Ariel Sharon: Buddha or butcher of Middle East?
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

By Gul Jammas Hussain-Sat Jan 11, 2014

Voltaire once said, “Men use thought only to justify their wrong-doings, and words only to conceal their thoughts.”
With former Israeli general and prime minister Ariel Sharon’s long-anticipated death, the Western media has gone to great lengths to paint him as the Buddha of the Middle East.

Ariel Sharon Buddha or Butcher of Middle East by nelvely

Night fire destroys ancient Tibetan town in China

A firefighter works on a roof of a wooden building while a fire ravages ancient Dukezong town in Shangri-la county, in southwestern China's Yunnan province, Saturday Jan. 11, 2014

January 11, 2014
Beijing:  A fire that raged for nearly 10 hours on Saturday razed an ancient Tibetan town in southwest China that's popular with tourists, burning down hundreds of buildings as fire engines were unable to get onto the narrow streets, state media and witnesses said.

There was no immediate report of casualties, and the cause of the fire was unclear. State media, citing local authorities, said the blaze started in a guesthouse and was ruled accidental.

The fire broke out at 1:27 a.m. in the ancient Tibetan quarter of Dukezong, which dates back more than 1,000 years and is known for its preserved cobbled streets, ancient structures and Tibetan culture. It is part of scenic Shangri-La county in Deqen prefecture.

Once called Gyaitang Zong, the county in 2001 renamed itself Shangri-La, hoping to draw tourists by the reference to the mythical Himalayan land described in James Hilton's 1933 novel. Like hundreds of Chinese cities and counties, Shangri-La renovated its old neighbourhood, Dukezong, turning it into a tourist attraction filled with shops and guesthouses.

Photos and video footage showed Dukezong and its labyrinth of houses engulfed in flames that turned the night sky red.

The fire destroyed about 242 houses and shops in Dukezong, dislocated more than 2,600 people, and torched many historic artifacts, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

He Yu, a resident, said she woke to loud, explosion-like sounds to find the old town on fire.

"The fire was huge," she said. "The wind was blowing hard, and the air was dry. I was scared because my home is a little distance away from the ancient town. It kept burning, and the firefighters were there, but there was little they could do because they could not get the fire engines onto the old town's narrow streets."

With fire engines kept out, local residents lined up to pass buckets of water to combat the fire, the Deqen prefecture government said.

Most of the buildings were made of wood and the fire spread easily because of dry weather, state-run China Central Television said.

More than 2,000 firefighters, soldiers, police, local officials and volunteers responded to the blaze and brought it under control at around 11 a.m., the Shangri-La county government said.

Ariel Sharon, whose political career was unhindered by civilian massacres, dies at 85

Philip Weiss on January 11, 2014 

Ariel Sharon, who became prime minister of Israel despi

te a finding that he bore responsibility for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians two decades before, has died at 85 after being in a coma for eight years.

“The Butcher of Sabra & Shatila dies”

Ariel Sharon, Whose Political Career Was Unhindered by Civilian Massacres, Dies at 85 by nelvely

Risk Assessment: THE RISK OF MASS ATROCITIES IN SRI LANKA

Risk Assessment: THE RISK OF MASS ATROCITIES IN SRI LANKA

By SENTINEL PROJECT | Published: JANUARY 10, 2014

 

Sri Lankan civilians suffered great hardships and many were displaced during the 25-year civil war

The Sentinel Project has finalized an assessment on the risk of mass atrocities in Sri Lanka. Almost five years after the end of the civil war, the assessment reflects that the mass atrocity risk in Sri Lanka remains high and addresses some of the underlying sources that represent a threat to human security.

Despite the international pressure to appoint a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in 2010, the government of Sri Lanka has failed to address the old grievances between thegovernment and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE), which led to a 25-year civil war.

