China Rises in U.N. Climate Talks, While U.S. Goes AWOL

As the global body becomes increasingly identified with tackling climate change, Trump refuses to take part, handing the reins to Beijing.

Smoke billows from a large steel plant as a Chinese laborer works at an unauthorized steel factory in Inner Mongolia, China, on Nov. 4, 2016.KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES

BY COLUM LYNCH, ROBBIE GRAMER

| MAY 7, 2019, 5:13 PM
In a bid to slow the pace of global warming, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has invited major powers, including Britain, China, India, France, and Turkey, to help shape the environmental agenda at a major U.N. climate summit in New York in September. The United States, which the U.N. encouraged to participate, has yet to say whether it will attend the high-level meeting and has opted out of the preliminary negotiations—leaving it to others, including rivals like Beijing, to write the rules.

The absence of U.S. negotiators from the U.N. talks risks undercutting the White House’s effort at the U.N. to contain the rise of China, which has taken the lead in several forums on environmental issues. With Washington on the sidelines, Beijing—at Guterres’s invitation—will co-chair discussions at the U.N. with New Zealand on “nature-based solutions” to global warming, including management of forests, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

“By staying out of these negotiations, the U.S. is basically giving Beijing a free pass,” Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the International Crisis Group, told Foreign Policy. “So much of the current effort to contain China at the U.N. boils down to bickering over language in not very important resolutions. I think the Trump administration is missing the big picture, which is that for a lot of countries climate diplomacy is the most important part of what the U.N. does.”

The moves come as the United States has stepped up a diplomatic campaign to stall the march of international progress on diplomatic measures to curb the rise of greenhouse gases that are warming the earth. The White House has selected a climate change doubter to lead a commission to scrutinize a raft of U.S. and international studies detailing the impact a warmer climate is having on the Earth. In an Arctic Council meeting this week in Rovaniemi, Finland, the United States blocked the international body from even mentioning climate change in a final outcome declaration.

Speaking at the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made no mention of climate change and instead touted “new opportunities for trade” presented by the melting of the polar ice caps.
He also warned of geopolitical and security challenges in the Arctic, calling out Russia’s military build-up in the region and warning China “could use its civilian research presence in the Arctic to strengthen its military presence.”

The U.N., meanwhile, has been serving up a raft of studies detailing the alarming risk posed by climate change, which has been accelerating at a pace unforeseen by previous forecasts and bringing with it more violent wildfires, storms, and flooding across the globe. On Monday, the U.N. warned that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. For now, climate change is only the third key contributor to the decimation of biodiversity, behind unsustainable sea and land use practices and the overexploitation of organisms. But the impact of climate change on biodiversity is growing and will in some cases surpass the threat posed by human exploitation of sea and land.

It was the latest report to land with a noiseless thud in Washington, where President Donald Trump has continued espousing skeptical views of climate change despite the dire warnings from the U.N., the U.S. military, and scientists in his own government. It has left foreign delegates frustrated by the administration’s dismissal of the mounting body of scientific evidence that is screaming at policymakers to act to address the Earth’s health.

“Warnings based on science deserve to be taken seriously,” said Kai Sauer, Finland’s U.N. ambassador. “Early warning and prevention have become essential functions of today’s U.N. Previously, this was predominantly the case in the field of peace and security, but today increasingly in areas such as development, climate change, and, most recently, biodiversity.”

“The disappearance of biodiversity is, with climate change, another existential threat to humanity,” France’s U.N. ambassador, François Delattre, told Foreign Policy. “What does it take for the awareness of this man-made tragedy, a kind of genesis in reverse, to cross the beltway?”
Paul Bodnar, a former senior National Security Council aide on energy and climate change under former President Barack Obama’s administration, said such warnings aren’t likely to gain much traction in Trump’s Washington.

“If there’s no mechanism in the interagency [process] to elevate these issues, it tends to go nowhere, unless there’s some international shaming, or if a foreign leader raises it with Trump or Pompeo,” said Bodnar, now a managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit that studies clean energy. “It is all, at the end of the day, a function of what the president cares about. I don’t think it’s any surprise biodiversity and environmental protection are not at the top of the president’s priority list.”

A State Department spokesperson insisted that “[d]espite the global situation, the United States has a good story to tell” on environmental conservation. “The United States is one of the largest bilateral and multilateral donors to nature conservation, spending more than $400 million annually to support biodiversity conservation worldwide, and billions more at home,” the spokesperson said.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services cites five key causes of the collapse of Earth biodiversity: changes in land and sea use, exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive species.

The report, the most comprehensive study ever produced on biodiversity, drew on the work of 145 experts from 50 countries. “Ecosystems, species, wild populations, local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are shrinking, deteriorating or vanishing. The essential, interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed,” Josef Settele of Germany, one of three co-chairs of the assessment, said in a statement released with the report. “This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world.”

In April, 13 U.S. federal agencies released a major report confirming that climate change was already contributing to deadlier wildfires and hurricanes, and it could shave off hundreds of billions of dollars from some sectors of the economy by the end of the century.

The U.N. issued its own landmark report last October warning that the global climate is expected to increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of 2040, a level that would accelerate droughts, increase food shortages, and cost the world tens of trillions of dollars in lost economic production.
The White House has responded to these reports with a mix of mockery and contempt, critics say. Earlier this year, the White House made preparations to set up a new committee to challenge scientific reports claiming that climate change is man-made. The commission would reportedly be chaired by William Happer, an emeritus Princeton University physicist with no formal training in climate science, who has likened the “demonization” of carbon dioxide to the treatment of Jews under Adolph Hitler.

