Tamil refugees may end up in permanent camps, say aid workers
[Jul 3, 2009, 02:08], [Times Online]
Sri Lankan authorities appear to be building permanent camps to house many of the 300,000 refugees from the last phase of the war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, despite promising to resettle 80 per cent of them by the end of the year.
Aid workers have told The Times that permanent buildings are being erected at the Manik Farm site where the UN says that 230,000 of the refugees are being held after the Tigers’ defeat in May.
The aid workers said that they were able to do humanitarian work in four of six zones at Manik Farm but were barred from two others, including the mysteriously named Zone Zero.
“We’re not allowed to work in these areas,” said Rajinda Jayasinghe, the head of Relief International in Sri Lanka. “But you can see from the outside proper brick-walled buildings going up.” Some aid workers said that the site was fast becoming Sri Lanka’s second biggest city after the capital, Colombo, with schools, clinics and banks, where refugees have deposited more than a billion rupees.
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Lawyers put Sri Lanka in the dock
[Jul 3, 2009, 00:06], [BBC]
The Sri Lankan government and its legal profession must do more to strengthen the rule of law, according to a panel of international lawyers.
After a fact finding mission earlier this year, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) expressed serious concern over the threats to the justice system, legal profession and the state of media in Sri Lanka.
It concluded that "attacks against human rights lawyers form part of a pattern of intimidation routinely directed against members of civil society, NGOs and journalists who are perceived to be critical of the government or its policies".
"The threats were both internal and external," human rights lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner JC Weliamuna told a gathering in London at the launch of the IBAHRI report.
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Sri Lanka Urged to Probe the Murder of Tamil MPs
[Jul 2, 2009, 18:49], [VOA]
The Inter-Parliamentary Union is calling on the government of Sri Lanka to mount a thorough investigation of the murders of three Members of Parliament, two of them Tamils. The IPU's Human Rights Committee, which has wrapped up its latest session, has examined cases of abuse of some 300 MPs in 29 countries.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union says the Sri Lankan government no longer has any reason for not investigating the murders of the Parliamentarians now that its long-running civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels is over.
Chair of the IPU's Human Rights Committee, Canadian Senator, Sharon Carstairs, says the government has always maintained it was unable to investigate the murders because they occurred in rebel-held territory. She says that excuse no longer exists.
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Sri Lanka's ethnic conundrum
[Jun 30, 2009, 19:51], [Toronto Star]
It won the war, but has Sri Lanka lost its mind?
After declaring total victory over the Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka remains as combative as ever. Weeks later, it still sees enemies everywhere – and silences them.
The government is overcome by post-traumatic triumphalism syndrome: Its president behaves like a Buddha, gliding across the land of Lanka erecting stupas (shrines) commemorating his victory. Music videos sing the praises of Mahindra Rajapaksa. Billboards hail his inspired rule as a warrior king.
Anyone who is off key had best hold his tongue – or risk having it cut off, as Bob Rae discovered this month. The Liberal MP was denied entry to Colombo airport when the intelligence services (falsely) labelled him a Tiger lackey and security risk. Rae arrived with a visa in his passport, but after refusing to sign an "Orwellian" statement recanting past comments, he was put on the next flight to London.
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Around the World, Young Tamil Voices Not Quieted By War's End
[Jun 30, 2009, 19:49], [Time]
Sri Lanka's 26 years of civil war effectively ended on May 19, 2009 with a single image. Televisions across the globe broadcast a government-issue photo of slain Tamil Tiger head, Velupillai Prabhakaran, lying on a muddy patch of ground with wide eyes and a fractured skull. His life's end terminated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's decades-long fight for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority — about ten percent of the population — and a cycle of violence that Sri Lankans of all ethnicities and religions have been living with for decades. For the more than 800,000 members of the Tamil diaspora spread out from Toronto to Sydney, the news was met with mixed reactions. Some are fervent supporters of the LTTE and others downright oppose the separatist movement, but grapple with publicly criticizing the Tigers out of fear of a network globally regarded as terrorists. What more Tamils living abroad can agree on is better rights for the minority still in-country. Many Tamils, who are primarily Hindu, have long claimed job discrimination and unequal political power in a nation and government dominated by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority. For decades, hundreds of thousands of Tamils have endured life under the crossfire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, and still today, about 300,000 of the nation's 3 million Tamils remain live in government camps in Sri Lanka's north.
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Tamils desperate to help homeland
[Jun 28, 2009, 19:06], [Edmonton Sun,Canada]
The Tamil community in Edmonton met with human rights experts yesterday for a forum to discuss the dire conditions in which nearly 300,000 displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka have been living, a spokesman said.
More than 350 people gathered at a southside conference room to hear a professor, lawyer and non-profit human rights group representative, among others, speak about the unstable situation in Sri Lanka and how the international community can help.