The risk of escalating violence reached a critical threshold during the period of January through May 2009, when the government of Sri Lanka intensified efforts to militarily eliminate the LTTE who had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland since 1983. As hostilities escalated in the conflict zone, civilians trapped between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government’s armed forces became victims of mass atrocities.

During the civil war, the displacement of 470,000 people from the Northern provinces has also increased resentment by ethnic Tamils against the Sri Lankan government and military. This resentment could manifest itself in increased anti-government protest, which can lead to violent clashes between the two ethnic groups and extreme measures to subdue further challenges to government authority.

The current political situation gives the military an ever-greater concentration of power. The heavy militarization of the north remains one of the main obstacles to the region’s recovery since the Sri Lankan military has assumed an economic role in not only overseeing but also approving development efforts. The military’s freedom of action represents a potent example of socioeconomic deprivation of a specific group based on the treatment of Tamils as second-class citizens by the Sri Lankan government.

Furthermore, the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 has done little to address the concerns and fears of the Tamils as they relate to Sinhalese domination. Instead of forming more inclusive relationships with the minority, the Sinhalese government has used this transitional period to reassert Sinhalese power. Additionally, police and military forces, as well as Sinhalese militias, continue to resort violence, including intimidation, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture, and even murder to restrain any opposition to the government.

The increasing consolidation of power by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family has further eroded the remaining semblance of democracy in Sri Lanka by gradually eliminating any persons or systems of accountability. In addition, the government has refused to investigate war crimes and other atrocities committed by its military forces during the last phase of the civil war.

Taking into account the recent history of the conflict, the current risk assessment gives an account on the main sociocultural and political factors that constitute a threat to peace and mass human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

For the full risk assessment click here

This entry was posted in General News and tagged civilian protection, LTTE, mass atrocities,Sri Lanka. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Risk Assessment Sri Lanka January 2014 by nelvely

As hardline monks rally Sri Lanka on Buddhist pride, minority Muslims fear being targeted

Published January 11, 2014

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA –  With a bloody civil war over and a cautious peace at hand, a group of hardline Buddhist monks is rallying Sri Lankans against what they say is a pernicious threat: Muslims.

In just over a year, the saffron-swathed monks of Bodu Bala Sena — or Buddhist Power Force — have amassed a huge following, drawing thousands of fist-pumping followers who rail against the country’s Muslim minority.

Buddhists have attacked dozens of mosques and called for boycotts on Muslim-owned businesses and bans on headscarves and halal foods. At boisterous rallies, monks claim Muslims are out to recruit children, marry Buddhist women and divide the country.

"This is a Buddhist nation, so why are they trying to call it a multicultural society?" said Galagoda Atte Gnanasara, the 37-year-old pulpit-pounding monk who co-founded the group in 2012. "Not everyone can live under the umbrella of a Buddhist culture."

There have been few if any physical attacks on people, unlike in Myanmar, where Buddhist monks helped incite communal violence in 2012 and 2013 and even stood watch as Buddhist mobs slaughtered Rohingya Muslims. But many Sri Lankans and human rights workers are alarmed, saying the monks are creating communal divisions and giving Buddhism a bad name.

Nearly all of the dozen critics of Bodu Bala Sena interviewed for this story declined to speak on the record, fearing reprisals.

The Sri Lankan government only rarely steps in to defend or protect Muslims, who make up roughly 10 percent of the 20 million people on this Indian Ocean island.

Many see the silence as tacit approval, but Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said it’s intended to encourage community members to work out their own problems. He said the anti-Muslim rumblings are “minor agitations that are normal in any multicultural society.”

"If things get more serious, we will take action," he said. "These kinds of things can ruin a nation, we are aware of that."

In September 2011, Buddhists reportedly smashed a 300-year-old Islamic Sufi shrine to rubble in the ancient city of Anuradhapura, a UNESCO world heritage site. Police have denied that the incident happened, but photographs taken by locals show at least a dozen officers watching as young men hammer the shrine to pieces while a monk holds a burning green Islamic flag.

