Sri Lanka: Feels like paradise?
As part of a campaign calling on Commonwealth members not to allow Sri Lanka to become chair of the organisation, Amnesty International New Zealand produced the video below.


They also had written this letter for delegates attending next week's CHOGM summit.

"Dear Commonwealth delegates,

Welcome to Sri Lanka, the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka is a country famous for tea, gemstones and spices, a land where journalists can be disappeared for speaking out against the Government and where human rights abuses are commonplace.

Visit some of the most beautiful beaches in the world or take a drive to the sites of some of the worst atrocities committed during the 26 year civil war.

See some of the island’s amazing wildlife or visit the hospital where Sri Lankan women gave birth as bombs fell around them.

Take a trip to the area east of the Nanthi Lagoon where thousands of innocent civilians were killed believing they were safe in Government declared No Fire Zones.


Pay a visit to the mother-in-law of refugee Vanni Magal who waits by the gate every day for her husband who went missing on a business trip to Colombo in 1992 to return.
We hope you enjoy your visit, and to make your trip a little more comfortable we’ve provided you with a Sri Lanka travel pack to help keep you safe. In your kit you will find:

⦁    An eye mask – perfect to help you sleep off your jet-lag and shut out the gross human rights violations taking place around you. 
⦁    Earplugs – again to help you sleep – but also useful to block out the screams of those who speak out against the Sri Lankan Government as they are arrested and tortured. 
⦁    Tourist Map complete with plenty of local information – find out where to see wildlife like tigers or elephants or or where the best surf beaches are, also visit the sites of some of the worst scenes of the civil war, such as the safe zones where at least 40,000 innocent civilians were killed during the final months of the civil war, and Trincomalee where five students were allegedly beaten and executed by military forces. 
⦁    Some crucial holiday reading – as you relax on your sun lounger cast your eye over some must-read press releases from Amnesty International.

REMEMBER if you approve of Sri Lanka as Chair of the Commonwealth you are approving its crimes."

Sri Lanka’s State Press Launches Scathing Attack On Channel 4 Ahead Of CHOGM

November 8, 2013 

Sri Lanka’s Government controlled daily has launched a scathing attack on Britain’s Channel 4, days before a crew from the broadcaster is scheduled to arrive in Colombo to cover the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting next week.

Rajpal

Calling Channel 4 reporting “tacky, lurid pants-on-fire journalism that’s not fact checked, not sourced or corroborated,” the Editor of the Daily News Rajpal Abeynayake wrote in his editorial this morning that it was “journalism on the far side of the moon.”

Calling Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma “affable” – the official has been extremely concessionary towards the Rajapaksa regime – the Daily News Editorial said Channel 4′s Jon Snow was in an ignoble hurry to trip him up during a recent interview.

“The enormity of the canard boggles the mind. These people are nothing short of criminals. John Snow if he can malign a country in this way without feeling the need to substantiate what he says with an infinitesimal jot of evidence, is obviously of a criminal mindset as the charges he makes sets him up as a direct agent for seeking to maliciously prosecute key persons in the higher echelon of the Sri Lankan Establishment,” Abeynayake writes.

Abeynayake’s newspaper which has seen an unprecedented lowering of standards since he assumed the chair said Channel 4′s journalism was “a crime against humanity”.

Abeynayake’s editorials regularly and personally vilify media personnel, rights activists and opposition members – and essentially any public persons both within and outside Sri Lanka who hold dissenting views from that of the ruling Rajapaksa regime and its media bandwagon.

UK Govt. Had A Role In Crimes Against Humanity In 71 JVP Crushing: Declassified Documents Reveal

November 8, 2013 

The UK government has declassified documents which were never published before that show that the UK had a covert role in helping to suppress the JVP uprising in 1971.

JVP suspect 1971

The documents were held at the national archives in Kew show that the UK’s covert role in helping to suppress the JVP uprising in 1971.

A new research by the Corporate Watch’s Phil Miller shows that the UK government was fully aware that the Government of Ceylon was “determined completely to destroy the movement and are prepared to use brutal and violent methods”.

