By Saroj Pathirana | BBC Sinhala Service
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Bell Pottinger Group was recently hired to lobby UK, UN and EU officials.
The government says it employs several PR companies but will not disclose their names or the amount paid. Bell Pottinger also refused to give details.
Sri Lanka's authorities strongly deny alleged human rights abuses in the defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels last year.
Tourist arrivals
Bell Pottinger - whose motto on its website is "Better reputations, better results" - is believed to be lobbying on Sri Lanka's behalf in Brussels, following an EU decision to withdraw special tax concessions called GSP Plus.
The European Union decided in July to withdraw Sri Lanka's preferential trade access to EU markets, saying it had failed to improve its human rights record.
It is thought the firm was also employed in Sri Lanka's attempts to prevent the UN secretary general appointing an advisory panel on alleged war crimes committed during the civil war.
In the UK, the group's main focus is countering what the Sri Lankan government says is propaganda by pro-Tamil Tiger groups in the influential Tamil diaspora.
Last week the firm helped promote the UK visit of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Prof GL Peiris, who gave the keynote speech at London's International Institute of Strategic Studies.
Sri Lanka's Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal confirmed that the government had hired a few PR companies. But he refused to reveal the amounts paid.
"So many people are spending huge sums of money to tarnish our country's image. Media institutions are also involved in this. We will do everything possible to boost that image and I believe it is our duty," he told the BBC.
A Sri Lankan government source, who did not want to be named, confirmed to the BBC that the amount paid to Bell Pottinger was in the region of £3m this year.
Sri Lanka's image abroad - and in the UK in particular - has much resting on it. Britain is the main provider of tourists to the country from outside the South Asia region.
Sanjika Perera, the UK Director of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, said: "Arrivals from the UK are up 30% year on year and the market sentiments/forward bookings indicate that UK will pass the 100,000 mark in arrivals in 2010."
Tourism promotion in the UK is handled by two other PR firms, Representation Plus and Romanski.
When a request was made under the Freedom of Information act, the chairman of Bell Pottinger's parent company, Chime Communications, told the BBC Sinhala service that the act only covers UK government departments and certain contractors.
"Further I must tell you all our client contracts are commercially confidential - consequently we cannot supply the information you seek," Lord Bell said.
© BBC News
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sri Lanka 'pays PR firm £3m to boost post-war image'
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Amid Sri Lanka's boom, life for Tamils remains bleak
Photo courtesy: Ross Tuttle
By Rick Westhead | The Star
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It’s not that more people are seeking forgiveness in this seaside chapel. Rather, parishioners have been flocking here just for the chance to sit with Father Cryton Outschoorn, to listen to his soothing assurance that their lives, clouded for so many years by fear and violence, are getting better.
“It seems like forever people here have been asking, ‘what can happen to us next?’ so it’s not easy to give condolences,” the 35-year-old priest said one recent morning. “Life still isn’t easy in Sri Lanka but it is better than it was. I remind them that for years they have been praying for peace and now they finally have that. It’s an answer to prayer.”
Outschoorn’s reminder notwithstanding, some Sri Lankans are struggling to be optimistic in the wake of the country’s civil war, a venomous stretch of history that lasted from 1975 until May of last year, splintering society and leaving an estimated 70,000 dead.
On one hand, news coming out of this island nation off India’s southern coast seems to be remarkably positive.
The government says foreign money is pouring into Sri Lanka now that suicide bombers and landmines are history. Economic growth is pegged at 8 per cent, unemployment is decreasing, inflation is in check, and a new International Monetary Fund-approved tax regime will bolster tax revenues.
“They have a once-in-a-generation-type story,” says Koshy Mathai, an American who is the IMF’s representative in Colombo.
Yet in many pockets of this palm-fringed nation, weary residents interviewed by the dozen tell a different tale. The prices of food, cooking oil and gas are at all-time highs, they say, and the government is failing to follow through on a promise to give provincial councils more power over local administration. Sri Lankan Pesident Mahinda Rajapaksa promises to repair roads and bridges and broken spirits, yet some say development remains largely limited to the western and southern regions of Sri Lanka, benefiting the country’s Sinhalese majority.
