, the recovery has taken many years.  There was a crack down (though some what belated and inadequate), much remorse, a Commission of Inquiry (again belated) and apologies from the highest in the land including President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Likewise, when the Boxing day tsunami occurred, most of the victims were Tamils and Muslims, but many Sinhalese went over to the affected coastal regions with gifts of food and clothing for total strangers.  The response to the current crisis affecting the Muslims is strikingly different. Are they not an integral part of our population?  Even the few criminals who were arrested appeared to have been released because the Muslim victims were intimidated into refusing to give evidence.  Are they to wait for relief from Arab countries?

The Muslim problem was evident even during the 1915 riots nearly a century ago.  They had to fend for themselves.   The British administration charged some Sinhalese leaders (some of whom were innocent) of organizing or carrying out the attacks on Muslim traders.  Those who intervened and even went to London to plead for mitigation were more concerned to establish the innocence of the Sinhalese leaders and not with justice and compensation for the Muslim victims.  A good friend and neighbour, Judge M.A.M. Hussain, made this point forcefully to my father and myself in a conversation half a century ago.  He asserted that the Muslims needed a political party based in areas dominated by Muslim population and voters to look after their interest; they cannot expect similar commitment from Muslim MPs who are mainly dependant on Sinhalese votes.  In due course he helped to establish the SLMC led by his south east based nephew Ashroff.  Judge Hussain and Ashroff are both dead and the current top SLMC leadership is no longer from the east.

I was reminded of Judge Hussain’s arguments when the LTTE committed massacres in Kattankudy, Eravur and elsewhere, and there was not even a Commission of Inquiry by the state.  Nor was there one or any attempt to stop the eviction when the entire Muslim population of the North was summarily driven by the LTTE from all the northern districts.  Equally appalling was the totally inadequate response to the recurrent massacres of Tamils during the civil war, especially in the closing stages.  Also appalling, and even more surprising is the seeming indifference to the massacre by the LTTE in the east of 600 policemen, mostly Sinhalese in the late 80s.  Are we to conclude that there could be a residue of truth in the charge set out in Bishop Heber’s hymn that in this island man is vile?

The anti-Muslim caravan is advancing, gaining momentum with, seemingly, no obstacles. Strangely, the top leaders of the SLMC remain in the cabinet.  Mosques and churches are being demolished and their clergy physically attacked, Muslim led business establishments are being forcibly closed down and their owners driven out of business.  The criminals responsible are being highlighted in the media, proudly asserting their racist ideology. Clearly, the top leadership of the nation is complicit in all this.  What is going on?

In the past Buddhism (together with Jainism) was, with much justification, regarded as the  most tolerant of the great religions.  Is this true any longer of Sri Lankan Buddhism? Judging by the following BBC report, the Episcopal (Anglican) Church at Aberdeen, Scotland and its Minister Poobalan (of South Indian origin) has much better claims to that distinction as evident from the following extract from a BBC report.  The record of that Church and that Pastor are both an inspiration to people everywhere and an affront to the anti-Muslim Sinhala Buddhist racists of Sri Lanka and to the anti-Sinhala Buddhist racists of Tamil Nadu.

Christian Church opens doors to Muslims

By Divya Talwar (image above courtesy BBC)

BBC Asian Network

On a bitterly cold and snowing afternoon in Aberdeen, the doors of St John’s Episcopal Church are open to hundreds of Muslim worshippers, arriving for daily prayers.The familiar sounds of Christian hymns have been replaced with Islamic prayer in the chapel this Friday lunchtime Muslims from the Syed Shah Mustafa Jame Masjid mosque next door share this church with Christian worshippers up to five times a day.  Church leaders believe this may be the only place in the country where Christian and Muslim worshippers pray side by side.

The rector at St John’s has opened his doors to Muslims because there was not enough space for them to pray in their own mosque and many were forced to worship outside on the street. The Reverend Isaac Poobalan, who grew up in Southern India surrounded by Islam, said he would not have been true to his faith if he did not help his neighbours. “It was a very cold day, like today, and when I walked past the mosque I saw dozens of male worshippers praying outside, on the streets, right near the church. ”Their hands and feet were bare and you could see their breath in the freezing cold.

