Photo courtesy: vikalpa.org
BBC Sinhala
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Powerful trade unions in Sri Lanka are calling for the immediate removal of military from the Katunayaka Free Trade Zone (FTZ).
Anton Marcus of the Joint Trade Union Alliance (JTUA) also urged the government to withdraw plans to establish a High Security Zone (HSZ) in the FTZ.
He told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya that security forces were deployed in FTZ after the police attack on the protesting workers on 30 May.
A young worker, Roshain Chanaka later succumbed to injuries received from live rounds.
"The government should investigate who ordered this attack, who carried it out and punish the culprits," Anton Marcus said.
No victimisation
Workers were protesting against the proposed private sector pension bill by the government.
The introduction of the bill was postponed due to protests. However, the government says the bill will be re-introduced with amendments.
The unions are also seeking compensation of five million Sri Lankan Rupees (USD 46,000) for Roshain Chanaka as well as compensation for injured workers.
"Those who were injured should be paid until they come back to work. And their jobs should be secure until they come back after hospital treatment," said the union leader.
Most importantly, no worker should be victimised, he added.
Anton Marcus warned that authorities seem employing the military in a move to curb workers rights including right to protest and right to join a union using the military.
"This should immediately stop," he said.
Sarath Fonseka
Meanwhile, former military chief Sarath Fonseka speaking to journalists on Monday opposed military deployment.
"In civilised countries one would not replace the police with the army to control protests," Mr Fonseka said.
The government that attempted to "steal" private sector workers funds, Mr Fonseka said, is currently planning to "steal" funds sent by Sri Lankans abroad.
"I urge the army not to turn the guns used against terrorists towards civilians."
General Fonseka made these comments on his way back to prison from a hearing in courts.
He is accused of spreading public disaffection by quoting allegations that the defence secretary ordered surrendering Tamil Tiger leaders to be shot dead.
© BBC Sinhala
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By International Justice Desk | Radio Netherlands Worldwide
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Pressure is building on the Sri Lankan government to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by its military against captured Tamil rebels two years ago.
Video footage purporting to show Sri Lankan army soldiers executing surrendering Tamils forms the basis of a UK Channel 4 documentary shown to the UN's Human Rights Council last weekend.
Sri Lankan government officials deny the video is authentic, or that there have been any war crimes committed by their military.
Sri Lankan Tamil activists have joined human rights groups in calling for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to start an investigation into alleged war crimes. But this process can only begin, according to the office of UN Secreatry General Ban Ki Moon, when the "host country (Sri Lanka) consents, or (following) a decision from (UN) member states through an appropriate intergovernmental forum".
American inconsistency
One appropriate forum could be the very UN Human Rights Council which, at an informal meeting, saw the tape at the weekend. But before the subject can even make it onto the Council’s agenda, a member state needs to make a good case for its inclusion.
That prospect has been undermined by the US State and US Defence departments contradicting each other on the issue - the former saying it was "deeply concerned" by alleged Sri Lankan war crimes, the latter questioning the credibility of those accusations.
Long and winding road
If the issue ever did get into and then through the UN Human Rights Council, it would still need to get past the veto-wielding five permanent member states of the UN Security Council before that final referral to the ICC and a formal investigation begun.
The allegations of atrocities on both sides are credible – the number of western nations expressing grave concern at the evidence make them so.
What presents a serious problem according to Sri Lankan “Groundviews” journalist Sanjana Hattotuwa is a lack of credibility in the government’s approach to investigating war crimes.
“When a shorter version of the Channel 4 video was shown in 2009… the government appointed a four-member panel to look into it, two of whom were from the army. Now you just can’t do that because part of the allegations is against the army itself.”
For Hattotuwa, failure to address the questions now being raised more loudly by the UN are vital to Tamils and Sinhalese alike.
"Justice needs to be seen to be done as much as it is done… and if we do not address this it could lead to discontent, and years down the line, another war. And none of us wants that".