Evidence of crimes against humanity was reported in western media at the time. An essay by Fred Halliday in 1971, citing The New York Times and Le Monde notes that:

“During the initial government counter-attack in Kegalle, around April 17–20th, the first reports began to appear of summary executions…[A Ceylonese] officer was quoted as saying: ‘Once we are convinced prisoners are insurgents we take them to the cemetery and dispose of them.’ The government subsequently denied this, but in later weeks hundreds of bodies of young men and women were seen floating down the Kelaniya river near Colombo, where they were collected and burnt by soldiers: many were found to have been shot in the back… What is clear is that the police and armed forces launched an indiscriminate attack on the peasant population as a whole”

We publish below the research sent to Colombo Telegraph by Phil Miller in full;Read More

Sri Lanka boycott 'would damage Commonwealth' - Hague

THURSDAY 07 NOVEMBER 2013

Foreign Secretary William Hague defends the government's decision to go to a Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka, but says the UK backs the UN's calls for an inquiry.

Sri Lanka Boycott 'Would Damage Commonwealth' - Hague by nelvely

BBC World News reveals recent allegations of rape and torture in Sri Lanka

BY BBC-

08 NOVEMBER 2013

As world leaders gather in Colombo for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the BBC Our World team has gathered first-hand testimony that Sri Lankan government forces are raping and inflicting torture on the minority Tamil population including in the government’s official rehabilitation centres. But the government denies such abuses and says the stories are propaganda, designed to further harm the country as it gets back on its feet.

BBC World News Reveals Recent Allegations of Rape and Torture in Sri Lanka by nelvely

The BBC reports that crimes against humanity are still happening in Sri Lanka

07/11/2013

BBC World are going to air a documentary tomorrow (outside the UK only) which will demonstrate that horrific rape and torture are still taking place in Sri Lanka. It will air in the UK on Saturday at 930pm GMT. A radio version will play at 10pm tonight, an edited version will run on BBC Newsnight tonight, and it will also be featured on the Radio show From our own correspondent.

Once the programs have aired you will be able to view them using those links.

Kirsty Brimelow, QC, Chair, Bar Human Rights Committee England and Wales tells the programme, "it all equates to a crime against humanity".

Demonstration in Colombo - photo by Dushi

In all the BBC uncovered evidence of 12 people – men and women – who allege they were raped and tortured in Sri Lanka as recently as this year - most of them have medical reports corroborating their stories or have had their requests for asylum in Europe accepted, based on their allegations of rape and torture. Some of the testemony is absolutely shocking.

This is Nandini's story:

 “Around five or six persons came in a van and said they wanted to talk to me, but my mum did not let them. They pushed my mum to the ground and tied my hands and legs and blindfolded me and threw me into the van. I couldn’t see where they were taking me but the journey took around five hours. I was thrown in a room. There were guards, they did not allow me to sleep, they started raping me that first night. They continued to rape me the next morning as well. I couldn’t bear the pain. They wore army uniforms.

“I have burn marks on the back of my shoulder, and also scars on my back due to the beating with pipes, and scars on my legs, knee and elbows from when I was dragged on the floor.

“I can’t sleep because of what happened to me, I often feel suicidal. I don’t feel like living.”

This is Ravi's story:

 “They beat me, punched me in the stomach, they burnt me with cigarettes, I was beaten with plastic pipes filled with sand. They covered my head with a bag soaked in petrol. Then they submerged my head in water.

“I was tortured in all the places I was kept in, they touched my private parts and crushed my testicles. They would take us for interrogation and question us .They would put my testicles in the drawer and slam the drawer shut.  

“Sometimes I fell unconscious. Then they would bring someone and force me to have oral sex with him. Sometimes if we lost consciousness during the torture they would urinate on us.

“I cannot say specifically who did it. If five people came two people would be in civilian dress and two would be in the uniform of the Sri Lankan Army.”