”Jesus taught his disciples to love your neighbour as yourself and this is something I cannot just preach to my congregation, I had to put it into practice.” Reverend Poobalan adds: ”I felt very distressed when I saw my neighbours praying out in the cold and I knew I needed to do something to help.”  ”I know I cannot solve the world’s problems, but when there is a problem I can solve, I will.”

Reverend Poobalan asked his congregation for permission to open the church doors to Muslims. At first, Muslims were reluctant to accept the invite, but they have now settled in well into their new home.  Worshipper Mozhid Sufiyan said: ”We are so grateful to the church for giving us a space for our prayers.  ”It was very difficult, especially for the elderly, to pray outside on the floor.  ”Father Poobalan has been very kind to us all by inviting us into his church.’ ”He has respected all of our beliefs and made us feel comfortable.”

There has been some opposition to the arrangement, with Reverend Poobalan facing abuse by online trolls on social networking sites.  The Bishop of Aberdeen said it couild be a lesson for the rest of the world  Christians believe Jesus is the son of God, while Muslims regard him as a prophet.  But despite these differences, there does not seem to be any tension in St John’s Church, with both faiths having learnt to respect each other.  Peter, a member of the church congregation, said: “Any opposition is from people who do not belong to the church and do not understand the arrangement we have here. “We do not have any issues with sharing our building. ”My faith says if you see anyone out in the cold, you invite them in, so I don’t have any problem with it all.”  Muslims and Christian worshippers at St John’s Church hope their special relationship could serve as a model for the rest of the country.

The Episcopal Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, Dr Robert Gillies, said the arrangement at St John’s could serve as a lesson for the rest of the world.  ”What we are doing here, is something local that has global significance,” he said.  ”We have demonstrated that Christians and Muslims do not have to agree with one another.  ”But they can learn to respect each other’s different beliefs and actually come to get along and even like one another.”

Video: Common Differences – Interviews With Gota To Paikiasothy

April 3, 2013 |
Trailer to documentary project ‘Common Differences’ that deals with ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

In this documentary people below are expressing their opinion on Sri lanka’s nation question.  Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Eran Wickramaratne, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamutt, Imran Furkan, Jehan Perera, Jeevan Thiagarajah, Professor Stanley Samarasinghe, Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, Bishop  Dr. Rayappu Joseph, Javed Yusuf and Iqbal Athas. This is a Video Image production.

11 Responses to Video: Common Differences – Interviews With Gota To Paikiasothy

Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah - April 3, 2013

8:55 pm
Reply

Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah

2009 Tamil Holocaust and your lost credibility

The Cry of a Freedom Activist:

To the International Community

Tamil civilian lives are in your hands the Diaspora pleaded in desperation;

To Canada, US, Britain, EU, Norway and the UN; had you heeded with compassion;

Twenty to forty thousand need not have perished in one sweep without identification;

From a cruel regime’s and its ally’s fire power, chemical weaponry and ammunition.

You have to act fast before it’s too late we wailed and protested;

Lay down on highways, burnt our bodies, fasted, begged and prayed;

In a tiny sliver of land our people are holding out, we cried,

To their last vestige of freedom and dignity, still brave but petrified.

You would have prevented a HOLOCAUST from happening;

If you did what was right by your conscience, without failing;

You should have used R2P: ‘Responsibility to Protect’ with urgency, without faltering;

Canada’s initiative, mind you, to intervene to save lives, it was then certainly wanting.

Tamils were falsely led to the ‘no fire zone’,

Only to realize as soon as they had gone,

They were going to be slaughtered, not spared but done;

Under the very nose of the international community and the UN.

It was a war without witness, no media to report the situation there;

The people were left with no food, no water, and no real medical care.

No humanitarian aid, not a soul to truly comfort and care;

Such inaction on your part, a travesty of justice, that’s beyond compare.

The attackers used their diplomatic machinations to raise the ‘human shield’ concept;

You harped about it, not knowing, it was the perpetrators’ way to cleverly manipulate.

The decision not to leave was a cry for freedom from enemy subjugation, you know it;

Instead you fell prey; if you had a heart you should have surely and easily have known it.

It’s a real shame under the pretext of fighting terrorism;

You turned a blind eye to ruthless Sri Lankan state terrorism;

You condoned the mass slaughter of a people who defied fascism;

Women, children, babies and the elderly left to die from this unspeakable barbarism.