“The Trump administration has a track record of ignoring science,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, the chief program officer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We see, even when it’s the U.S. natural systems and communities on the front line of harm on climate change and other types of devastation, the Trump administration is ready to do nothing. Even more than doing nothing, they are actively working every day to undermine bedrock environmental protections in place for years.”
The Obama administration put climate change at the front and center of its diplomacy, crafting the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement that outlined ambitious country-by-country plans to curb global carbon emissions.

The Trump administration began dismantling those efforts as soon as it took over, beginning by drastically watering down language on climate change on the State Department’s website and culminating in Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement in June 2017.

His nominee as U.N. ambassador, Kelly Knight Craft, a wealthy Republican donor who served as Trump’s envoy to Canada, has downplayed the international consensus that human activity is fueling global warming, saying that “both sides of the science” had merit on climate change debate.
In an effort to maintain momentum on climate, the U.N. chief in March called on world leaders, business leaders, local governments, and others to convene at the U.N. headquarters on Sept. 23. “I am telling leaders: ‘In September, please don’t come with a speech; come with a plan,’” Guterres said.

The conference will try to secure agreements to take some form of action on six major areas: promoting a global transition to renewable energy; making urban infrastructure more resilient in the face of extreme weather; encouraging the sustainable management of forests, agriculture, and oceans; aiding countries vulnerable to global warming to adapt to the new realities; and securing public and private financing to address the major challenges posed by climate.

The U.N. has invited more than a dozen key countries, including Britain, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, India, Turkey, and Qatar, to lead international negotiations on several significant issues, including carbon pricing schemes, financing for renewable energies, and the development of resilient urban infrastructure.

“We can no longer wait for one country to lead the way on climate,” said one U.N. official. “The key is for all actors to understand they have the capacity and responsibility to do something. We need to change the way we consume and we produce. There is a need for transformational change.”

The State Department has sidelined efforts to address climate change and left the career professionals working on the issue in Foggy Bottom without clear guidance on what to do, according to a Government Accountability Office report published in January. “State changed its approach in 2017, no longer providing missions with guidance on whether and how to include climate change risks in their integrated country strategies,” the report read.

Ahead of the Arctic Council meeting this week, the Trump administration pushed to strip all references to climate change or the Paris climate agreement from the international body’s joint statement, according to the Washington Post. Pompeo defended the decision in an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Sunday ahead of his trip to Finland for the Arctic Council meeting, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the Paris climate deal.

“We don’t think that that has any hope of being successful. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen America reduce its carbon footprint while the signatories, including China, haven’t done theirs,” he said.
China is still the world’s largest consumer of coal, and its total carbon emissions increased last year, despite a pledge to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into renewable energy in the coming years.

Boat in which hundreds of migrants died displayed at Venice Biennale

Haunting wreck of vessel that sank in 2015 will confront visitors to art world’s gathering
 The wreck of the boat is hauled into position at the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Charlotte Higgins -Tue 7 May 2019 09.48 BST

As a huddle of artists and curators watched from the shore, the immense rusted, pitted body of a wrecked ship was painstakingly brought to shore at Venice’s ancient Arsenale, one of the venues for the city’s art Biennale.

It is the remains of one of the Mediterranean’s most shocking tragedies, in which between 700 and 1,100 people perished.

The 90ft fishing boat sank on the night of 18 April 2015 between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa, after it collided with a vessel that had responded to its distress call. There were only 28 survivors. The people on board were mostly trapped in the hold as the boat capsized.

The tragedy caused the then Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, to compare the situation for migrants trying to reach Europe to the killing of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica during the Balkans conflict.

The boat was brought to Venice from the Melilli naval base in Sicily. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

“Twenty years ago, we and Europe closed our eyes to Srebrenica. Today it’s not possible to close our eyes again and only commemorate these events later,” he said at the time. The disaster came after the ending of the Mare Nostrum project, in which distressed boats carrying migrants were rescued at Italy’s and the EU’s expense.

The boat has been brought to Venice to provide a sombre reminder of those events in a project masterminded by the Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel. The idea had come while visiting a grassroots community association in Palermo, during 2017’s Manifesta art project in the city. But the reality of bringing the vessel to Venice proved more complex than anyone had imagined.

In 2016 it had been recovered by the Italian government and taken to the Sicilian naval base of Melilli, where the bodies trapped in the boat’s hull were removed and identified – an enormous operation involving teams of forensic pathologists and others. The boat’s Tunisian captain, Mohammed Ali Malek, was later found guilty of manslaughter.

There were various proposals about what to do with the boat. Eventually, however, the Italian authorities released it on 29 April to the Barca Nostra (Our Ship) project, a partnership between Büchel, the Sicilian town council of Augusta, and others – with Venice as its first port of call. There are plans in the long term for it to become a “garden of memory” in Augusta.

Büchel declined to give interviews but his collaborator, the curator Maria Chiara di Trapani, described a byzantine process of navigating Italian officialdom. “No one was the official owner of the boat,” she said. “The government had recovered it but officially the defence ministry had only custody of it, not ownership. And officially shipwrecks in Italy are supposed to be destroyed.

“Then last Friday, the day it set out from Sicily to Venice, it also transpired that it had never been declared an Italian object – and the customs officials in Venice could not accept it unless it had been officially declared Italian.”

The boat is transported through the Venetian lagoon. Photograph: Andrea Merola/EPA
Di Trapani confronted each of these bureaucratic barriers by “finding a chain of good people on the end of the phone in different parts of the government”.

The process had also been affected by another tragic loss – the death of a key Sicilian politician, who had been helping the project. Sebastiano Tusa was, until his death in the Ethiopian Airlines crash on 10 March, Sicily’s regional councillor for cultural heritage, and a respected archaeologist. “His last phone call and document before getting the plane were to get permission to move the boat,” said di Trapani.

