Sri Lankan aid projects investigated

Nearly $537 million in tsunami aid for Sri Lanka is unaccounted for and more than $686m has been spent on projects unrelated to the disaster, an anti-corruption watchdog says.

Berlin-based Transparency International has demanded an audit of the money received by the Sri Lankan government to help victims of the Asian tsunami that hit the island on December 26, 2004, killing 31,000 people.

As the tropical nation marked the fifth anniversary of the tsunami, the group alleged that out of $US2.2 billion ($2.5bn) received for relief, $US603.4m was spent on projects unrelated to the disaster. Another $US471.9m is missing, the group said.

"There is no precise evidence to explain the missing sum of $US471.9m," the TI statement issued in Colombo added. An "audit should be done by the government to explain the utilisation of the money received and the challenges faced", the group said.

A government official declined to comment on the allegations, but Colombo has rejected such accusations in the past.

The claims added to corruption concerns as the reconstruction effort winds down.

UN Under-Secretary General Noeleen Heyzer also voiced fears about early-warning system. Countries in the region had been working with international partners to strengthen systems but "significant gaps" needed to be addressed, he said.

The 2004 tsunami was triggered by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra and seismologists agree another event of that magnitude is almost certain to strike the quake-prone region.

But former US president Bill Clinton, who helped raise millions of dollars in aid for tsunami-hit nations, said Asia had "built back better" since the disaster.

"We will never forget the stories of those who lost their loved ones and all their worldly possessions in one of the worst natural disasters of our time," he said.

"Nor will we forget the tremendous international response from governments, businesses, NGOs, and private citizens who sent money, aid, and prayers in unprecedented volume to the affected regions. We did more than just build back; we built back better."

People across Asia paused over the weekend to remember the day five years ago when an undersea earthquake unleashed the devastating wave that killed more than 220,000 people.

A solemn day of prayers and remembrance to mark one of the world's worst natural disasters was held in Indonesia's Aceh province, which lost almost 170,000 people in the Asian tsunami.

At the site of one of the graves, where more than 14,000 unidentified victims are buried, an elderly woman sat on the ground weeping and reciting Koranic verses for the 40 members of her family who died.

"None of my family members survived in the tsunami. My children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, they all have gone and left me alone here," Siti Aminah, 72, said.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse led remembrance ceremonies by observing two minutes of silence for tsunami victims.

Low-key commemorations marked the anniversary in southern India, which bore the brunt of the disaster in that country, with an estimated 6500 deaths.

On Marina beach in Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, women from fishing hamlets poured milk into the sea and showered flower petals over the water as a mark of respect for those who died.

In Thailand, where 5395 people died, according to the official toll, ceremonies were held on the beach in Phang Nga on the west coast, which was worst hit, and on the southern island of Phuket.

© The Australian

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Sri Lanka tsunami aid misappropriated: watchdog

Nearly half a billion dollars in tsunami aid for Sri Lanka is unaccounted for and over 600 million dollars has been spent on projects unrelated to the disaster, an anti-corruption watchdog said Saturday.

Berlin-based Transparency International demanded an audit of the money received by the Sri Lankan government to help victims of the Asian tsunami which hit the island on December 26, 2004, killing 31,000 people.

The group's Sri Lankan chapter said the public have a right to know how the aid money was spent as the tropical nation marked the fifth anniversary of the tsunami.

The group alleged that out of 2.2 billion dollars received for relief, 603.4 million dollars was spent on projects unrelated to the disaster.

Another half a billion dollars was missing, the group said.

"There is no precise evidence to explain the missing sum of 471.9 million dollars," the Transparency International statement issued in Colombo added.

An "audit should be done by the government to explain the utilisation of the money received and the challenges faced," the group said.

An government official declined comment Saturday on the allegations but Colombo has consistently rejected such accusations in the past.

An initial government audit in 2005 found that less than 13 percent of the aid had been spent, but there has been no formal examination since, Transparency International said.