In April 2012, a 2,000-strong Sinhalese mob including monks ransacked Jumma Mosque in the north-central city of Dambulla as police looked on. The government later ordered the removal of the decades-old mosque, saying its location within a sacred Buddhist area was an affront.

In March last year, police watched as red-robed monks led a hollering crowd in trashing a Muslim-owned clothing store.

The U.S. Embassy spoke out after a stone-hurling mob attacked a suburban Colombo mosque in August, calling it “particularly troubling in light of a number of recent attacks against the Muslim community in Sri Lanka.”

Muslims say they are also the targets of ludicrous conspiracy theories, including rumors that they spit three times in any dish before serving it to a non-Muslim, or that Muslim shops sell women’s undergarments tainted with chemicals that cause infertility.

Many Muslims feel they are being victimized because of their visibility in the economy — a role they have played for more than 1,000 years since Arab traders brought Islam to Sri Lanka and allied with the Sinhalese against Spanish and Dutch colonial forces. Today, they control at least half of small businesses and hold near-monopolies in the textile and gem trades.

Because most speak Tamil, and not Sinhala, they were key players in military intelligence during the civil war against ethnic Tamil rebels.

"We never thought the government would turn on us," said Mujibur Rahman, a Muslim member of Colombo’s provincial council. He and other critics contend that the 2009 civil war victory left a triumphant Buddhist Sinhalese majority searching for a new target.

"The president needs to create a new security problem to avoid actually having to govern," Rahman said. "He has built an image for himself as a Sinhalese Buddhist hero and savior. He needs a new enemy to keep that up."

The government dismisses the idea as absurd, and Bodu Bala Sena denies any role in organizing attacks. But even some Sinhalese have their suspicions.

"The BBS is trying to push the country toward racial and religious conflict," said a Sinhalese business owner who would only give his first name, Susantha. "Sometimes I suspect they are carrying out a contract for the government to turn attention away from issues such as the economy, health care and education."

Gnanasara and Kirama Wimalajothi started Bodu Bala Sena after splitting from a group they said was not militant enough in protecting Buddhist interests in Sri Lanka.

The brawny, bespectacled Gnanasara said that, with about 70 percent of the population practicing Buddhism, the tropical nation has a duty to uphold the religion’s traditions, preserve its heritage sites and police against conversion to other religions.

"The secret to my popularity is that I speak the truth," he said in an interview held within the Bodu Bala Sena headquarters, in a Buddhist cultural center set among twisted tree trunks and a lush jungle canopy near Colombo, the capital.

Gnanasara said there are “extremist forces trying to create divisions, buy our lands, marry our wives and recruit our children. The same thing happened in Malaysia, the Maldives and Bangladesh — all now Muslim countries. The same thing may happen in Sri Lanka if we’re not careful.”

At a rally in August, Gnanasara urged Sri Lankans: “Don’t vote for any politician who does not admit this is a Sinhalese Buddhist country.”

The aggressive tones have clashed with the country’s pledge to pursue postwar reconciliation, a pledge still largely unfulfilled as the government flouts international calls for an independent war crimes probe.

Analysts say radical Buddhism is just one sign of human rights being sidelined in Sri Lanka. With the nation reveling in postwar relief, lawmakers loyal to President Mahinda Rajapaksa passed a constitutional amendment in 2010 extending his term limits and revoking guarantees of independent police, judiciary and electoral commissions.

"We’re seeing a pattern of really severe human rights violations right across the board," Amnesty International director Steve Crawshaw said. "The government can’t stand any forms of protest or criticism, and yet it appears to actively turn away from violence and lawlessness against other ethnic minorities and religions."

The justice minister and Colombo’s mayor are both Muslim, but neither has made any public moves to address tensions.

Islam is not the only religion Buddhists have targeted. In September, a radical Buddhist monk led a group in attacking a Protestant church during a prayer service.