To escape prolonged racism, marginalization, persecution and unending violence;

To defend their territorial integrity, sovereignty and security and fend from occupation;

People joined together, Tamil Eelam their thirst, their passion and their earnest aspiration;

Forming a defacto Tamil State in Vanni to protect their nests and nurture their generation.

They cultivated their fields, fished and traded, even ceased fire for a peaceful resolution;

Self Rule, Nationhood, Homeland, three principles upon which they stood for liberation;

Swearing allegiance to the State that had its own police, legal system and administration;

Defending the land from enemy fire scores of freedom fighters died for the Tamil Nation.

Tamils needed understanding, sensitivity and empathy;

To the people crying for freedom Sri Lanka is their enemy;

To ask them to go with an army, not friendly, with whom they did not identify;

To be disappeared, incarcerated, tortured, raped and massacred; it does defy,

Logic and reason; proved right with hindsight; alas too late to rectify.

The strategy of the enemy was to deny sustenance and wear Tamils out;

Weaken their resolve and virtually force them from their hold out;

It was not a ‘hostage rescue operation’ but a ‘hostage taking operation’, with no time out;

Even with Tamil fighters’ guns silenced, the bombing and the shelling ended not;

The carnage leaving dead bodies, people butchered with limbs missing and organs out;

To stop chemical weapons and multi barrel rockets from being fired on the innocent;

In the end with white flags, the political heads, their families surrendering came out;

Only to be killed at point blank range, as soon as the order from the top was given out.

These helpless people had a right to life,

A fundamental human right, even in strife.

With a will to protect, it was for you to strive,

To act expeditiously, to save innocent life.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Crisis Group have said categorically,

It will not appear before SL’s LLRC, as it has no mandate to probe war crimes explicitly;

They said the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission will not act independently;

Without witness protection it falls short of international minimum standards quite clearly.

Let the UN’s Panel of Experts of accountability speak through its spokesperson directly;

Not let UN’s Secretary General’s personal connection with the Rajapakses even faintly,

Impinge upon and tarnish UN’s image as an organization with impeccable integrity;

Affecting Ban Ki Moon’s ability to take action on the experts’ advice impartially.

The perpetrators have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity;

The question is who will bring the members of the Sri Lankan family dynasty,

Those who allegedly gave the orders, to the International Criminal Court to answer flatly;

To the charge of Genocide of the Tamil People. If you the International Community,

Don’t listen to image building consultants hired by Rajapakses to counteract skillfully,

The growing evidence against them; those who come knocking on your doors ostensibly;

If you believe in the truth, and nothing but the truth and conduct a fair inquiry,

And see that ‘justice is done and manifestly seen to be done’ only then considerably,

Could you redeem your reputation in our eyes ever again and restore your lost credibility.

Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah
Oct 19 2010

Genocidal Buddhists?: An Interview with Burmese Dissident Maung Zarni

Thursday, 04 April 2013

In 2007, inspiring images of Burmese Buddhist monks leading their compatriots in demonstrations of civil resistance flooded the Western media.

Just five years after the series of protests curiously referred to as the “Saffron Revolution” (Burmese monks wear maroon robes, not saffron-colored ones), Buddhist-led violence erupted in the western Rakhine state. Following a monk-led campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority of Burma, recognized by the UN as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, reports of rioting, killing, and the blocking of humanitarian aid to the Rohingya surfaced here and there in the media, devoid of the enthusiasm that the Burmese monks attracted back in 2007.

Last Wednesday evening, over a Skype call to Indonesia, I spoke with Maung Zarni, a Burmese democracy activist, research fellow at the London School of Economics, and author of “Buddhist Nationalism in Burma” in the current issue of Tricycle, to try and make sense of last year’s anti-Rohingya violence and its historical roots. At the time, news was just reaching him of the spread of anti-Muslim violence to central Burma, which was to be featured by the most prominent Western media outlets by Friday. While Burmese state media reports the “official” death toll for the riots at 32, the number cannot be corroborated by outside reporters, who had to be rescued by Burmese police. (One AP photographer was reportedly held at knifepoint by a monk after snapping several images of the violence.) Following the riots, every witness that the New Statesman interviewed said that the police stood by and did nothing to stop the violence—accounts redolent of Human Rights Watch’s accusations of military complicity in last year’s massacres in western Burma. “Many here believe that this was pre-planned and that the official story, that it began with a dispute in a gold shop, is just a cover for violence against Muslims,” journalist Assed Baig reported on the recent riots. The violence in central Burma, perpetrated by a different Buddhist group (“Burmese Buddhists” rather than Rakhine Buddhists) who targeted Muslims of Indian origin, not Rohingyas, demonstrates a pattern of violence that does not bode well for Burma’s Muslims.

