Lanka's decisive phase of ethnic war cost $2.8 billion

Sri Lanka's decisive phase of the war with the Tamil Tigers cost the government USD 2.8 billion, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake
has said, as he expressed concern that the LTTE networks overseas continued to raise funds.

The Prime Minister expressed concern that the remnants of the "fast-diminishing LTTE networks" overseas continue efforts to raise funds through illegal means.

"Although we have been successful in defeating terrorism in Sri Lanka, we continue to urge our friends and partners in the international community to be vigilant, and to continue to take action against the illegal acts of the LTTE in their soil," he told the UN General Assembly yesterday.

He said the "anti-terrorist operations cost us only USD 2.8 billion in all, compared with other anti-terrorist operations elsewhere which are costing much more".

The Prime Minister said his country remained committed to international obligations on human rights and humanitarian standards. Underlining that valuable lessons had been learnt from past experiences, he expressed the government's firm resolve to resettle the IDPs expeditiously, in co-operation with our international partners.

"Sri Lanka is committed to complying with its international obligations in the field of human rights and humanitarian standards," the Prime Minister said.

For the first time in over a decade, local government elections were held in the North completely free of any violence and intimidation, he said.

© Times of India

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Sri Lanka seeks US lessons over rebel suspects

The Sri Lankan government said on Sunday it would study the United States' treatment of suspected Islamic militants to learn how to deal with thousands of alleged former Tamil Tiger rebels.

Sri Lanka's attorney general Mohan Peiris was set to arrive in Washington on Monday for talks with his US counterpart and with officials in the US defence establishment, justice ministry spokesman Gamini Godakanda said.

"We want to study how the US handled terrorist suspects, particularly hundreds of them from the Al-Qaeda network, after the 9/11 attacks in New York," Godakanda told AFP.

Sri Lankan officials estimate 15,000 former rebels are detained in camps alongside hundreds of thousands of war-displaced civilians.

The Tamil Tigers, who fought for a separate homeland from 1972, were defeated by Sri Lankan troops in May when the military killed their leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran.

"Some of the former fighters will face prosecution for their crimes, depending on the evidence. Others will be sent for rehabilitation," Godakanda said.

Sri Lanka has sought foreign cash for an ambitious plan to rehabilitate many former rebels and has already collected 23 million dollars towards the project.

Britain, Japan and the US have donated money and 3,000 ex-rebels have already begun training in plumbing, masonry, carpentry and electrical work.

© AFP

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Military compelled to disperse unruly crowd - Brig. Nanayakkara

The military was forced to open fire at an unruly crowd in the Menik Farm area when they aimed stones and threw a hand grenade at security forces men providing security to the displaced persons in the camp, Military spokesman,Brigadier,Udaya Nanayakkara told www.news.lk.

The military was compelled to take action to disperse the unruly crowd and was forced to fire in the air.

He said the elements who threw a grenade at troops had attempted to flee.Troops managed to open fire wounding two suspects, he added.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the wounded suspects and the crowd had links with the terrorists.

© news.lk

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Sri Lanka vows anew to resettle displaced Tamils

Sri Lanka's prime minister vowed anew here that Colombo would quickly resettle civilians still in state-run camps after being displaced by the government rout of Tamil separatists.

Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka told the UN General Assembly yesterday that a key priority for his government was to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of the roughly 290,000 Tamil civilians who "were liberated from the decades-long hold" of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

He said the resettlement would be carried out in cooperation with international partners.

He however warned that "the stability and security that we have restored at great human cost cannot and must not be compromised, particularly when a large number of self-confessed ex-LTTE cadres continue to mix with the IDPs (internally displaced persons).

© Press Trust of India

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Sri Lanka wounds 2 trying to flee refugee camp

By Bharatha Mallawarachi - Sri Lankan soldiers fired on a group of war refugees trying to flee a camp in the north of the island, wounding two, the military said Sunday.

The foiled escape bid happened late Saturday in the district of Vavuniya, near a former battle zone. The civil war between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels ended in May, but nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians are still held in military-run camps.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said residents had thrown stones at soldiers guarding the Manik Farm camp and tried to flee. He said the troops had to open fire in self-defense and to disperse the violent crowd.

Two people were wounded and another 19 inmates were put in police custody, he said, adding that the situation was under control.