© AFP

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Lessons to be learnt from Tsunami Reconstruction - Transparency International
Lost and found: Recovering from Sri Lanka's tsunami - BBC

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Sri Lankans want to know where tsunami aid has gone

Feizal Samath - Five years after the tsunami swept over the shores of Sri Lanka destroying everything in its path, victims are continuing to rebuild their lives. But their efforts have been plagued by nagging questions over widespread corruption in programmes expected to provide thousands of houses worth billions of rupees.

More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed and more than a half million displaced when an earthquake off the Indonesian coast on December 26, 2004 triggered a series of tsunamis along coastlines in the Indian Ocean. Nearly 100,000 houses in Sri Lanka were destroyed by the deadly waves.

A drive down to Galle or Matara in the south and Batticaloa or Ampara in the east reveals numerous tsunami victims who have yet to receive promised houses or compensation, while the houses built for many others were constructed so shoddily that they need to be replaced.

Elsy Priyadharshi, a tsunami survivor from Wattala, a coastal town about 10km north of Colombo, was quoted in a statement issued on Tuesday by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) as saying that soon after the tsunami struck, she and her family found refuge in a nearby church and then moved to a camp for the displaced and thereafter to transitional shelters.

“After five years we are finally moving to permanent houses, which are 100,000 times better than the camp where we stayed before and this has helped us get our lives back to normality,” Ms Priyadharshi, who has been a leading advocate for permanent housing, said in the statement.

Her new home is part of the IOM tsunami recovery programme that has built about 8,570 emergency transitional shelters and permanent homes for tsunami-affected communities along the southern and eastern coasts of the island nation. Takuya Ono, the head of IOM Sri Lanka’s engineering services, said in the statement that without a permanent home, it is difficult for people to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

Ms Priyadharshi and others are now asking why it took so long for them to get a home to call their own.

Transparency International Sri Lanka in March 2007 found that funds pledged by donors for post-tsunami work totalled 241.5 billion rupees (Dh18.9bn), of which 122 billion rupees were disbursed to various implementing agencies. Out of this, only 68.5 billion rupees were spent on projects.

“There is no precise evidence to explain the missing sum of 53.5 billion rupees [of money disbursed],” TI said at the time. Rukshana Nanayakkara, TI Sri Lanka’s deputy executive director, said no proper audit of funds used in post-tsunami work has been done. “An audit was done by the government’s auditor general in 2005 [soon after the money came in from donors] but nothing after that,” he said in a recent interview.

“There were serious issues about how the money was being spent and by whom,” said Firzan Hashim, the deputy executive director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, which acts as a co-ordinating body for many non-governmental organisation’s relief efforts, including Save the Children and Oxfam.

Mr Hashim pointed out that after numerous NGOs swarmed into the country after the tsunami hit, local authorities struggled to keep track of their movements. Citing one example of the attempts to misuse donor funds, Mr Hashim explained how one foreign couple wanted pictures of tsunami housing projects to send abroad to a donor and claim it was done by them. “We chased them away,” he said.

Jayaweerabaduge Nimal, a 43-year-old fisherman from Ussangoda village near the southern town of Hambantota, said he’s lucky to be alive after the tsunami almost swept him away. While his house was not destroyed, as it was some distance from the sea, he said several new houses meant for the victims went to others who were unaffected.

“If you were friendly with a local politician or prepared to pay a small bribe to a local official, you could get a house on false pretences,” he said.

Mr Nimal’s sister and four other relatives died in the tragedy. His parents, whose house was near the beach at Ussangoda, survived the tragedy but their house was washed away.

Mr Nimal does recall one short-term benefit left in the tsunami’s wake. While many fishermen didn’t return to the sea for nearly three months, he took his catamaran out to sea in early January 2005 and was blessed with a large catch. “There was an overflow of fish as no fishing had taken place for several days and we had plenty to eat and sell,” he recalled.

Mohamed Rushdi, also from Hambantota, has no such positive memories of the effects of the tsunami. “We were on the second floor of our house and heard this loud noise. With my father and mother, I rushed downstairs and then saw the place flooded. We then rushed upstairs only to be washed away as the waters swelled and rose,” he said.