It remains to be seen what effect the looming, wounded boat will have on visitors to the Biennale, the art world’s most prominent international gathering that opens to the public on Saturday. It comes amid ongoing tensions about political and humanitarian responses to the migrant crisis. In Italy, the far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has pursued a contentious policy of closing ports to migrants, and stands accused of fomenting hostility with his xenophobic rhetoric.

Di Trapani said: “We are living in a tragic moment without memory. We all look at the news, and it seems so far away: someone is dead at sea and we change the channel.” The physical presence of the boat, she feels, could help change that. She hopes visitors to the Biennale will “feel respect for it and look at it in silence – just keep two minutes of silence to listen and reflect”.

Author may have solved a 130-year-old mystery about the 'Elephant Man'

Merrick's head and right hand grew to large proportions, his skeleton contorted and he had difficulty speaking and walking. He faced lifelong discrimination but was also famed

The grave of Joseph Merrick, long known as the 'Elephant Man' due to his unusual physical deformities.Jo Vigor-Mungovin/Twitter

Kayla Epstein, May 7, 2019-Washington Post


Joseph Merrick, a Victorian-era celebrity who became known as the Elephant Man, led a difficult life because of his physical deformities, whose cause remains a mystery to this day. But now, thanks to research by one author, we know he may have found some semblance of rest.

Merrick died on April 11, 1890, at age 27. But his story of struggle and perseverance has made him an iconic figure in British history. He has been portrayed on screen and stage by the likes of John Hurt, Mark Hamill, Bradley Cooper and no less an icon than David Bowie.

Merrick’s skeleton is kept at Queen Mary University of London, where students and medical faculty members can request to view it. But Joanne Vigor-Mungovin, who in 2016 published “Joseph: The Life, Times, and Places of the Elephant Man,” believes she has located the plot at the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium where his soft-tissue remains were buried.

Though she told The Washington Post that she could not “be 100 percent sure” the grave she found belonged to Merrick, she said “everything pinpoints towards Joseph.” She said she worked with the cemetery’s leadership to search burial records that matched his name, as well as the time frame and circumstances of his death.

Born in 1862 in Leicester, England, Merrick initially appeared to be a healthy child but developed deformities at a young age. His head and right hand grew to immense proportions, his skeleton became contorted, and he had difficulty speaking and walking. He faced lifelong discrimination for his appearance, but it also brought him fame and a place in history.

After a challenging childhood, Merrick found employment at a workhouse in Leicester for several years but eventually decided he could attempt to make a living by exhibiting himself to audiences. He contacted a local comedian, who put him on tour before he eventually found his way to London in 1884. He began working for a man named Tom Norman, who specialized in displaying “freaks and novelties,” according to “The True History of the Elephant Man” by Michael Howell and Peter Ford.

Jo Vigor-Mungovin@Berliozjo

Today after weeks of emails, research & visits to the #CityofLondonCemetery the final resting place of #JosephMerrick has been located. His bones are @BHAandM for medical purposes but his flesh/remains were buried in consecrated ground after a small service. #Leicester R.I.P

6,185

2:34 PM - May 3, 2019

Norman rented a shop in Whitechapel to exhibit Merrick and hung a garish banner outside advertising his deformities. It was there he was discovered by a young doctor at London Hospital named Frederick Treves, who became a key figure in Merrick’s life. Treves brought him to the hospital to examine him, where he wrote that Merrick was “shy, confused, not a little frightened and evidently much cowed,” according to Howell and Ford. Treves took measurements of Merrick’s features and later exhibited him to fellow medical professionals.

After Merrick allowed Treves to conduct initial studies, the two parted ways, and Merrick went on a disastrous European tour, where he faced ridicule and assault because of his features. He eventually returned to England, distraught and in worse condition than ever. Treves found him in a police station “so huddled up and so helpless looking,” he wrote in his 1923 memoir, “The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences.”

Treves provided him with a room at London Hospital, where medical staff looked after him, and the two grew close. It was during this time that his fame increased; celebrities raised money for his care, he was visited by members of British society, and at one point he met Alexandra, Princess of Wales.

His death in 1890 was officially ruled to have been caused by asphyxia, which occurred when he attempted to lie down to sleep. Treves conducted an autopsy and preserved the skeleton. But it was not clear what happened to Merrick’s soft-tissue remains.

Mungovin, 47, hails from Merrick’s hometown, Leicester, and works at its namesake cathedral. Her research on the Elephant Man was spurred by her fascination with her city’s history, and she said she felt that searching for his remains was “something I had to do.”

history-elephantman-8972dc8e-70b5-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c.jpg jpg

“Knowing that he had a Christian burial and it was on consecrated ground, it made you feel better,” she said. “I did this because I want him to rest in peace.”

She is not the only one who has hoped for such a conclusion for Merrick; campaigners have asked for his skeleton to receive a Christian burial in Leicester.

At an April event for the Whitechapel Society, a London historical organization dedicated to studying the murders of 11 women who are believed to have been slain by Jack the Ripper, someone in attendance asked her to guess where Merrick’s other remains were located. Knowing that the killings took place just two years before his demise, she offhandedly guessed that he would have been buried in the same location as some of the murdered women.

Mungovin said that hunch led her to search the City of London Cemetery’s website for death records. And there was his name: Joseph Merrick.

Mungovin worked with Gary Burks, the superintendent and registrar of the cemetery, who pulled additional records that bolstered the conclusion that the person buried at the cemetery was very likely Merrick. The burial took place on April 24, 1890, just a few days after he died, on the 11th. His residence was listed as London Hospital, where he lived.

On Friday, Mungovin finally went to visit Merrick’s newly discovered grave.