© RNW
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Lanka Business Online
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Sri Lanka has received 236 million US dollars in foreign direct investments in the first quarter of 2011, up 160 percent from a year earlier, led by tourism, the state investment promotion agency said.
The Board of Investment said Sri Lanka was on track to get one billion dollars this year.
"The strong performance was helped by investments in the dynamic tourism sector which accounted for 132 million US dollars," chairman and director general of the BOI, Jayampathi Bandaranayake said in a statement.
He said the agency expected a billion dollars in FDI in 2011. The agency said fresh deals valued at 882 million US dollars were signed up in the first quarter up from 302 million US dollars a year earlier.
Though the number of deals fell to 29 from 42, the average value increased to 30 million US dollars from 18 million dollars a year earlier.
In 2010 Sri Lanka received gross FDI of 516 million US dollars including shareholder loans, down from 601 million US dollars a year earlier, according to Central Bank data.
The BOI said it wanted to increase FDI to 2.5 billion US dollars by 2015 which will be around 4.0 percent of gross domestic product from the current level of about 2.0 percent.
Hong Kong based Shangri-La group which bought land in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo and Hambantota in the South were the top contributor in the first quarter.
Utilities brought the next highest investments of 62 million dollars led by telecoms. Seven million dollars flowed in to the apparel sector.
Investments smaller than 3 million dollars would no longer get tax breaks but can get BOI support, the agency said.
In the quarter exports by BOI companies increased to 1.64 billion US dollars from 1.3 billion dollars a year earlier, with apparel sector revenues up 27 percent to 994 million dollars from 781 million dollars a year earlier.
© LBO
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By Janith Aranze | The Sunday Leader
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It has long been said that the Government of Sri Lanka tried to fight ‘a war without witnesses’ when they ended the country’s 30 year old civil war. However, Channel 4 has produced a chilling one hour video, which shows government troops executing Tamil prisoners and the terrible crimes carried out by the LTTE in the last stages of the conflict. The video, which is one of the most definitive pieces of evidence to emerge since the war ended, has caused shockwaves within the international community.
The film titled Killing Fields is a documentary showcasing the final weeks of the thirty year long civil war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The film was shown to the United Nations Human Rights Council, on Friday June 3, and is due to air on Channel 4 on June 14. When The Sunday Leader spoke to Channel 4, they said the film is ‘of great public interest’. “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch approached us about screening it at the UN. We agreed as we believe the new prima facie evidence of war crimes featured in the film is of great public interest and as such it deserves a global platform” Marion Bentley, Channel 4 Publicity Manager, told The Sunday Leader.
The film includes interviews with eye-witnesses, new photographic stills, official Sri Lankan army video footage and satellite imagery. New video footage shows the extra-judicial killing of prisoners; the aftermath of targeted shelling of civilian camps and women’s bodies being stripped of their cloths and dumped into trucks by soldiers. There is also an interview with a woman who, with a group of civilians handed herself and her daughter over to government forces. She claims that they were both raped, and that she witnessed others being raped as well whilst hearing screaming and shots being fired. The film provides testimonies from those who bore witness to the events that unfolded during the final stages of the conflict. It includes the story of a British Sri Lankan who found herself caught up with thousands of displaced people in the government designated ‘no-fire’ zone. She describes how she assisted in makeshift hospitals which should have been off limits from military attack. She believes it was deliberately shelled and she explains how each time they moved the hospital, they came under fire from heavy artillery.
Though the Government of Sri Lanka has questioned the authenticity of the video footage, Bentley insists the footage has been scrutinized at length. “The material featured has been treated to objective journalistic rigour. The videos have been scrutinised by well-respected independent experts in the disciplines of forensic pathology and video analysis who have told us they show no signs of manipulation and appear to depict genuine executions,” she said. Though Channel 4 has presented its evidence to the government, they are still to receive an official response from them. “We sent a substantial letter to the Government of Sri Lanka detailing the significant allegations we intend to broadcast about their actions or omissions. The Sri Lankan government has declined to respond to a single question,” Bentley said.