Moments later Mr Rushdi found himself 500 metres away from his home with a broken leg and debris all over. The bodies of his parents were never recovered. Mr Rushdi now lives in Canada. He recently returned to Sri Lanka for his sister’s wedding. “That was a traumatic experience,” he said, recalling the tsunami and its aftermath.

But the wave of sympathy for the affected, irrespective of race or religion, in those early days, lifted some hopes that the majority Sinhalese would patch up their differences with minority Tamils who were complaining of discrimination in state education and jobs.

“Unfortunately that didn’t happen. We lost a great opportunity for unity after the tsunami. We have another chance now that the conflict is over,” said Renton de Alwis, the former head of Sri Lanka’s state agency responsible for tourism, who is now a social activist.

Today the government says it is better prepared should another tsunami hit. Gamini Hettiarachchi, the director general of the Disaster Management Centre, said 55 tsunami warning towers have been placed across the island with sirens and speaker systems that are operated at the press of a button from the Colombo-based centre.

“We get global alerts on earthquakes and did an evacuation on a tsunami warning in July 2007,” he said, adding that creating awareness on disasters such as the tsunami and setting up district committees on early warning, search and rescue, and camp management have been going on in the past few years.

The Disaster Management Centre was organising a tsunami-alert rehearsal at 3pm on Saturday in 11 districts in which 400 to 500 families will be evacuated to safer ground after warnings are sounded.

“We need to maintain a state of preparedness,” Mr Hettiarachchi said.

© The National

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In Sri Lanka, Tsunami Anniversary Inspires Mixed Reactions

By Amantha Perera - They were the iconic images of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami from Sri Lanka — the twisted hulks of eight carriages and a locomotive swept aside and tossed around like matchboxes by the killer waves. The train was packed with passengers and others who had sought refuge in them when the first wave hit Sri Lanka's southern shore. When the larger and deadlier swell struck them on the tracks, villagers estimate that as many as 1500 died inside.

The drowned train in Peraliya, about 60 miles (95 km) south of Colombo, soon became the most sought after camera opportunity for visiting media that followed the catastrophic tsunami five years ago this week. Hundreds came each day to look at the empty carriages, three of which were left standing on the side of the track for months while parts of the train were salvaged.

Today, the village of Peraliya is serene. The carriages are gone, and the few visitors who stop by come to see a large Buddha statue, or the memorial for those who died, located close to the wreckage site. The carriages themselves, once tagged to be the showcase of a national tsunami memorial, are now rusting at a yard in Colombo, and will likely be sold for scrap metal unless they decay before that. The dents where the waves hit are more pronounced now, and rusting has left gaping holes caving in the roofs and walls. The carriages' guts are a mess of ripped seats, metal poles, dirt and clothing, diaries and shoes. No one at the yard is sure who they belong to. Some could be from curious visitors who got into the carriages; others could of those doomed inside them. "After the initial rush to see them, they were soon forgotten," says Lalith Gamhewa, the station master at Hikkaduwa, where the three carriages remained from December 2005 until mid-2008 before they were moved to Colombo."Like the tsunami."

The approaching five year anniversary of tsunami in Sri Lanka inspired mixed reactions among the survivors along the southern coast. The waves left over 35,000 dead here, displaced over a million people, destroyed 100,0000 houses and left 150,000 without jobs. The reconstruction bill was $3.5 billion. But for many who faced the waves directly, it seems the country has moved on and all but forgotten the details. "I am not sure whether many know of the five year commemorations. It seems like it is something from the past and gone," says Ajantha Smarawickrema, a television cameraman who shot images of four women being dragged by the waves in Galle, a town three miles (5 km) from the train wreck.