But conditions in Sri Lanka’s northern province, the Tamil heartland, remain bleak and still mostly undocumented because local journalists self-censor their news coverage and access for the foreign press is still tightly restricted.
That is where the bulk of the 492 refugee claimants who landed in Vancouver aboard the Sun Sea call home.
Jehan Perera, the executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka in Colombo, recently visited Jaffna province and saw how the government has resettled some Tamil families after their release from IDP camps. Close to 300,000 people were forced out of their homes in the final days of fighting between rebels and soldiers and the government now says just 20,000 remain in its so-called “welfare centres.”
Perera said he travelled up Sri Lanka’s A-9 Highway, cut off a side road and drove for many kilometres before he reached a settlement.
“They were basically living in huts with no electricity, no toilets, no hopes for jobs,” Perera said. “At night when it was pitch black, they talked about how poisonous snakes would come into their huts. For someone to say all these refugees in Canada should be returned here to be resettled like that, I just think, ‘can’t you give these people a break?’”
But a visitor to Sri Lanka doesn’t need to journey to the remote north to get a sense for how social issues still simmer.
A Colombo newspaper called Virakesari reported this month that police officials were demanding local Tamil residents register with their office, said Mano Ganesan, a Tamil politician. “It shows that mindset of mistrust by is still there more than a year after the war,” he said.
The report in Virakesari came only a few days after masked intruders burst into the offices of Siyatha, a TV and radio news broadcaster also based in the Sri Lankan capital. The media company upset government officials last year when it supported the failed presidential bid of former Sri Lankan general Sarath Fonseka. The intruders rampaged in the company’s offices for 15 minutes, assaulted staff and set fires. Yet in a high-security section of the city that still has a string of police checkpoints, the intruders inexplicably vanished afterwards.
“Either Colombo is not safe, despite the near hysterical hype on security and the ubiquitous presence of gun-toting servicemen; or the attack on Siyatha was carried out with the knowledge (if not at the behest) of powers-that-be,” the Asian Tribune newspaper wrote in an editorial about the break-in.
Other human-rights advocates point out The Economist magazine is routinely confiscated by customs agents when it dedicates coverage to current events here. And it has resolutely refused to cooperate with a UN commission studying atrocities committed in the final days of the war.
Perera said the absence of media freedom is only one of several reasons he’s anxious about Sri Lanka’s future.
Sri Lanka’s parliament last month passed an amendment to its constitution to remove presidential term limits, opening the door for Rajapaksa to run for a third term. The amendment also gives the president unfettered ability to both appoint and sack Supreme Court judges, members of the human rights and electoral commissions, and the country’s police chief.
“The separation of powers and checks and balances are all breaking down,” Perera said.
At the same time, there are growing concerns over the lack of progress toward a political resolution with the country’s Tamil minority. Instead of salving wounds, some critics say the government is exacerbating them.
In Jaffna, a city of bullet-scarred and dilapidated buildings in Sri Lanka’s north that was the de facto capital of The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the cold-blooded separatist group that paralyzed the country’s progress for so many years, Sri Lanka’s military has bulldozed L.T.T.E. cemeteries and erected a monument to the country’s fallen soldiers.
Neil Buhne, a Canadian and the Chief of the United Nations mission here, said the 1 million residents of Sri Lanka’s northern province Jaffna remain emotionally fragile and wondered why the government didn’t instead erect something to commemorate the country’s collective losses.
“They’ve gone through hell,” Buhne said. “The bulldozing of cemeteries and building a war memorial to soldiers is not a confidence-building measure. They don’t need to do it.”
In the eastern cities of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, cities that were hard hit by the tsunami in December 2004, Sri Lanka’s war continues to claim victims. The main hospital in Batticaloa, for instance, is admitting a record number of battered women.
“We have at least 10 new cases a day and many have husbands who are turning to alcohol or drugs because they can’t cope with feelings of isolation and loneliness after the war,” said Jayatheepa Pathasri, a mental-health care worker.