“It was poignant,” Mungovin said. “I said a little prayer and laid some flowers.”

Autism in the workplace: A spectrum of hiring choices

FILE PHOTO: An employee of software company Nuix stands in their office located in central Sydney, Australia, April 5, 2016. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo

Beth Pinsker-MAY 7, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Like many transplants to Chicago, Chris Easton needed to adjust to winter after moving from Atlanta to take a job as a database engineer at the accounting firm EY.

Among other work-life skills, Easton, 23, who is on the autism spectrum, learned the key to surviving the bone-chilling winds from Lake Michigan: layering.

“Moving from Georgia to Chicago was pretty different. It was definitely a transition,” Easton said.
EY is among a handful of major companies recruiting and hiring individuals with autism spectrum disorders and supporting them at the office. These jobs tend to focus on specific technical skills that can suit individuals on the spectrum who are challenged by social interactions.

The numbers are small so far - Microsoft has about dozens involved in its program, while Deloitte just hired eight into its inaugural round. Dell started with three hires last summer and is doubling this year.

The hiring need, on the other hand, is exponential. Some 1.1 million computing-related jobs are expected by 2024, but U.S. graduation rates are not nearly keeping pace, says Lou Candiello, head of military and disability recruiting programs at Dell. “We need to think different about attracting talent,” Candiello said.

With an estimated global population of 70 million on the autism spectrum - 80 percent of whom are unemployed or severely underemployed - the neurodiverse community is a huge pool to tap.

In aggregate, programs for autistic workers are helping about 200 people a year, while thousands more graduate high school and head “straight to their couches,” said Tara Cunningham, chief executive of Specialisterne USA, a nonprofit organization that helped launch the Autism @ Work network with Microsoft, EY, JPMorgan Chase and SAP. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands more graduate and never enter the workforce.

IDENTIFYING TALENT

Recruiting individuals on the spectrum for highly prized tech jobs starts very small, with local social service agencies. Goodwill Industries of Greater NY & Northern NJ, for instance, works closely with schools and community centers, identifying people who are unemployed and underemployed but have the skills to do better.

Sometimes coaching and attention to detail does the trick. Celina Cavalluzzi, Goodwill’s director of day services, worked with one young man who wanted a retail job but was having trouble because riding the subway was overstimulating. A coach helped him find a bus route and prepped him for job interviews.

Others are identified for programs like Microsoft’s bootcamp, which runs four times year. Recruits spend five days working on group projects that can involve building Lego Mindstorm robotic kits and meeting with managers.

Roughly 50 percent of the candidates in the program applied to Microsoft before but had been rejected, said Neil Barnett, director of inclusive hiring and accessibility at Microsoft.

“We see who works with whom, who gets frustrated. We’re really trying to understand where people shine the best,” Barnett said.

Some candidates, like EY’s Easton, do not have college degrees. Others have graduate degrees but have been underemployed.

“It’s how you see the potential in people,” said Kathy West-Evans, head of the National Employment Team for the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation.

West-Evans said one of her clients was collecting shopping carts in the parking lot of a superstore instead of pursuing a job that would make use of his math degree. After getting some help, he is now an engineer at a tech company.

HELP ON THE JOB

Once candidates are hired, there is help at the office, too. For example, a federal program pays for a job coach for three months to help individuals adjust to the workplace, West-Evans said.

Workplace accommodations can be tricky to identify. Specialisterne does walk-throughs in offices to assess for smells and fluorescent lighting.

“They destroy autistic people,” Cunningham said. “You get LEDs, you ask someone to stop wearing perfume, and you make everyone better.”

Training managers to speak in specific language and to give written instructions helps not only the autistic team members but also everyone else.

“You need to say exactly what you want and when you need it. Then you have the team member tell you back what they heard. Then you go back and put it in an email to everyone and then check on them 20 minutes later. Everyone benefits,” Cunningham said.

When the process works, lives are changed. Hiren Shukla, neurodiversity program leader at EY, describes how one of his hires transformed on the job.

The young man had been living at home, supported by his parents. When his father passed away recently, he was able to buy his own home and move his mother in with him to take care of her.

“This is why we are shouting about this program from the rooftops,” Shukla said.

WHO issues warning as measles infects 34,000 in Europe this year

Kate Kelland-MAY 7, 2019 

LONDON (Reuters) - More than 34,000 people across Europe caught measles in the first two months of 2019, with the vast majority of cases in Ukraine, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday as it urged authorities to ensure vulnerable people get vaccinated.

The death toll among 34,300 cases reported across 42 countries in the WHO’s European region reached 13, with the virus killing people in Ukraine - which is suffering a measles epidemic - as well as in Romania and Albania. The risk is that outbreaks may continue to spread, the WHO warned.

“If outbreak response is not timely and comprehensive, the virus will find its way into more pockets of vulnerable individuals and potentially spread to additional countries within and beyond the region,” it said in a statement.

“Every opportunity should be used to vaccinate susceptible children, adolescents and adults.”

Measles is a highly contagious disease that can kill and cause blindness, deafness or brain damage. It can be prevented with two doses of an effective vaccine, but - in part due to pockets of unvaccinated people - it is currently spreading in outbreaks in many parts of the world including in the United States, the Philippines and Thailand.

In Europe, the majority of measles cases so far in 2019 are in Ukraine, which saw more than 25,000 people infected in the first two months of the year.

There is no specific antiviral treatment for measles, and vaccination is the only way to prevent it, the WHO said. Most cases are in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people.

