JVP to back former Army Chief in snap election

Sri Lanka's former military chief, General Sarath Fonseka, will challenge his ex-boss President Mahinda Rajapakse in elections next year, a key leftist opposition party announced Tuesday.

The JVP, or People's Liberation Front, which had earlier backed Rajapakse, said they secured agreement with Fonseka, 58, to stand against Rajapakse.

The president on Monday called a snap vote, which is due between January 11 and February 1.

"We came to an agreement last night (Monday) that he will be the common opposition candidate," JVP lawmaker Anurakumara Dissanayake said. "We will ensure his victory and the downfall of President Rajapakse."

He added: "He has accepted to be the 'apolitical' common candidate who will work towards the abolition of the executive presidency within six months of coming to power."

He said the JVP was confident that Fonseka would deliver on his promise, unlike previous presidents who also pledged to scrap the all-powerful presidency, which concentrates all executive power in the head of state.

Fonseka resigned as chief of defence staff last week following a rift with Rajapakse over who should take credit for crushing separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in a government offensive that ended in May.

A close aide said Fonseka, considered a war hero for his role in the defeat of the Tigers, was planning to secure broad opposition support before announcing his plans.

Fonseka declined to comment on the JVP announcement.

"I will tell you in two to three days," Fonseka told reporters when asked about his plans.

The JVP said they believed Fonseka was able to defeat Rajapakse, 64, who called the snap election to benefit from the government's popularity following the end of the military campaign.

Dissanayake said Fonseka had agreed to dissolve the current cabinet and appoint an interim government to conduct parliamentary elections, which are due by April.

The JVP as well as the main opposition United National Party have said they will support any move to oust Rajapakse, who has been accused of granting key state positions to family members and of wanton corruption.

The president's younger brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse is the defence secretary, who also played a key role in crushing Tamil Tigers and ending Asia's longest running ethnic conflict.

However, the Rajapakse brothers and Fonseka fell out after all three competed to take credit for crushing the rebels.

© AFP

Related Links:
Sri Lanka general to mount poll bid - Al Jazeera

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Eyewitness report from refugee boat in Merak

Anthony Main - On Friday November 20th I had the opportunity to visit the Tamil refugees in Merak. Prior to my visit I had been in regular phone contact with the refugees but to see the deplorable conditions on the boat first hand was indeed a shock.

The port has been in lock down for more than a week, even the media have been denied access. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have also withdrawn their services. Clearly there is a joint attempt by the Australian and Indonesian governments to deny these people basic necessities in the hope that it will wear them down and force them off the ship.

I was able to visit the boat as part of a delegation that included members of the Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI), the Working Peoples Association (PRP) and a human rights lawyer. We were also accompanied by an official from the Indonesian Human Rights Commission.

These asylum seekers are all from the north and east of Sri Lanka. They include children, pregnant women and the elderly. All have been affected by the brutal war and have experienced their own hardships as a result of the oppression of the Tamil minority. As one women told me “We all have our own individual horror stories”.

On October 11th, on route to Australia, their 30 metre boat was intercepted by the Indonesian navy. It has been no secret that the Australian government pressured the Indonesian authorities to act before the boat made it into Australian waters. One man commented that “Kevin Rudd calls this the Indonesian solution, how can it be a solution if we are facing deportation or jail?”

As soon as we arrived at the boat people started to come out one by one. This old wooden ship is built to carry about 40 – 50 people, but more than 250 are crammed onto it. The first people to approach me were children. A girl of about 7 years old told me that she had written a letter to the Australian authorities. It was written in Tamil but she asked me if I could get it translated and show it to them. Several other children had also written letters, one of which was in English. (See text below)

After being in isolation for more than a week it was not surprising that the people on board the boat were desperate to hear news and discuss the dispute. One man, Nimal, started asking me some questions about the Australian Governments attitude to asylum seekers. Within seconds I was surrounded by dozens of people who all wanted know why Rudd would not allow them safe passage to Australia.

After a brief discussion with the refugees’ spokespeople Alex and Kumar, I was taken on board the boat. The tour of the boat took some time because in every corner of the vessel I met with people who wanted to tell me their stories. One of the first families I met had with them a baby who was only 6 months old. The father said to me “We have been here 50 days now. This child has spent more than one quarter of her life in these terrible conditions”.