But the waves still dictate the daily life of 22-year-old Aniseya Sulthan, a young Muslim woman living in a temporary shelter for the tsunami displaced on the east coast. Over 1300 families in the town of Kalmunai continue to wait for houses five years after their homes were swept away. Now, with no house to put up as a dowry, Aniseya's parents are having difficulty finding a suitable groom for her. "I built a nice house near the coast for her. Nothing was left of it after the tsunami," Nafrath Sulthan, her father, tells TIME. He sits in front of one of dozens of dimly lit, tin-sheet roofed shelters, with clothes, suitcases, extra furniture, garbage and even domestic chickens littered out front. Thick electrical wires coil near the top of the doors of some of the structures; their occupants fear that power outages could end up engulfing their homes. It's happened before.

Aniseya hides behind the front door, peeping out occasionally as her father speaks, her face covered with a head scarf. "Our tradition is that girls have to get married when they are 21, 22. Time is running out for her," the nervous father said.

Lack of housing is a problem for young Muslim women like Anesiya still living in the shelters, admits Ismail Thawfiek, the top government official in the area. He says the delay in construction has been forced by the 213-foot (65m) no-build buffer zone implemented along the coast in Kalmunai after the tsunami. Authorities have been forced to reclaim land formerly used for paddy cultivation to build the new homes to replace those that fell in the buffer zone. "Land is a big issue here, but we have located them. We think we can give all these people the houses by early next year," says Thawfiek.

In Hambantota, another town on the south coast, the houses have been built too fast, some say. In Siribopura, a massive tsunami rehousing scheme spanning over nearly 600 acres (240 hectares). Over 1500 houses have sprung up in an area where elephants used to walk. Businessmen complain that the development's new market and business complex is too far out from the former city center, and some residents working in the fishing industry who found it too difficult to commute between between the new housing in Siribopura and the beach have already sublet their new units to move closer to the shore. Another lot of houses rapidly constructed through public donations from Hungary started losing rafters, beams and windows even before the first tenants arrived. "Some of the houses were so bad, that no one could live in them," says Charles Rathnayake, a resident who moved in after extensive repairs. Around him many of the houses at Hungama, or 'Hungarian Village,' were being overtaken by shrub.

Not everyone, however, is complaining. The very first class of students from Siribopura's new school will take the main government exam in December. "We are very happy. We have a new school, new friends, and the sea is far away," says one beaming student, Thilini Sara. (The school still runs a special counseling program for its students to get over the trauma caused by the waves.) Ajith Priyantha, a fishing boat operator tending his nets on the Hambantota fishing harbor, is also grateful for the help. "We got boats and nets. It was easy for us to get back to fishing," he says.

But for all who fell victim to the deadly waves, the memories of December 26, 2004 are not as easy to shrug off. There are still houses and buildings left untouched after the waves receded, standing like skeletal ghosts with long shadows amidst the newly constructed buildings. Small blue signs dot the coast, indicating where to run in case of a tsunami warning. Sri Lankan authorities recently tested a multi-million dollar early warning system along the beaches. In Sainathimaruthu, where villagers say at least 3500 died, a large red tower stands on the beach equipped with a public address system — a constant reminder that, despite the rhythms of life having returned to some kind of normalcy, it could happen again.

© TIME

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'Weapons were for Sri Lanka' says crew

A crew charged in Thailand with illegal arms possession say their plane was headed for Sri Lanka and not Iran, when it was seized in the Thai capital with a cache of North Korean weapons, media reports from Thailand reported on Wednesday (23).

Defense lawyer Somsak Saithong had told the media that the four Kazakhstan citizens and one from Belarus, as saying that their flight plan called for a refueling stop in Bangkok before flying to Sri Lanka.

But according to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd., or UTM, to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including in Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

"They always deny any involvement with the weapons or any charges they are accused of. They told me that their job was just to fly the cargo plane to its destination. They don't know about or had anything to do with the cargo itself" said Somsak.

The plane's papers described its cargo as oil-drilling machinery for delivery to Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan authorities had earlier rejected reports that the plane was heading for Sri Lanka

In an interview with the BBC, Expert on International terrorism, Dr. Rohan Gunaratne said the weapon were not heading towards Sri Lanka.

"During the conflict, the Tamil Tigers got ninety percent of their weapons from North Korea but they came on ships." says Dr. Gunaratne.