Burmese native Maung Zarni has lent his voice to the Rohingya and other minorities in the predominantly Buddhist nation, advocating for their human rights and distinguishing himself by examining the social and historical causes of the current conflict.

In the current issue of Tricycle you make the case for characterizing the current conflict between the Buddhist and Rohingya peoples in Burma as genocide. But such a conflict has a precedent in 1942, when there were a series of massacres of Rohingya Muslims at the hands of Rakhine Buddhists. How is this particular case different?

In a rather bad way, the current Rohingya genocide in Burma is a case in which different forces in society and politics have converged to create, basically, a living hell for this particular group. These forces include historically grounded Burmese anti-Indian racism that isn’t just directed against Muslims, but rather against the people of the Indian subcontinent. That racism arose out of the context of British colonial rule of Burma, which created a racially and ethnically divided economy—a colonial political economy—where the British occupied the top echelon of administrative positions and economic control. For some time beginning in the 19th century, British Burma and British India shared a border of over 1,000 kilometers long. Burma was actually annexed by the British Empire as a province of India. The British subsidized the migration of Indian skilled laborers as well as unskilled migratory labor for the new cash economy that they were building in Burma—oil, rice, industrial farming, and other sectors. Those from the then British India occupied the middle layer—the technical and commercial positions in that economy. In that ethnically stratified colonial economy, the Burmese citizens found themselves, for the most part, at the bottom. That triggered a very strong strain of popular Burmese racism toward the Indians. Of course, the Burmese also reacted strongly against the white man that ruled them, that dominated them and controlled them, and thereby achieved independence.

Then, as you mentioned, in 1942, there were clashes between Rakhine Buddhists, who worked with the Japanese during WWII against the British and the allies, whereas the Muslims, Hindus, and others in western Burma worked with the British. So there is a colonial background to this narrative, to this conflict and the racism behind it.

What’s the perceived threat of the Rohingya?

One prevalent fear has to do with Islamic marriage customs. In Islam, or at least its popular practice in Burma, a Muslim person cannot marry a non-Islamic spouse, who would have to convert. Until she converts to Islam, she will be barred from wifehood. And if she’s not considered a wife, she will not be entitled to property, inheritance, and control of the children. I think that that has been one of the major points of contention between Buddhist society and Islamic

The overall perceived threat, however, is that the Rohingya are agents of Islamicization. If you look at the formerly Malay or Indonesian Buddhist world, they used to be Buddhist, Hindu countries, but they were completely Islamicized by Muslim traders and others. The logic here is to preempt the growth of the Islamic population so that Burma won’t be susceptible to a similar type of Islamicization.

What’s the role of the Burmese state and military in the current conflict?

This is the most important element. After the military proxy party lost by a landslide in the most recent elections, they decided that the time was right to drive out the Rohingya in order to both curry Buddhist majority favor and demonstrate their relevance in reformed Burma. But you know, it’s not possible for any state in this day and age to destroy an entire population of 800,000 to one million. Not after Nazi Germany. Instead, the military has created a situation where there would be communal riots. In doing so, the military state has attempted to do what amounts to outsourcing genocide.

Here, I think genocide needs to be understood not simply as an act of overt violence against a population. If you look at the policies toward the Rohingya by the Burmese state over the past 40 plus years, it involves attempts to control their birthrate. If you attempt to control a people through population policies or restricting their movement—in short, creating living conditions so unbearable that the population would rather flee, risking their lives at sea or crossing a border—that is genocide. It is not just about how many people were killed. Of course that’s included, but it’s the intent, the intent of the policy. Also, the use of the term “communal violence” between the Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya in the media is completely misleading. Of course there is a communal branch to this violence, but that’s only a small part of the story. The larger part of the story is the centrality of the Burmese military and the generals who have attempted to eliminate this population through different strategies.

Why hasn’t any organization called this conflict genocide?

