'1,500 Tamil suspects arrested during July' says Sri Lanka's PM

Agence France-Presse
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Sri Lankan troops arrested over 1,500 Tamil rebel suspects during July, more than a year after the separatist guerrilla group was crushed militarily, the prime minister said Tuesday.

About half of the suspects were picked up at government-run shelters where they had taken refuge after the fighting ended in May last year, Premier D. M. Jayaratne told parliament during a debate to extend a state of emergency.

"We need to maintain emergency laws to ensure the safety and security of the nation," the premier told parliament.

Sri Lanka has resisted international calls to end the state of emergency, saying that Tiger remnants were trying to regroup and resume their armed campaign for an independent homeland for the island's ethnic Tamil minority.

Jayaratne said the government continued to receive information about Tigers trying to collect weapons and regroup.

The United Nations estimate that up to 100,000 people died in the Tigers' independence bid from 1972 till May last year.

The Tigers have launched no attacks since being defeated, but the government maintains tough anti-terror laws which are extended every month by parliament.

The opposition accuses the government of using the emergency laws to stifle political dissent.

© AFP

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'Errant' Sri Lankan official tied up by minister

Video courtesy: Daily Mirror Online

BBC South Asia
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One of Sri Lanka's top civil service unions has condemned an incident in which an official was tied to a tree by a government minister in Colombo.

Deputy Highways Minister Mervyn Silva tied the official up after accusing him of not attending meetings to discuss a dengue fever outbreak.

Mr Silva - who organised and attended the meetings - was angry that the official was not there.

Correspondents say he has a reputation as colourful politician.

Mr Silva told the BBC that he tied up the official as a warning to the official of the seriousness of not tackling dengue fever.

"I did not do it to demean the public services or humiliate him," he said.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease that causes severe head, muscle and joint pains. In severe cases it can be fatal.

It has caused 100 deaths in Sri Lanka so far this year, prompting the government to declare this week National Dengue Prevention Week.

'Disheartening'

Sri Lanka Administrative Services Association Secretary DP Wickremasinghe said of the incident: "This is unacceptable and we thoroughly condemn it.

"There are approved procedures to discipline government officials and this is inappropriate," he told the BBC.

"In a time when the president is inviting [Sri Lankans living] abroad to come [home] and join the public sector, this is disheartening and will have a negative effect.

"The entire public service will be disappointed."

The controversial minister, who is accused by rights groups of constantly threatening the media, was reported to have verbally abused female civil servants who criticised his actions.

Correspondents say that tying people to trees is a punishment that is traditionally used in Sri Lanka to humiliate people - especially errant children.

Mr Silva was appointed deputy media minister by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, but he later resigned and was reappointed as highways minister.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) group described his ministerial appointments as akin to employing "an arsonist to put out fires".

© BBC South Asia

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At UN, Sri Lanka panel's 4 months has not begun

By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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After Sri Lanka's May 2009 “bloodbath on the beach” which killed thousands of civilians, it took UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon more than a year to name a three person Panel of Experts to merely offer advice on accountability.

On August 2, two months after the assault on the Gaza flotilla which killed eight civilians on the ship, Ban launches a four person Panel of Inquiry, stating that its work formally started August 10, with a first report in mid September, before the UN's annual General Debate.

Inner City Press on August 2 asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky about the contrast between the two panels, the speed with which Ban formed them, and the strangely narrow scope of his Sri Lanka panel:

Inner City Press: I didn’t know we were going to get into comparative panels. But following up on the Bhutto discussion, some have wondered about comparing panels, comparing this to the Sir Lanka panel, which is three people instead of four.

Spokesperson Nesirky: Why did I think you were going to go there?

Inner City Press: Yeah, yeah. The question is, I guess, it hasn’t started yet, due to staffing, I’m told. And so I wonder how can you explain the difference of the speed — I mean, the speed should be, in all cases, I would assume — what would you say that to those who say it took a year to name one in Sri Lanka and it still hasn’t begun due to some staffing issues, whereas this one you’ve said when it’ll start, when it’ll report…

Spokesperson: You’re saying there are staffing issues; I have not. And, that’s the first… [talkover]. The first thing is, as you know, they [the Sri Lanka panel] have already met, and they are looking at exactly how they will work. They have a Chief of Staff, we’ve already named him, as you know. That person is already working with the three experts. So, that’s the first thing. The second thing is, in all of these cases, where you’re setting up an inquiry, a panel of experts, or whatever else you want to call it, this involves careful groundwork and diplomacy. And, this can take, in some cases, a long time; in some cases, it can take less time. You can’t compare one to another. This is how diplomacy works.

