ICJ report accuses Sri Lankan government of violating human rights

By Sampath Perera | World Socialist Web Site
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A report by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) released late last month condemns the arbitrary detention in Sri Lanka of thousands of Tamil youth with suspected links to the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

In the wake of the LTTE’s military defeat in May 2009, the Sri Lankan military herded the entire population of LTTE-controlled areas—more than a quarter of million men, women and children—into so-called welfare villages. Inside these mass detention camps, young people were questioned by military intelligence and special units of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) and Criminal Investigation Division (CID).

Those accused of being “LTTE suspects,” along with others who surrendered directly to the military, were taken off to secret prisons for further interrogation and “rehabilitation”. Thousands have now been held for more than a year without charge or trial under the country’s draconian emergency regulations and Prevention of Terrorism Act. Such detention centres have been notorious for the use of torture to forcibly obtain confessions.

The ICJ report, entitled “Beyond Lawful Constraints: Sri Lanka’s Mass Detention of LTTE Suspects,” is cautiously written and is aimed at putting pressure on the Sri Lankan government to take “corrective measures”. Nevertheless, it makes clear that the systematic abuse of the basic democratic rights of “surrendees” and “rehabilitees” is a fundamental breach of international law.

According to the report, the arrests of LTTE suspects continued until at least December last year. It points out that even the number of detainees is not known with certainty, and highlights obvious inconsistencies. Last November, Sri Lanka’s Commissioner General for Rehabilitation (CGR) stated that 10,992 people had “surrendered” and stated at a later press conference that the number was 10,732. In February, the former CGR said that 12,000 had been detained. None of the figures tally.

The ICJ estimates that 12,000 people have been arrested. Of those, 1,300 have been categorised as “hard-core LTTE” and face criminal prosecution. At least 8,000 others are being held for “rehabilitation” in at least a dozen camps. About 3,000 have been released over the past year.

The report states that the exact condition of the detainees is unknown and it could not verify whether they have been subjected to torture. Even the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been denied access to some detention camps. The ICJ was refused permission to visit any of the prisons. On the basis of the little information available, the report states that conditions are “cramped and unhygienic” and only limited medical facilities are provided.

The ICJ challenges the government’s claim that the detainees surrendered to government forces, and questions the voluntary nature of surrenders that did take place. The report cites a UN report that many parents encouraged their children to “surrender,” even if their links to the LTTE were minimal, in order to avoid later repression. As the ICJ notes, given the LTTE’s “policy of conscription and forced labour”, many civilians had some sort of link with the organisation inside its territory.

The blanket detention without trial of thousands of people is sanctified by the continuing state of emergency and the use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). After winning office in late 2005, President Mahinda Rajapakse continued the state of emergency and strengthened its regulations after renewing the war against the LTTE in mid-2006. More than a year after the end of the war, the emergency remains in force.

Emergency regulations allow the security forces to detain a person whom they “believe may commit offences,” for up to one year as a preventive measure. The report explains the draconian nature of the measures: “While magistrates are to be informed of such detentions, the regulation excludes judicial review, declares all such detentions lawful, and denies the magistrate power of bail without consent by the Attorney General.”

The only change to the emergency regulations, made in May this year, is that the period of detention was reduced to three months. The report declares that the detention of about 8,000 people under these emergency regulations could be the “largest mass administrative detention anywhere in the world”.

Even outside the state of emergency, the PTA allows the government to detain a person for up to 18 months without charge. The military and police have the power to arrest people merely on suspicion of a “connection” to “unlawful activity”. The ICJ says this law leads to the arrest of people “no matter how attenuated or remote from the activity and irrespective of the detainee’s intent to participate in or even have knowledge of the occurrence of the activity”.

The report reveals that the army “promised that, once registered, those who ‘surrendered’ would be released, but surrender instead triggered continuing indefinite detention without charge or trial.” It is unclear whether all detainees signed a written surrender statement. Even the detainees who did sign could not have understood the content as the statements were in Sinhala. The detainees are Tamil speaking and the majority cannot read Sinhala.

The report observes that arbitrary arrests “have become the norm and have led to widespread abuses and undermined the normal criminal justice system.” It states that the “emergency regulations and counter-terrorism legislation… fall short of international law” and leave detainees in a “legal black hole”.

The ICJ argues that international human rights law is the “applicable legal regime” for Sri Lanka and that the government is violating human rights. The government had ignored the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its Optional Protocol, which it had ratified.

Citing the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the report states that “imprisonment or severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law” amounts to a “crime against humanity” when committed “as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population”.