No government, no international body, with the exception of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is prepared to use the word genocide. Because if you do, it automatically triggers a sequence of policy action that would require the UN to intervene. But the West is no longer interested in punishing or isolating the Burmese generals. It has a different agenda, where human rights are being placed on the back burner in favor of economic reforms, the commercialization of Burma, and the opening up of the country as a new market—a frontier market. This has to do with the rebalancing of Western, especially American, power in Asia—as Obama put it, the Asian “pivot.”

When commercial priorities assume center stage, the structural violation of the human rights of the Rohingya becomes less important. That’s why I call this “the genocide that cannot be called genocide for political reasons.” Not because it doesn’t qualify as genocide, but because the West has no political will to see through the actions that using the word genocide would warrant.

How do the religions of the Rakhine and Rohingya come into play?

I think to say that the intent to kill and expel the Rohingya has no religious undertone would be to greatly underestimate the anti-Islamic popular racism of Burmese society. This is not simply about the Burmese military state; this involves the society at large. And of course, the Islamic world is going to react strongly against the killing and destruction of a particular Islamic community. So there is a very strong religious element here.

Just yesterday there was the looting, destruction, ransacking of Muslim businesses and Muslim homes in the dry zone in central Burma, in a town called Meikhtila. They were looting and destroying in broad daylight, under the nose of the police and military authority. This has nothing to do with the Rohingyas or the alleged illegal migration; it has everything to do with the fact that these businesses belonged to Muslim merchants and businesspeople. The public itself is involved in attacking anything that has Muslim signs. The irony here is that the Muslims do not control the Burmese economy. If any one ethnic group controls the Burmese economy, it is the Chinese.

The Saffron Revolution of 2007 was touted as a new paradigm for what’s called engaged Buddhism—Buddhism involved with politics, human rights, and social issues. Now, with these same monks taking to the streets and terrorizing a religious and ethnic minority, are we getting a wakeup call? It seems that Buddhists, or “engaged” Buddhists for that matter, don’t hold any kind of privileged position of righteousness—that they’re just as corruptible as anyone else.

The key is not to romanticize Buddhism at the level of popular practice. If you look at some of the worst genocidal conflicts in recent history—in Sri Lanka, for example, a very deeply Buddhist society—you see how Buddhist leaders and communities behave. There was the mass killing of the non-Buddhists Tamils in Sri Lanka after their surrender. And look at what’s going on now in the Islamic south of Thailand by the Thai Buddhist society and military. Why is the West holding onto this romanticized, fetishized image of Buddhist societies as peaceful, “mindful” societies when some of the most violent societies in the world are Buddhist?

In terms of engaged Buddhism, well, I think the term is a misnomer, because Buddhism is about engagement with reality, and that involves poverty, that involves violence, and that involves our own individual greed. There is a disconnect between what Buddhists say they are and what they really are. What they really are, what we Buddhists really are, is as imperfect, as flawed, as greedy, as jealous, as violent as anyone else.

TRANSCEND MEDIA SERVICE

Action Against Hunger demands justice for Muttur murders

Fri, 5 Oct 2012 10:27 GMT

Source: Member

Watch the Justice For Muttur video and sign the petition

Action Against Hunger is calling on the United Nations to launch an independent investigation to finally bring those responsible for the murders of 17 aid workers in Sri Lanka in 2006 to justice.

Six years after the humanitarian organisation’s team were executed at their offices in the town of Muttur, investigations in Sri Lanka have been hindered and obstructed, with the perpetrators still not been held to account. 

On August 4 2006, armed men stormed Action Against Hunger’s offices in Muttur, forced 17 staff members on to their knees and then executed each of them with a bullet to the back of the head. This is one of the most serious crimes ever committed against humanitarian workers.

Despite three national investigations in Sri Lanka since 2006, none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. The investigations have been plagued with obstruction, interference of politics in the judiciary and a lack of transparency and independence.

After 26 years of war and 100,000 people dead, on November 1st the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva is launching a review of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.

Action Against Hunger believes this might be the last chance to ensure this war crime against the aid workers is not forgotten.  Therefore, Action Against Hunger is calling for an international and independent UN investigation, to force the Sri Lankan authorities to finally account for the massacre.

We urge the public to sign our petition for an independent investigation, so the United Nations can end the impunity in Sri Lanka. Our petition will be handed over to the President of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on 22nd of October. 