© BBC Sinhala

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Letter on U.N. queries withdrawn: Sri Lanka

B. Muralidhar Reddy - The Sri Lankan government on Thursday announced that the letter sent by Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights Rajiva Wijesinghe in response to questions raised by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions Phillip Alston, on charges made by the former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka against Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa about the sequence of events in the last phase of Eelam War IV (May 16 to 19), should be treated as withdrawn.

The letter and its withdrawal have embarrassed the Mahinda Rajapaksa government as the ruling combine and the opposition were building it up as an issue for the January 26 presidential election where the retired General is pitted against President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

In his letter Prof. Wijesinghe had argued that since the retired General Fonseka had distanced himself from the comments attributed to him in the December 13 interview to the English weekly Sunday Leader, the questions raised by the U.N. were irrelevant.

“The Secretary had written the letter without consulting the Foreign Office and other relevant authorities in the Government. The Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva had been instructed to withhold the letter sent by the Secretary,” a senior official in the Presidential Secretariat told The Hindu.

Indications are that the government does not want to do anything which could allow the former Army Chief portray himself in public as a “victim”. Minister of Mass Media and Information Anura Priyadarshana Yapa told reporters at the weekly Cabinet briefing that the government would not take “political advantage” over the statement of General Fonseka.

He said the government did not wish to penalise any individual without a valid reason and added that the present administration was a democratic entity and urged journalists to ask General Fonseka why he made such a statement. “As a Government we are ready to face the statement of Fonseka because it cannot be ignored,” he noted.

© The Hindu

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Sri Lanka among the world's "Top 10 Humanitarian Crises" - MSF Releases 12th Annual List

View the Top Ten Humanitarian Crises of 2009

Civilians attacked, bombed, and cut off from aid in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), along with stagnant funding for treating HIV/AIDS and ongoing neglect of other diseases, were among the worst emergencies in 2009, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported today in its annual list of the "Top Ten" humanitarian crises.

Continuing crises in north and south Sudan, along with the failure of the international community to finally combat childhood malnutrition were also included on this year’s list. The list is drawn from MSF’s operational activities in close to 70 countries, where the organization’s medical teams witnessed some of the worst humanitarian conditions.

Three distinct patterns dominated in 2009: governments blocked lifesaving assistance to trapped populations, including in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Sudan, where aid groups—including some MSF teams—were expelled from Darfur; respect for civilian safety and neutral humanitarian action further eroded, such as in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, DRC, and Somalia, where people—and in some cases aid workers—were either indiscriminately or directly attacked; people suffering from a host of largely ignored diseases were again neglected by the international community, and those living with HIV/AIDS saw their chances of receiving life extending therapy further diminished.

“There is no question that civilians are increasingly victimized in conflicts and further cut off from lifesaving assistance, often deliberately,” said MSF International Council President Dr. Christophe Fournier. “In places like Sri Lanka and Yemen, where armed conflicts raged in 2009, aid groups were either blocked from accessing those in need or forced out because they too came under fire. This unacceptable dynamic is becoming the norm. Our teams on the ground are witnessing the very tangible human consequences of these crises directly, either in war zones or in the AIDS and nutrition clinics in which they work,” he said. We’re therefore compelled and obligated to speak out.”

In Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of civilians were trapped with no aid and limited medical care as government forces battled Tamil Tiger rebels in the spring. Aid groups, including MSF, were banned from entering the conflict zone. In Somalia, civilians continued to bear the brunt of a vicious civil war. More than 200,000 people fled the capital, Mogadishu, in just the first few months of 2009 and aid workers were increasingly targeted – at least 42 relief workers have been killed since 2008, including three MSF staff.

In Yemen, civilians and hospitals were heavily affected by fighting in the Saada region in the north of the country as government forces fought rebels. The fighting forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and compelled MSF to close the only hospital serving an entire district after it was shelled. And in a glaring case of abuse of humanitarian action for military gain, civilians gathered with their children at MSF vaccination sites in North Kivu, DRC in October, came under attack by government forces. The attack threatened to severely undermine the trust necessary to carry out independent medical humanitarian work in conflict settings.