FILE PHOTO: An illustration provides a 3D graphical representation of a spherical-shaped, measles virus particle studded with glycoprotein tubercles in this handout image obtained by Reuters April 9, 2019. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo/File Photo

 

It added that even though the region had its highest ever estimated coverage for the second dose of measles vaccination in 2017 - at around 90 percent - some countries have had problems, including declining or stagnating immunisation coverage in some cases, low coverage in some marginalised groups, and immunity gaps in older populations.

The WHO called on national health authorities across the region to focus efforts on ensuring all population groups have access to vaccines.

“The impact on public health will persist until the ongoing outbreaks are controlled,” it said, adding that health authorities should “identify who has been missed in the past and reach them with the vaccines they need.”

A report by the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF last month found that more than 20 million children a year missed out on measles vaccines across the world in the past eight years, laying the ground for dangerous outbreaks.

Engagement is the price of reconciliation

By Jehan Perera-May 6, 2019, 6:55 pm 

The security situation remains fraught with uncertainty and tension. Not many children in their school uniforms were to be seen on the streets, even though the government schools reopened this week after a prolonged and enforced holiday. Religious leaders have requested the government to keep the schools closed for a further period until the situation is brought firmly under control. Although large numbers of arrests have been made, and (around 200) according to news reports, this is not reassuring to the general population. President Maithripala Sirisena has said that there are still another 25-30 active members from the group involved in the Easter Sunday bombings still at large, though he expressed confidence in the ability of the security forces to nab them.

The security forces are doing the best they can. Not only are they conducting cordon and search operations. They are also going to the homes of people to brief them as to how best they can enhance their security. In a sign of the success of post-war normalization and rehabilitation of former LTTE cadre, it is reported that the security forces are enlisting the services of former LTTE cadres in the north and east to assist them in supporting the security network. This speaks of the government’s commitment to reconciliation and the trust that has grown after a decade of peace. There are also checkpoints on the road, which are a throwback to the days of the war with the LTTE. On the road to Mannar in the North, which has a concentration of Catholics our vehicle was stopped several times. On four occasions we were asked to get out of the vehicle. This occurred both on the way to Mannar and on the way back to Colombo.

In one location we were required to carry our bags out of the vehicle so that the search of the vehicle could be more thorough. There is no doubt that the immediate challenge is to ensure that those planning further attacks are thwarted and apprehended. The role of the security forces in this is paramount and the general population is prepared for the inconvenience. But there needs to be constant monitoring of this process so that it does not unnecessarily alienate people. At one location we were stopped for about half hour although our vehicle was the only one on the road. Later when we tried to understand why, it seemed that our driver had annoyed one of the security force personnel who was searching the vehicle. The lengthy delay, in which each item of our clothing was taken out the bag and scrutinized, may have been in retaliation.

RECONCILIATION COMMITTEES

We were going on a visit to Mannar to meet with the District Reconciliation Committee. These were set up two years ago when President Sirisena in his capacity as Minister of National Integration and Reconciliation, got the Cabinet of Ministers to grant approval to establish District Level Reconciliation Committees (DRCs) to address the incidences of inter-religious and inter-ethnic tensions and to promote national integration and reconciliation in all 25 districts. The functions of the DRCs were to undertake astudy on the background and causes of religious and ethnic tensions in the locality; formulate suitable strategies and approaches to mediate the problems; provide rapid response to resolve conflicts and tensions; invite the perpetrators and victims and facilitate conflict resolution; maintain database on incidence of tensions and attacks on religious places; mediate, negotiate and resolve conflicts and prevent hate speeches.

The DRCs were to be convened by the District Secretary of the relevant District with representation of inter-religious leaders, the Superintendent of Police, retired Judges, School Principals and other relevant officials as observers. These are all prominent persons at the community level who are expected to be able to contribute towards social harmony and peaceful coexistence. But they have still to be activated. At the present time they can be a valuable mode of engagement between the communities so that no one community feels it is being marginalized or excluded.

The meeting at the Mannar district secretariat was between the government officers working at the secretariat, civil society and religious leaders from all communities and the police. The role of the DRCs in keeping all communities together through engagement with each other, and without isolating any one community was highlighted on this occasion. Their role in keeping the communities integrated even as the problem of violent extremism was addressed was the theme that had the most resonance with those present at the meeting. The lessons learnt about coping with violent extremism during the previous conflict with the LTTE was alive in the consciousness of those gathered at the district secretariat. This was evident when a lawyer present on the occasion who claimed that there had been many arrests made in Mannar and there was a danger of innocent persons being detained, which the police was responsive to without a knee jerk rebuttal of the claim.

CARELESS STATEMENTS

The same sensitivity to the complexity of the current problem, which requires that the entire community is not seen as the same as those committed to violence is also evident in the police visits to people’s homes. In one case reported to me they had given a briefing on the current security threat and suggested a series of actions that need to be done to enhance security. These included having CCT cameras and night lights and clearing of spaces in which packages may be concealed. Also notable was the manner in which the police urged those they were addressing not to bring up issues of religion or community in relations between neighbours. They further explained that the swords and knives found in mosques and homes of people were not for war purposes but were for self defence. They were self-critical in saying that Muslims had been at the receiving end of mob violence in the past several years in which the response of the government was tardy.

The police also referred to the information that was coming out of the Muslim community that had helped to track down several associates of the Easter Sunday bombers and potential bombers. This nuanced and enlightened approach of the police at this time is an indication that the many years of conflict sensitivity education and peace education programmes have produced good and sustainable results in key sectors of society. Unfortunately, this thinking has yet to percolate to all levels of society. The government leaders have done too little and the nationalist politicians who oppose them have been more effective in taking the message that violent extremism can be crushed by stronger methods. Ironically, President Sirisena, who once ordered the setting up of District Reconciliation Committees, has accused civil society and human rights groups of pushing for human rights at the expense of national security.