The country’s Tamils, who are mostly Hindu and account for about 11 percent of the population, have remained largely quiet and cowed since the army routed the Tamil Tiger rebels. But many Tamils today are frustrated, too, as they await postwar reconciliation measures including the return of all seized property and land.

Bodu Bala Sena monks make many accusations about other religions — Christian pastors making suicide bomb kits, Islamists taking children away to train in Pakistan — without offering supporting evidence.

"We are worried about our children. We are struggling with the government to stop these cons," Wimalajothi, the group’s leader, said as Gnanasara nodded by his side. "We need the government on our side. And the government is doing its best job possible to handle this."

Geneva Again

By Izeth Hussain -January 11, 2014

Izeth Hussain

Once again Geneva looms on the horizon. But this time, in a more apposite metaphor, Geneva March 2014 takes the form of a huge bristly grisly monster moving towards Sri Lanka while wielding a lethal spiked club in its hand. That is to say that what happens in March in Geneva over accountability for alleged war crimes could eventually lead to UN sanctions against Sri Lanka. Those sanctions could prove lethal to the present Government of Sri Lanka. The main thrust of this article, however, is that the problem of accountability is the text while more important is the undeclared subtext, which is the problem of the failure to move effectively towards a political solution of the ethnic problem. I hold that it is the latter problem that has led to the problem of accountability. I hold further that the Government is probably in a no-win situation in regard to the problem of accountability, but it can win by convincingly and effectively moving towards a political solution of the ethnic problem.

What should we do? We must consider certain preliminary matters before answering that question. One is the enormous prejudice against Sri Lanka which prevails in a very powerful segment of the international community, namely the West and its allies in Australia and New Zealand. It is time to recognize that that “prejudice” is something that ought to be placed within inverted commas because the negative attitude towards Sri Lanka, more particularly its Government, is something that can be justified in terms of the highest standards of morality prevailing in contemporary civilization. Those standards demand that fair and equal treatment be given to the minorities.

The Government has a sorry record in the treatment accorded to our minorities since 2009. For almost four years it kept on promising to India that it would give not just 13A but 13A+, and eventually it offered 13A-. In terms of prevailing diplomatic norms that has to be seen as morally shabby behavior. During that period the Government tried out an alternate strategy to solve the ethnic problem, instead of the promised devolution: heavy expenditure on infrastructure projects which the Tamils see as designed, not to meet the economic needs of the Tamil people, but to bind the country together under monolithic Sinhalese power; attempts to change the demographic structure of the North and East by allegedly stealing the lands of the Tamils and the Muslims; and a heavy armed forces presence in the North which can be seen as showing the arrogance of the conqueror. That alternate strategy was shown to be a complete flop at the NPC elections. So the Government has set up the Northern Provincial Council, but the record up to now makes it doubtful that the Government will allow it to function properly.                                                       Read More

The revolt against the PM: Sihala Ravaya side show or sign of cracks in the regime?

Rajan Philips-January 11, 2014

It was not quite the revolt in the temple of old but sacred temple tenants were out on Flower Road last Wednesday, storming the Prime Minister’s Office and mixing it up with cops and guards who were standing in the way. The monks wanted the PM’s head not over the heroin pickle that the PM has got into but for going on the counter-attack and publicly calling a member of the Maha Sangha "Cheewaradariya".

The Prime Minister, known for his outspokenness, should also have known that with his office implicated in arranging customs passage for heroin from Pakistan, he was in no position to call anybody anything, least of all a member of the Maha Sangha. The Flower Road fracas ended with the monks settling for a letter of apology issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), after getting the original version reworded to their satisfaction. If a letter of apology was all that was needed to atone for the aspersions cast on the venerable echelons of Lankan society, it could have been easily obtained through simple communication rather than a public orgy of street protest. After all and without any fuss the heroin importer was able to get a letter from the PMO - to facilitate customs clearance for the contraband!