Priya Ajay, a spokesman at the forum, who left behind friends and classmates in Sri Lanka 15 years ago when she moved to Canada, said organizing awareness events helps the Edmonton Tamil community feel like they're making a difference for their counterparts half a world away.
"The Sri Lankan government is celebrating victory of war (against the Tamil Tigers), but approximately 300,000 Tamils are in concentration camps. And 80,000 of those are children. Most have lost parents. People in the camps are facing starvation and disease," she said.
Ajay, 28, heard from some relatives that old classmates of hers were among them.
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UN Runs Scared of Sri Lanka, Says National Staff Not Immune -- But Genocide Suspects Are
[Jun 27, 2009, 09:27], [Inner City Press]
UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- As the Sri Lankan government locked up an astrologer who dared make predictions that President Rahinda Rajapaksa didn't like, the UN in New York stayed silent. Inner City Press asked, for the third time, what is being done about the two UN staff members who were grabbed up by the government using unmarked vehicles.
Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq said he was aware of the question, but that they still have no answer. Inner City Press asked, isn't it the UN's position that its staff members have immunity? Haq acknowledged that it normally the position. But why not in Sri Lanka?
In fact, the UN Mission in Kosovo actively invoked immunity on June 26 in favor of a person changed with genocide. When Agim Ceku was arrested in Bulgaria, based on an Interpol warrant, it is reported that a UN documentary showing was made in order to get Ceku released. Inner City Press asked Haq about this as well on Friday. Haq said to ask the UNMIK mission.
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With press council, Sri Lanka revives a repressive tool
[Jun 27, 2009, 09:23], [CPJ]
With press council, Sri Lanka revives a repressive tool
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Sri Lankan reporter 'kidnapped'
[Jun 26, 2009, 06:24], [BBC]
A Sri Lankan journalist says she was kidnapped from outside her home in the capital Colombo and held for a day by people claiming to be the police.
Krishni Ifam, a Tamil reporter who works for media development NGO Internews, said the men had warned her to give up journalism altogether.
She said she was then released in the central city of Kandy late on Wednesday with a tiny amount of cash.
Police in Sri Lanka could not be reached for comment.
Unmarked vans
Ms Ifam has been speaking about her ordeal on a private television station and, separately, to the BBC.
She said men who said they were policemen forced her to get into their vehicle outside her Colombo home early on Wednesday and drove for several hours while keeping her blindfolded.
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Sri Lanka - The World Has Moved On
[Jun 26, 2009, 06:21], [Scoop]
As with other dramatic and often bloody developments that capture the world’s major media players, (and thereby our own attention), from time to time, the short-lived but intense focus on events in the tiny island state of Sri Lanka has subsided. We should not expect the media to continue to supply us with further developments ,following the violent end to a bloody civil war which has racked the country since the anti-Tamil riots of 1983 and led to many thousands of deaths. Although the war, for now at least has been won by the Sri Lankan government’s forces, the nature of the peace to follow is by no means certain. The underlying problems that led to conflict remain and whether an accommodation between the two ethnic groups can be reached is problematic, to say the least.
The issue of possible war crimes has not been addressed. Although Sri Lanka avoided censure by the Human Rights Council , this does not put to rest legitimate concerns about persistent claims of indiscriminate shelling by the Sri lankan army, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians in the final period of the conflict. Concerns expressed by the British and French foreign Ministers, who travelled to Sri Lanka, were dismissed by the Sri Lankan government, as were those of other governments and the fact that the media was prohibited from witnessing the fighting does nothing to dispel doubts about the government’s actions.
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Six priests held prisoner and in solitary confinement in refugee camps
[Jun 26, 2009, 00:30], [Asia News]
Chennai (AsiaNews) - Six Catholic priests are kept in isolation in the camps of Sri Lanka. The bishop of Jaffna has requested their release, but has not yet received any response from the Ministry of Defense. A humanitarian worker working in the fields in which 300 thousand displaced persons live tells their story and denounces the disappearance of three government doctors who had circulated the figures of the dead during the last days of war between the army and Tamil Tigers. There is no news of their fate. Ranil Kumaratunga is a name we use to maintain the anonymity of the source of AsiaNews.
The Government of Sri Lanka should immediately release the six Catholic priests who were imprisoned and kept in secret solitary confinement in centres for Internally displaced persons (IDPs). Four are from the diocese of Jaffna, and two belong to Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate (OMI). These priests unselfishly helped Tamil people during the war, until the last hours of the military campaign. These priests have only helped people. The Government of Sri Lanka has put them in isolation in the IDP camps where no-one is allowed contact with them. There are fears for their safety, their emotional and psychological conditions, and also for their physical health. The bishop of Jaffna has asked the Secretary of Defense for the release of the six priests, but so far there has been no response.