Pathasri herself is a casualty of Sri Lanka’s conflict.
Fourteen months ago—more than a month after the war’s official conclusion—the 26-year-old’s husband, a taxi cab driver, walked out of their home and looked back over his shoulder, hollering he’d see his wife and son later that night after work. He never came home.
“His brother was L.T.T.E. but not him,” said Pathasri, wearing a mustard-coloured sari with her hair pulled back neatly and held by a brown pin. “I think the government soldiers took him, but there are lots of stories like this.”
Even though Pathasri said some residents are struggling to cope following the end of the civil war, other locals insist they’re anxious to move on and rebuild, something they literally couldn’t afford to do for years. In L.T.T.E.-controlled swaths of the country, even renovating a modest home would bring a visit from L.T.T.E. brass demanding a contribution to the cause.
“If you had money to fix the bullet holes in your house, they figured you had money to help the cause,” a restaurant owner in Batticaloa said with a sigh.
But now, there are tangible signs of optimism in Sri Lanka’s beleaguered east, which until 2006 was controlled by the rebel group.
Travellers who brave the jarring nine-hour train ride from Colombo see roads lined with cement bags and sheets of steel. Repairs to the road linking Batticaloa and Trincomalee should be completed in months, cutting the driving time to two hours from the current eight.
Businesses, meantime, like the Indian cellphone company Airtel are gradually moving into the east and helping spur the local economy.
In a riverfront hotel in Batticaloa on a recent evening, executives with Unilever held a celebratory party for 20 local distributors.
The consumer-goods giant sells about $500,000 worth of products in the city each month, said Basil Fernando, a Unilever territory manager. When he arrived here two years ago, monthly sales were about $280,000.
As his customers munched on chicken wings and sipped arak, a local spirit made from fermented coconuts, a young woman wearing a green dress and ankle bangles danced to traditional Tamil music. Signboards taped on the walls promoted Unilever’s 10 rupee Astra margarine — you don’t need to put it in a cooler” — and its new Lux soap brand, which Fernando was sure would be a fast seller. “It’s an expensive party but it’s worth it,” he said, smiling. “The market is booming.”
There is similarly positive news further north up the coast in Trincomalee, a city of 350,000 where cement and flour factories and a flurry of fishing trawlers are the largest local employers.
While soldiers still patrol city streets, locals say they are relieved to be rid of the military checkpoints that until recently dotted the roads like 10-yard lines on a football field. Local fishermen are now allowed to take their boats out at night, something that was impossible to do during the war.
The military also seems to be trying to repair its image with locals. In coming weeks, a new reality TV show will debut in Sri Lanka that will be styled after America’s Got Talent. Members of the military will compete against one another in competitions of dancing, singing and juggling. The show’s underlying message: soldiers are people, too.
As a young woman in a pink sari and a yellow reflective vest swept garbage from a stretch of beach in Trincomalee, Thussi Ponnampala, the 28-year-old manager of a small 10-room seaside guest house here that charges 1,500 rupees ($13.50 Canadian) a night showed a visitor his vision of an expanded hotel with an all-day barbecue pit and surf shop.
“How long are we going to have fighting? There’s no future in that,” he said.
In 1990, Ponnampala said his father was stopped by Sri Lankan soldiers at a checkpoint.
“He wasn’t doing anything wrong but because he didn’t have money to pay off the soldier he was shot in the head,” Ponnampala said matter-of-factly. “But it’s all politics and we can either keep worrying about that and living in the past or move on. I choose to move on.”
Others seem to be willing to following suit.
While Sri Lanka’s northern province will contribute a mere 3.3 per cent to the country’s GDP this year, according to government estimates, money is beginning to flow into the region. The U.S. government is investing in a plant near Jaffna to make high-end blue jeans for customers such as Levi’s and J.C. Penney. New restaurants and hotels opening along the A9 are mostly owned by local Tamils, according to an August report in Time magazine.
India is promising $800 million in low-interest loans to help redevelop the north and east and is building 50,000 new homes in the once war-hobbled zone — nearly one-third of the 160,000 new homes the U.N. says are required.