Colombo is not unaccustomed to political protests, but the old trade union agitations in the hurly-burly industrial and mercantile areas of the City have now given way to expressions of other grievances, real as well as fancied, in areas that were not accessible to earlier protestors. Relocating the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) from the Senate Building to the old mansion of Sir Ernest de Silva on Flower Road was then Prime Minister Premadasa’s exercise in spatial mobility. But why the PMO should remain there even after the nation’s parliament was moved lock, stock and barrel from Colombo to Kotte is anybody’s guess.

That same Wednesday, unlike the monks and their mayhem, there were genuine grievers out on the streets not far from Flower Road. They were the deprived depositors of Central Investments and Finance Ltd (CIFL) still looking to recover whatever they could from their life savings that were swindled by the financial wizards whom they had trusted. On Thursday, the Federation of National Organizations (here is a federation that opposes devolution!) blocked off much of Galle Road from Kollupitiya to Fort as they marched to protest against the visit of Stephen J. Rapp, the US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues. The FNO’s grievance, unlike that of the CIFL depositors, is more fancied than real. Why cannot the monks and the FNO protestors join ranks with people having real grievances, such as those whose savings were swindled by the CIFL, add to their voices and show solidarity with their mission to get their money back?

Political protests, their form, location and content, are indicative of the interplay of political forces and the vicissitudes of political fortunes. ‘The rural masses vote governments into power and the working classes throw them out’ was Dr. Colvin R de Silva’s description of the regular pendulum swings in government changes that characterized Sri Lankan politics until the Jayewardene/Rajapaksa machinations stymied the political dynamic in the electoral process and between elections. While governments changed as a result of the electoral defeats of incumbent governments, the somewhat overlooked factor in those defeats was the internal dissensions and splits in governments before they called elections and suffered defeats.

The Endgame

In almost every instance, especially in 1956, 1965 and 1977, a divided incumbent government was set up for defeat at the polls by an alignment of opposition parties taking advantage of a hostile electorate. While political ambitions and opportunisms played their part in the internal dissensions and splits in governments, the latter were also dialectically linked to the political expressions of people’s real life problems. Seen in such light the Prime Minister’s heroin scandal and the protests over it by monks and minions are a parody of politics and not the model of politics that Colvin conceptualized. To add a foot note from history, Colvin R de Silva not only conceptualized politics, but also demonstrated in practice the masterly organization of protests. That was then, what do we have now?

While commentators have expressed due concern over the involvement of the PMO in the heroin scandal and its implications for ministerial responsibility and the probity of government itself, the central political actors are cynically manipulating the scandal for political positioning rather than dealing with it honestly and transparently. As I noted two weeks ago, no senior government leader has come out in defence of the Prime Minister. The silence of the President is deafening. The President owes it to the country and the reputation of his government for probity, if such standards are still relevant in Sri Lanka, to either defend his Prime Minister or ask for his resignation. He will do neither.

On the other hand, the UNP, aka official opposition, has gone against the common practice of gaining political mileage by calling for the PM’s resignation. Instead, the official opposition seems to be defending the PM. The attacks are coming from minor players such as the JHU and the JVP. According to Mangala Samaraweera, ex-SLFP Minister and now UNP front liner, the attacks on the PM are part of a campaign against senior SLFP leaders in the UPFA, and are being orchestrated by the likes of the JHU and the BBS with blessings from within the Rajapaksa regime. This might explain the cynical silence of President Rajapaksa. But does it suggest a cunning strategy on the part of the UNP?

The UNP is in the political doldrums and whatever it does or doesn’t about Prime Minister Jayaratne is not going to make any difference to the UNP or anybody else. It is the ultimate victim of JR Jayewardene’s grand constitutional design to create a ‘perfect dictatorship’ of the UNP to provide Sri Lanka the political stability for economic growth without opposition protests and trade union strikes. JRJ lived long enough to see the UNP getting torn down the middle by his fighting successors, and to see as well the daughter of his nemesis resurrect her family party from the ashes and recapture power after 17 years. Seventeen years are not a long time for dictatorships – the perfect dictatorship of the Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico for 71 years. But JRJ did not live long enough to see the SLFP under a different family rule adapt his constitutional contraption to create a dictatorship of a different kind.