Most of the people on the boat are sick in some way. Many have diarrhoea and some have Malaria. There are also 15 diabetics on board who have had no access to insulin for weeks. On several occasions people have needed urgent medical assistance which has been denied by the Indonesian authorities. There is also only one toilet on the boat, meaning people have to line up at all times of the day.

The weather in Merak is dreadful. The rainy season has begun, which means it is wet, windy and humid. The boat is covered by tarpaulins but in many areas these covers are torn and when the rain is heavy the decks get covered in water. This means people are sleeping in wet areas, often without enough clothes and blankets to keep them warm.

The Indonesian Navy keeps a close eye on the ship and they are responsible for delivering food and water several times a day. The food is of very poor quality and many say it is making them sick. They have no hot water and the fresh water they have runs out before the end of the day.

While the conditions are horrendous, most people were less interested in complaining and more interested in discussing the politics of the dispute. After being shown around the boat, as many people as could fit sat down on the main deck where we conducted a meeting. We discussed many issues including the political situation in Sri Lanka, the attitude of ordinary people in Australia to refugees and how to best build support for their struggle.

I started by telling them that while there are polarised views in Australia about refugees, there are many people who are supporting them. As well as the Socialist Party there are many progressive groups in the region who are campaigning for their rights. I reported about actions and protests that had already taken place and those that are planned in the next few weeks. I also told them about support that had come from trade unions in both Australia and Indonesia.

A few days prior to my visit it was reported that the Indonesian government was looking to deport the refugees back to Sri Lanka. But the day before my visit the Sydney Morning Herald was reporting that the Indonesian government had changed their mind and they would now allow them to be processed by the United Nations. Unfortunately no one on board had been made aware of this. Even if it were true it would not guarantee them safe passage to Australia.

All on the boat were fully aware of the deal that the Rudd government had done with another group of Tamil refugees who were on board the Oceanic Viking. While the situation for the refugees in Merak is slightly different, because they are not on an Australian vessel and were not intercepted by the Australian Navy, they are adamant that they should be afforded, at the very least, the same treatment.

“We are all fleeing the same persecution” one man said “We are all refugees, we should all be treated equally”. Another man said “We believe Kevin Rudd has both a legal and a moral obligation to take us. He is a signatory to the UN refugee convention. Indonesia is not. If he believes in human rights how could he possibly let us go to an Indonesian detention centre?”

“We are resilient people, we have escaped war, we have lived in camps. All we are asking is that we are treated as human beings. If we go back to Sri Lanka we will not be treated as humans. We will go to jail, be killed or just disappear” he said.

Only a few hours after I left the ship one of the refugees sent me a text message saying that they had just received news that a relative of one of the asylum seekers had been kidnapped by the Sri Lankan Army. A 19 year old man was pushed into a white van and has not been seen for several days. It is quite possible that, along with hundreds of others, he will never be seen again.

This is the reality of life for Tamils in Sri Lanaka. But despite their concern about the future, the one thread that ran through all of the discussions was that they are prepared to stay on the boat as long as it takes. This brave stance should be acknowledged by all workers and poor people in the region. As one man said to me as I was leaving “We are just ordinary people, not different to people in Australia. We did not start the war, we are the victims. All we are asking for is support.”

The Socialist Party and our sister parties in the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) will do all we can to build support for this group of Tamil refugees and to campaign for the rights of all workers and oppressed people in Sri Lanka.

Socialist Party National Organiser Anthony Main is currently in Indonesia. On Friday he visited the 254 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees currently moored at the port in Merak.

© Tamil Solidarity

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Anniversary of Gerald Perera's murder: The ASP who was never prosecuted

By Basil Fernando - Gerald became a friend of mine through unfortunate circumstances. He was the victim of torture at the hands of an Assistant Superintendent of Police and a group of policemen attached to the Wattala police station.

Further misfortune was to follow. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, presided over by late Justice Mark Fernando, granted him all the relief that he claimed by holding against all police officers and awarding a recorded sum as compensation in a fundamental rights case.

It was only at this stage that Attorney General’s department thought of launching a criminal investigation against the police officers, which finally led to the filing of an indictment under the Convention Against Torture Act.

A short while later, a week ahead of giving evidence before the High Court of Negombo, he was shot dead while travelling to work at the harbour.