China, similarly, is also vying for the affection of Sri Lanka’s government and has promised $500 million to build new seaports, a power grid, and a new highway in the east.
Despite the increased foreign investment and the steady flow of “good news” stories that salt the front-pages of Sri Lanka’s several English newspapers, some Sri Lankans say they worry that Rajapaksa’s government show no signs of being willing to loosen its grip on power.
In the east, for instance, a civilian government elected by locals is now in place, headed by a 34-year-old former child soldier named Pillayan, who was an L.T.T.E. before bolting to join the government. Yet the government has also established a governor in the east, a former military general, who can veto any legislation passed by Pillayan’s elected officials.
In 2008, the governor nixed a new law that would have introduced motor vehicle licensing fees, a venture that could have raised as much as 1 billion rupees ($100 million) a year for the province, said Dr. K. Vigneswaran, a former member of Sri Lanka’s parliament who is now an adviser to Pillayan. More recently, the governor killed an effort to pass a bill that would have allowed the provincial government to formally collect contributions from the Sri Lankan diaspora.
“They want us tied down,” Vigneswaran said in an interview. “They don’t want the north or the east princes to be financially sound.”
In Trincomalee, like other areas of the north and east, there are concerns now that the government is colonizing the region with Singhalese migrants from the south by offering them inducements to accept good jobs and cheap land. Recently, the federal government offered 50 prime beachfront plots in Trincomalee to be developed into new hotels. The plots were virtually free, Vigneswaran said, yet no Tamils bid for them, even after he attended a December meeting in Vienna with a group of Tamil expats and pleaded with them to invest.
“They asked what promises we could offer that the government wouldn’t take their money,” Vigneswaran said. “I said, ‘well what promises did the L.T.T.E. give you when you were giving them money?’ They didn’t answer. And they didn’t invest.”
As dusk settled on Trincomalee, a group of teenagers jumped on a small blue and white boat used by divers to catch clown fish from a nearby reef. Ponnampala, with a head of thick curly black hair and a wide smile, navigated his way past a herd of cows lazing on the beach and grinned and waved at a Russian air force pilot who was staying at his small guest house.
“I think our country has had enough of the fighting,” Ponnampala said. “We know that the government doesn’t believe in us. The sad thing is some people here don’t believe in themselves either. But with no war now anything is possible. We have to hold that close.”
© The Star
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Widows struggle to put life back together again
By Adithya Alles | Inter Press Service
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But these youngsters are her grandchildren, orphaned by Sri Lanka’s civil war of more than two decades. "I have no option. I have to take care of them, otherwise they don’t have anyone else," said Yamunadevi, who hails from Alampiddi, Mullaithivu district in the north.
Four of her grandchildren lost their parents during the last phase of this South Asian country’s bloody war, which ended in 2009 with a military victory by the government. The other four are left with only their father, who is now the sole breadwinner.
"I am not sure how long I can keep sending all of them to school," Yamunadevi remarked.
Her story is all too common in Sri Lanka’s former war zones. Women young and old are left to fend for themselves and their families because their male relatives have been killed or went missing during the last battles of the war, which was waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in its search for a separate homeland for minority Tamils.
Almost 300,000 people were forced to flee their homes during the last bout of fighting alone, between August 2006 and May 2009. Over 290,000 war- displaced citizens have since returned to their villages or live with host families. Their troubles, however, are far from over.
There are more than 89,000 widows in their early twenties and mid-thirties in the former conflict zones, government officials say.
The deputy minister of child development and women’s affairs, M A M Hizbullah, told a seminar here that some 49,000 widows -- majority of whom are wives of Tiger rebels killed in action – live in the country’s east, and another 40,000 in the north.
In his native Batticaloa district, the deputy minister said, there are some 25,000 widows, of which 8,000 had three children each.
Hizbullah said that he had approached the Indian government – India has always kept a close watch on developments in its neighbouring country -- for assistance to help the widows. But in some areas, programmes targeted toward their needs have already begun.