Inadvertently, such careless statements by responsible authorities support a mindset that states that the infamous "White Vans" that abducted people with impunity during the years of the war against the LTTE and made them disappear, should be brought back. With bombers on the prowl it is most important that national security should be given top priority. At the same time the message needs to go out that the vast majority of people do not support such activities. The Opposition must join the government in taking this message to the people. There needs to be more engagement between the communities in this time of extreme stress and anxiety rather than less. There will be no solution forthcoming if an entire community is first seen, and then targeted, as potential supporters of extremist violence.

10 years today - 'Hospitals continually hit by SLA shelling'

05052009.jpg

Marking 10 years since the Sri Lankan military onslaught that massacred tens of thousands of Tamils, we revisit the final days leading up to the 18th of May 2009 – a date remembered around the world as ‘Tamil Genocide Day’. The total number of Tamil civilians killed during the final months is widely contested. After providing an initial death toll of 40,000, the UN found evidence suggesting that 70,000 were killed. Local census records indicate that at least 146,679 people are unaccounted for and presumed to have been killed during the Sri Lankan military offensive.

6th May 2009

Photograph taken on May 6th 2009 inside the No Fire Zone.

Hospitals hit by Sri Lankan army

A US State Department report says that on the 6th of May,

A local source reported that the remaining hospital facilities were continually hit by SLA shelling, even though their locations had been carefully reported to the government.

Mano Ganesan, a current Sri Lankan government minister, also responded to a statement from the UNP’s Palitharanga Bandara who called for the continued use of heavy weapons, including inside the No Fire Zone, where tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were sheltering.

“News from Vanni show that heavy weapons are being used in the war on the ‘safe zone’ in Vanni,” he said.

“Why should Palitharanga Bandara urge the government to use heavy weapons on the ‘safe zone’? Is UNP unaware of the presence of innocent Tamils there? Why this racism against the Tamils? This is something utterly shameful. The UNP will lose its Tamil votes in the future polls.”

Photograph: A woman who was evacuated from the conflict zone, receives medical attention on May 6th 2009.

More deaths from starvation

Dozens of people are reported to have died from starvation in the preceding weeks, particularly the elderly.

The US State Department says that,

"An organization’s sources expressed their belief that the GSL was deliberately preventing delivery of medicine to the NFZ and reported that ―over the last week, at least 20 people have died due to starvation and lack of medication"

Deaths are occurring not just inside the No Fire Zone, but also at detention centres in Vavuniya, where on May 4th, ten elderly persons reportedly died.

Read More

Bombings crisis exposes Sri Lanka’s intrinsic racism and dangers of a military dictatorship

 Monday, 6 May 2019

According to Human Rights Watch there are some 1,600 asylum seekers in Sri Lanka and they need the urgent protection of the Sri Lankan Government as committed to the UN when they were accepted as refugees. They include Afghans, Iranians and Pakistanis.


While most are Ahmadiyyas, there are even some Christians. I have tasted sumptuous meals prepared by them when they were working as cooks for a Christian Workers’ Fellowship lunch. One did his theology degree here and is an Anglican priest today, considered an asset to the Church here. Granting asylum to so many is one of Sri Lanka’s rare and proud achievements in support of minorities needing protection. This achievement is now under threat.

The Telegraph (UK) has reported that 1,000 Muslim refugees have been forced from their homes in retaliatory attacks following the Easter Sunday bombings. Reflecting our shame, few local newspapers have reported on this.

Says the Telegraph: “A small number of Christian refugees from the three countries have also been caught up in attacks through mistaken identity.” It quotes Tariq Ahmed, a 58-year-old Pakistani Ahmadiyyas telling the Associated Press that in Pakistan they were chased off saying they are not Muslims but “in Sri Lanka, people attack us because they say we are Muslims”.

Adds the Telegraph report: “Around 650 refugees are said to have sought shelter at a mosque in the city of Pasyala, near Negombo. Others are believed to be staying in police stations or local schools while 30 Iranians have barricaded themselves inside their homes.”

The Christian Church has responded as commanded in many places in the Bible. To quote just three that confessing Muslims too are bound by.

• Of immediate relevance: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong (Leviticus 19:33)
• Offering refuge even to foreign murderers: These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there (Numbers 35:15) 
• Giving a portion of our harvest to the poor: And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 19:10)
  
   

Many Sri Lankans, particularly Tamils, are the beneficiaries of this now internationally accepted biblical ethos underlying political asylum. The Sri Lankan Church has come forward to offer protection to threatened Muslims invigorated by Bishop Dhiloraj Canagasabey’s bold statement: “The Christian community cannot and must not act on the basis of ‘an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth’, in these trying times, […] It is sad that humans have arrogated to themselves the right to commit mass murder in the name of God Almighty the giver of Life, […] Life belongs to God and no one has the right except God to take one’s life away. […]

“We cannot and must not act on the basis of ‘an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth’ but we will follow the Master’s example and cry the same cry He cried on the cross with so much of sadness and heaviness of heart saying – ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. […] The Executive and the Legislature were busy working on their own petty agendas and it appears that those under them were also polarised and paralysed by this division. This island nation which bled for almost four decades is bleeding again. If those who have been elected genuinely loved their country, this should not have been allowed to happen. This is a total betrayal of the entire nation.”

Accordingly some refugees were housed in a church building by church leaders of the National Christian Council in Athurugiriya but overnight, church sources tell me, Buddhist monks marched on the shelter leading angry villagers. The refugees had to be sent back to the police station. The church was told by the Police that they cannot offer protection, despite that being the primary police duty. As the Government including the President told us that the Government would protect Muslims under threat, nothing was done as some virulent Buddhist Monks led the charge on the refugees. Their argument is similar to that used in June 2007, saying it is dangerous to have Tamils in Colombo.