Even though his grand design never really took off under him, and it foundered under his successors from both sides of the political divide, President Jayewardene played out his endgame well. He enabled his own succession, retired from the presidency and lived more than a presidential term as a private citizen. President Rajapaksa is still younger in age to what President Jayewardene was when he became President. Through the 18th Amendment, he was almost planning an endless endgame, so to speak. But the controversy over Prime Minister Jayaratne’s heroin scandal is unexpectedly stirring up succession comments and discussions. Although President Rajapaksa is not publicly defending the Prime Minister, he would rather have Mr. Jayaratne remain as PM if only to avoid appointing as new PM an aspirant for the presidency and a potential challenger in the not too distant future. Suddenly, the presidential endgame is not being seen as endless, 18A notwithstanding.

The Human Rights Question In The South

By Rajan Hoole -January 11, 2014 

Rajan Hoole

The Year 1988: The Red Moon Over Sri Lanka And The Dawn Of New Wisdom – Part 4

A particular context in which these accusations came up was the murder in police custody of the lawyer Wijedasa Liyannarachchi whose corpse was found to have more than 100 injuries. The SLFP was quick to play a leading role in protests highlighting for the first time in its 36 year history, gross violations by the state forces, which had though been long common in Tamil areas. For the elite, the Liyannarachchi affair gave them an occasion to give public expression to one side of their confused feelings. On the one hand the State, which had vocally and violently championed the Sinhalese cause in earlier years, was then killing Sinhalese youth in large numbers. On the other, while the elite were disconcerted by the JVP’s murderous violence, its apparent anti-Indian and subtly anti-Tamil rhetoric struck a responsive chord.

In this situation, the elite’s response was similar to that of the Tamil elite in the mid-80s. Although not absolutely safe, it felt safer for the elite to rain indignation against the Government’s violations – the violence of the known devil. Thus for them condemning the latter and being silent on the JVP’s violations, thereby giving them a certain legitimacy, became a fashionable way of feeling good. It was shallow and self-serving, having a useful purpose only when the JVP seemed like succeeding. This was the context behind the protest by an influential section of the intelligentsia when Liyannarachchi was killed. There were also those who had consistently protested against human rights violations over the years. They were a minority. Earlier, Human Rights had been an expression that had been spat upon as a pastime of Tamil lovers. But during the latter half of 1988, and only then, Human Rights became a very respectable term in the South of Sri Lanka.

Liyannarachchi had been working on habeas corpus cases in the South from the offices of the senior lawyer Ranjit Abeyasuriya, who was associated with the SLFP. He was abducted in Colombo upon leaving these offices on 25th August 1988 and taken by the Police to Tangalle, in DIG Udugampola’s area. A month earlier several members of Udugampola’s family had been murdered when the JVP attacked his ancestral home in the Deep South. Once the alarm was sounded over Liyannarachchi’s safety, it was decided to move him to Colombo. The Batalanda Commission has since found that Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe was instrumental in giving the CSU unit at Kelaniya custody of Liyannarachchi and that this unit was responsible for the torture to which he finally succumbed.   

To be continued..

*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power  - Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here

                                           Read More

Rapp "pompous,’’ US messaging methods "grotesque’’

GL meets US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice

January 11, 2014, 

Friday’s meeting between External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris and Ambassador Stephen. J. Rapp, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, had seen both sides take up adversarial positions which diplomats believed would seriously damage future avenues of cooperation and engagement.

Colombo had indicated that Rapp appeared to have pre-judged the issues and had a closed mind on the matters under discussion and seems to have accepted unverified information provided by interested parties as correct.