In Pakistan, where tens of thousands fled fighting, hospitals were struck by mortar fire and two MSF workers were killed in Swat Valley, where the organization ultimately suspended its operations due to the violence there.

On the medical front, years of success in increasing treatment for the numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS was threatened with punishment in 2009. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced plans to reduce or limit funding.

“Just when more and more people were accessing crucial medicines and medical experts were acknowledging the need to put people on treatment sooner, patients will be turned away from clinics because the funding just won’t be there,” said Dr. Fournier. “The timing could not be worse.”

The neglect also extends to childhood malnutrition, a treatable disease that is the underlying cause of up to half of the annual ten million preventable deaths of children under five each year. Global leaders gathered at the World Food Summit in Rome in 2009 failed to commit to combating the disease, which groups like MSF have shown can be prevented and treated by providing growing children with proper foods that meet their nutritional requirements.

Right now, international assistance to fight malnutrition amounts $350 million dollars, while the World Bank estimates $11.8 billion is required to adequately combat the disease in 36 high burden countries. Additionally, most food assistance is made up of costly and inefficient in-kind donations containing products of poor nutritional value that must be shipped overseas. Resources could be better spent on obtaining nutritionally appropriated foods closer to their source.

Other diseases, such as Chagas, kala azar, sleeping sickness, and Buruli ulcer continue to be neglected, with very few new commitments to expanding access to available treatment or carrying out research for much needed newer and more effective drugs.

“The tremendous resources devoted to the H1N1 pandemic in developed countries illustrates the response capacity for global health threats when the political will exists,” said Dr. Fournier. “Regrettably, we fail to see the same commitments made to combat diseases claiming millions of more lives each year.”

MSF began producing the "Top Ten" list in 1998, when a devastating famine in southern Sudan went largely unreported in U.S. media. Drawing on MSF’s emergency medical work, the list seeks to generate greater awareness of the magnitude and severity of crises that may or may not be reflected in media accounts.

© Médecins Sans Frontières

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A nasty, cruel war followed by a nasty, dirty election

by Dr. Packiyasothy Saravanamuttu - Philip Alston the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions has asked the Government of Sri Lanka for explanations regarding the deaths of three senior LTTE leaders and members of their families in the final stages of the war.

He wants in particular information pertaining to the the “circumstances of the death of three representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Balasingham Nadesan, Seevaratnam Pulidevan and Ramesh, as well as members of their families in the night of 17 to 18 May, 2009”.

Alston’s inquiry follows the allegations made by presidential candidate Fonseka in an interview with the editor in chief of a Sunday paper. Fonseka claims that he was misquoted and the editor stands by her story.

What the Newspaper reported was that according to Fonseka who had obtained this information from journalists “embedded” with the 58th Brigade of the Sri Lanka Army, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had instructed the Brigade Commander Major General Shavendra Silva to shoot and kill the above named LTTE leaders as they came out carrying a white flag to surrender. Fonseka has subsequently insisted that these orders were not carried out and that he as the then Army Commander takes full responsibility for the conduct of the troops. He also maintains that he was in full command, even when he was out of the country in China in the last days of the war.

These allegations are self evidently serious. Every school boy and girl knows that a white flag means surrender and every soldier surely knows the basic rules of war – people carrying white flags are not to be shot at and killed. The fall out from them, generating more heat than light, underscores the challenge of the choice before us in this presidential election and the prospects for democracy, peace, reconciliation and unity. One thing seems clear, there are questions, serious, unanswered questions about the way in which the war was won and what happened in its final stages.

Allegations of human rights violations and war crimes persist. They are not going away, notwithstanding the belief of the main political formations that the credentials of their candidates must reside in their indubitable claim to responsibility for military victory.

In the context of the presidential election and prevailing political culture it is not surprising that Rajapaksa supporters have all screamed betrayal at candidate Fonseka. Supporters of candidate Fonseka, on the other hand, have resorted to a number of responses.