The ICJ report provides an authoritative account of one aspect of the Sri Lankan government’s systematic abuse of basic democratic rights. It highlights the sham character of the so-called Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation set up by Rajapakse to justify his government’s conduct of the war, cover up its responsibility for war crimes and deflect continuing international criticism.

The government has dismissed the ICJ report out of hand. Deputy economic development minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena told the BBC that LTTE suspects could not be treated like ordinary criminals. “The detainees are providing us with information about others who are still at large. The authorities need to keep them for longer to extract more information about the rebel activities and people involved,” he said.

This “explanation” not only contradicts official propaganda that LTTE suspects are being “rehabilitated” but demonstrates that the Rajapakse government will continue its regime of interrogation and torture indefinitely. Under the pretext of waging a “war on terror”, the security forces are establishing what amounts to a permanent military occupation in former LTTE-held areas. The system of arbitrary detention in secret prisons is a necessary adjunct.

© WSWS

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Sri Lanka: Power first

By B. Muralidhar Reddy | Frontline
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On September 8, the Mahinda Rajapaksa government in Sri Lanka managed to get Parliament to approve the controversial 18th Amendment to the 1978 Constitution with more than the required two-thirds majority. The government's move has raised serious questions about its priorities and intent. It has belied expectations that the government will move forward towards a resolution of the ethnic problem and has instead sown the seeds of further polarisation.

Thanks to the substantial majority the ruling combine obtained in the April parliamentary election – it secured six seats short of a two-thirds majority – and divisions in the ranks of the dispirited Opposition, the passage of the 18th Amendment was no extraordinary feat. It will make President Rajapaksa vulnerable to the charge of consolidating his own power ahead of working for the much-needed reconciliation in post-LTTE Sri Lanka.

The executive presidency in Sri Lanka is considered to be one of the most powerful institutions in the world. “Barring conversion of a man into a woman and vice versa, I can do anything under the 1978 Constitution,” former President J.R. Jayewardene, the author of the 1978 Constitution, had said. Contrary to the arguments of Rajapaksa's political managers, the 18th Amendment will further strengthen the all-too-powerful President.

One of the key changes made through the 18th Amendment is the removal of the bar on a person who has been President twice to contest for the presidency again. The amendment repeals the existing provision in the Constitution, which states: “No person, who has been twice elected to the office of President by the People, shall be qualified thereafter to be elected to such office by the People.” In other words, Rajapaksa is now eligible to contest the 2016 presidential election. True, it also throws open the field to former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, but the advantages of being the incumbent President are immense. No sitting President who ran for a second term has ever lost in the island nation.

Another important feature of the amendment is the replacement of the Constitutional Council (under the 17th Amendment) with a Parliamentary Council to advise on appointments to key judicial, quasi-judicial and executive posts in the country. The President will head the Parliamentary Council comprising the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, a nominee of the Prime Minister (from Parliament) and a nominee of the Leader of the Opposition (from Parliament). The President will seek only the “observations” of this Council in appointing officials listed under the following schedules:

Schedule 1: The Election Commission, the Public Service Commission, the National Police Commission, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, the Permanent Commission to Investigate Bribery and Corruption, the Finance Commission, and the Delimitation Commission.

Schedule 2: The Chief Justice and the Judges of the Supreme Court, the President and the Judges of the Court of Appeal, and the Members of the Judicial Service Commission other than the Chairman.

Schedule 3: The Attorney-General, the Auditor-General, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (ombudsman) and the Secretary-General of Parliament.

Existing provisions in the Constitution had debarred the President from making these appointments. The 17th Amendment to the Constitution had vested the power in the Constitutional Council comprising the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, five persons appointed by the President (on nominations from the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition) and one person nominated upon agreement by the majority of Members of Parliament (excluding the parties the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition belong to). The rationale behind this provision was to ensure that the bodies functioned independently and their heads were selected through a consultative process.

Under the 18th Amendment, the Cabinet will provide for and determine all matters of policy relating to public officers, including policy relating to their appointment, promotion, transfer, disciplinary control and dismissal. In addition, it will also be responsible for the appointment, promotion, transfer, disciplinary control and dismissal of heads of departments.

The amendment vests enormous powers on the President with only one obligation – that he/she attend Parliament once in every three months. The President will be entitled to all the privileges, immunities and powers of an MP except the entitlement to vote. He/she will not be liable for breach of privilege of Parliament. The President will also have the right to address and send messages to Parliament.

