'Govt. will decide on emergency' - Sri Lanka's Human Rights Minister says to the UN

By Dianne Silva | Daily Mirror
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Sri Lanka told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday (28) that the government was the best judge of the manner in which the emergency regulations should be curtailed while promising that the process would be concluded in an “appropriate and timely manner.”

Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the 16th sessions of the HRC, “We believe that it is our authorities that will make this judgment. We assure the Council that the rollback process of the regulations will be concluded in an appropriate and timely manner.” He also said the LTTE’s international network was still active and cautioned against “being lulled into a sense of complacency.” The Minister detailed the number of instances when elements of the LTTE were apprehended or attempted to engage in terrorist activities around the globe.

He said there was now progressive dialogue between the Government and Tamil Parties. “The Tamil political mainstream is now fully engaged with the Government as part of a wider group - the Tamil Political Parties Forum – in an ongoing dialogue on economic development, and legal and Constitutional reforms. Having met twice already, they are scheduled to meet again early next month,” he said.

Samarasinghe also elucidated on elements of the National Action Plan for Human Rights which he pledged to implement at the HRC. “Consequent to stocktaking of the human rights situation in the country, eight thematic areas have been identified. The process involved an examination of Sri Lanka’s UPR, including civil society submissions and recommendations of UN human rights mechanisms over the past ten years,” the Minister said.

In the days prior to the HRC sessions Minister Samarasinghe had met more than 40 diplomats and briefed them on the conditions in the North and the East and addressed allegations on media freedom in the north.

On Friday during his meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navaneethan Pillai he had briefed her on the facilities being provided to IDP's, the rehabilitation work with ex-combatants and the infrastructure development projects in the north.

© Daily Mirror

Read More

Summary only

Sri Lanka: Dual citizenship axed to avoid war crime charges?

By Ranga Jayasuriya | Lakbima News
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Some key positions of Sri Lankan government have been filled by dual citizens. Gotabaya Rajapaksa - the powerful Defence Secretary is a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and the USA. Basil Rajapaksa - Investment Development Minister has a US Green Card in addition to his Sri Lankan citizenship. Sarath Fonseka, the now incarcerated former army commander is also a Green Card holder. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations also holds his Australian citizenship in addition to his Sri Lankan citizenship.

The government directive stopping dual citizenship is not retrospective - hence it would not affect the citizenship status of those who have already obtained dual citizenship. But it effectively deprives thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of expatriate Sri Lankans of their Sri Lankan citizenship. And, there are other explanations, as advanced by diaspora Tamils on the discontinuance of the applications for dual citizenship.

A reader commented on a popular website - Transcurrents
“The news coming out of Sri Lanka says that the Sri Lankan government has stopped considering applications for dual citizenship. Will it retroactively cancel the dual citizenship; in which event Palitha Kohona will be only a Sri Lankan citizen and then he will be beyond the jurisdiction of International Criminal Court. Sri Lanka has not recognized the ICC.”

“What a smart ostrich style move to protect its own.”Expatriate Sri Lankans obtain citizenship of their host countries for practical reasons. With the citizenship of the host country, come other opportunities which are exclusive to the citizens such as educational opportunities, better career prospects, security clearance and voting rights, etc.

Yet, many have opted to keep their Sri Lankan citizenship, more so for their emotional attachment with their motherland. Now that the process for dual citizenship is put on hold, Sri Lankans who obtain foreign citizenship would naturally be forced to renounce their Sri Lankan citizenship.

The Controller of Immigration and Emigration, W.A.C. Perera, stresses that the discontinuance is temporary. He said that the system (of granting dual citizenship) is in need of improvement and hence, the accepting of applications is temporary. But he does not know when the new system will come into effect, nor could he say what the proposed procedural requirements would be like.

“I have to make a presentation (on the new system) to the His Excellency the President. Only if he approves the proposals that I can speak to the media,” Perera told Lakbimanews when asked to comment on the new system. He denied that the decision is politically motivated. “There is no intention of denying citizenship to anyone,” he added.

Until the recent government directive, dual citizenship was granted under five main categories: 1.Professional category; 2.Wealth category; 3.Fixed Deposit category; 4.Senior Citizen category; 5.The category of Non-Resident Foreign Currency (NRFC), Resident Foreign Currency (RFC) or Special Foreign Investment Deposit Accounts.

Perera says existing categories could be amended but he declines to elaborate, saying proposals have to be first approved by the President before they are made public. Expatriate Sri Lankans who would be affected by the government’s directive are perturbed by the arbitrary nature of the decision. “The recent decision is arbitrary and an absolute insult to the intelligence of expatriates who came through to help the government during every crisis experienced in the country,” says Anjalika Silva, an expatriate Sri Lankan and a naturalized US citizen. “Not only will this decision anger the expatriate community, it will also result in loss of cooperation from expats when called upon to help their homeland which happens frequently at every turn including financing wasteful projects,” she adds.