"We have plans to start a garment factory here," said Roopavathi Ketheeswaran, a government official in Kilinochchi district, adding that women often find it hard to find regular work unless programmes are designed with their needs in mind.
Even when they find work, the pay is sometimes a pittance. Seventeen year- old Ravindranathan Valarmadu, who hails from Pillumalai village in eastern Batticaloa district, for example, earns about 17 U.S. dollars a month from working as a milk collector six days a week.
This kind of situation, when many expected the end of the conflict to bring about better lives, can make widows feel helpless.
"When you don’t have a husband, when you don’t have family and you are alone, it can be tough," Rasanayagam Rahulanayani, the government agent for Vaharai division in eastern Sri Lanka, told IPS. "When assistance also slows down, the women can feel very vulnerable," said the official, who revealed that she had lost her father in the conflict.
Even as Rahulanayani was speaking with IPS, more than half a dozen widows and women whose husbands had gone missing during the war waited patiently outside her office to apply for help in matters ranging from obtaining lost identity papers to documentation on deeds.
"Widows and single mothers still find it hard within a very male-dominated social system," Rahulanayani explained. Traditionally, Tamil society dictates that men take the lead, and women are expected to follow, so that widows who now have to make all decisions, including taking care of the family business and dealing with private and public officials, may not always be fully comfortable with their new role.
Saroja Devi, a 27-year-old mother of two who was waiting to meet Rahulanayani, says her husband went missing while the family escaped the war in the north. "I don’t know where he is, or even if he is alive," Devi said.
Subsequently, Devi moved back to the east, where she hails from and where she has some family near Vaharai. "He was detained by the Tigers for awhile when he refused to help," Devi said. "We were running thorough shell fire when he went missing. There was shell fire all day and I don’t how we escaped."
At this point, Devi’s search for her husband is one that is more hope than anything else. Meanwhile, she has to eke out a living for her family.
There are hardly any jobs available in Vaharai, which lies deep in the interior of Batticaloa district, and where the key occupations are fishing and farming.
"I’m not doing anything right now. I help out my family members in the fields and they give me some money," Devi said, adding that she had no choice but to sell all her gold jewellery -- or starve.
Standing next to Devi in the queue, 29-year-old Navunad Sudha no longer has jewellery -- they had been long sold. Sudha's story is similar to Devi's. She hails from the Vaharai, married a man from the north, and was separated from her husband while fleeing the fighting.
But unlike Devi, Sudha believes that her husband, who disappeared in April 2009, is in government custody. "I will look for him till I get some proof," Sudha said.
Meanwhile, the challenges of day-to-day existence press on Sudha, who is seeking help from government officials to buy a sewing machine. "I stitch clothes at home to make some money," she said.
© IPS
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Killing of Nimalarajan: A decade with no justice
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
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Nimalarajan was a freelance journalist who worked for many media outlets, including the BBC Sinhala and Tamil services, the Tamil-language newspaper,Virakesari, and the Sinhala-language weeklies Haraya and Ravaya. He was killed by an armed group on 19 October 2000, in his home. In the absence of any independent media in war torn Jaffna, Nimalarajan stood out as the lone, courageous correspondent who exposed state repression, human rights violations and the undemocratic acts of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and politicians.
Nimalarajan was brutally murdered solely because he reported the truth as a professional journalist. He was killed while listening to the BBC on the radio in his family home in the evening. The killers not only shot him, but also tossed a hand grenade in the sitting room, injuring a child and his mother. The gunmen acted as if they were sure they would not be apprehended even though Nimalarajan lived in a highly secure militarized area with many check points. The Sri Lankan army never made any attempt to interview the men on duty at those checkpoints that night, who must have witnessed the killers moving in and out of the area. Indeed the family took over an hour to transport the dead and injured to the hospital, waving a lantern at every checkpoint to be searched on route – a sign of how heavily secure the location was.
Although ten years have passed since the murder of Nimalarajan, consecutive governments of Sri Lanka have not taken any significant steps to bring the culprits to justice. International pressure has also failed in bringing about any prosecutions.