This is Siva's story:

“I was forced to lie flat on the big table. I was stripped naked and my hands tied down. They hit me with cricket wickets on my hips. I was screaming in pain and pleading them not to hurt me. I told them I had been tortured enough. They had plastic pipes filled with barbed wire. At first I didn’t notice, they kept my head down and then they put the plastic pipe into my rectum. When I screamed in pain, they pulled the pipe out, leaving the barbed wire inside. Then they started pulling the wire out and I couldn’t bear the pain, I told them anything, even lies.”

This is appalling and outrageous, and sadly very probably only the tip of the iceberg. For more information, please watch BBC World on Friday the 8th of November at 2030GMT

If you want to do something about it then please join our campaign against sexual violence. 

If you want to do something to help the victims then please support our appeal.

Please help the victims of rape

07/11/2013

Dear friends,

On tonight's Newsnight, tomorrow on BBC World (outside UK), and on Saturday on BBC news (UK), we will hear the BBC tell the absolutely shocking story of people who have been raped, sexually abused, and tortured by the Sri Lankan Army as recently as last year.

We will hear the story of Nandini who was gang raped, Ravi who was tortured and forced to perform sexual acts, and Siva who was sadistically abused with barbed wire.

A Sri Lankan victim of sexual violence (in this case 
from HRW's report not the BBC documentary)

In the BBC World and Newsnight documentary we heard about 12 such cases. We hear that this constitutes an ongoing crime against humanity.

Please Help the Victims of Rape by nelvely

Monk accused of abuse remanded

By Niranjala Ariyawansha-Friday, 08 Nov 2013

Vavuniya District Judge, V. Ramakamalan, ordered to keep Ven. Atambagaskada Kalyanatissa Thera, who was charged for abusing four children under the protection of Neth Sewana Children’s Home in Vavuniya, in remand till 19 November.  

The Judge also informed the police investigation unit to hand over four abused children to their parents and submit a probation report to the Court.

Commenting on the incident, Chairperson of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), Anoma Dissanayake, stressed the investigations conducted against the monk, who is charged for abusing children, will not be stopped for any reason.

“Whoever did the abusing, it is a crime against children. Just because the abusing was done by a religious leader, that does not reduce the seriousness of the crime. There are people who try to sweep this issue under the carpet since a religious leader is involved in it, but we will not let that happen,” she stressed.

Dissanayake noted, once children are abused, they will not become good citizens, instead they will victimize others. Hence, society has a very big responsibility to protect children, she added.  (Ceylon Today Online)

Nearly 1,200 cancer patients -without post-surgery treatment

by Don Asoka Wijewardena -November 7, 2013,

Non-availability of radioactive Iodine at the Maharagama Cancer Institute has endangered the lives of around 1,200 patients, who have undergone thyroid cancer surgery.

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) yesterday accused the Medical Supplies Division of disrupting supplies of radioactive iodine.

GMOA president Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya said that due to the non-availability of radioactive Iodine, a patient with thyroid cancer who gets admitted to the Maharagama Cancer Institute now, would have to undergo the surgery in 2017. He added that around 1,200 patients had been unable obtain the radioactive iodine treatment even six months after the operation.

Dr. Padeniya said that thyroid cancer was curable if radioactive iodine was given to the patient six months after the surgery. But, due to the severe shortage of the radioactive iodine, the lives of the patients, who had already undergone surgery, were in danger, he added.

He said the GMOA had held a meeting with Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena, Cancer Hospital Director Dr. Kanishka Kurunaratne and MSD Director Dr. Kamal Jayasinghe, on the issue. Minister Sirisena had instructed Dr. Kamal Jayasinghe to change the official in-charge of ordering drugs. He also instructed Dr. Jayasinghe to ensure that drugs were supplied to the cancer hospital without any delay.

The MSD Director, when contacted, said that the radioactive Iodine could not be stored in the country. The drug was being imported each week only for only six post-surgery patients. He added that the Iodine was being imported by Crown Agents in Singapore and the MSD had informed them not to cause delays.