Moolah for cash strapped economy

Two years back, this government launched a much hyped residential visa programme to woo retired foreign citizens to the island. The programme which aimed to make Sri Lanka a dream home for foreign senior citizens, was expected to bring foreign remittance to the cash strapped local economy.

According to the programme, each visa applicant was required to deposit US$15,000 in a Fixed Deposit account with a local bank and make a monthly remittance of US$1500 for the principle applicant and US$750 for each dependent for their upkeep. The programme which was launched at the height of the war fell short of its expectations due to obvious reasons.

Yet, Sri Lankan workers abroad remitted money to the national coffers to the tune of US$3 billion.

Also, time and again, the government has wooed expatriate Sri Lankans to invest and share their expertise for the development of the motherland. Recently, the President called upon the expats to counter anti-government propaganda propagated by the LTTE front organizations in the West.

There are one million expatriate Sri Lankans, of which 100,000 are professionals. That is in addition to nearly a million strong Tamil diaspora.

In addition, every year, approximately 7,000 Sri Lankan students go abroad for higher education and many of them opt to stay in greener pastures after obtaining their degrees.

“Students decide to stay in the West due to better prospects, but that does not mean they have forgotten their motherland,” says, Anuradha Kohona, a Sri Lankan student at the Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.

But this suspension (of the acceptance of dual citizenship applications) would sever that relationship, he warns. “We hold on to our Sri Lankan identity, very dearly,” he says.

Kohona, who is awaiting his Australian citizenship, however adds that if he cannot retain his Sri Lankan citizenship, he would have to be content with the Australian citizenship. “After all, with an Australian passport it is easier to travel,” he quips.

© Lakbima News

Read More

Summary only

Amnesty calls for new UN probe in Lanka

By Sutirtho Patranobis | Hindustan Times
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Amnesty International (AI), a global human rights watchdog, has urged the United Nations (UN) to investigate new reports of human rights abuses including abductions and killings in northern Sri Lanka. In a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council, AI said Lanka’s human rights haven’t improved in the last one year even as it continues to stall international investigations into alleged war crimes.

"Impunity persists for past violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, and new and serious violations of human rights continue to be reported. In the two years since fighting ended in Sri Lanka evidence of serious violations and abuses by parties to the conflict has continued to mount, but the Sri Lankan Government has refused to acknowledge credible allegations of war crimes and other crimes under international law by its armed forces in the course of the conflict that ended in May 2009," the statement said.

The AI urged UN Secretary General’s office to investigate new reports of abductions, enforced disappearances and killings in northern Sri Lanka and throughout the country, and ensure perpetrators identified are brought to justice and tried in full conformity with international standards for fair trial. ``Stop harassment, intimidation and attacks against human rights defenders, journalists and other peaceful critics exposing past or present violations or abuses,’’ it said.

Referring to UNSG Ban Ki-moon’s panel of experts, appointed in 2010 to advise him on accountability in Sri Lanka, AI said the report was expected to issue its report in March while the Human Rights Council was meeting. It urged the ``Secretary-General to issue the report publicly without delay to ensure that the Human Rights Council and other UN bodies can consider its findings and recommendations without further delay. The Council must consider that report carefully.’’

It further urged the UN to ensure the independence of key justice institutions in Sri Lanka necessary to protect human rights and combat impunity; initiate reforms to bring domestic institutions into line with international standards, including by establishing an effective witness protection scheme.

© Hindustan Times

Read More

Summary only

Ban Ki-moon & Nambiar meets Sri Lanka's controvesial Major General

By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Amid controversy about the UN's seeming failure to follow up on accountability for presumptive war crimes in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Sri Lanka, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar met Wednesday with the country's Attorney General Mohan Peiris and its Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, former General Shavendra Silva.

Silva has been the subject of controversy, for his role in the military assault in northern Sri Lanka in 2009. It has been reported that the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa converted such as General Shavendra Silva into an Ambassador to give him diplomatic immunity, and sent him to the UN to see if the UN would in a sense legitimate him. Inner City Press observed and took a photo as Ban Ki-moon shook Shavendra Silva's hand on Wednesday.

In recent days, Inner City Press has asked Ban's spokesperson's office for a response to the inclusion of Nambiar in a filing with the International Criminal Court, which asserts:

“a basis to question whether Vijay Nambiar was in fact an innocent neutral intermediary or in fact a co-perpetrator within the negotiation related community.”

The filing, which has been reported in the Australian press, recites that,

"Nambiar again through the United Nations-24 hour dispatch center in New York. Nambiar replied to Colvin that Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Palitha Kohona had assured Nambiar that the LTTE members would be safe in surrendering to the SLA and treated like “normal prisoners of war” if they “hoist[ed] a white flag high.”