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SRI LANKA: Mass carnage of Tamils in war without witnesses
[Jun 25, 2009, 18:14], [Newsweekly.]
While the war in Sri Lanka has ended, the underlying causes of the civil war have not been addressed, writes Peter Westmore.
A civil war of merciless atrocity, in which tens of thousands of Tamils have been killed recently by the Sri Lankan army, came to an end last month when army troops finally occupied the territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers in north-east Sri Lanka.
While the war has ended, the underlying causes of the civil war have not been addressed, and, arguably, have been exacerbated.
The Tamil people, predominantly Hindu, are descendants of people who were brought to Sri Lanka by the British in the 19th century to work in the tea and coconut plantations. Their descendants now constitute around 15 per cent of the population.
Separate culture
Most of the rest of the people are Sinhalese. They are Buddhist, and have their own language and culture.
Since Sri Lanka gained independence over 60 years ago, successive Sinhalese governments have discriminated against the Tamil minority, beginning with the disenfranchisement of plantation workers in 1949, establishment of Sinhala as the national language in 1956, and repeated anti-Tamil riots which have forced many to live as refugees or outcasts in Sri Lanka.
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Rights Groups Want Probe Into Sri Lanka War Abuses
[Jun 25, 2009, 16:54], [CBSNEWS]
(AP) Human rights groups called Thursday for an international investigation into wartime abuses in Sri Lanka, saying the government lacks the political will to investigate the incidents on its own.
Rights groups accused the government of firing heavy weapons into civilian areas in the final months of the island nation's quarter-century civil war, which ended last month. The Tamil Tigers were accused of holding the civilians as human shields and shooting those who tried to flee. Both sides denied the allegations.
U.N. figures show that more than 7,000 civilians were killed in fighting this year before the war ended.
The Tamil Tigers' intelligence wing confirmed Thursday that rebel chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was among those killed in the fighting, ending an apparent rift with other rebel officials who announced Prabhakaran's death last month.
"We confirm emphatically that the national leader did not surrender and was not arrested, but fought attaining martyrdom," Kathirkamathamby Arivazhakan, a top rebel intelligence official, said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.
Security forces continue to sweep the country for rebel sleeper cells, and police said they killed three rebels who attacked a group of officers trying to search a car in the northern Vavuniya district Thursday.
After declaring victory last month, President Mahinda Rajapaksa told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the government would look into abuse claims itself, but Human Rights Watch said Sri Lanka's decision to shut down a presidential inquiry into earlier abuses proved it had little intention of pursuing justice.
That commission was investigating 16 cases, including the killing of 17 aid workers in eastern Sri Lanka in 2006. Though it had only completed seven of the cases, its mandate expired Sunday and was not renewed.
"The decision to disband the presidential commission shows that President Rajapaksa has little intention of fulfilling his promise to Secretary-General Ban," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at the New York-based rights group. "It's now up to concerned governments to step in and ensure that justice is done for the victims of abuses in Sri Lanka's long war."
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Ex-UN's Jan Egeland Describes "Horror" In Sri Lanka, Says R2P Has Failed, UN Silent
[Jun 25, 2009, 08:43], [Inner City Press]
UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- While current UN humanitarian coordinator John Holmes has commended the Sri Lankan government for how they are running the UN-funded camps where they have detained 300,000 Tamil civilians, his predecessor Jan Egeland on Tuesday told the Press that we can "safely assume... horrors" in the treatment of "women in Sri Lanka, Tamils," due to the continuing denial of access not only to humanitarian review but also "witnesses." Video here, from Minute 26:06.
Last week Inner City Press asked for the UN's and Holmes' response to the Sri Lanka government barring even UN workers from bringing cameras into the internment camps. There was no response, nor to the disbanding of the investigation into killings such as that of 17 Action Contre la Faim aid workers near Kilinochchi.
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Fears for press freedom in Sri Lanka
[Jun 25, 2009, 08:41], [Guardian,U.K.]
The Sri Lankan government has provoked concern among press freedom groups with its decision to reestablish a powerful council with the authority to jail journalists.
Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, the Sri Lankan media minister, confirmed the government was in the process of reactivating the press council, which ceased operation in 2002. During its tenure, the council had been criticised as an anti-democratic tool to suppress criticism of the government.
Today's move comes after increasing pressure on any reporters who were seen as critical of the Sri Lankan government in the closing months of the war against the Tamil Tigers and the methods used to root out the last of the rebels from their stronghold.
Sri Lanka publicly warned foreign media and aid agencies that they faced being expelled from the country if their reporting of the closing stages of the war was deemed sympathetic to the Tamil insurgents, who were making a last stand in the north-east of the state.
Reporters have come under fire in incidents in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, with a number of high-profile journalists assassinated in recent months.
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