Hundreds of Sri Lankan asylum seekers land in Canada

By Keith Vass | Agence France Presse
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Hundreds of Tamils seeking asylum from Sri Lanka sailed into Canada on Friday under escort of authorities, who vowed to screen out Tiger rebels amid controversy on whether the country is too welcoming.

After several months on sea, the MV Sun Sea cargo ship arrived on western Canada's Vancouver Island surrounded by a naval frigate and police helicopters. Canadian authorities stood on deck wearing face masks as a precaution.

Buses with blacked-out windows stood ready to transport the 490 migrants to holding jails on the mainland. Victoria General Hospital set up a special room and quarantined ward for any sick migrants, spokeswoman Shannon Marshall said.

The ship's progress has been monitored for weeks, triggering a furor in Canada over whether the boat migrants were jumping the queue while thousands of other applicants await their turn.

Public Security Minister Vic Toews repeatedly vowed that Canada, known for some of the world's most welcoming asylum policies, would not be a "soft target" for human smugglers.

Toews told reporters Thursday that some people aboard the ship are "suspected human smugglers and terrorists" and Canada would prosecute anyone involved in human trafficking, which he called a "despicable crime."

Keith Martin, the member of parliament representing the Esquimalt Harbour where the asylum seekers arrived, said that his office has been deluged with calls from angry constituents who do not want the Tamils taken in.

The ship had originally intended to go to Australia before being deterred and heading to Canada, which also has a politically active Tamil community.

Canadian Tamils have urged their adopted country to accept the asylum seekers, saying that the minority group faces continued difficulties in Sinhalese-majority Sri Lanka.

Krisna Saravanamuttu, spokesman for the National Council of Canadian Tamils, said the community "accepts our federal government's right to promote security" but added: "At the same time keep in mind these people are fleeing from persecution and they must be treated with compassion."

"They must have went through hell and high water to ensure they could escape Sri Lanka," Saravanamuttu told public broadcaster CBC. "There are severe health problems on this ship, and many of the individuals on this ship are under the age of 13."

"Canada has a very strong reputation, and I think a noble reputation, to open its arms to those individuals who do need asylum," he said.

However, Sri Lanka's government has called for the ship to be turned away, calling it a smuggling operation by the defeated rebels, officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"We have lodged our concerns with the Canadian authorities that these people aboard the Sun Sea could be linked to the LTTE," a foreign ministry spokesman said in Colombo.

Sri Lanka last year ended decades of civil war by crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels in a bloody finale in which the United Nations says that at least 7,000 civilians were killed.

Despite concerns about Sri Lanka's human rights record, Western nations ban the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization. The group was known for its suicide bombings and use of child soldiers during its nearly four-decade fight for a separate Tamil homeland.

© AFP

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Sri Lanka: Opposition DNA members remandedd till August 16

The Sunday Leader Online
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Democratic National Alliance (DNA) parliamentarians Vijitha Herath, Ajith Kumara and Provincial Councilor Nalin Hewage along with 10 others have been remanded till August 16 by the Galle Magistrate.

The two MPs, provincial councilor and the other DNA members were presented to court by the Galle Police last evening after they were arrested by the Galle police following protest held by the party in Galle Town calling for the release of DNA Leader Retired General Sarath Fonseka.

DNA spokespersons said police tear gassed the protestors twice and arrested several party members.

Herath, Kumara and Hewage had been arrested by the police when they had visited the Galle Police station to secure the release of its arrested party members.

DNA MP Arjuna Ranatunge who was also with the two other DNA MPs was not arrested.

© Sunday Leader Online

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Sri Lankan military court convicts ex-army chief

Associated Press
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A military court convicted former Sri Lankan army chief and presidential candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka of involvement in politics while in service and stripped him of his rank and military honors, the government announced Friday.