The Defence Ministry as quoted in the Times of India then had ‘Police Chief Victor Perera’ defending the eviction: “The move was necessary to secure the capital city and protect it against bomb attacks by Tamil Tiger rebels who allegedly live among Tamil guests staying in low budget hostels.” Just read substituting the word Muslim for Tamil – it is the same hegemonic tactic of ethnic cleansing again, this time of Muslims by the Government – I say Government because it is abdicating its commitment to the UN to protect the refugees when accepting them as refugees.

Government’s refusal to act on Indian intelligence on the then imminent holocaust, reminds me of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and J.R. Jayawardene fiddling in their times as riots raged, the latter adding fuel by threatening the Tamils.

“If you want war, let there be war. If you want peace let there be peace. This is not what I say. The people of Sri Lanka say that.”

That expulsion was reversed by a successful challenge in the Supreme Court by the Centre for Policy Alternatives where M.A. Sumanthiran appeared opposing the expulsion. Today what are the people of Sri Lanka saying to Muslims through their silence and attacks on innocent refugees?

My church sources inform me that when A.T. Ariyaratne of Sarvodaya tried to take some Muslim refugees to their buildings, some monks leading villagers whipped into a rage and would not even let the refugees get off the bus. It is people like Ariyaratne and the church who are at least proving that some of us Sri Lankans are still human.

And what of the Tamils who went through the holocausts and expulsions? What are they saying? Tamil sources say that these communalist monks told the Government to send the refugees to Tamils areas if they wished but not to any other are, and that some Tamil leaders are angered.

While MP M.A. Sumanthiran is agreeable to accepting the refugees in the North in keeping with his arguments in court in 2007 and his position as a Methodist Lay Preacher, MPs Sivasakthi Anandan and Charles Nirmalanathan are vehemently opposed, the latter swearing that even if his leader  Rajavarothayam Sampanthan ordered him to, he would vote against the Government if the refugees were sent to the North. We Tamils are unable to learn from our expulsion from Colombo!

In response a band of true Christian leaders – and I do mean leaders more than in name – is determined to help the UN resettle these refugees among us at least till a lasting solution is found. The Ven. Fr. Sam Ponniah (Anglican Archdeacon of Jaffna) is part of this band of national leaders. They are trying to house the refugees in the homes of Christian volunteers. Fr. Ponniah hopes that by helping small groups – like 10 families in Jaffna – we can do our duty by them while ensuring their safety.

In the meantime, as rights in general are eroded, as I write (3 May, 1:00pm) the 513 Brigade has moved some 300 troops into Jaffna University and begun a search of every building. Having discovered a picture of V. Prabhakaran’s and a map of Eelam in the students’ union office besides a pair of binoculars and boots (said to be standard military gear) elsewhere, the President and Secretary of the students’ movement have been arrested. Now everyone entering the university undergoes a search. The find seems to have been a ruse for the military to tighten its grip on us.

The two arrested union leaders are ardent devotees of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress but despite most lawyers in Jaffna being from that party no one came forward to appear for them. This reflects the general fear of the armed forces. In the end, Sumanthiran, saying the two cannot go without a defence when having a Prabhakaran photo or a map of Eelam is no crime, decided to represent the abandoned unionists in court today.

Where are we heading? The answer lies in the military spokesman Brigadier Sumith Attapattu’s recent statement that even if the Government asks the military to vacate all occupied Tamil lands, they will not. And no disciplinary action! Nothing happens just like the warnings on the bombings going unheeded. Anarchy is the beginning of a dictatorship. Are the seeds of anarchy being deliberately planted?

Sri Lanka: Securitising Minority Alienation

Smruti S. Pattanaik-April 29, 2019

The Easter Sunday carnage in which more than 250, mostly Christians, were killed is the most violent terrorist act in Sri Lanka since the end of the Eelam war in 2009. A terrorist attack on this scale involving the use of high-explosives in coordinated suicide missions on eight different targets by a relatively unknown entity, the National Towheed Jamath, reflects the state of complacency that has set in despite the receipt of prior intelligence. It is also indicative of the undue emphasis of the state security apparatus on the potential re-emergence of a LTTE type entity and the consequent focus on the northern province.

It is not that Sri Lanka was not aware of growing radicalism within the Muslim community, mostly generated by violence perpetrated against Muslims at the local level by groups such as the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS). Government officials have for long flagged concerns about Muslim youth who had gone to participate in the civil war in Syria. During the Rajapakse presidency, Muslims from Pakistan, India, Maldives, Bangladesh and some Arab countries who came to preach as part of Tabligh Jamaat were actually turned away at the airport due to the fear of radicalisation. There is, however, no history of animosity between Muslims and Christians that can place in context the Easter attacks. What does exist is a history of tension between the Sinhalese and Muslims since the end of the civil war. Many in the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress have even argued that Muslims are the new enemy of the Sinhalese. But an attack of this nature was not anticipated even by the Muslim community, although community leaders and some leaders of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress have been highlighting the trend of radicalisation due to the attacks orchestrated by the BBS, which many believe, had the blessings of the Rajapakse family.

Youths from well off families taking to suicide bombing is not a new phenomenon. In 2016, educated boys from affluent families caused mayhem in the Dhaka café attack. But Sri Lankan Muslim youth did not become radical or violent even after the LTTE had evicted their community and later bombed mosques in Kattankudy and Eravur killing nearly 300. Therefore, the question arises as to what prompted the latest suicide attacks and what has caused this turn of Sri Lankan Muslim youth towards radicalisation? Could this carnage have been prevented, as some argue including former President Mahinda Rajapakse and his brother former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse (who is also the next presidential candidate of Sri Lanka Podujana Peremuna)? Or did the rift between President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe ensure that the attack went through without any decisive countermeasures being taken even after the receipt of intelligence?