One of the accused police officers in the torture case, together with an accomplice, has been charged with the murder. Other accused officers have been made witnesses. His wife attributed the death to delayed investigation.

Does one murder case matter in the sea of murders washing across Sri Lanka? Rationally, it is impossible to say that it does not matter; however, if we are honest with ourselves then we must conclude that in reality it no longer matters.

I am trained as a lawyer. I recall that in my first year of training I and other students spent many weeks studying the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code by concentrating mainly on the offence of murder. Take away murder from the statute books and there would hardly be any point in studying the criminal law.

No one has removed murder from the statute books. It is there as before. But it has lost its significance. With it, the criminal law has also lost significance.

If the criminal law still had some significance then Gerald's case would be highly publicized and treated as extremely strange, as a blot on the system.

That is because the police officer most responsible for his death, the ASP who gave the order for his arrest without having any evidence, has never been held to account or even questioned.

The ASP was fishing for evidence of a triple murder for which he had been assigned six officers. After ten days he had not come up with any leads. He went after Gerald because of mistaken identity.

To find Gerald, the police took his wife into custody with a child. They forced her to telephone her husband and have him come for her. They arrested him on arrival and took him to Wattala police station, where they hung him from a beam and beat him with iron and wooden polls, hoping that he may divulge something.

At this stage, the police got a telephone call, which seemed to communicate that they had got the wrong man. They took him down and kept him till next morning, when they released him with full knowledge of the ASP. The family took him to hospital, where he entered a coma, only to recover after 14 days.

If the criminal law had any significance in Sri Lanka then it would be remarkable that throughout the criminal inquiry into this incident, no one questioned the ASP. Apart from the actual perpetrators of the torture, this ASP knew more than anyone about the events. He should have been made an accused in the case, as the CAT Act is broad enough to have accommodated him.

However, it is not in our legal culture to bring officers above the rank of OIC to be questioned, let alone indicted. As a result, this case has dragged on farcically over the last five years, to the present day. There are many other cases like it that similarly have been reduced to absurdity.

So long as higher ranking of state officers cannot be brought to justice for murder and serious crime, realistically, one more murder is nothing; neither is the Penal Code or the criminal law of which it is a part anything of significance.

© Sri Lanka Guardian

Related Links:
Sri Lanka: A Young Man Under Life-Support System After Tortured by Police - AHRC
Witness killed before case against police - BBC Sinhala

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Lanka editor ordered to call over at the CID

The Chief Editor of "Lanka Irida Sangrahaya" Chandana Sirimalwatte has been directed to call over at the CID head quarters at 2.00 pm Today in connection with a story published in this week’s issue of the newspaper. Mr. Sirimalwatte said he got this directive on the telephone from a person who identified himself as Inspector Ranjan.

The story related to an alleged plot to assassinate former Chief of Defence Staff General Sarath Fonseka, who is likely to be the common opposition candidate for the Presidential Election.

Police spokes person I. M. Karunaratne said his office had not been informed of this matter and therefore he did not wish to comment.

© Lankatruth

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In Haiti, UN's Sri Lankan Peacekeepers Shoot Live Ammo at Crowd

In Haiti on November 10, UN peacekeepers fired live ammunition resulting in injuries to civilians. Inner City Press asked spokesperson Michele Montas about the incident, and about UN peacekeepers using live ammunition instead of rubber bullets.

Ms. Montas replied that after an emergency landing, "some Haitians entered the helicopter." She said a person in the helicopter fired and a cartridge hit a civilian. She also said that "a person in the plane.. shot in the air." (This is reminiscent of the incident in 2008 during the Security Council's visit to Goma in the Congo, where a UN security official shot his weapon in the plane to try to show that it was empty, triggering an all night bus ride by Ambassador to Kigali, Rwanda.)

Inner City Press asked if it is UN protocol to shoot live ammunition in the air. Shooting in the air is the protocol, Ms. Montas answered.

Later on November 20, Inner City Press spoke with a senior UN peacekeeping official, who explained that UN Formed Police Units have rubber bullets, but that in this case is was "military people."