So if a country complains loudly enough, leading up to blocking UN staff inside their building, then Ban Ki-moon's UN will move slowly and cautiously on war crimes, apparently. What is the message to countries like Sudan and Myanmar?

Sudan appears to have already learned the lesson: they have announced that UN staff in Darfur must now give prior notice before traveling the road, and will have their bags searched in the airport.

As to the still unclear Sri Lanka panel timing, Inner City Press asked:

Inner City Press: has the four-month clock started? When did it start?

Spokesperson: As we’ve said, you have the experts and you have the support team. The support team is working in the background. The experts will be meeting again in the coming weeks, and that is part of the process, part of their work as they’ve been mandated to do so by the Secretary-General.

Inner City Press: When does the four-month clock start?

Spokesperson: I’ll let you know. So, I’m happy to take any other questions on this, but is this on the panel?

Ban was very proud of his Gaza panel, going so far as to interview himself -- or have UN Radio do it - in a mock “stakeout” in his North Lawn building office. Then he flew off to Japan.

Following Inner City Press' report that Mahinda Rajapaksa is listed as Sri Lanka's speaker in September's general debate, unprompted letters copied to Inner City Press have invited Ban's panel's three members to be sure to interview Rajapaksa at that time. We'll see.

Footnote: over the weekend, we noted that the Sri Lankan Mission to the UN's embattled and outgoing Deputy Permanent Representative might be providing some views early this week. He had formally invited Inner City Press to “lunch at the Sri Lankan restaurant” on August 2.

But that morning, the Mission wrote to Inner City Press saying the DPR was “indisposed” and unable to attend, that it might be rescheduled. As it happens, the PR is throwing a farewell to his deputy on August 3, at a non-Sri Lankan restaurant on Third Avenue by the UN and Mission. To this, Inner City Press has yet to be included among the invitees. Interesting list that must be.

© Inner City Press

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Sri Lanka’s 1.6m Web user freedom threatened: Are we to just go offline?

Read the full report

By Joseph Thavaraja | The Island
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The post-war outlook of internet freedom in Sri Lanka is ‘not bright.’ In addition, Sri Lanka needs to take immediate steps to legislate for ‘broad privacy protection.’

While Tamilnet.com is already blocked, Human Rights Watch (HRW), TamilCanadian.com, Lankanewsweb.com, Nidahasa.com, and Lankaenews.com sites have also either been blocked fully or often not available.

An Internet Freedom of Expression (IFoE) study by Colombo based Centre for Policy Alternatives and Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit –Colombo (FNST) released on August 2 calls upon Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to legislate for broad privacy protection . It also wants service providers to provide clear privacy policies.

According to Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL), Sri Lanka now has 16 licensed ISPs. TRCSL says there are 249,756 internet and email subscribers in the country, which had only 150000 internet users in 2001. But according to the World Bank, Sri Lanka now reports a ten-fold increase of net users (to 1,163,500 by Sept. 2009) with a 5.5% internet penetration rate. The projection for 2010 is 8.3% (1,776,200). In contrast, mobile penetration is estimated to be 68%, with nine operators.

Interestingly, for the first time, the TRCSL has begun monitoring the quality of service (QoS) of the provision of Broadband internet services by Operators. The TRCSL uses a newly established unit for this purpose. According to TRC, the ‘new Unit is equipped with apparatus to observe a wide variety of broadband services that include ADSL, WiMAX and HSPA.’ The main purpose of this unit is to keep ‘under surveillance the quality of broadband services encountered by subscribers in the country’.

In a way, this step is vital in that, broadband operators have acquired the habit of hyping their capabilities in their promotions. LIRNEASIA says the two top mobile broadband dongle providers (HSPA) can in reality, provide only 20% of the speed that they regularly claim to provide in their advertisements.

"Service providers need to provide clear and accessible privacy policies so consumers are informed of their privacy rights. Efforts to block websites and filter content have to be catalogued and published. There needs to be an independent third party who can monitor such moves and the implementation of any privacy policies" says the CPA FNST study. The report also stresses urgent need for strengthening the laws of the country on Internet FOE.