The media office of the presidency said Fonseka's sentence of a dishonorable discharge is subject to approval by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Fonseka led Sri Lanka's army in its victory last year against ethnic Tamil rebels, ending a quarter-century civil war. He then ran unsuccessfully for the presidency against Rajapaksa and was subsequently arrested and put on military trial.

His supporters accuse Rajapaksa of harassing Fonseka for daring to challenge him.

Fonseka's lawyer Rienzie Arsecularatne said that the case has been heard in his absence during a court vacation.

"I had informed the court martial that I will not be attending during the court vacation but they went ahead and fixed the court martial on the days I was not available," he said.

He said the ruling has not been communicated to him.

Fonseka also faces a second court martial on alleged corrupt deals while in the army.

© AP

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They Came, They Bungled, They Left

By The Puppeteer | Messiah of Madness
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When Americans decide to be charitable, it’s much like Odie wanting to play with an M&M dispenser. It’s all seemingly harmless, but when vacuous minds come in possession of… well, just about anything; the results are catastrophic!

I discovered how Odie-like American are, when I was sent off to Trinco to write about the USS Pearl Harbor (LSD- 52) that docked at the Trinco harbour to carry out some charity work. Packed with US military of about 450 Marines and 350 sailors, the monster of a ship was also transporting several humvees, tanks and other gigantic war vehicles.

The 800 US troops were dispatched around Trinco on July 14 to help improve the war affected area. On their 3 day charity stint in Sri Lanka, they worked on 3 projects which involved a school and an orphanage in Trinco, and a hospital in Mutur.

Heading over the school on a sweltering morning in Trinco, I wasn’t really sure as to what to expect. Though I figured it should be something interesting. So you can understand why I was slightly nonplussed when I saw the American military painting the school!

Now, Sri Lanka might be a developing country but manpower is not something that’s in dearth here. What we could use is resources. But hey, last least they meant well, right? Except… I think their well meant effort was more destructive than helpful.

This was apparent with their bizarre idea of turning the school’s recreation room into a computer room. Now a computer room would be brilliant as it would help improve computer literacy in the area. Only, it turned out they had no intention of actually providing the school with…wait for it… computers!

Yeah, shifting a few tables around, calling the class a ‘computer room’ and leaving… might have been their idea of building up hope for the children for when they finally do receive computers; whenever that might be.

The orphanage wasn’t any different. They painted the building bright orange, fixed a few shower heads and moved some logs. Thankfully, they didn’t deprive the orphans of a recreation area by turning it into a “computer room”.

Of course nothing was more destructive than them giving the student of the school a tour of the USS Pearl Harbour. Taking the kids around the warship, showing them how to use the machine guns, allowing them to handle to weapons and getting them excited about the tanks, wouldn’t be the most advisable thing to do. Especially considering all these kids have known in their young lives is war.

What really struck me as how obscenely stupid Americans are, is what a female Naval officer asked the children at the end of the tour.

Turning to a group of 14 year old girls, she asked “So what do you want to do now?”. The girls excitedly responded that they wanted to see more of the machine guns.

Naval officer replies “Yeah! We love guns, don’t we?”

And the girls chorus “YEAH!” and eagerly trail after her.

© Messiah of Madness

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Sri Lankan waters run deep with China

By Sudha Ramachandran | Asia Times
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The first phase of Sri Lanka's Hambantota project, a showpiece of the country's significant and growing cooperation with China, is almost complete. Filling the harbor basin with water for the port on the southern tip of the island begins on August 15 and the first ship is expected to dock at the port by November.

Hambantota is several nautical miles north of a major shipping route that links the Suez Canal with the Malacca Strait, which about 36,000 ships cross annually. Once the entire project is completed, it is expected to transform Sri Lanka into an important transshipment hub.

The project is more than just a port. On completion, the Hambantota Development Zone will include a liquefied natural gas refinery, aviation fuel storage facilities, three separate docks that will give the port transshipment capacity, dry docks for ship repair and construction, and bunkering and refueling facilities.

