'We wrote Sri Lankan President's civil war speech' say lobbyists

By Melanie Newman - Oliver Wright | The Independent
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Senior executives at Bell Pottinger told undercover reporters that they were so influential that they had written a key speech given by the Sri Lankan President to the United Nations.

During the address by President Mahinda Rajapaksa last year, which the company said was used in preference to one prepared by the Sri Lankan foreign ministry, the President suggested rules governing the humanitarian conduct of war should be re-examined. He also described his troops' action against Tamil Tiger separatists as humanitarian.

President Rajapaksa also claimed in the speech that a Commission established by the government to look into the last years of the civil war, was giving "full expression to the principles of accountability". The Commission has been heavily criticised by human rights groups including Amnesty International because it does not have a mandate to hold individuals to account for war crimes.

"We had a team working in the President's office. We wrote the President's speech to the UN last year which was very well received... it went a long way to taking the country where it needed to go," David Wilson, the chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Relations, said during the meeting with undercover reporters.

But during the meeting Mr Wilson seemed to agree with Amnesty, describing the Commission as having a "fundamental flaw in its remit in investigating what has gone on in the past, to try to bury the past".

The company also attended a meeting of Tamil dissidents in London, the British Tamils Forum (BTF) said. Days before President Rajapaksa's arrival in London in December 2010, Tim Ryan, the chairman of Bell Pottinger International, and a colleague attended an open political meeting in Harrow organised by the BTF and the Nava Sama Samaja [New Social Equality] Party.

Gobi Ratnam, a Tamil journalist who chaired the event said the pair stood out as the only white people present. They said they were from Bell Pottinger. "They said they wanted to listen to our problems, to learn and help the Sri Lankan people," Mr Ratnam said. "A lot of people were talking to them."

Dr Wickremabahu Karunaratne, the Sinhalese general secretary of the NSS Party who ran for president in 2010, gave a speech at the meeting in which he called for Tamil forces to join a new alliance of opposition members and breakaway groups to challenge the government – comments that were widely reported.

There is no suggestion that Bell Pottinger did anything illegal in its dealings with the Sri Lankan government.

Part of Bell Pottinger's remit was to influence the foreign media in favour of the Sri Lankan government.

The firm sub-contracted its work in the United States to the firm Qorvis, which placed an article by President Rajapaksa in the Philadelphia Inquirer in December 2009 entitled "How Sri Lanka Defeated Terrorism". In the piece the President suggested Sri Lanka had provided a "workable model" for defeating terrorism, from which the international community could gain "valuable insight".

In February 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a piece that discussed the "peaceful" election which returned Rajapaksa to power, and prompted several letters complaining of government violence against its critics.

Bell Pottinger has been less successful at placing such articles in the UK press. the government's opinions. In December 2009 the firm reportedly pitched a piece to The Guardian which it declined to publish.

© The Independent

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Sri Lanka's opposition hit by power struggle

Deutsche Presse-Agentur | Monsters & Critics
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Sri Lanka's main opposition party was Monday drawn into a power struggle with its deputy leader announcing his decision to fight the incumbent leader for the top position in the party.

United National Party (UNP) deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya in a statement said he was contesting the leadership against opposition leader in Parliament Ranil Wickremesinghe to save and unite the party.

Wickremesinghe, a former prime minister who has lost seven of the eight parliamentary and presidential elections since 1994, has been under pressure from his own party members to step down, but he has rejected the calls.

As many as 61 UNP members of parliament have crossed over to the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in recent years mostly due to differences with Wickremesinghe.

Wickremesinghe took over the party leadership in 1993 after the then president Ranasinghe Premadasa was killed in a Tamil rebel suicide attack.

The UNP has ruled the country for 28 years since independence from Britain in 1948.

The party has been criticized by its own supporters for failing to put up strong opposition to Rajapaksa's government, which is close to a two-thirds majority in the 225-seat parliament.

Wickremesinghe is scheduled to seek re-election as party leader at the Working Committee meeting on Wednesday.

© DPA

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Trincomalee war displaced 'right to return' denied

BBC Sinhala
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Sri Lanka's war displaced from several areas in the eastern district of Trincomalee will not be allowed to resettle in their ancestral lands, the government has confirmed.

Trincomalee Government Agent, Maj Gen TTR de Silva, said the resettlement of internally displaced people (IDPs) from Sampur has become "an international issue."

"People can not go back nearer to the thermal power plant," he told journalists in Trincomalee on Sunday.

He made the remarks at a conference on media development which was also attended by the Director General of Information, Prof Ariyaratne Athugala.

Media has an important role to play "in building a bridge between people and development," said Prof Athugala.