Although Sri Lankan law does not specifically target online content, Internet users have to operate within a ‘restrictive legal framework’, with (a) host of legislative provisions that currently limit freedom of expression, the study adds. Sri Lanka’s FOE canons are broadly dividable into two schemata as ‘general laws’ and ‘laws relating to national security. ‘But unlike in places like Australia, France and the UK where the proposed (monitoring) measures are announced publicly and debated vigorously, in Sri Lanka; "laws are made in a culture of secrecy, there is very little opportunity to meaningfully influence the law making process and worse often what is legal and permissible and what happens in reality are two different things."Thus, it is possible for civil society to lobby law makers and regulators and actually impact the policy making process" the study stresses.

Delving into the gaping void in the right to privacy of Sri Lankan online users, the report says that there are no legislative provisions that protect general information gathering and handling. "Under the Roman Dutch common law of Sri Lanka the right to privacy is protected in specific instances. However there is no right to privacy under the Constitution of Sri Lanka. There are also no legislative provisions that protect general information gathering and handling. The Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No. 25 of 1991 (As Amended) (Sri Lanka) and the Computer Crimes Act No 24 of 2007 (Sri Lanka) provide limited protection to Internet users from surveillance and other forms of intercepting communications. However both the Acts have provisions that allow law enforcement agencies and relevant Ministers to intercept communications without any apparent restrictions or guidelines on their general power to do so" the report adds.

Despite the rapid advances in mobile telephony tech, the broadband and internet infrastructure is still ‘underdeveloped’ in Sri Lanka. Further, as most of the users have to overcome their English language issues and even the Sinhala & Tamil Unicode interfaces in which one can read HTML pages in native language scripts/embedded fonts are still far from perfect, mass internet activism as well as advocacy has a long way to go in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, if interpreted well, the CPA-FNST in-depth study could be used as a promising alternative point of entry to a domain which needs to be safeguarded-and safeguarded well.

© The Island

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Sri Lanka lacking reconciliation, say global leaders

Read the full statement

By Saroj Pathirana | BBC South Asia
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Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari has said he is sad that post-war Sri Lanka has not improved "to the extent that one would have hoped".

In an interview with BBC Sinhala, he said there should be more transparency and a climate which allowed "proper media reporting".

He was speaking just before the launch of a report on Sri Lanka by The Elders, an influential group of global leaders.

The report says there has been little progress on post-war reconciliation.

The report by The Elders - a group of leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007 to address major causes of human suffering - is sharply critical of the Sri Lankan government.

It says that the government's "clampdown on domestic critics and its disdain for human rights deserves a far tougher response".

"Meaningful progress on reconciliation in Sri Lanka is still desperately needed," it says.

It said there was a "deafening global silence" to Sri Lanka's "worrying approach to human rights, good governance and accountability", which may encourage other states to act in a similar way.

The report said that the government's persecution of its critics was "terrifying".

An MP from the governing coalition, Rajiva Wijesinha, said that retired elders were "simplifying and preaching" instead of making recommendations to build on the positive change.

He said there was no lack of dissent and criticism - and this was seen daily in newspapers and the parliament.

'Violations'

Mr Ahtisaari said the announcement by the government that it was setting up a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission to look into alleged human rights abuses at the end of the war in May 2009 - rather than work with a UN panel looking into the same issues - was not satisfactory.

"If you look at previous examples of special commissions in Sri Lanka, one has to be sceptical," he said.

"Over the last 30 years the reports of other commissions similar to this have not even been made public. So this effort leaves much to be desired."

The Elders group is chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and has former Irish President Mary Robinson, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi and former US President Jimmy Carter among its members, in addition to Mr Ahtisaari.

They have contacted the government of Sri Lanka and officials around the world to express their concerns about "alleged violations of international humanitarian law and the need for actions that promote sustainable peace and reconciliation in the country".

The government argues that Tamil Tiger remnants, both at home and abroad, still pose a threat to national security.

© BBC South Asia

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'Visit to Sri Lanka 'very productive' says U.S. Trade Representative for South Asia

Colombo Page
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A United States delegation that visited Sri Lanka to review its GSP process said today that they had a very productive meeting with the Sri Lankan government and other interested parties.

Speaking at the conclusion of a two-day visit by a team of US government officials Assistant United States Trade Representative for South Asia Michael Delaney has said that they had very cordial and productive meetings during their visit to Sri Lanka with the Government of Sri Lanka, union leaders, company representatives, and other interested parties.