When The Sunday Leader spoke to Keheliya Rambukwella, Government Spokesman, he said he doubted the authenticity of the video. “When Channel 4 screened these images last year, we immediately rejected the allegations; technically we found them to be false. I have not yet seen the video, but I believe they are using the same footage from before. I don’t believe it has changed,” Rambukwella said. Though the government is refusing to acknowledge the new evidence that has emerged, there are those within Sri Lankan politics who believe their inaction is doing more harm then good.
“By remaining silent they are definitely damaging the country. They should either come out and prove that this footage is false or if it is proved to be true, the government should lead an investigation into the matter. We need to come clean in front of the world,” Mangala Samaraweera, UNP MP and a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, told The Sunday Leader. Samaraweera however refused to comment on the authenticity of the film. “I really cannot say if it is authentic or not. With regard to those who are found guilty of war crimes, unlike Gotabaya (Rajapaksa) I am not a judge, nor an executioner. They should be held up against international laws, first the video needs to be proven or disproven” he said.
M.A. Sumanthiran, Tamil National Alliance MP, reiterated his desire for war crimes claims to be investigated fully. “We have already come out and said that we welcome the recommendations of the UN Panel report. I have not yet seen this video but these claims need proper investigation,” he said.
Though the UN in Sri Lanka is refusing to comment on the video, UN special investigator into extrajudicial killings, Christof Heynes, believes the video should be taken extremely seriously. “It’s very rare that you have actual footage of people being killed, this is different from CCTV. This is trophy footage,” Heynes told The Associated Press. Though Heynes acknowledged to the UN HRC in Geneva this week that it is the duty of the State to conduct its own inquiries, and he would be prepared to collaborate fully with them.
If the UN Panel’s report was not enough pressure for the government, Killing Fields has only heightened the sense of urgency for accountability to be properly addressed in Sri Lankan. Marion Bentley says she hopes the international community will act upon the evidence the film presents. “It is our job as journalists to draw attention to evidence as serious as this. As with all our public interest journalism we would hope that the appropriate authorities follow up on our journalism,” she added. It appears the government has found out that in today’s modern world, fighting a war without witnesses is an impossible task.
© The Sunday Leader
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By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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In the past forty days, Ban Ki-moon has apparently done no review of Sri Lanka after he said on April 25 that he would act on the Panel of Experts' recommendation for a “review of the United Nations’ actions regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates during the war in Sri Lanka – particularly in the last stages."
Inner City Press asked Ban if he supports the call by Navi Pillay for a independent probe into the war crimes alleges in the Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka, and what action he has taken on the above quoted recommendation for a review of the actions of the UN and Ban's own chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, particularly in connection with assurances given to surrenderees who were then killed.
Ban said it is up to member states, and did not answer the second part of the question. He said he continues to wait for Sri Lanka's response, checking every day, he said.
These answers were given at a press conference in which Ban announced that he had met with the Asia Group and they support him for a second term as UN Secretary General.
After Ban's press conference, Inner City Press interviewed a Deputy Permanent Representative who attended the meeting. He said that no vote was taken, but rather “acclamation.” Inner City Press asked if Sri Lanka spoke, and the DPR said yes. So, the Rajapaksa government now supports Ban for a second term. Draw your own conclusions.
From the UN's June 6, 2011 transcript:
Inner City Press: You commissioned that Panel of Experts report; then you said that you couldn’t do any investigation unless an intergovernmental body orders you to. Ms [Navenethem] Pillay has said that such a body should be set up. Do you follow in that? And what steps have you taken on this idea that you would review the UN’s own performance in the final stages of the conflict? Even your Chief of Staff has been described in a still murky incident of the killing of surrendering fighters. So I was wondering: have you taken any steps in the forty days since you said that to do that?
