OFFICES OF ANTI-GOVERNMENT SITE BURN IN SRI LANKA

Associated Press | Yahoo News
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A group of men broke into the offices of a website critical of Sri Lanka's government and set fire to it Monday, a journalist from the publication said, adding that he suspected a government role in the attack.

Bennett Rupasinghe, news editor of LankaeNews.com, said the fire destroyed everything in the offices. He said the attackers could have been sent by the government as punishment for the website's critical articles.

Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella denied the allegation.

"If they just say it is the government without an iota of evidence it is very unfair," Rambukwella said.

He said authorities were investigating the cause of the blaze.

LankaeNews continues to be operated by its editor, who lives in exile in Europe, but the website said computers, a library of 3,000 books and newspapers from 20 years have been destroyed.

There have been a series of attacks against media workers and offices in Sri Lanka in the recent past but no arrests have been made. Last July, a media company whose owners were opposition supporters was destroyed in a similar attack.

Prageeth Ekneligoda, a columnist for LankaeNews, disappeared a year ago and is suspected to have been abducted.

His wife wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon earlier this month, saying that the government has showed no interest in investigating the case. She said she suspected the government was complicit in her husband's disappearance.

Media rights groups say Sri Lanka silences dissenting journalists with threats. Amnesty International says at least 14 Sri Lankan media workers have been killed since the beginning of 2006 and each case remains unsolved.

Gnanasiri Kottigoda, president of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association, said he saw Monday's attack as an "extension" of the anti-media violence of the recent past.

"These are well-planned attacks and the authorities have not taken any interest in investigating," he said. "This raises the question whether the government is responsible directly or indirectly."

© AP

Related articles

• Website office attacked in Sri Lanka; Rajapaksa orders probe (The Hindu)
• Offices of anti-government website burned by assailants in Sri Lanka (The Canadian Press)
• Sri Lanka news website office set on fire (Colombo Page)

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Sri Lanka literary festival discusses journalist's plight

Read the full text of the leaflet handed out at the GLF

By Charles Haviland | BBC News
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During a lunchtime session at the Galle Literary Festival, one isolated-looking teenager sat among the audience.

He watched for a while before getting up and joining his mother standing at the back.

They were the 16-year-old son and the wife of Prageeth Eknaligoda, a journalist-come-cartoonist missing since 24 January 2010.

They visited the annual festival to lobby its participants on his plight - a plight which has inspired some to call for a festival boycott and provoked a debate in Sri Lanka.

Mr Eknaligoda, who had written articles critical of the government, was apparently abducted on his way home from the office and has not been seen since.

'Not given chance'

After the session, Sandhya and Sanjaya Eknaligoda handed out leaflets to as many people as they could.

In the pamphlets, Sandhya said that her husband - a Sinhalese - worked ceaselessly to expose human rights abuses against minority Tamil civilians during the war against the Tamil Tigers "including the use of chemical weapons against civilian communities by government forces".

The government denies using such weapons. It also denies any involvement in Mr Eknaligoda's disappearance but says it has made no progress in investigating it.

The family gave out more leaflets at the festival's cafe before returning to Colombo.

"I'm not 100% satisfied with our trip to Galle as I expected to speak to the whole crowd, at least for five minutes," Sandhya Eknaligoda told the BBC.

She didn't get the chance to do that, but managed to give out some leaflets.

"I'm happy we spread some awareness at least," she said.

Two groups - the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Berlin-based exile group Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) - urged writers to stay away from the Galle festival because, they said, many writers in Sri Lanka were being attacked, threatened or intimidated because of what they wrote.

The government, however, denies victimising journalists.

Mrs Eknaligoda said she thought it was up to individuals to decide whether or not to attend.

She felt a boycott might have helped highlight human rights issues. But she hoped that those attending would try to intervene in her husband's case or get their governments to do so.

'Legitimising status quo'

During the festival in the quaint 17th century fort town, there has been much talk about the call to boycott.

Dozens of writers had to make a quick decision on whether to pull out.

The only one who did so explicitly heeding the stayaway message was South Africa's Damon Galgut.

Canada's Lawrence Hill addressed an audience on his novel that draws on his own father's ancestry as a slave in America.