Officers transferred after raiding illegal gaming centre

 Friday, 08 November 2013 

Officers attached to Police Organized Crimes Division have been transferred with immediate effect for carrying out their duties and raiding an illegal gaming centre in the Town hall area in Colombo.

Twenty three IPs and SIs under SP Ganeshanadan from the Organized Crimes Division raided Salaka Regino casino in Town Hall on the 4th and arrested 43 persons who were inside the premises at the time.

The Police have said that the officers were transferred since they had served a long period of time in the division. However, there has not been any explanation as to why the transfers were made in such a hurry.

It is learnt that Salaka Regino casino is owned by Sudharma Neththikumara, who is n intimate lady friend of the head of the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS), Lakshman Hulugalle.

Soon after the raid on her casino, Neththikumara had complained to Hulugalle about her predicament and the harassment of her customers due to the raid.

Angered that his personal friend had undergone such a trauma due to the actions of the police officers who had raided her casino, Hulugalle has engineered the transfer of the officers disrupting the functions of the Organized Crimes Division.

Sri Lanka denies refusing visas to rights delegation

COLOMBO Fri Nov 8, 2013

(Reuters) - Sri Lanka on Friday denied refusing visas to a delegation from an international human rights group ahead of a Commonwealth summit in Colombo, saying its permission had not been sought for the overseas visitors.

Sri Lanka hosts the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting next week and human rights groups have urged a boycott by leaders to put pressure on the government, which faces allegations of extra-judicial killings, harassment of minorities and the detention of politicians and journalists.

On Thursday, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) accused Sri Lanka of denying entry to its delegation, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.

Sri Lanka's external affairs ministry said the country's Bar Association, which invited the delegation, had not followed the necessary procedure of securing the ministry's agreement for a conference involving international participants.

The IBAHRI claim was a "gross misrepresentation of facts and an attempt to sully the image of Sri Lanka," the ministry said in its statement.

Upul Jayasuriya, head of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, said it had followed procedure and obtained the visas from the immigration department before the ministry revoked them.

"This is a violation and restriction of the constitutional rights granted for the freedom of expression and association," Jayasuriya told Reuters.

The Bar Association cannot fight the move "when the government is acting like a bull in achina shop," he added.

The delegation and the bar council had been due to discuss the rule of law and independence of the legal profession ahead of the summit.

Western nations, including the United States, Canada and Britain, along with neighboring India, have criticized Sri Lanka's human rights record and have demanded that President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government investigate war crimes in the final phase of a three-decade war that ended in 2009.

Since the end of the war, Sri Lanka has rejected claims of human rights allegations, including murdering thousands of ethnic minority Tamil civilians in the rebel area.

Sri Lanka has also rejected a demand by the West for an international probe of war crimes. Instead Rajapaksa appointed a domestic panel to look into the accusations.

(Reporting by Shihar Aneez and Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Israel advises Sri Lanka on slow-motion genocide

THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA

OPINION/EDITORIAL

Krisna Saravanamuttu 

The Electronic Intifada 

Toronto 

30 July 2013

130730-tamil-protest.jpg

Tamil protesters outside the Sri Lankan consulate in Toronto, May 2009.

 (Richard Lautens / The Toronto Star)

Towards the end of 2008, I joined thousands in Toronto to protest Israel’s attack on Gaza. Like people all over the world, we called for an immediate end to the war. At York University, where I was a student, we mobilized the campus to defend Palestinian rights.

Israel Advises Sri Lanka on Slow-motion Genocide by nelvely

Commonwealth's Sharma defends Sri Lanka summit - video

06 NOVEMBER 2013

The general-secretary of the Commonwealth defends the heads of government meeting that begins in Sri Lanka next week, despite allegations of appalling human rights violations.

Commonwealth's Sharma Defends Sri Lanka Summit - Video by nelvely

Dwindling Aid Slows Sri Lanka

By Amantha Perera

Beneath a veneer of development, reflected in this newly laid railtrack, Sri Lanka's former war-zone is plagued by poverty, debt and lack of jobs. Credit: Amantha Perera/IP

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka , Nov 7 2013 (IPS) - When the first trains in almost two and a half decades started running through this war-ravaged town in Sri Lanka in mid-September, Sinngamuththu Jesudasan could not resist the temptation to go and have a look – repeatedly.