SG Ban Ki-moon: You must have read all the recommendations of the Panel’s report. Most of the recommendations of the Panel’s report concern steps which the Sri Lankan Government needs to take. Beyond what I can do within the UN to review its actions during the final stage of conflict, much will depend on the Government of Sri Lanka and the Member States who have been studying this report. Addressing the issue of accountability will be an essential step towards lasting peace and stability in the country. And I will continue to discuss this matter with the Sri Lankan leadership so that they will implement fully the recommendations in this Panel’s report. First and foremost, proper action is needed to be taken by the Sri Lankan Government. That’s what the international community really wants. Again, another one is that I am still awaiting the response of the Sri Lankan Government. I am checking almost every day, every week so that they will send their response as soon as possible. That can give me further review on their response.
© Inner City Press
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By R.K. Radhakrishnan | The Hindu
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Two top Indian officials will visit Sri Lanka later this week to discuss, among other things, the progress in the reconciliation process in north Sri Lanka, and the United Nations Secretary-General's Expert Panel Report on Accountability in Sri Lanka.
National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao — who have served in Sri Lanka as High Commissioners — will hold consultations with their Sri Lankan counterparts over the steps for a lasting peace in Sri Lanka, officials here said.
They will seek to impress upon Colombo that the way forward is outlined in two joint statements — one between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in May 2009, and the other, the May 17, 2011 joint statement issued after talks between Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris and his Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna, in New Delhi.
The Krishna-Peiris statement said “a devolution package, building upon the 13th Amendment, would contribute towards creating the necessary conditions for such reconciliation … The External Affairs Minister of India urged the expeditious implementation of measures by the Government of Sri Lanka, to ensure resettlement and genuine reconciliation, including early return of Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] to their homes, early withdrawal of emergency regulations, investigations into allegations of human rights violations, restoration of normalcy in affected areas and redress of humanitarian concerns of the affected families.”
Mr. Menon and Ms. Rao face the uphill task of getting the Sri Lankan establishment to act on the joint statement. The statement has been widely criticised by the Sri Lankan nationalist Opposition parties and the mainstream press since then. They have accused Professor Peiris of buckling to Indian pressure and signing the statement.
Some political commentators have questioned the rationale and basis of the 13th Constitutional Amendment, which was pushed by India in 1987, and condemned the Indian intervention to have this revived.
The National Security Adviser and the Foreign Secretary form part of a high-level three-member team, the troika, established during the 2006-09 Eelam War IV, for India and Sri Lanka to keep in touch on a regular basis. On the Indian side, the Defence Secretary completed the troika.
The Sri Lankan team is headed by the President's brother and Economic Development Minister, Basil Rajapaksa. It includes another brother and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and President's Secretary Lalith Weeratunga.
In a low-key exchange of notes between the two sides ahead of the Indian team's visit, Mr. Basil Rajapaksa visited India in the last week of May for consultations. As he is on tour now, he will not be part of the deliberations when the Indian team arrives here later this week.
© The Hindu
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BBC Sinhala
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Relatives of the former Tamil Tiger suspects have been crying in front of the Cultural Centre in Vavuniya as the authorities failed to release the number of detainees as promised.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs and the Prison Reforms earlier announced that 900 ex-Tamil Tigers would be released after rehabilitation.
But only 337 were handed over at a ceremony held in Vavuniya on Sunday.
Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, said they were the only ones whose documents were ready.
The rest, out of 866 ex-combatants, will be released "within the next two-three days," he said.
UNHRC session
Family members of those not released, expressed their frustration with authorities.
"We have been waiting since yesterday awaiting the promised release of our children," one mother said.
Heavy police security kept the protesting relatives away from the official ceremony.
However, parents of those released said they were very happy to be reunited with the family members who have been away from the family for at lease two years.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's son, parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa, Prison Minister Chandrasiri Gajadheera, Youth Affairs Minister Dallas Alahapperuma and other officials were among the gathering.
The international human rights watchdogs have criticised the detention of ex-combatants for years without trial.
The issue has also been raised at the ongoing UNHRC sessions in Geneva.
© BBC Sinhala
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