Reportedly, these were Sri Lankan soldiers, in all probability previously involved in the conflict in norther Sri Lanka in which the U.S. and others have found presumptive war crimes.
Meanwhile the UN has still refused to disclose the outcome of its repatriation from Haiti of over 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers on allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. It's said that in the future, aggregate data will be reported, either by Peacekeeping Mission or Troop Contributing Country, but not both.

© Inner City Press

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Sri Lanka Tamil refugee camps 'to be opened next month'

Sri Lanka says people held in special camps since the end of the conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels will be allowed out for short periods from next month.

An aide to the president also confirmed a pledge to close the facilities, which house more than 130,000 people.

They were set up in the country's north for Tamils fleeing the final stages of the civil war, which ended in May.

Sri Lanka has drawn strong international criticism for holding people in the camps against their will.

The latest government announcement was made by the special adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brother Basil, on a visit to the largest camp, Menik Farm.

On Thursday UN humanitarian chief John Holmes urged Sri Lanka to allow them to leave, following a visit to the camp.

Denied access

Addressing a group of displaced people, Mr Rajapaksa said that from 1 December the camps would no longer be closed sites. People will now be free to leave them for a day or two at a time, to visit friends and relatives, for example.

Although they will not be able to leave permanently, he reiterated the government's pledge to resettle those displaced by the end of January.

About 300,000 Tamils fled the war zone during the government's final offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) earlier this year.

Those displaced - many of whom had been held as human shields by the rebels - were forced into hastily built camps.

Criticised for keeping them there against their will, the government insisted that incarceration was necessary while the refugees were being screened for possible links with the rebels.

It has also said that more than 1.5m mines must be cleared and basic infrastructure needs to be in place to allow people to return home.

The UN, diplomats and charities have criticised the screening process, saying it is not transparent.

'Not transparent'

The barbed-wire enclosures are run by the military, and many of those displaced had complained about poor food and sanitary conditions.

Opposition parliamentarians in Sri Lanka have also protested about not being allowed access to the camps.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says the government had been sensitive to the criticism, and within the past month has markedly stepped up the pace of releases.

Many people are returning to devastated villages in depopulated countryside, much of it mined, our correspondent adds.

In May the Sri Lankan army defeated the Tamil Tigers, who had been fighting since the mid-1970s to carve out a separate nation in the Sinhalese-majority island.

© BBC News

Related Links:
Sri Lanka to free war-displaced civilians - AFP
Sri Lanka to release 136,000 war-displaced Tamils - AP

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Amnesty International Chief Blasts Australia's 'Panic' Over Asylum Seekers

The head of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, says the Australian government should close its immigration detention center on Christmas Island. On a visit to Australia, Khan accuses the conservative opposition of exploiting voters' fears about asylum seekers for political gain.

Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan says that holding asylum seekers at the Christmas Island processing center will not deter the flow of boat people heading to Australia.

On a visit to Canberra this week, Khan urged the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to close the camp in the Indian Ocean, about 2,600 kilometers northwest of Perth.

The facility opened last year and houses asylum seekers recently picked up by the Australian navy.

A surge of unauthorized arrivals by boat has put the issue of immigration back in the public spotlight in Australia. Khan says the debate here has often been xenophobic.

The Amnesty International chief blames conservative politicians for whipping up public hysteria.

"I think it is unscrupulous politicians and populist media," Khan said. "There has been a lot of fuss being made about the boat arrivals when actually the numbers arriving by air are much higher. There seems to be a sense of panic when what is really needed here is to handle a humanitarian problem with regard to international standards."

She says the number of boat arrivals in Australia is small compared those arriving in Europe.

Khan, however, calls the Rudd government's immigration policies an improvement on those of the previous conservative administration. She points out Mr. Rudd's decision to grant permanent residency rather than temporary protection visas to those deemed to be genuine refugees and the closure of the outback Woomera detention center and offshore processing facilities in the South Pacific.

Amnesty International says a multilateral approach is needed to deal with the asylum problem.

The Australian government says the surge of migrants arriving by boat is the result of conflicts in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan as well as the global economic crisis.

Australia accepts more than 10,000 refugees a year who are processed through non-governmental agencies in other countries.

© Voice of America

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Sri Lanka slips in corruption index

Sri Lanka has slipped five places to 97 in the annual corruption perceptions index in an annual perception survey conducted among 180 countries, by Transparency International, a corruption watchdog.