Since Nimalarajan’s killing, scores more media workers have been killed and many have fled the country. It does not come as a surprise that almost all of them were journalists who exposed government misdoings and the horror of war.
JDS views the killing of Nimalarajan as one of the first killings aimed at suppressing news of the atrocities committed in the Sri Lankan conflict. The killers of Nimalarajan have enjoyed impunity. Nine years after his death, the Tamil community that he was a part of, suffered massive bloodshed as the Sri Lankan military declared victory over the Tamil Tigers.
Today, there are statements calling for reconciliation in Sri Lanka. We believe that genuine reconciliation cannot take place if victims like the Nimalarajan family are denied justice.
While the call for justice and respect for human rights in Sri Lanka has become louder than ever, with the UN Secretary General appointing a panel to advise him on Sri Lanka, it is regrettable that institutions as such as the International Monetary Fund, which are part of the UN, have granted financial assistance with no questions asked. If the global community calling for the upkeep of human rights also supports a government that has acted with impunity, we believe a decade from now Nimalarajan’s family will still be waiting for justice.
We believe Nimalarajan’s name is a symbol of the tens of thousands of Sri Lankans now denied basic justice.
Executive Committee
Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
19 October 2010
© JDS
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Ten years of impunity for Jaffna-based journalist’s murderers
Reporters Sans Frontières
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The Jaffna correspondent of the BBC’s Tamil and Sinhalese-language services and the Sri Lankan newspapers Virakesari and Ravaya, he was gunned down in his home on 19 October 2000. His killers also injured three other members of his family, including his parents.
Reconciliation in Sri Lanka will require tough government initiatives to combat impunity in high-profile cases such as Nimalarajan’s murder, one of the most shocking killings of the past decade. Now that the war is over, the police and the judicial authorities need the resources and political support that is essential in order to be able to identify and arrest those responsible.
Today, Nimalarajan’s father told Reporters Without Borders: “This has been 10 years of suffering for our family. But my son’s memory is still alive. I would like people to remember him as a courageous journalist who served his community. The government could relaunch the investigation into my son’s murder if it wanted to. It is a question of political will. We want justice to be done.”
Reporters Without Borders went to Jaffna in 2002 to investigate Nimalarajan’s murder. At that time, several suspects had been arrested but after a change of government, the police and certain judges deliberately sabotaged and then blocked the judicial proceedings, which were implicating members of the EPDP, a pro-government Tamil militia whose president is a minister in the current government.
Reporters Without Borders concluded that Nimalarajan, one of the leading Jaffna-based journalists working for the international media, was killed because of his coverage of the political violence before and during the 2000 parliamentary elections.
At least 25 journalists have been killed in Sri Lana since 2000, and three others have gone missing.
© RSF
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
New Sri Lankan civil war photos threaten to overshadow Britain visit
By Dean Nelson | The Telegraph
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Their release was timed to coincide with the visit of Professor G.L Peiris, the Sri Lankan foreign minister, who will meet William Hague on Wednesday. A foreign office spokesman said Mr Hague will reiterate Britain's demand for a "credible and transparent investigation" into alleged war crimes. The United Nations estimates between 8,000 and 10,000 civilians died between January and May 2009 and claims the Sri Lankan army shelled a civilian 'no-fire zone'.
The GTF said these latest photographs had been passed to them by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE) intelligence official who said he'd acquired them from within the Sri Lankan Army.
A group spokesman said the pictures had not been verified but raised serious questions which only an independent investigation could address. He said some of the photographs of Sri Lankan Army officers inspecting rows of dead bodies suggested the pictures may have been taken as 'souvenirs'.
One showed a semi-naked young woman lying, apparently dead, with blood trickling from her nose. She is surrounded by dead bodies of other young men, some naked, and all blindfolded and bound.
Father S.J Emmanuel of the Global Tamil Forum, said the pictures showed a "blatant disregard for humanity" and while he did not know if they were authentic, the possibility that they might be highlighted the need for a UN war crimes investigation.