The changes were contrary to the promise Rajapaksa had made in the run-up to the 2005 and 2010 presidential elections. In 2005, he had promised to replace the executive presidency with executive prime ministership. His election manifesto in 2005 specifically said, “I expect to present a Constitution that will propose the abolition of the Executive Presidency and to provide solutions to other issues facing the country.… The new Constitution that would be so drafted would be submitted to the People at a referendum.”

His election manifesto for 2010 again stated, “An open discussion on the Executive Presidency will be held with all parties. The Executive Presidency will be transferred into a Trusteeship….”

In the first round of talks with the United National Party (UNP), the main Opposition party, weeks before the 18th Amendment was introduced, Rajapaksa reiterated his resolve to switch over to executive prime ministership.

The unseemly haste of the President to get Parliament to remove the two-term bar can be gauged from the fact that the next presidential election is due in November 2016. Rajapaksa, who got re-elected in January this year after defeating the Opposition combine's candidate and former Army chief Sarath Fonseka, will begin his second innings in office only in November as per the determination made by the Supreme Court of the island nation.

Rajapaksa had advanced the presidential election by two years, as permitted by the Constitution, to cash in on his popularity as the head of state who led the defence forces in the triumphant war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

It is against this backdrop that serious concerns have been raised about the manner in which Rajapaksa used the strong majority he and his combine got in the January presidential and the April general elections to strengthen his grip on power. The expectation that he would use the historic opportunity arising out of the military defeat of the LTTE to forge a consensus for the much-needed ethnic solution has been dashed to the ground.

The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), an independent non-governmental organisation based in Colombo, noted:

“Given the depth and extent of the changes contemplated in the Eighteenth Amendment Bill, therefore, we find the process adopted for its enactment wholly inappropriate. Once again the procedure for urgent Bills has been engaged, and the conclusion is inescapable that this is to foreclose, or at least attenuate, legitimate public discussion, critique and debate of the substance of the proposed changes.

“It might be added that a similar singularity of purpose has nowhere been in evidence with regard to a new post-war constitutional settlement addressing the challenges of unity, diversity and ethnic reconciliation, which is essential to ensuring peace and the future stability of post-war Sri Lanka.”

© Frontline

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Sri Lanka has most number of political prisoners

By Lakna Paranamanna | Daily Mirror
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Sri Lanka has the largest number of illegal prison camps in the world, detaining some 8000 political prisoners within them, said Professor Kumar David of the University Lecturers for Democracy (ULD) yesterday, quoting the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

“Thousands of Tamil youths who are held in detention for allegedly being LTTE members are not held under a warrant nor any law. Neither have they been produced before a magistrate.

These individuals are political prisoners and Sarath Fonseka is the most well known political prisoner of all,” said Prof. David speaking at a media briefing held at the Hotel Nippon in Colombo yesterday.

© Daily Mirror

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Sri Lankan Army opens ‘luxury’ resort in occupied Tamil land

Tamil Net
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A ‘tourist resort’ owned and managed by Sri Lanka Army was opened at Kaangkeasanthu’rai in the occupied ‘High Security Zone’ in the Jaffna Peninsula on Monday by Colombo’s Army commander Jagath Jayasuriya. The resort bears a Sinhala name ‘Thalsevana’. The HSZ there was created after evacuating several ancient villages of Tamils. On Sunday, the Army rejected all possibilities of resettling the displaced. The Army didn’t permit the re-opening of a Central College in the zone either. If a tourist resort could be opened there by the army, what is the meaning of continuing the area as HSZ, asked a person who is unable to even visit his house and land there. While Sri Lanka teaches new lessons to the world on genocide, there are some ‘responsible’ global bigwigs who advise Tamils not to call a spade, a spade, he further said.

The ‘holiday resort’ having 9 luxury rooms and 22 semi-luxury rooms was declared open for the public to experience comfort at ‘very reasonable rates’ says the army website.

The army gets money to build tourist resorts in occupied land while the Tamils victimised by them in the war are in internment camps or in shanties.

Donors give money to Colombo to build military cantonments in the occupied land. In fact many of them compete in giving money to Colombo. But when it comes to rehabilitating Tamils they want the diaspora to do it, that too through Colombo.

© Tamil Net

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Sri Lanka trying to suppress anti-corruption work: rights body

Lanka Business Online
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The Sri Lankan government is trying to suppress exposures of state corruption by launching criminal investigations against the Sri Lankan branch of Transparency International (TISL), a corruption watchdog, a rights body said.

Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission said TISL had been summoned before the island's Financial Investigation Unit in what it called "the abuse of the criminal justice process to suppress discussions relating to corruption."