Dwindling Aid Slows Sri Lanka by nelvely

WHY DO WE DESTROY THE LIVES OF INNOCENT PEOPLE? PLEASE EXPLAIN, MR ABBOTT

IN OPINION, TREVOR GRANT / ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013

This week I spoke with a 40-year-old Sri Lankan father of two who came to Australia in search of freedom from terror for himself and his family. Instead he is being terrorised by the very people he asked for help.

Only a few hours earlier he had attempted suicide in the Broadmeadows detention centre in outer Melbourne. He was found hanging from a rope outside his room. The guards had cut him down, unconscious and on the verge of achieving his sad objective.

His voice was mostly muted. Brooding silences were occasionally broken by bursts of babbling anger and frustration. He wanted me to hear his story; to understand his plight and his anguish after being incarcerated for three and a half years without knowing why, or if he will ever be released.

He doesn’t understand.

He came to Australia in March, 2010 and was immediately accepted as a refugee. He had spent three years, from 2006, in a Sri Lankan military jail. He was accused of links to the Tamil Tigers. He says he was not a Tamil Tiger. He has a court release document from Sri Lanka, confirming he was not part of the Tigers. However, being Tamil was proof enough for the army. He fled to Australia by boat and our Government acknowledged his need for protection. Then ASIO stepped in, and suddenly declared he was a risk to our national security.

All he was told was that they believed he had worked for the Tigers’ intelligence wing. He denies it, and has shown them his court release document. The government looked the other way. He worked for a foreign de-mining company, he says. He asked ASIO for their evidence and the chance to prove them wrong. They said no. It’s a secret.

He doesn’t understand.

Australia, he thought, was a democracy, a free country that held up its legal system as sacred. The right to know why you are being held in jail, the right to be heard, the right to natural justice. He thought these things were an integral part of this society. This is not Sri Lanka, they must treat me fairly, he said to himself.  The UN has demanded the Australian government release him and the other 40 or so locked up for the same reason. The government ignores the UN and breaks international law. He doesn’t understand.

If he was an Australian citizen with an adverse ASIO assessment he would not be locked up indefinitely. He would be able to be able to see why he’s been judged as a security risk. He could challenge his assessment in a court of law. But he is a refugee. So they lock him up, throw away the key, and tell him nothing.

He doesn’t understand.

ASIO says it uses predictive judgements to lock him up. It sounds the same as guesswork to him. If you jailed people on that basis you would need more prisons than schools. One of those predictions is, apparently, that he might still support the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil Tigers no longer exist. They were obliterated in 2009. How can you be jailed for life for supporting an organization that no longer exists, and never threatened Australia?

He doesn’t understand.

He applied for a protection visa at the Swiss embassy when he was released from prison in Sri Lanka. He heard nothing. He had to flee quickly because of intimidation and threats. He gathered all his worldly goods and those of a few friends and sold them in exchange for passage on a boat and a life without terror. His wife and two children remained behind, hoping to join him. After he left they were granted protection by the Swiss government. His wife and 12-year-old son now live in Switzerland. His adult daughter lives in India.

Last Monday at 12.30 p.m. he met with Immigration Department officials at the detention centre. He pleaded his case. He asked that if they won’t let him live here then let him go to Switzerland with his wife and child. They shrugged their shoulders and said they could nothing. He told them he couldn’t cope anymore. He was losing his mind. They got up and left. It was 1.30 p.m.

He went immediately back to his room and picked up a rope he had hidden away. He went to a nearby area he had surveyed earlier. It had a cross-beam sturdy enough to do what he needed to do.

When they cut him down, they tried to force him to take medication. He refused. He said he wants to die. It is the only way out. After years of daily persecution and terror in Sri Lanka, he came to a country he thought was rich, not so much with money but kindness. Now he knows he was wrong.

And now he understands.