The entire project is expected to cost about US$1.5 billion and most of the funding could come from China. Already the Chinese have provided 85% of the first phase's total cost of $550 million as a soft loan and pledged $200 million toward the second phase. A consortium of Chinese companies led by the China Harbor Engineering Company and the Sino Hydro Corporation is also involved in the project's construction.

Besides the Hambantota project, China is involved in several others on the island. It is constructing a second international airport at Hambantota, a $248 million expressway connecting the capital Colombo with the airport at Katunayake, a $855 million coal power plant at Norochcholai, and a performing arts theater in Colombo.

China's Huichen Investment will provide $28 million and manage a special economic zone at Mirigama for Chinese investors. In addition, China has provided $1million as humanitarian aid for internally displaced persons and technical assistance for demining operations in northern and eastern provinces.

China's relationship with Sri Lanka goes back many decades. In the 1950s, the countries signed a rubber-rice agreement that assured Sri Lanka with a large market for its rubber, even as it was provided with low-priced rice.

While the Sino-Sri Lankan bond is decades old, the relationship expanded remarkably after Mahinda Rajapaksa became president in 2005. Since 2006, Beijing has provided Sri Lanka with $3.06 billion in financial assistance for various projects. Its aid to Sri Lanka, which was a few million dollars in 2005, jumped to $1.2 billion in 2009, over half the total aid the island has been offered by various countries. China is Sri Lanka's largest aid donor today.

An important reason for the close ties between the Rajapaksa government and China is Beijing's robust endorsement and support of Colombo's conduct in the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). China was "instrumental to some extent in the Sri Lankan government's success in defeating the LTTE", said China expert Srikanth Kondapalli, an associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "Colombo was trying to purchase arms from abroad for years and only China supplied it with weaponry on a sustained basis."

Many in Sri Lanka favor the burgeoning relationship with China for reducing dependence on neighboring India, whose presence had been enormous. "Chinese help to Sri Lanka, unlike that from India, is free from conditions," said Soosipillai Keethaponcalan, senior lecturer at Colombo University's Department of Political Science.

Unlike India, which did not fully support Rajapaksa's military operations against the LTTE and which refrained from supplying it with weapons that would worsen the plight of civilians, China had no such qualms. It fulfilled Colombo's wish-list for military hardware, asking no questions, and has stood by Colombo in various international forums when it has been accused of gross human-rights abuses and war crimes.

In 2008, Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohana told the New York Times that Sri Lanka's new donors "conduct themselves differently. Asians don't go around teaching each other how to behave," he said. "There are ways we deal with each other - perhaps a quiet chat, but not wagging the finger." China's way of dealing with Sri Lanka by not raising uncomfortable questions works well for the Rajapaksa government.

Economic and strategic reasons are behind China's interest in Sri Lanka. The island provides it with a market for its goods. More important is the strategic interest. It is located close to India's southern coast. A presence in Sri Lanka enhances China's access to the Indian Ocean. As mentioned earlier, Sri Lanka is just a few nautical miles from an important sea lane, one that is taken by tankers carrying 80% of China's oil.

"China's influence in Sri Lanka is as major as that of India's," said John Gooneratne, a retired Sri Lankan diplomat and author of A Decade of Confrontation: Sri Lanka and India in the 1980s. India's investment in projects in Sri Lanka is largely in the war-torn Tamil areas, not visible to the majority Sinhalese community. "China has the 'knack' of making grants/loans for projects that visibly project the Chinese image - the Bandaranaike Conference Hall, the Courts complex, and now a Cultural Complex [under construction] in Colombo," he told Asia Times Online.

"There is reason for India to be concerned over the growing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka, particularly in the long term," says Kondapalli.

And the worry is showing.

Indian security analysts have pointed out that while at present there is no talk of a Chinese naval base on the island, the possibility of one at Hambantota at a later stage cannot be ruled out.