He has commented that the delegation was encouraged by the meetings with the Sri Lankan groups.

"We will continue our collaborative process of dialogue, and we look forward to working together on the issue of labor rights in Sri Lanka," the Trade Representative has said.

Delaney has said that there have been some media reports which have mischaracterized the United States Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) review process and he would like to clarify the statements.

"The United States GSP program is wholly independent of any other countries' review. Our GSP review is solely focused on labor rights. In addition, the GSP trade benefits continue during the ongoing review process," he was quoted in a press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Colombo.

Delaney led an interagency team to Colombo on August 2 and 3 to engage in a dialogue with the Government of Sri Lanka on concerns related to a complaint under the United States Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program that Sri Lanka is not affording workers internationally recognized worker rights.

The United States team included representatives from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and the Departments of Labor and State. In addition to meeting with the Government of Sri Lanka, the U.S. delegation also met with labor unions, employer associations, and other interested parties. Adherence to international labor standards is mandatory under the United States GSP program.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) filed a petition in 2008 with the US Government requesting a review of worker rights in Sri Lanka. The organization resubmitted an updated petition last year asking the US Trade Representative (USTR) to remove Sri Lanka from the list of eligible developing countries to receive GSP.

As part of the annual review process, on June 30, 2010, the United States accepted the AFL-CIO petition on Sri Lanka to review whether it met GSP eligibility criteria related to worker rights.

As part of the review, USTR analyzes petitions to withdraw or limit a country's GSP benefits on criteria including whether a country is taking steps to afford workers internationally recognized worker rights, whether it provides important investor protections including the enforcement of arbitral awards, and the extent to which a country adequately and effectively protects intellectual property rights (IPR).

The United States GSP program is designed to promote economic growth in the developing world, providing duty free treatment for over 3,400 products from 131 designated beneficiary countries and territories, including Sri Lanka.

According to the Embassy press release Sri Lanka benefited from GSP treatment on approximately $116 million of goods in 2009. Products covered under the GSP program include machinery, electrical goods, chemical products, agricultural products, jewelry and much more. Most textile and apparel goods are not eligible for GSP preferential benefits under the program.

© Colombo Page

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Sri Lanka plans to sell $1 billion sovereign bonds overseas by September

By Saikat Chatterjee | Bloomberg
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Sri Lanka plans to sell $1 billion of sovereign bonds overseas this year to build infrastructure and repay high-cost local and foreign-currency debt.

The bonds may be sold “around September,” the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said in an e-mailed statement today. The monetary authority has invited proposals from investment banks to manage the sale.

Sri Lanka plans to raise debt to rebuild the nation’s economy ravaged by a 26-year civil war that ended in May 2009 and retire high-cost borrowings after sovereign rating companies revised the island nation’s credit outlook. Sri Lanka on June 29 unveiled plans to slash its budget deficit by the most in eight years and pledged to cut taxes to spur economic growth.

Sri Lanka’s sovereign rating may be raised as funds from a $2.5 billion International Monetary Fund loan improved the “external liquidity situation,” Standard & Poor’s said last month. The South Asian country turned to the IMF last year after foreign-exchange reserves dropped to an eight-year low.

Positive Outlook

Standard & Poor’s in October raised its outlook on Sri Lanka’s credit rating to positive from stable. The nation has a long-term foreign currency debt rating of B, five levels below investment grade and on a par with Kenya and Paraguay.

“The positive outlook means that the most likely outcome, in the next move, is for the rating going up,” Agost Benard, S&P’s Singapore-based associate director, said on July 1.

The central bank on June 10 raised its 2010 growth forecast to 7 percent from an April estimate of 6.5 percent, saying all sectors of the economy had shown “substantial” growth.

Sri Lanka also had its outlook revised to stable from negative on Oct. 9 by Fitch Ratings. The credit assessor affirmed the country’s rating at B+, its fourth-highest non- investment grade.

The nation’s last global bond sale in October attracted bids for more than 13 times the $500 million offered. The 7.4 percent notes due in January 2015 were sold to yield 5.06 percentage points more than similar maturity U.S. Treasuries. Its debut offering in October 2007 saw $500 million of debt due October 2012 sold at a spread of 3.97 percentage points.

© Bloomberg

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