They range from accusations of partisanship against the Leader to commending his courage in spilling the beans on the heart of darkness of the regime to even those who believe that whatever may have been retracted, the allegation will garner votes for him amongst the Tamil community which according to the conventional wisdom will have a decisive say in the choice of the next president. No doubt there are those who will buy the argument about betrayal and Fonseka’s handlers may hope that the damage having being done in the relatively early stages of the campaign may be undone, subsequently.

What they do need to take note of are the costs of their candidate going solo and expressing his visceral hatred of the Rajapaksas. This if let out often will obscure whatever other qualities and attributes his supporters and handlers believe he brings to his quest for the presidency and undermine it.

Betrayal suggests that whatever is alleged in the newspaper interview, happened. It certainly constitutes grounds for reasonable speculation. There is a presidential panel mandated to respond to the US State Department report to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Incidents During the Recent Conflict in Sri Lanka, commonly referred to as the War Crimes Report. Fonseka’s Ambalangoda speech is cited in the State Department report as well as the killing of LTTE surrendees. Will the recent controversy be looked into as well and when will the findings of the panel be made public? Or is all of this irrelevant because there will always be doubts about the independence and impartiality of any commission or panel in this country and in any event, the allegations are such that neither side of the political divide in the current election is exempt from suspicion and culpability? Is the regime interested in investigating these allegations? In a response to Alston, Prof Wijesinghe, Secretary of the Human Rights Ministry states:

Since your letter was based on a report of allegations by General Fonseka which he has clarified in a manner that negates the story, I assume you will now withdraw your letter.

At the same time, the Daily News headline referring to the Fonseka allegations and Alston letter reads in bold letters – Great Betrayal. Now it may be argued that the betrayal referred to is of the troops he commanded irrespective of whether the allegation is true or not. In his overwhelming desire to throw muck at the Rajapaksas, Fonseka does not, it is argued, give a damn about muck sticking to the soldiers who were under his command, now commonly referred to as the heroic troops.

There must be an occasion on which he states clearly and unequivocally as to what he knows of what happened. More than just his presidency or that of the current incumbent depends on it. Accountability, reconciliation and unity do. On this score, there is hardly any difference between the incumbent and his principal challenger. Each one has publicly, loudly and proudly proclaimed that he alone will bear responsibility, if any, for war crimes.

We need to know what happened and yes, it has a bearing on who we choose to be our president.Voters who want to be better informed should read the latest Special Report No 34 by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) titled Let Them Speak: Truth about Sri Lanka’s Victims of War.

This report by the internationally recognized UTHR whose reports have been quoted by successive Sri Lankan governments should be made mandatory reading for all Sri Lankans and for generations to come.

Chilling and harrowing it records the experience of the civilians who were targeted by both sides in the war. The UTHR report alone surely must constitute grounds for an investigation of the allegations and incidents that marked and marred this war, if nothing else. The report states that:

What these survivors’ stories make clear is that for both parties, the key to military dominance lay not in brilliant strategies, but in an utter disregard for the lives of civilians and combatants alike, driven by their leader’s single -minded pursuit of personal power.

A nasty and cruel war is being followed by a nasty, dirty election. We must vote and thereafter ensure as best we can that whoever becomes president sheds as much light on this nastiness and cruelty and commits to ensuring that it is never repeated.

Even if peace, reconciliation are not accorded the prominence they demand in this election campaign, they must be acknowledged as the imperatives for government and governance thereafter.

© Transcurrents.com

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Sri Lanka war-displaced struggle to resume lives

By Shihar Aneez - Thousands of ethnic Tamils displaced during Sri Lanka's war have gone home again, but are finding basic services and infrastructure lacking despite a massive government post-war resettlement programme.

The government has gradually been resettling around 300,000 ethnic minority Tamil people, most displaced in the final phase of the army offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended with the Tiger's defeat in May after a 25-year war.

Various foreign aid and human rights groups, as well as U.N. officials, have criticised conditions in the camps and have urged the government, which needs foreign help and investment to boost Sri Lanka's post-war economy, to resettle the Tamils quickly. According to government data, it had resettled 127,352 people in their areas of origin as of Wednesday. Over 140,000 are yet to be resettled.