Ban's lead spokesman Martin Nesirky would not say he would seek a response from Nambiar or the Executive Office of the Secretary General to these descriptions.

Nesirky's deputy Farhan Haq issued an on the record statement to another journalist that “the Inner City Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint formally filed at the International Criminal Court.” Earlier on February 23, Inner City Press asked Nesirky to explain the statement; he has declined.

It was also unclear if Wednesday's meeting was intended to replace what Ban had announced as his Panel's ability to travel to Sri Lanka. The trip has not happened, and Inner City Press has been told by sources on both sides that Sri Lanka said the Panel could only “make representations” to Rajapaksa's own Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission, not interview Peiris, External Affairs Ministry Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe and other officials.

Inner City Press has been told, and has reported, that while Sri Lanka insisted that its officials would only meet with the Executive Office of the Secretary General -- run by Nambiar -- and not the UN Panel, the UN counter offered a video conference call with the Panel, or even written questions.

Now, instead, there has been a meeting with the Executive Office of the Secretary General, including Nambiar and Silva. The meeting, after Inner City Press yesterday reported its scheduling, was denied by Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister of External Affairs Neomal Perera:

The Government today rejected reports that External Affairs Ministry Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe and Attorney General Mohan Peiris were in New York to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Deputy Minister of External Affairs Neomal Perera told the Daily Mirror that the External Affairs Ministry Secretary was overseas on a private visit and that, to his knowledge, there was no meeting scheduled between the Attorney General and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Minister further rejected claims that the government had hindered the UN Secretary Generals’ Expert Panel from contacting the local Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

“We are in constant contact with the UN Secretary General’s office and they have not requested to meet with the LLRC. If they so wish they can contact them through us or even directly”, he said.

A representative of the LLRC told the Daily Mirror that any contact between the panel and the LLRC would generally have to be through the External Affairs Ministry. “The Commission has not been contacted, normally however it is understood that any contact would have to be made through the External Affairs Ministry; the Secretary Generals office or the UN office in Colombo would have to contact them- but no such contact has been made,” the representative said.

Reports claimed today that besides disallowing the UN Panel to visit Sri Lanka the government had rejected the Secretary Generals offers for those from the Panel to contact members of the LLRC through video conferencing or written questions.

As Inner City Press stood at the UN's stakeout on the second floor of the North Lawn building, Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona, named in the ICC filing, walked by with the ministers. Inner City Press asked, what about the denial? Kohona said that the deputy doesn't know anything, just ask him. But he has declined to comment on the ICC filing, not wanting to “dignify” it.

© Inner City Press

Read More

Summary only

UN Envoy Nambiar facing calls for ICC investigation

By Joseph Aallchin | Democratic Voice of Burma
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Acting UN special envoy to Burma, Vijay Nambiar, is facing calls from two Sri Lankan rights group to be included in an investigation into the army’s execution of surrendering Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.

The charges were submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the US-based Tamil’s Against Genocide (TAG) and the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils (SCET). They refer to Nambiar’s time as the UN’s Chief of Staff when he was sent to Colombo to aid negotiations towards an end to the country’s lengthy civil war.

Following instructions from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in May 2009 Nambiar told surrendering Tamil Tigers that they would be safe to cross no-mans land if they hoisted a white flag. “Just walk across to the troops, slowly! With a white flag and comply with instructions carefully. The soldiers are nervous about suicide bombers,” said a text from foreign secretary Palitha Kohona, sent via the Red Cross.

But in what has come to be known as the ‘white flag incident’, all were gunned down in what observers say would be tantamount to a war crime.

Nambiar’s complicity or involvement in the incident, which Rajapaksa later triumphed in, is yet to be fully investigated. Sri Lankan opposition politician and then-chief of the Sri Lankan Army, Sarath Fonseka, claimed in an interview that there was a direct order from then defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to shoot dead the entire leadership of the Tamil Tigers.

Fonseka is now in jail following the claims and his attempt to oppose Mahinda Rajapaksa in the subsequent polls.

The submission by the two groups, TAG and SCET, asks “whether VIJAY NAMBIAR was in fact an innocent neutral intermediary or in fact a co-perpetrator within the negotiation-related community.

It also pours doubt on the efficacy of Nambiar’s presence there, given that his brother, Satish Nambiar, was at the time working as an advisor to the Sri Lankan military, as well as questioning his “subjective knowledge” of the Sri Lankan Army’s “widely (or routinely) adhered to policy of executing surrendering [Tamil] combatants, after generally blindfolding and stripping them naked”.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has however rejected calls for an inquiry into Nambiar, despite the Chief of Staff’s own assertion in May 2009 that, “As far as the UN is concerned, where there are grave and systematic violations of international humanitarian law [in Sri Lanka], these are things which should be looked at by the international community, by the United Nations.”