``This visit seems to have been undertaken by Rapp from a position of pre-judgment seeking aspects justifying the objectives he is seeking,’’ one source said.

The visiting ambassador who traveled to the north and talked to people there said he had been briefed on incidents by people who had witnessed them. Based on such testimony, Rapp had said he was ``convinced’’ that the 40,000 figure of those who died was accurate.

His claim that as a prosecutor, he could judge credibility of testimony was seen as ``pompous’’ by the Sri Lanka side.

Well informed sources said that the matter of the Twitter picture and caption posted by the US Embassy here describing the St. Anthany’s (sic) ground being ``the site of the Jan. 2009 killing of hundreds of families by army shelling’’ had also come up at the Peiris – Rapp meeting.

Although Colombo had not summoned the US ambassador over the posting, a call on the ministry of the US Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) with a visiting delegation had been used by Mr. K. Amunugama, Secretary to the External Affairs Ministry, to raise this matter.

The DCM had told Amunugama that the Twitter posting was a result of the Embassy’s belief that as a result of various adverse press articles as well as the anti-Rapp demonstration outside the Embassy perceived to have been organized by a government minister, they had to give out a public message.

They also wanted to convey reports received from people in the area as credible and that Rapp wanted to highlight the need for a Witness Protection Bill. The mild-mannered Peiris, credible sources said, had categorized this manner of working as ``grotesque.’’

A Victim and Witness Protection Bill was ready and was likely to be presented to a Cabinet Sub-Committee as early as this week and Anti-hate speech legislation was also being prepared for cabinet consideration, Rapp was told during the meeting.

He was further briefed that non-summary proceedings on the killing of five strudents on the Trincomalee beach had begun last September and the next hearing was set for March 6.

Peiris has also said that the census of the disappeared was being done by the Department of Census and Statistics. Enumerators were public servants including university and school teachers and village officials like grama niladaris.

The minister had rejected allegations on attacks on places of religious worship by sections of the international community as misunderstandings and distortions with interested people sometimes calling prayer rooms as places of religious worship.

The Defence Ministry and the ICRC have reached common understanding on processing complaints of missing persons and the findings would be presented to Commissioner of Inquiries and Disappearances.

Other matters covered included return of land acquired during the war – approximately 19,200 acres of private land 2,500 acres of state land had been returned. Peiris said that the LTTe had engaged in a massive land grab during the conflict and given such land to Mahaveer families. The lack of documents to prove ownership and competing claims was a problem but a fourth Land Commission will be set up in the next few weeks, Peiris said.

He made the further point that 12,000 ex-combatants have been released and outlined progress of post-conflict development to urge that the focus on Sri Lanka and the contemplated US action (Geneva resolution etc.) was not commensurate with the issues at hand.

US repeats call for ‘credible probe’ 
US repeats call for ‘credible probe’ 
By Ranga Jayasuriya- January 11, 2014
 
The US Embassy yesterday reiterated the calls for ‘an independent and credible investigation’ into allegations of war crimes during the final phase of the war as US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice, Stephen J. Rapp, toured the former war zones and met with the survivors.
 
Rapp’s visit came ahead of the forthcoming United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session scheduled for March in Geneva.
 
“The Ambassador met several survivors. Shelling and killings of civilians were among the reports that we heard from survivors,” Christopher Teal, Director of Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Sri Lanka and the Maldives said.
“That is why a credible independent investigation is necessary,” he added.
 
He said, Ambassador Rapp visited sites where ‘there was the final battle, when the accusations of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses by the government were the greatest.’
 
Ambassador Rapp’s visit came in the wake of speculations that the US and its EU partners were planning to sponsor an adverse resolution on Sri Lanka at the forthcoming UNHRC sessions to be held in March. UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, earlier told the British press that the UK is considering co-sponsoring a resolution on Sri Lanka. Cameron earlier set an ultimatum for Sri Lanka to complete domestic investigations by March or risk an international war crime trial.Ambassador Rapp, who visited Jaffna early this week, was into a rude shock when the media personnel who were scheduled to meet him walked up to him and complained about being harassed by military intelligence operatives in plain clothes.
 