"If Government of Sri Lanka has nothing to hide, why wouldn't they at least now admit to allowing the UN to investigate?" he said.
The Sri Lankan government said the photographs had been released to discredit it during Prof Peiris’s visit to London by a pro-LTTE group which admitted it could not verify them.
The defeat of the LTTE had given Tamils new freedoms while a 'Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’ “will consider matters relating to international humanitarian law, reconciliation and governance.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "We have consistently called for a credible, independent and transparent investigation into allegations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law. These allegations will haunt the country for many years to come, and will hinder much needed reconciliation between the communities, unless there is an honest process of accountability for the past."
© The Telegraph
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Attack on journalists sparks outcry in Sri Lanka
International Federation of Journalists
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IFJ affiliates the Sri Lankan Working Journalists’ Association (SLWJA) and the Free Media Movement Sri Lanka (FMM) reported that five journalists covering the Inter University Students’ Federation demonstration on October 14 in the capital, Colombo, were attacked after they reported police used undue force to break up the protest.
They were assaulted despite having identified themselves as journalists to police after reporting that a group of 25 officers were attacking a single protester.
“The IFJ demands that Sri Lanka’s authorities investigate this gross misuse of violence against journalists who had clearly identified themselves as reporters and not protestors,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said.
“It is equally concerning that these students – who by all accounts were exercising their democratic right to peaceful protest – have also been targeted in such a way.”
The SLWJA and FMM will protest the attacks with other civil society groups at a rally in Lipton Circus, Colombo at noon on October 19. The protest will call on the Inspector General of Police Mahinda Balasuriya and the Secretary of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to investigate the incident and take disciplinary action against any officers found guilty of professional misconduct.
The five journalists injured were: Bingun Menaka Gamage of Lankadeepa; Sandaruwan Yatikinda of Neth FM; Pradeep Dilrukshan from the Daily Mirror; Chamila Karunaratna from Rivira and Subramaniyam Gunaratnam of Sirasa TV.
The students were protesting outside the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education to demand the release of a group of student activists from Sri Lanka’s Peradeniya University, who were imprisoned after booing the Minister of Higher Education S.B. Dissanayake on a recent campus visit. Twenty-one students arrested at the protest will face court on October 29.
While the right to protest and freedom of association are both enshrined in the Sri Lankan constitution, the SLWJA believes police who employ violent tactics do so with the blessing of state authorities.
© IFJ
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
176 university students suspended; 27 arrested in Sri Lanka
Colombo Page
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The highest number of students has been suspended in Sri Jayewardenepura University, the Human Rights Center points out.
Meanwhile 27 more students are in police custody under suspicion of violence. Of them, 21 were arrested last week as the protesting students in a demonstration broke into the University Grants Commission premises causing damage to the property.
Student unrest in most universities is attributed to the politics of the People's Liberation Front (JVP) led Inter University Students Federation (IUSF).
© Colombo Page
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Hague must insist on independent investigation into war crimes - Amnesty International
Amnesty International
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In the months since last year’s conflict between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, numerous allegations of war crimes have surfaced – and so far none has been properly investigated.
Eyewitness accounts of the last months of war paint a grim picture of deprivation of food, water and medical care; fear, injury and loss of life experienced by civilians trapped in the fighting.
Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, said:
“It is time for a full and independent spotlight to be shone onto the horrors of what happened during the conflict and William Hague needs to stress that when he meets the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister tomorrow.
“He must tell Professor GL Peiris that given the magnitude of the crimes that have been committed by both sides of the conflict only a full independent international investigation into the alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka will satisfy the global community.
“At present those alleged to be responsible remain at large and at little threat of being brought to justice – that cannot be allowed to continue.”
Although two bodies – the Sri Lankan Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), and the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s Panel of Experts – have been set up to look into the claims, Amnesty International has huge reservations about the effectiveness of both.
Kate Allen explained:
“Given the Sri Lankan Government’s track record on dealing with human rights abuses, their decision in May to establish the LLRC was suspect at best.