TISL has been informed by the investigation unit is probing a complaint on suspicions transactions of Transparency International Sri Lanka under criminal law.

"The FIU inquiry started after TISL commenced monitoring the abuse of state resources," said the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia.

"According to information available, the investigation was later dropped. TISL issued their final report of the investigations last week. The notice of FIU to TISL to appear before it was issued after that."

The Asian Human Rights Commission has earlier warned that the criminal justice process will be used against all critics of the government.

"The trials against (former army chief and opposition presidential candidate) Sarath Fonseka and (journalist) J Tissasanayagam are test trials in this direction," the statement said.

"Thousands of such cases have been made under anti-terrorism laws in the past. Like in the case of forced disappearances most of the victims of such arrests and detentions were innocent persons."

The Asian Human Rights Commission said the use of courts for political control is a common method used in Burma and Cambodia for silencing political opponents and civil society critics.

"In particular all attempts to discuss problems of corruption are targets of such 'criminal investigations'," it said.

"While the justice process is abused to punish opponents, the government propaganda machinery tries to make it appear that such decisions are taken through the courts and should therefore be respected," the statement said.

"In this way any person may be imprisoned through fabricated charges and by the abuse of criminal justice process."

The AHRC has highlighted a series of cases where Sri Lankan citizens have died in police custody or have made allegations of torture.

© Lanka Business Online

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Billionaire Jhunjhunwala-backed Delta Corp plans casinos in Sri Lanka

By Anoop Agrawal | Bloomberg
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Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala- backed Delta Corp. plans to open casinos in Sri Lanka in the next six months to tap a surge in tourist arrivals to the island nation after the end of a 26-year civil war.

Casino operator-Delta, which also develops property and runs an aircraft charter service, will spend 10 billion rupees ($225 million) in the next three years in opening casinos in the region as well as at home in Sikkim, Daman, and Goa, Chief Financial Officer Hardik Dhebar said in an interview in Mumbai. Gambling is not allowed in most Indian states.

Delta wants to benefit from a revival in Sri Lanka’s tourist arrivals, which surged 47 percent in the first eight months of the year, according to the nation’s tourism agency. Shares of companies including John Keells Holdings Plc and Aitken Spence & Co. have more than doubled as tourist incomes boosts earnings at their hotels and resorts.

“We have not even scratched the surface yet” for casino opportunities in the region, Dhebar said. “Sri Lanka is in a hurry to start speed up the process of development and is taking steps to ensure investment flows into the country.”

Delta shares, which have risen 84 percent this year, rose 2 percent to a record 83.8 rupees in Mumbai at 11:08 a.m.

Faster economic growth in India and Sri Lanka is helping boost salaries in the region increasing demand for leisure spending, Dhebar said.

India’s economy grew 8.8 percent in the quarter ended June 30, the fastest pace in two-and-a-half years. Sri Lanka’s $42 billion economy may grow as much as 8 percent in 2010, the central bank said on Sept. 21. The nation’s troops defeated the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May last year, ending their 26-year quest for a separate homeland helping attract tourists and investors to the nation.

Billionaire Jhunjhunwala and investor Radhakrishna Damani bought an 11 percent stake in the company last month. Jhunjhunwala, with $1.15 billion in assets is India’s 57th richest man, according to Forbes magazine.

© Bloomberg

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Elderly at risk of poverty in Sri Lanka

By Melani Manel Perera | Asia News
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In Sri Lanka, life expectancy is 80 years for women and 74 for men. To date, the elderly account for approximately 10% of the population. Despite the low percentage, the elderly are at risk of poverty, with poor health care and pensions. HelpAge Sri Lanka is the only association that for over 25 years has provided assistance to the elderly in different parts of the country. On 1 October in Colombo, on the occasion of World Day of the elderly, the association brought together more than 600 Sinhalese and Tamils, Buddhists and Muslims - all over 60 - who celebrated the day with songs, dances and plays.

Sister Janaki Hettiarachchi, from the convent of the Holy Family, Wennappuwa, who together with other sisters took part in the Day, said that this type of event helps young people understand the value of older people, who for many are still something special. "Young people - she says - looking at these initiatives may start to ask 'how can we help our old people?".

The event was also attended by Felix Perera, Minister of Social Services, who met senior representatives of various districts of the country, including those affected by civil war from Vavaniyawa, Amapa and Batticaloa. Presented with the need for urgent reform of the welfare system, the Minister has pledged his commitment to introducing a new pension scheme for people over 70 years of age and older people who do not have enough income to survive.

© Asia News

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