The military spokesman later denied the allegations. The Army also accused the US Embassy in Colombo of making ‘baseless allegations,’ after the embassy tweeted saying the Army was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Sri Lanka’s North during the country’s three-decade war that ended in 2009.
 
The US Embassy in Colombo on Thursday tweeted a picture of Ambassador Rapp and the US Ambassador in Colombo, Michele J. Sison, inspecting a location in the North, which was shelled during the final stages of the war between the Army and Tamil Tiger rebels.

HR Communities Ignore Burial Of 2006 Trinco-5 Report

January 11, 2014 

Colombo Telegraph notes with surprise and disappointment, the silence of the Sri Lankan and International human rights community with regard to the burial of the Sri Lanka HRC commissioned Suntheralingam report, on the Trinco-5 killing and other events. The report explicitly concluded that security forces personnel were involved in several high profile human rights violations including the killing of five students in Trincomalee in January 2006.

The report of an inquiry authorized by Sri Lanka’s National Human Rights Commission Commissioner (SL NHRCC) Radhika Coomaraswamy, had been buried for seven and half years, and was obtained from a whistle blower, by Colombo Telegraph on the 6^th Jan, 2014. On commenting a few days ago on the non publication of the report, Coomaraswamy told Colombo Telegraph, “ I commissioned the report because it was clearly a situation that required an inquiry and we tried to be proactive.” However anIsland editorial on the 5th of Jan., states that “President Mahinda Rajapaksa has… ordered a probe into the incident”; CT has not yet established if the SL HRC Special Rapporteur Suntherlingam’s mandate was a consequence of a presidential directive, that SL NHRCC Coomaraswamy was carrying out, and the later suppression was due to external pressure. Coomarasway has repeatedly denied she was subject to any pressure what so ever to suppress the report.

Regardless of the question of suppression, Coomaraswamy first told Colombo Telegraph that the neither she nor fellow commissioner Dr. Deepika Udagama  “can remember the contents [of the report]” because it had not been “finalized”, when her term of office ended. A few days later Coomaraswamy recanted upon reflection, and admitted that the report had indeed been “handed” to her by Suntheralingam and his team in person, in the SL HRC Office, in its final form, which had been CT’s contention previously. Coomaraswamy recalled that she had “ordered… its publication,” without taking the time to read it, “given its importance.” It is not clear to CT if Coomaraswamy or Udagama have still read the report – dated 31^st March, 2006, and signed by Mr. Suntheralingam, which they had access to from that date onwards.

Indeed, the international human rights community knew of the report, and at least its summery contents by June, 2006. In a press release on the Trinco-5 killing, dated 29^th June, 2006, Human Rights Watch notes that, “An unofficial report by the special investigator for Sri Lanka’s National Human Rights Commission alleges that the security forces were responsible for the killings.”

Yet no one who had access to the report, enabled its release. “One expects military commanders and state administrators to be parties to a cover up,” said one human rights defender, working in Sri Lanka, who spoke to CT on the condition of anonymity. “But we expect higher standards of responsibility to truth from prominent members of civil society, whether Sri Lankan or International.”

International attention has remained on the killing of the Trinco-5, due to the continuing efforts of  Dr. Kasippillai Manoharan, the father of one of the victims. Twelve Special Task Force (STF) personnel of the Police were arrested by the Sri Lanka CID, on the 4^th June, 2013, in a reopening of the case, which is frequently referred to when subject of impunity is taken up, in relation to Sri Lankan Human Rights issues.

Related posts;

Security Forces Involved In High Profile Human Rights Violations – Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission’s Unpublished Report

Radhika Now Says She Received The Suntheralingam Report And Ordered To Release It