Factors of Muslim Alienation

Sri Lanka has a history of ethno-religious conflict. The first major conflict between Tamil speaking Muslims and Sinhalese occurred in 1915. After independence, Muslims were successfully co-opted by the Sinhala majority in order to wean them away from Tamils who began to demand a separate homeland and politically challenge Sinhala majoritarianism. After the end of the war with the LTTE in 2009, there was a discernible increase in violence against Muslims. Some argue that fringe Sinhala Buddhist extremists riding on Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism searched for a new enemy and the Muslims fit their narrative. This should be seen in the context of the global portrayal of Muslims as extremists and radicals. The Buddhist-Muslim conflict in Myanmar and the attack on Buddhists in Ramu in Bangladesh fed the narrative of extremist groups like the BBS and Ravana Balaya. The drive against ‘halal’ certification, protest against Burqas, and attacks against Muslim business houses – all took place under the watchful eyes of the Rajapakse government. These included: the 2012 attack of Buddhist monks on a mosque in Dambullah which led to the relocation of the mosque; the attacks in Aluthgama in the South West coast of Sri Lanka in 2014; the attack on the Muslim owned fashion chain, the Fashion bug, in 2013; and, the March 2018 attack on Muslims in Kandy.

The NTJ, which is the main suspect for the Easter Sunday attacks, came into the limelight only recently. Moulavi Zaharan, a teacher in Kattankudy Madrassah and also one of the suicide bombers in the attack at Shangri La hotel, was well known for his hate speeches. There are reports that NTJ broke away from its parent organisation Towheed Jamath in December 2018, when, in a series of incidents, Buddha statues were broken in Mawanella in Kandy district. The Muslim Council of Sri Lanka had earlier warned the authorities about the activities of these radicals. In 2014, The Peace Loving Moderate Muslims in Sri Lanka (PLMMSL) had issued a statement urging the government to ban the Towheed Jamaat saying that “this movement has fast become cancer within Muslim community in Sri Lanka, preaching and practicing religious intolerance.”

Radicalisation of Muslims has been happening in Sri Lanka for several years now. In 2012, the country expelled nearly 160 members of the Tabligh Jamaat who had come on tourist visas to preach. Reportedly, around 100 Sri Lankan Muslim youths are believed to have joined ISIS. Some Muslims from Kerala who had joined ISIS are believed to have travelled through Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Muslim Congress, which was part of the political alliance that the Rajapakse regime had crafted, highlighted growing radicalism and warned the government to take steps against the BBS which was behind several attacks on Muslims.

Failure of Intelligence?

When Muslims from the northern province were expelled en masse by the LTTE because it suspected them to be government informers, many settled in Puttalam in the north. In January 2019, the Sri Lankan military had discovered at a coconut farm in Lacktowatta in Wanathawilluwa in Puttalam a large cache containing 100 kilogrammes of explosives, 20 litres of nitrate acid, wire codes, two firearms, ammunition, a computer, a camera and a stock of dry food. Although investigations revealed that some Muslim youths were involved, it was taken as a one off occurrence. Intelligence inputs provided by India, which contained a more specific warning of an impending attack, was treated as a routine matter. Though a national alert was issued by the police chief, security was not beefed up in the church or the hotels located in the High security zone including the Cinnamon Grand which is not very far from the Prime Minister’s residence.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the government machinery was more focussed on the threat that LTTE sympathisers could pose and dismissed any threats that could be posed by radicalised Muslims. It also ignored the fact that Muslims from Sri Lanka have joined ISIS and local groups may have been infected by the latter’s radical narrative especially in the aftermath of several attacks on Muslims.

There could be several reasons for the terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday. Radicalised Muslims consider the state responsible for attacks on them. Sinhala speaking Christians were seen as part of the larger Sinhalese community. Increasingly, the state and the majority Sinhala community are seen as synonymous and responsible for the injustice meted to Muslims despite their support for the state against the LTTE.

Dysfunctional government

The politicisation of the suicide bombings has already began with the President and the Prime Minister blaming each other for the security failure. It is true that since October 2018 President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickramasinghe have been at logger heads. Sirisena, since his failed dismissal of Wickramasinghe, has been holding the portfolios of Police, Law and Order, and Defence. Differences between them had reached such a level that they even prepared to send two separate delegations to represent the country at the UN Human Rights Council, although sanity prevailed and a joint delegation was eventually sent.

The Prime Minister has publicly stated that he was not invited to National Security Council meetings and was kept out of the loop on issues concerning national security. Interestingly, the time and venue of these meetings were kept a secret to prevent the PM from attending. The resignation of the Defence Secretary only proves that the President does not want to take the blame. Some deep thinking is necessary as personal enmity between the President and Prime Minister has made government defunct for more than two years. Not surprisingly, former President Mahinda Rajapakse is exploiting the government’s failure to score political points. In an article published in the Colombo Telegraph, Rajapakse who wants to become Prime Minister, wrote, “The Easter Sunday attacks would never have taken place under our government… The armed forces personnel who carried out their duties on behalf of the nation were harassed and hunted down by this government…. I request the government to halt the persecution of the armed forces at least now.” This is a reference to the UNHRC resolution to fix accountability for human rights violations during the civil war.

In the wake of Sri Lanka’s worst terrorist carnage of the decade, the national narrative will turn its focus on security and the threat posed yet again by another minority. It is likely that the emergence of a national security state will empower the security apparatus at the cost of the minorities. Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarianism will triumph once again.

Views expressed are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.