At the height of the war against the LTTE, India's then national security adviser, M K Narayanan, went public with India's concern over Colombo sourcing arms from China. More recently, India reached agreement with Colombo to set up a consulate in Hambantota, the district where the China-funded project is being built. India has a high commission in Colombo and a consulate in Kandy. Consulates in Jaffna and Hambantota are in the pipeline. This huge presence on a small island seems rather excessive. Sri Lankans believe the proposed Hambantota consulate is aimed at "keeping an eye" on Chinese activity there.

The Sino-Sri Lankan relationship is not without its problems. Bilateral trade has doubled over the past five years and China has emerged the second-largest exporter to Sri Lanka and the 13th-largest export destination for Sri Lankan exports. However, “the trade balance is overwhelmingly in China's favor", Kondapalli told Asia Times Online.

Sri Lanka's exports consist of raw materials, rubber, tea, spices, gems and some minerals. "The Lankans want a diversification of the trade basket. Besides, Lankan traders are also having problems with the Chinese banking system," he said.

An issue that could trouble Sino-Sri Lankan relations in the coming years is that of China bringing in its own workers. This has triggered tensions in several countries such as Zambia, where Beijing is involved in big projects. Media reports have also drawn attention to claims that China uses convicts on overseas projects, a charge that Beijing has denied. Such allegations, especially if proved true, have the potential of triggering anti-China public sentiment and souring the current Sino-Sri Lankan bonhomie.

Sri Lanka has taken care not to allow its dalliance with the Chinese to offend India. It has repeatedly clarified that it will keep India's security concerns in mind.

With the end of the war in Sri Lanka last year, India's role in the island has diminished. All the same, the government recognizes it cannot afford to antagonize India, and geographical proximity to India is a factor that Colombo cannot ignore. Decision-makers in Colombo are unlikely to have forgotten past experiences.

In the 1980s, when the civil war was unfolding, the Sri Lankan government sourced weapons from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan and China - all with whom India was not on cordial terms at that time - ignoring India's security concerns. That sparked a series of moves by India that culminated in its provision of limited arms and training to the Tamil militants. Then in June 1987, when India violated Sri Lankan airspace and dropped relief supplies to Jaffna's beleaguered Tamil population, the J R Jayawardene government appealed to its Western friends and Asian allies for assistance. But little concrete help was forthcoming.

China, for instance, expressed strong disapproval of the "bullying action of big powers", but stopped short of naming India. It gave Colombo some arms, but that was it. China was aware that "it was too far away from Sri Lanka to sustain any military support operation on the island", Kondapalli said. Beijing advised the Sri Lankan government to pursue a political solution to the ethnic conflict, reminding Colombo that "distant waters don't put out fires on your doorstep", Gooneratne, then in the Sri Lankan diplomatic service, recalled. It was proximate countries that were in a position to do so.

This is a fact that Colombo will bear in mind as it does a careful balancing act between the two Asian giants.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.

© Asia Times

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China pledges support to Sri Lanka

By Ananth Krishnan | The Hindu
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China has pledged its support to Sri Lanka against any international pressure for a United Nations-led probe into alleged war crimes, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris said here on Thursday.

Mr. Peiris, who on Thursday held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, said China had conveyed its support to Sri Lanka's position that international interference in investigating alleged war crimes was unwarranted.

Sri Lanka has opposed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's decision to set up a three-member expert panel to look into the conclusion of the war against the LTTE, arguing that the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was the right body to carry forward investigations.

“The international community needs to recognise it can help, but that there should not be judgemental posturing,” Mr. Peiris said, speaking at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), a think-tank affiliated to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister also hit out at the West, particularly the European Union, for imposing trade penalties on Sri Lanka for human rights violations. From August 15, the EU will withdraw its generalised system of preferences (GSP) trade concessions for Sri Lanka, which provide reduced import tariffs and preferential access to EU markets. The move is expected to badly hit Sri Lanka's apparel industry.