"It's shocking what has happened to this disappeared journalist and so many other people who died or were made to disappear during the war or after," Mr Hill told the BBC.

But he decided to support the festival as he believed it was a forum for free speech.

He thought he could fulfil the family's request that he return home and "spread word of these abuses and speak about them with a little more authority and credibility, having been here".

But the organisations calling for a stayaway say that having so many renowned authors in Sri Lanka will sustain the government's message that all is well in the country - something they say is not the case.

If they "failed to express their concerns about the precarious conditions faced by the fellow writers and journalists... it simply legitimises the status quo," the JDS said last week.

Political overtones

The festival's founder, Geoffrey Dobbs from Britain, said he "really sympathised" with Mrs Eknaligoda and the criticisms of the human rights situation.

But, he said, rights issues would not be solved through "a call to go to the barricades and shut down an event".

"I think what the festival does is it does promote discussion," he told BBC News.

He said participants from countries like Nigeria, Ukraine and China had all raised issues relevant to post-war Sri Lanka.

Some, though by no means all, of the festival events had political overtones.

Sri Lankan poet Vivimarie Vanderpoorten read from her works, including a horrified reaction to the still unsolved killing of newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunga.

In a further discussion, three Sri Lankans read from their own novels, highlighting the events of July 1983 in Colombo when Tamils were burnt to death because of their ethnicity.

There was an airing of topics and opinions that often fail to get publicity in Sri Lanka - a country where meetings or seminars regularly get cancelled either by the authorities or by organisers, fearing a negative reaction from the state.

But this was not a conference and there was never going to be a unified statement of concern of the type that human rights groups might have liked.

© BBC News

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Hunger and despair in Sri Lanka

Al Jazeera
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Recent flooding in eastern Sri Lanka destroyed thousands of homes, devastated the rice crop and drowned thousands of livestock. A million people, 40 per cent of them children, are at risk of serious hunger as a result. Some of the worst-affected areas were only just recovering from decades of conflict and the tsunami when the floods hit, and the people who live there are facing their third humanitarian emergency in less than 10 years.

Among those at risk of the impending food crisis is Pakyarani, a 32-year-old farmer's wife and mother of four. She lives with her family in a remote village in Batticaloa, one of the districts most affected by the floods. She tells her story:

"I live with my husband, Ravicandran, and my four children: Ravikumar is 13, Nivedika is eight, Rujanika is six and Mohana is two.

We own a paddy field and that is the main source of income for our family. My husband also works as a brick-maker and sometimes as a daily labourer. For many years our village was caught up in the war and we often had to run from shelling and hide in the ditch for safety. Once, during the shelling, my husband fell and broke his leg. We were not able to get proper treatment and he has not been able to work properly since.

After the war ended, things got better for us. We were able to start growing crops and we bought two cows. Although some people in our village moved into brick houses, we didn't. We stayed in our two-roomed clay hut until earlier this month, when the floods came.

The rain started on January 6. It didn't stop for days - there was thunder and lightning, and the wind was blowing extremely hard. I was sure there would be a cyclone. Eventually we were warned that the rivers and lakes were about to burst their banks. We were afraid that we would be caught in the flood, so we decided to leave.

First we moved to a brick house nearby, which was empty. We thought we would be safe there, but before we could move our things, the flood water started to rise and we decided to leave the area. It just wasn't safe.

We took the children and headed for the school, where people whose homes had been flooded were staying. As we ran, I heard an enormous crash and when I turned, I saw that one wall of our house had collapsed. It fell on the exact spot where we usually sleep.

We were given dry rations at the school and we stayed for a few days. Then, on the 14th, the rain stopped. It didn't take long before we were asked to leave; they wanted to prepare the school for lessons again. We had nowhere to go so we returned to what was left of our home. As we left, we were given a bag of rice - a couple of kilos - but it's not enough to feed my family.

All the rice in our field has been ruined by the floods. It will be May before we can sow new rice seeds, and July before we can harvest. We have no savings to buy food, let alone to repair our house. It's not safe to live like this; the area is full of snakes, and if my children get bitten we have no transport to take them to the nearest hospital, which is 10 kilometres away.