Sri Lanka's government has come under intense pressure from human rights groups and other countries to free the hundreds of thousands of camp detainees. Rights groups say the detentions are an illegal form of collective punishment and warn that imminent monsoon rains could create health crises in the low-lying and congested camps.

Authorities say they are screening the camp inmates to arrest former guerrillas, and are clearing land mines from the Tamils' villages. President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently promised a visiting U.N. envoy that all displaced people would be returned home by the end of January.

Sri Lanka declared victory over the Tamil Tigers in May, ending their 25-year fight for an independent state. The displaced civilians fled the last phase of fighting.

The U.N. estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed in the civil war.

Meanwhile, the government said Sunday it was seeking advice from the United States in its efforts to deal with more than 10,000 former rebel fighters held in custody.

Gamini Godakanda, spokesman for the Justice Ministry, said attorney general Mohan Peiris and ministry secretary Suhada Gamlath have left for U.S. to study how it handled terrorist suspects.

They are expected to meet officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and the Justice Department, he said.

© Associated Press

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'Home grown solution' for conflict

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka will be resolved through a home grown solution, the Sri Lankan prime minister says.

Addressing the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wikramanayake said, "the solution that evolves through this process, and which we will offer to all communities must be a home-grown product".

Reiterating the government commitment to resettle the internally displaced people he said Sri Lanka has learnt valuable lessons.

'Not to be forced'

However, "the pace of resettlement must not be forced if it is to be truly safe and sustainable in the long term".

"A total in excess of 54 agencies are actively engaged with us in these welfare villages" he added.

Prime Minister said that the United Nations should not interfere in the internal affairs of States.

Multilateralism

"Multilateralism is not about the UN agenda responding only to the demands of a minority of powerful States, but also defending the interest of the powerless majority" he added.

Urging the friends and partners in the international community to be vigilant and continue to take action against the illegal acts of the LTTE in their soil, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wikramanayaka said a global problem such as terrorism requires an effective global response.

He said Sri Lanka is committed to complying with its international obligations in the field of human rights.

© BBC Sinhala

Related Links:
General Debate of the 64th Session - UN
Address by SL Prime Minister

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Election violence on the increase

By Rathindra Kuruwita - The lukewarm attitude taken by the political party big wigs and the Police towards the brazen violations of election law has created a lawless situation in the Southern Province, claims election monitoring bodies.

“Candidates are openly violating the election law and they are encouraged by the fact that there seem to be no consequences for their actions,” said National Polls Observation Centre Convener, Prasanna Adikari. “If the election law is to be properly upheld three parties, the party bosses, the Police and the Department of Elections, should play a very active role. But so far, the party bosses and the police have turned a blind eye to the open violation of the election law,” he added.

He added that so far 23 instances of election law violations have been reported in the three districts. “Ten incidents have been reported from the Galle District, while nine and four have been reported from the Hambanthota and Matara Districts respectively,” he said. “Galle is still the hot spot for violence and some candidates are getting a lot of media coverage for all the wrong reasons,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE) claimed that they have received 37 complaints, 15 from Galle, 12 from Hambanthota and 10 from Matara. “We see that things are hotting up as Election Day grows near. And there is a systematic campaign against the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Some of their offices have been attacked even yesterday and some party sympathisers have been arrested,” said CaFFE Spokesman, Keerthi Tennakoon.

© The Nation

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SLA shoots 6 including women, children in Cheddiku'lam camp

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on Saturday around 6:00 p.m. opened fire and injured six civilians including two women and three children in Cheddiku'lam internment camp, according to initial reports reaching from Vavuniyaa. One 8-year-old child, seriously wounded in the episode, was transferred to Anuradhapura hospital from Vavuniyaa hospital, medical sources in Vavuniyaa said.

The unfortunate group of six is said to have gone for collecting firewood in the surroundings of the camp.

World Food Programme (WFP) has stopped supplying cooked meals from 17 September. The inmates are dependent on dry rations (rice, sugar and dahl), but they lack proper facilities to cook the meals.

Civilians inside the camps are forced to get other materials, firewood, salt, tamarind etc., from external sources.

The civilians who tried to cross over the camps to get firewood were shot by the SLA.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan military officials in Colombo said the SLA opened fire when civilians who tried to 'escape' started to stone the SLA soldiers when they were blocked from leaving the camp. The military officials put the number of wounded civilians at three.