© The Hindu

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Sri Lanka hires HSBC, Bank of America, RBS to sell $1 billion of bonds

By Anusha Ondaatjie | Bloomberg
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Sri Lanka hired HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Bank of America Corp. to manage a proposed $1 billion overseas bond sale later this year, the South Asian island’s central bank said.

The selection was made from among seven foreign lenders and investment banks that expressed their interest to manage the sale, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said on its Web site today.

The bond sale would be subject to market conditions, the central bank said. It appointed Bank of Ceylon as co-manager to work with the lead arrangers for the issue.

Sri Lanka in July announced plans to sell the bonds, with maturities of as much as 10 years, by the end of 2010 to help refinance expensive loans. The end of the island’s three decades of civil war in May has restored investor confidence and attracted foreign flows.

HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Royal Bank of Scotland helped arrange Sri Lanka’s last global bond sale in October that attracted bids for more than 13 times the $500 million offered.

This year’s overseas debt sale will be the third by the nation since its debut offering in October 2007.

Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings raised their outlook on Sri Lanka’s debt in October last year. S&P revised it to positive from stable, and assigned the nation’s long-term foreign-currency debt rating at B, five levels below investment grade. Fitch changed the outlook to stable from negative. It affirmed Sri Lanka’s rating at B+, four levels below investment grade.

© Bloomberg

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"Uphold the rights of Tamil migrants aboard MV Sun Sea" demands refugee rights group

By No One is Illegal | Vancouver
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The immigrant and refugee rights group No One Is Illegal is demanding that Canadian government officials respect the human rights of the estimated 200-500 Tamil migrants aboard the MV Sun Sea. The boat is expected to land by the weekend and the detainees will be transferred to Fraser Regional Corrections Centre and Alouette Correctional Centre for Women, who have both prepared for a 3-4 month incarceration. Based on reports in the media, the group includes up to 100 women and children, and there has been at least one death during the voyage.

According to Magin Payet Scudalleri, a member of No One Is Illegal, “Public officials and the media must refrain from stereotyping these migrants as queue-jumpers or terrorists based on unsubstantiated speculations. The migrants have survived a long and arduous journey in the hopes that the Canadian state will fully comply with its international refugee and human rights law obligations to the right to asylum.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has previously warned that “The association of irregular migration with criminality promotes the stigmatization of migrants and encourages a climate of xenophobia and hostility against them.”

Harsha Walia, member of No One Is Illegal, states “We saw a similar unfounded hysteria last October with the 76 Tamil migrants. All were eventually released when Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) was forced to admit they had no evidence of a LTTE connection. In fact, based on a lack of evidence, CBSA consented to the release of the last group of 25 detained refugees in January 2010.”

“The Canadian government is relying on fear-mongering and racist stereotypes to justify their new prison budget and the violent incarceration of asylum seekers, many of whom are women and children. The Conservative government throws around the catch-all phrase ‘terrorism’ to create an atmosphere of paranoia and to prevent any public or media scrutiny of their actions. This is reflected in a growing trend of anti-refugee policies and sentiments under Minister Jason Kenney,” further states Walia.

Rohan Gunaratna, the Canadian’s government’s primary source, has already been discredited by lawyers as well as an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator. They have questioned his sources as well as his credibility given his ongoing close relationship with the Sri Lankan government.

In a March 2010 meeting with Kenney, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres warned that refugee claimants from countries with human rights violations including Sri Lanka are faced with a “shrinking humanitarian space”. This is evident in the Australian government’s recent repressive decision to no longer accept refugee claims from Sri Lanka, despite well-documented human rights violations against Tamils and mass displacement into refugee camps. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a panel to investigate war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan military against Tamils last year.

Despite this, Kenney met with the Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Ottawa this month to discuss greater cooperation with the Sri Lankan government. “It is clear that the Canadian government is more interested in promoting a relationship with a government known to commit massive human rights violations, military atrocities against civilians, and indiscriminate killings; rather than supporting the survivors of such a regime,” further states Scudalleri.

© NOII

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