I hope that my husband will be able to earn some money. We really need it. Before the floods, I'd taken loans to help with our farming, but now our crops have been destroyed, I have no way of repaying them. At the moment we are only eating one meal a day. We really need help to survive."

© Al Jazeera

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Military to sell weapons made in Lanka

By Damith Wickremasekara | The Sunday Times
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The Sri Lanka Army is to offer for sale to foreign countries some of the military hardware which it has developed based on its experience gained in fighting the Tiger guerrillas, Army Commander Jagath Jayasuriya said. He said items for offer included a mini-UAV developed by the Army. This could be used for monitoring of security at public events or meetings.

Lt. Gen. Jayasuriya said the army had also developed bullet-proof jackets, additional security features in bullet-proof vehicles and weapons which had been modified. He said years of experience gained in fighting the Tiger guerrillas had been made use of by the army after the completion of the military operations against the LTTE to develop these weapons and equipment.

The Army Chief said these items would be on display for the invitees who would be here for the international seminar organized by the Army from May 31 to June 2 where the Army hoped to share its experience gained in defeating the LTTE.

Besides the Army, the Navy and the Air Force will also be putting on exhibition certain items which they have developed after the conclusion of the military operations and would be available for sale.

Navy Spokesman Athula Senarath said they had developed a Small Attack craft which could be used in security operations. He said the Wave Rider inshore Patrol Craft and another craft known as the Arrow Craft were other inventions of the Navy.

Weapons fitted to Dvora craft had also been invented by the Navy. Meanwhile, the Air Force is expected to announce details about its developments during its 60th anniversary celebrations in March.

© The Sunday Times

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Sri Lanka leader sued in US

AFP | Yahoo News
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Members of Sri Lanka's Tamil minority have filed a lawsuit in the United States against the island's president, seeking $30 million in damages over alleged extrajudicial killings.

Activists from the Tamil diaspora spearheaded legal action after President Mahinda Rajapakse quietly traveled to the United States, in a test of how much deference US authorities show to visiting heads of state.

Bruce Fein, a prominent Washington lawyer, said he filed the suit on behalf of three plaintiffs under a 1991 act that allows for action in the United States against foreign officials over torture and extrajudicial killings.

"President Rajapakse will not escape the long arm of justice secured by the Torture Victims Protection Act by hiding in Sri Lanka," Fein said after the filing in the US District Court in Washington on Friday.

Fein said he wanted a reply from Rajapakse and otherwise would seek a ruling without him.

The lawsuit seeks $30 million on behalf of three plaintiffs who said their relatives were killed in three incidents, including the Sri Lankan army's offensive in 2009 against the final holdout of the Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels.

The United Nations has said at least 7,000 civilians perished in the final months of fighting, while international rights groups have put the toll at more than 30,000.

Sri Lanka has denied any civilian deaths and has rejected calls for an international probe. The Tigers were known for devastating suicide bombings during their decades-long campaign for a separate Tamil homeland.

The Sri Lankan embassy in Washington declined comment, but in Colombo, a spokesman for President Rajapakse dismissed the action as a publicity stunt.

"We have no time for mercenaries funded by the LTTE who want media attention," said Bandula Jayasekera, the director general of the president's media unit and Rajapakse's spokesman.

Rajapakse's office earlier dismissed as "frivolous and mischievous" a call by Amnesty International for the United States to investigate the head of state during his trip.

Rajapakse came to the United States last week on what Sri Lankan officials called a private visit. Tamil diaspora groups, which strongly oppose Rajapakse, said they believed he was visiting family in Texas but has since left.

A US-based activist group calling itself Tamils Against Genocide, which is leading the suit, said in a statement it was "alarmed and disappointed" that US authorities allowed Rajapakse to visit without questions on his actions.

The group said it was testing the law in the wake of the June 2010 Samantar decision by the Supreme Court, which found that countries -- not individuals -- enjoyed diplomatic immunity from lawsuits in the United States.

In the case, the top court ruled unanimously that Mohamed Ali Samantar, a former prime minister of Somalia who now lives in the United States, may be sued over alleged torture during his rule.

© AFP

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