© TamilNet

Related Links:
Menik Farm shooting: 3 wounded - The Sunday Times

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Minister’s secretary abducted in Vavuniya

By Chris Kamalendran - A Coordinating Secretary to a minister was abducted by an unidentified group in Vavuniya on Friday night, police said yesterday. Arumugam Sriranjan served as Coordinating Secretary in Trincomalee’s pre-dominant Tamil areas for Nation Building Minister Susantha Punchinilame.

He was earlier the Jaffna district’s organizer of Sri TELO, a breakaway TELO group. Mr. Sriranjan joined the UPFA in August this year. According to police, the abductors had come in a white van and taken him at gun point while he was at his wife’s residence in the Urban Council quarters.

The abductors had posed off as CID officers, and sped off from the scene after threatening the other members of the household, police said. The police have put out an all-island alert to trace the van and the abductors.

© The Sunday Times

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Sri Lankan PM at Asia Society Faces Pre-Screened Softball Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee - Sri Lanka's prime minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake spoke Thursday night at the Asia Society on Park Avenue in Manhattan, facing pre-screened softball questions gently raising the internment camps and freedom of the press. Even so, Wickramanayake responded testily, drawing partisan applause from the otherwise silenced auditorium.

Several facts were plainly misrepresented. The Asia Society's questioner -- who multiple times and accurately said, "I am by no means an expert on Sri Lanka" -- asked if the International Committee of the Red Cross has access to all the IDPs. Yes, Wickramanayake replied. But the ICRC has complained of no access to at least 10,000 people.

Then Wickramanayake said that two ICRC staffers were found to have "direct" ties to the LTTE and were arrested. Presumably he was referring to the two UN system staff, a question that Inner City Press wrote on a note card that was never read out by the moderator. Nor was a question about the GSP Plus tax benefit in Europe, which Sri Lanka stands to lose for human rights violations.

The evening got off to a surreal start with the present of the Asia Society, Ms. Vishakha N. Desai, saying without qualification that the Sri Lankan government means well. Then Wickramanayake delivered a sort of speech. He said "our country is nourished by Buddhism." He spoke of opportunities for investors, tourism on Eastern beaches.

Then the Asia Society's Executive Vice President Jaime Metzl took a seat and began lobbing softball questions. He said, let's turn back to Sri Lankan independence, to 1948. Wickramanayake became testy, and not for the last time. "Let us forget the past," he snapped. We want to look to the future.

EVP Metzl ever so gently raised the issue of the IDPs. Wickramanayake said the only problem is demining. "We were going it manually," he said, "until quite recently." He said now some machines have arrived. "It would have taken years," he said.

So what did Mahinda Rajapaksa's commitment to Ban Ki-moon in May, to resettle 80% of the IDPs by the end of the year, mean? One of the two is dissembling.

Metzl read out a question submitted only, "anonymously," he pointed out. took issue with why anyone would be anonymous. He said there are no problems of freedom of the press. When an audience member shouted out, "twenty years of hard labor," they were shouted down by a person sitting up in the front, in the reserved seat. Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN was observed up there. In front of the Asia Society, a fleet of blank four by fours were parked, with the Sri Lankan flag on their windshield. Entourage!

As Wickramanayake pontificated, about former LTTE supporters put in charge in the East, EVP Metzl nodded and said, as if involuntarily, uh huh, uh huh, while nodding his head. He let slip that he had just returned from Afghanistan, and that his father was an IDP for ten years after World War II. He named El Salvador as a country with a past of ethnic conflict. (Actually, there it is social class, we'll cite Roque Dalton.) Metzl's high point, he let the audience know, was getting an empty commitment from Wickramanayake that the Red Cross could contact his office. "And the Ministry of Defense," Wickramanayake quickly added. Of course.

The questions got more and more lame, culminating with "what do you pray for every night?" Wickramanayake answered, testy to the end, "I don't want to disclose that." Then the Asia Society whisked him and his entourage through a door, presumably to a reception, and the audience filed out.

Inner City Press felt a duty to come and hear, even paid to do it. In other circumstances, a refund would be in order given the weakness of the questions, and not allowing the audience or Press to ask any questions. The Asia Society created it own protest free General Assembly, and changed twenty dollars a seat for it.

© Inner City Press

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