"What we see is a clear indictment on Sri Lanka and the urgent need for major systemic changes to wipe out corruption," J C Weliamuna, executive director of Transparency International's Sri Lanka chapter said.

"The lesson to learn from the CPI reading this year is that anti corruption should be nothing less than a national priority."

Though the index is based on perceptions, Weliamuna says it is widely watched and quoted.

It ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians.

Sri Lanka's score of the corruption perceptions index (CPI) fell to 3.1 (from 3.2 last year) which "a serious corruption problem in the public sector in the country," Transparency International Sri Lanka said.

The CPI places the least corrupt countries on a score of 0 and the most highly corrupt on a scale of 10.

India had a score of 3.4 while Maldives 2.5, Bangladesh 2.4, Pakistan 2.4, Nepal 2.3 and Bhutan 5.0.

Transparency International cheifl Hugette Labelle says that corruption requires oversight by parliaments, a well performing judiciary, independent and properly resourced audit and anti-corruption agencies, vigorous law enforcement, transparency in public budgets, revenue and aid flows, as well as space for independent media and a vibrant civil society.

© Lanka Business Online

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Q+A-: Sri Lanka's top general signals bid for presidency

Sarath Fonseka, who quit as Sri Lanka's top general after the end of a 25-year war, has said he plans now to fight for democracy and human rights, fuelling speculation he will soon announce his candidacy for the presidency.

He said on Monday he would announce his decision on entering politics this week.

Here are some questions and answers on Fonseka:

WHO IS SARATH FONSEKA?

A soldier from 1970, Fonseka was the army commander who spearheaded victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels. Known for his volatile temper and win-at-all-costs attitude on the battlefield, Fonseka was nearly killed in April 2006 by a Tiger suicide bomber, but returned three months later to launch a 34-month campaign that defeated the rebels.

WHY DID HE RESIGN?

Fonseka in his resignation letter accused President Mahinda Rajapaksa of sidelining him despite his contribution to the victory, and of sullying the army's reputation by falsely alerting India that a coup plot was afoot in October.

WHY THE SPECULATION HE WILL CHALLENGE RAJAPAKSA?

He has recently spoken out on democracy, human rights, and media freedom, areas in which the opposition and Western nations say the administration of Rajapaksa has done too little. Both the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peremuna and pro-business United National Party have said they have spoken to him and are ready to adopt him as their common candidate to defeat Rajapaksa. Fonseka has not responded to this yet.

WHY IS HE DELAYING HIS ANNOUNCEMENT?

Analysts say Fonseka wants Rajapaksa first to announce the date of a presidential poll which the government has said is due by April. The president on Sunday dodged the date announcement, in what analysts saw as a tactic to buy time until the Fonseka flap settles down.

CAN FONSEKA TAKE VOTES FROM RAJAPAKSA?

Fonseka has at least as much claim as Rajapaksa to credit for victory in the war, a key factor in the incumbent's popularity.

WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMY?

If Fonseka enters the presidential race, economists expect Rajapaksa to spend more to woo voters with public-sector wage hikes, subsidies and new state jobs. Rajapaksa has already promised public sector pay increases from January. But implementing this will be very difficult due to strings attached to a $2.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). If Rajapaksa decides to cancel the IMF loan, investor confidence in the $40 billion economy will be badly dented.

© Reuters

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Bambalapitiya tragedy: Court to see video

By Lakmal Sooriyagoda - A Colombo Court yesterday allowed the Police to screen on December 3 a video footage of the controversial case where a mentally deranged man was beaten and driven to the sea where he drowned off the Bambalapitiya beach.

Crimes DIG Anura Senanayake told Fort Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya that the repeated telecast of the man being beaten had given the impression that he had been beaten several times and this had damaged the image of the police department.

He asked that he be permitted to screen the video footage in open court.

On behalf of the TNL TV, Counsel Upul Jayasuriya with Shiraz Noordeen submitted that during the news presentation, the video footage was telecast parallel to the news reading and therefore it had been telecast several times.

On behalf of MTV channels, Counsel Udaya Rohan de Silva with Shiraz Noordeen submitted that MTV channels had not telecast the video in a distorted manner.

Meanwhile, the identification parade to identify the four suspects was postponed to November 20.

© Daily Mirror

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