–Trevor Grant

A Public Meeting and a Film Screening

 Thursday, 07 November 2013 

A Public Meeting and a Film Screening

On
Tuesday, December 3rd 2013, 6pm - 9pm

at
Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin

(on main Trinity campus, the old ‘Physiology’ building, beside Department of Zoology and facing rugby pitch – enter Lincoln Place Gate)
PLACES ARE LIMITED – PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE AT irishpeaceforum@gmail.com / 085 156 2980

Since the military victory of the Sri Lankan government over the LTTE in May 2009, there is on-going militarisation in the predominantly Tamil-speaking North and East regions of Sri Lanka. On the northern peninsula alone the force density is 200 soldiers per 1000 civilians. This exceeds the force density in Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq (during the early stage of occupation). Of the 18,000 square kilometres of the entire region nearly 8,000 have been fully acquired by the Sri Lankan security forces. The Sri Lankan government has undertaken massive structural changes in the region including establishing Sinhala settlements, military cantonments and Sinhala Buddhist shrines and by acquiring key economic and commercial centres of the region. Nearly 25,000 tombstones of LTTE combatants have been demolished and any public remembrance of the dead has been banned. In the aftermath of the war, the military is also reported to have killed workers, fishermen and other demonstrators in the southern parts of the island who protested against the government. What kind of ‘international pressure’ will work?

Chair: Denis Halliday
Former Assistant Secretary General of the UN
Speaker 1: Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam
A leading Tamil parliamentarian during the 2002 peace process and a lawyer whose father was assassinated by ‘unknown gunmen’ in 2000
Speaker 2: Kumaravadivel Guruparan
A leading civil society activist and a lecturer at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka

Film: Sri Lanka: Killing Fields II
The second of three documentaries produced by Channel 4 which reveals evidence that civilians, hospitals, no fire zones and other ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) marked places were targeted by the security forces killing thousands of civilians in the last phase of the war in 2009.

Organised by: International Peace Studies Programme - ISE/TCD; Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL) and Pax Christi Ireland.
Funded by: The Robert & Kezia Stanley Chapman Trust.

WikiLeaks: Disappearances Not Under Order From Central Authorities – ICRC To US Mission To UN

November 7, 2013 

“Regarding disappearances, he said that there has been a long tradition of arrests and disappearances in Sri Lanka by people in civilian clothing. While ICRC has knowledge about a certain number of cases, most appear to be people abducted/arrested by either Tamil auxiliary forces or local authorities, not under order from central authorities, but connected to local political circumstances. On the other hand, there appears to have been no pattern of systematic disappearances during the GSL’s screening of the population that fled the fighting.”

Outside the TMVP office in Tirukkovil - White van with newspaper in place of number plate and Jeevendran and Inayapaarathi – Picture taken from inside our van through the windscreen - Picture by Uvindu Kurukulasuriya

The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The “Confidential” cable discuses what had happened on the ground during and since the conflict. The cable was signed by the US Ambassador to Geneva Clint Williamson on July 15, 2009.

After a meeting with Jacque de Maio, ICRC Head of Operations for South Asia on July 9, 2009, just two months after the war,the Ambassador wrote;”De Maio explained that ICRC has a fairly good network of people to whom family members report arrests/disappearances. In the cases of those who seem to disappear during screening, most of them turn up within days, and were three to five times more likely to be found if they received a report within twenty-four hours of disappearance. He believed that many incidents were driven by the GSL view that all civilians coming out of the Vanni were presumed guilty by the government. ICRC has been visiting regularly 11,400 people arrested and interned in 10 camps as suspected LTTE fighters.”

Other related stories to this cable;

WikiLeaks: It’s Not Genocide, Army Could Have Won The Battle With Higher Civilian And Less Army Casualties – ICRC To US Mission To UN

WikiLeaks: LTTE Stored Weapons At Hospitals – ICRC To US Mission To UN

WikiLeaks: Govt. Restricted Blood Bags, ICRC Stopped Counting Dead Children Because No Blood Available – ICRC To US Mission To UN