Watch the Justice For Muttur video and sign the petition

Join the debate on Twitter #JusticeForMuttur

Relatives blame SLA for aid workers’ executions

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 August 2006, 11:36 GMT]
Relatives of some of the aid workers shot dead execution-style in Muttur town blamed Sri Lankan security forces Tuesday whilst diplomats were skeptical of government claims the Tamil Tigers were responsible. Correspondents with Reuters news agency interviewed relatives of some of the seventeen staff of international aid group Action Contre La Faim (ACF). The father of one aid worker said another son was amongst five Tamil students shot, also execution-style in Trincomalee earlier this year. 

Relatives react after identifying the bodies of slain workers from the international aid agency Action Contre La Faim (ACF), at a hospital entrance in Trincomalee, August 8, 2006. (REUTERS)

Reuters reported 15 of the staff had been found dead on the floor of their office, while two had been gunned down while apparently trying to escape in a car.

In the office, the bodies of fourteen Tamil and one Muslim aid worker, clad in ACF T-shirts, had bullet wounds and most of them lay face down.

“We believe it was the army,” 50-year-old Richard Arulrajah, whose 24 year-old son was among those shot dead, told Reuters.

“On Friday he phoned and said he would be back by Saturday. After that, we heard the military personnel came and shot them.”

Some Sri Lankan hardliners have in the past accused aid agencies of being pro-Tamil, ignoring the majority Sinhalese and backing the Tigers.

Other aid workers have been attacked by Sinhalese mobs in recent days, and troops had been under strain in heavy fighting.

The Sri Lanka Army accused the LTTE, but diplomats are sceptical, Reuters reported Tuesday.

“All of our initial information suggests the government was involved,” the news agency quoted one western diplomat as saying. “The government's only option is to have a full independent investigation with international support.”

It was all too much for Ponuthurai Yogarajah, 62, who lost one son in the killing and another in January when five Tamil students were shot dead, also execution style, on Trincomalee beach by Sri Lankan special forces.

“There is no use in living,” he told Reuters as coffins were prepared for the bloated corpses. “Better to have died before them.”

Aid workers and diplomats say the reason for the murders of the 17 aid workers was unclear, but troops had been under days of strain in heavy fighting.

The staff had travelled to the eastern town of Muttur last Tuesday by ferry from Trincomalee, aiming to return the same day. That afternoon, a Tiger attack on a troop convoy in the harbour trapped them there. The next day the LTTE launched an offensive government troops in Muttur town and district.

“They called on the phone and you could hear shelling,” Sinathambi Navaratnarajah, 52, who lost his son-in-law told Reuters. “They called ACF and were told to stay in the office.”

After three days of heavy fighting, the LTTE pulled out Friday.

“They said the LTTE came and told them to leave,” said Arulrajah, who believed the Tigers would not have killed the ethnic Tamil workers. “They said: We are leaving this place so you must also leave or we can do nothing to protect you.”

By this time, Action Contre La Faim vehicles were trying to break through from the south, but could not get past columns of displaced Muslims and frequent mortar fire. The last radio transmission was recorded early on Friday morning, ACF says.

Most of the aid workers’ bodies had several bullet wounds, mainly to the head. The pathologist said they likely died later on Friday.

Outside the hospital in the Trincomalee, where the bodies of the aid workers arrived late on Monday night, relatives wailed while policemen covered their noses and mouths with scarves against the stench of death.

Tamil correspondents were not allowed to approach the site. Some said they were photographed by security forces who threatened to find and kill them if they reported on the massacre.

There has been strong international condemnation of the massacre. It was the highest toll of aid workers in a single incident since the 2003 bombing of the UN's Baghdad headquarters which killed at least 24.

“We are deeply shocked by the spate of violent attacks on civilians and humanitarian aid personnel in Sri Lanka,” European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement, demanding an immediate investigation.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned what he called “the appalling and cowardly murders.” 

The French charity Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) said Monday it was suspending its mission to Sri Lanka after the killings.

“These humanitarian workers were clearly identified by their T-shirts as members of a non-governmental organization,” the group's director, Benoît Miribel told AFP. 

“We are appalled at what happened to the ACF staff,” said Yvonne Dunton, head of the ICRC's sub-delegation in Trincomalee.

“This was a deliberate attack on a humanitarian organization that was doing valuable work for the people of Muttur.”