This reluctance of senior members of the UN to investigate possible human rights violations will likely concern Burma observers, particularly given that Than Shwe visited Sri Lanka shortly before the incident and is alleged to have offered his Sri Lankan counterpart anti-insurgency “advice”.

Nambiar was in Burma shortly after the elections in November last year to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of the junta.

© DVB

Read More

Summary only

Ashes of Sri Lankan rebel leader's mother desecrated hours after cremation

Photo courtesy: Tamil Net

By Krishan Francis | Associated Press
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

The ashes of the mother of Sri Lanka's former rebel leader have been desecrated hours after her body was cremated, a relative said Wednesday.

Kanagalingam Sivajilingam said the incident took place Tuesday night, shortly after slain rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's mother was cremated in his native village of Valvettithurai.

Sivajilingam said relatives who visited the cremation site Wednesday to collect the ashes found them scattered and three dead dogs with bullet wounds lying nearby.

"This a barbaric act. I won't say who did it, but everybody knows who they are," Sivajilingam said.

Killing and dumping dogs, which are considered lowly and unclean, is an expression of contempt for the dead person.

Prabhakaran led the Tamil Tiger rebels during a quarter-century civil war that ended with their defeat and his death in May 2009. The rebels were seeking a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils, claiming discrimination from majority Sinhalese.

Prabhakaran's parents were not involved in politics but were arrested by the military days after the war ended.

After the death of Prabhakaran's father in detention last year, his mother Parvathi was released and spent her last year in hospitals under Sivajilingam's care.

The military, which has a large presence in the Tamil-majority north, has been accused of destroying monuments and rebel graves in an attempt to eliminate every trace of the rebels.

© Star Tribune

Read More

Summary only

Senior Sri Lankan diplomat could face court over Tamil Tigers deaths

By Dylan Welch | Sydney Morning Herald
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

An Australian citizen and senior Sri Lankan diplomat has been accused of complicity in the murders of three surrendering Tamil Tigers in an application to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.

The man, Palitha Kohona, was the international face of the Sri Lankan government's war with separatist militants, the Tamil Tigers, and played an important role in the surrender of Tamil Tiger soldiers following their defeat in May 2009.

But reports of mass killings and the extrajudicial killing of surrendering Tigers have since surfaced. Dr Kohona and the Sri Lankan government strongly deny the claims, and so far the international community has been reluctant to investigate them.
Advertisement: Story continues below

However, two international Tamil organisations have made a series of war crimes allegations to the International Criminal Court involving Dr Kohona and his role in the negotiated surrender of three Tamil Tigers who are believed to have been killed.

While Sri Lanka does not recognise the jurisdiction of the court, Dr Kohona's citizenship of Australia - a country which is a party to the court - means unlike other senior members of the Sri Lankan government, he can potentially be prosecuted.

That does not mean that a full investigation is likely, however, as only a very few of the requests for prosecutions each year are pursued by the court.

Dr Kohona became an Australian citizen in the 1980s while working in Canberra with the Foreign Affairs Department. He is now the Sri Lankan government's representative at the United Nations.

During the 2008-09 civil war which led to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, Dr Kohona was secretary of the Sri Lankan foreign affairs ministry and played a role in negotiating the surrender of Tamil Tigers.

Among those who surrendered were three senior Tiger members, Mahindran Balasingham, Seeveratnam Pulidevan and a man known only as Ramesh.

On May 18, the day after the Tigers admitted defeat, the three men, along with at least a dozen others, negotiated a surrender with the Sri Lankan army. They waved a white flag when surrendering to show their intent.

Watched by hundreds of other Tamils, the group walked into an army-controlled area. Several minutes later shots and explosions were heard, witnesses said.

Balasingham and Pulidevan have not been seen since and Ramesh was seen at a hospital months later but subsequently disappeared. The Sri Lankan government has confirmed the death of two of the men.

The request, filed by the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils and the US group Tamils Against Genocide, alleges Dr Kohona had been involved in the trio's surrender in the days before their death.

''On about May 17, 2009, in the evening or night, Palitha Kohona communicated … that the surrendering [Tamil Tigers] members would be safe if they surrendered with a white flag raised,'' the request claims.

A day later the three men surrendered. ''Some time after 8.15am [the trio] walked towards SLA lines with a white flag, along with 12-40 combatants and non-combatants … the SLA attacked by gunfire.''

A spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Minister, Brendan O'Connor, would not comment on the case except to say: ''Australia is a party to the Rome Statute and, as such, supports action by the court to prosecute crimes falling within its jurisdiction.''

Dr Kohona told the ABC yesterday the claims had no substance and were politically motivated.

© Sydney Morning Herald

Read More

Summary only