At one point over 280,000 displaced people were being kept under guard in northern Vavuniya, 260 km (161 miles) away from Colombo, inside cramped military-run camps.

Many have now been resettled in their original home areas, after the government determined there was not a threat of land mines. But those Reuters spoke to say the conditions leave much to be desired.

"We don't have drinking water or toilet facilities," said Muttaiah Sivayoganathan, a 53-year-old father of three in the colony of Parannattakal, 10 km north from Vavuniya town.

"Backside forest has been used as our toilet." he said, referring to woods behind his house.

"I don't have any money to resume farming. But still we were asked by the government to build a house on our own land temporarily before proper resettlement."

His wife and three children had gone to have a bath in one of his relative's house in Vavuniya town, where they also cook their food due to lack of clean water around his newly built house.

Walls of the 9 square-meter, one-room house are made of coconut fronds and the roof of galvanised tin sheets. The dirt floor was wet due to pouring monsoonal rain outside. Along with some dry rations, the government gave him 16 galvanised tin sheets, 5,000 rupees ($43.7) in cash, and some farming equipment to rebuild his house and resume his livelihood.

POISONOUS SNAKES

Many others in the resettlement area complained about conditions as well. Some had been bitten by poisonous snakes when they were using forests for lavatory purposes.

"The government should punish those who were involved in terrorism, not all ethnic Tamils," a dejected old man in the colony told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Two weeks ago, his wife was bitten by a snake, but luckily survived after a four-day treatment in a nearby hospital.

"They promised us (the government would) provide everything. But so far nothing has happened in the last two months since we resettled here."

Some said they stay in the area only in the daylight hours, going to relatives' house at night due to the presence of snakes and lack of facilities.

The Sri Lankan government gave freedom of movement from Dec. 1 to the displaced persons housed in military-run camps, after facing pressure to speed up resettlement not just internationally, but locally ahead of a presidential election Jan. 26.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's administration promised the United Nations to resettle between 70 and 80 percent of those in the camps by the end of the year and all by end-January.

However, many remain in the camps because their home areas have not yet been opened up as mine clearance operations are still going on.

That is the situation for tens of thousands of Tamils from the former rebel-held districts of Mullateevu and Kilinochchi.

"I won't feel freedom, until I go to my own home," said M. Iruthayanyahi in Vavuniya town while waiting for a bus to return to Manik Farm camp, the largest, after staying 15 days at a relative's house.

She had lost her eldest son on Jan. 10 in Puthukkudiyiruppu in Mullaitivu district by a shell attack and her second son is in army custody over suspicious LTTE links.

Which candidate most of Sri Lanka's Tamil minority chooses to support could be an important factor in the presidential election, with the resettlement process one of the issues.

Rajapaksa's main challenger General Sarath Fonseka, who led the military to defeat the LTTE as the then-commander of the army, says the government has resettled the displaced persons without proper planning.

© Reuters

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Chinese aid for Sri Lanka

B. Muralidhar Reddy - Sri Lanka and China have signed three framework agreements amounting to $410 million under which Beijing will provide concessional funding for several projects in Sri Lanka, including the second international airport at Mattala.

A Sri Lankan team led by Secretary to the Treasury Jayasundera is on a three-day official visit to China.

The statement said an annual granting agreement was also signed with the Commerce Ministry of China to the value of $7 million.

As per the release, Dr. Jayasundera apprised Chinese Vice-Minister Chen Jian of the progress achieved in the fields of power, ports and highways as well as construction and development initiatives, particularly in the northern and eastern regions.

“He further briefed Chinese officials that it is the intention of the government of President Rajapaksa to speed up reconstruction efforts, especially the construction of roads and railroads, to link the North and South which would contribute to improving the living conditions and livelihoods of the people in those provinces.

Mr. Chen indicated further development assistance to improve the general living standards as well as to achieve a higher growth rate in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan delegation also held discussions with the Finance Ministry of China, and assessed the progress of ongoing projects with Chinese Contractors,” it said.

© The Hindu

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