'Land grab'

The journalists attended the seminar then pointed out that the government has not attempted to resolve many issues raised by the media, including the resettlement in Sampur.

"The Ceylon Electricity Board new buildings are also being constructed there and the area has been demarcated for new related industries,” was the response by the government agent.

Sampur was among the first major Tamil Tiger strongholds in the east that was re-captured by the security forces.

The government officials were also told that 1500 fishermen have lost livelihoods as a result of a new saltern is being built in Kuchchuveli.

Responding, Maj Gen de Silva said decisions regarding acquiring land have been taken from the higher echelons of the government including the president and cabinet of ministers.

“I think it is a shame that 60% of salt intake in Sri Lanka is imported,” he added.

The journalist also pointed out that farmers were banned to cultivate 700 paddy land in Kappalturai that has been cultivated for generations but Maj Gen de Silva said those decisions were taken by the government hierarchy.

The North - East Sinhala Organisation (NESO) earlier accused the government of land grab in eastern Sri Lanka.

But the provincial council authorities have denied the accusation.

© BBC

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Over 700 children reported missing since end of Sri Lanka's war

By Maryam Azwer | The Sunday Leader
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A total of 707 children have to date been reported missing from the Northern Province since the end of the conflict.

Of the total, 374 of the children are boys, and 333 are girls. Thus far, 116 of the children reported missing have been traced.

Thirty one of these children have been reunited with their families, while reunification is in process for another 22. Another 63 names have found matches, and are currently undergoing verification and tracing.

These statistics were obtained via UNICEF, which sourced the data to the Family Tracing Unit of the Department of Probation and Childcare Services in the Northern Province.

A UNICEF report released on July 12 this year recorded a total of 676 cases of missing children.

The report also stated that 30 percent of children reported missing following the end of the war were reportedly last seen in Government-controlled areas, while 64 percent of the cases were attributed to LTTE recruitment.
“Reports suggest 64 per cent of those who have disappeared were recruited by the Tamil Tigers. Another 30 per cent were, reportedly, last seen in government-controlled areas,” said the UNICEF report, titled Hope and Uncertainty: the Vital Search for Missing Children in Northern Sri Lanka.
According to the report, the age analysis for children showed that the majority of them were aged between 16 and 18 years.

The opening lines of UNICEF’s July report said that: “One of the key child protection issues following the displacement of thousands of people in northern Sri Lanka in 2009 was that of separated children. During the last phase of the Sri Lankan conflict, a large number of children among the internally displaced people were lost or separated from their families. As a result, many displaced families were also filing tracing requests and reporting missing children to a number of the authorities at the district as well as at the national level.”

As a result of all these requests, steps were finally taken at the end of 2009 to trace and reunite children who had been separated from their families.
“The Provincial Department of Probation and Child Care Services in the Northern Province in collaboration with the Government Agent (GA), Vavuniya, and supported by UNICEF, established the Family Tracing and Reunification Unit on December 22, 2009,” said UNICEF Sri Lanka Representative, Reza Hossaini, in a statement to The Sunday Leader last week.

UNICEF’s previous report also detailed the methods employed in collecting information on these missing children: “The Family Tracing (FTR) unit established a telephone help line and employed data collection staff, who underwent training on how to handle calls and deal with visiting parents/relatives and on data information/collection and management. Information posters/ banners promoting this new service were distributed in the camps and to partners and agencies across other districts. Furthermore, photographs of children reported missing were published in local newspapers, leading to a few successful family reunifications and additional information on the possible whereabouts of children.”

The report also stated that: “active search for data has been made in children’s homes and hospitals on children who are alive, while very limited information has been sought from surrendee and detention centres, and on children who died in hospitals.”

The identification of missing children had not been completed at the time, said UNICEF, because many families may not have had access to information pertaining to this family tracing initiative. “The total number of missing children is unknown as many families are not aware of the ongoing government efforts,” UNICEF said in its the report.

However, UNICEF’s Sri Lanka Representative last week stated that, “UNICEF is working in partnership with the Government in order to scale-up and extend the family tracing service, which traces missing children, in all five districts of the north. Communities and families in conflict-affected areas want to rebuild their lives and resolving cases of missing children is an important part of the reconciliation process.

“Currently, the Family Tracing Unit, is based in Vavuniya. Requests from those seeking missing children can be submitted either in person at their office, or over the phone. Based on these requests, the staff at the unit visit hospitals, children’s homes, rehabilitation centres and prisons to find matches for the requests made. Those in need of psychosocial support are referred to relevant service providers,” said Reza Hossaini.

© The Sunday Island

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