“Historically, Sri Lanka’s internal enquiries into human rights abuses have not been adequately empowered or resourced to ensure real accountability and there is no reason to believe that this commission will be any more effective than its predecessors.
“Hundreds of children were among the civilians killed and maimed during the final stages of the conflict in 2009
“While Ban Ki Moon’s appointment of a Panel of Experts to advise him on accountability issues in Sri Lanka is an important first step it falls short of what is actually needed.
“In order that victims’ families get the justice they deserve Amnesty International has called on the United Nations to establish an independent investigation to document the full extent of crimes allegedly committed during the conflict.”
In addition, Amnesty International continues to have concerns for the well being of tens of thousands of displaced people who remain in makeshift camps, and the more than 7,000 Tamil Tiger suspects, who are being held incommunicado in what the state refers to as “rehabilitation camps”.
© Amnesty International
Monday, October 18, 2010
World’s hungry billion and Sri Lanka’s increasing malnutrition crisis
By the Economist | The Sunday Times
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
Mahatma Gandhi, whose birthday anniversary was commemorated earlier this month on October 2, said: “There is enough food for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.” Among the reasons for this situation are the unequal distributions of people to land and water resources in the world and the unequal distribution of incomes and poverty within countries. Expenditure on wars, rather than on the war on hunger is a fundamental cause that does not enable the poor to be given the necessary income support to obtain their minimum requirements of food. Some recent proximate reasons that have aggravated the situation are climate change, droughts, floods and forest fires causing soaring food prices. The financial crisis and economic recession has not helped either.
There are large numbers in Sri Lanka without adequate food: persons who are hungry, malnourished or undernourished. There is growing evidence of increasing malnutrition in Sri Lanka. The rising prices of food are likely to aggravate this situation, especially in households that do not produce food. Although the country does not have serious food shortages malnutrition affects nearly one-third of children and one quarter of women. Almost one out of five children are born with low birth weight and about 29 per cent of children under five are reported to be underweight, rising as high as 37.4 per cent, in some deprived districts.
The greatest tragedy of malnutrition is that it prevents children from reaching their full potential for growth and development. Malnutrition during childhood has serious and long lasting consequences. There are 14 per cent of children under five who suffer from acute malnutrition (wasting) when their weight is compared to the weight of a normal child of the same height. Nearly 58 per cent of infants between 6 and 11 months and 38 per cent children between 12 - and 23 months are anaemic. The government is conscious of this problem and has set in motion programmes to tackle it.
The level of incomes and the pattern of income distribution determine to a significant extent the access to enough food at the household level. Poverty is a foremost determinant of food insecurity that leads to undernourishment. Further the availability of sufficient food and the means to acquire enough food at the household and individual level does not ensure proper utilization of food and good health. The nutritional status of an individual depends on food as well as other factors such as clean water supplies, good sanitation, acceptable housing, and health care, besides others.
The immediate and underlying causes of childhood malnutrition in Sri Lanka range from disease factors and inadequate dietary intake to knowledge and cultural factors that influence the utilization of health services and available food. Poverty in its many manifestations (among these, low household income, inadequate basic infrastructure, limited access to media), affects nearly 23 per cent of households in Sri Lanka and is closely intertwined with household food security. However, while poverty is an important basic determinant of child under nutrition, it does not solely explain the high rates of child malnutrition prevailing in Sri Lanka. Other major determinants of malnutrition in the country include inappropriate feeding practices, micronutrient deficiencies and disease.
Despite the fact that exclusive breastfeeding levels have risen significantly, some babies are still being bottle-fed. Not only is such formula substitutes inferior to breast milk these do not contain colostrums, the first milk rich in proteins and antibodies that protect children from several infectious diseases. Therefore children should be exclusively breastfed in the first six months and should not be given the wrong kind of food.
Micronutrient deficiencies which affect healthy child growth and development are less obvious forms of under nutrition but constitute major public health problems in Sri Lanka. The most common micronutrient deficiencies in children and women are iodine deficiency disorders, which affect physical and mental development of children; iron – which leads to anaemia and impairs cognitive development in children; and vitamin A which affects eyesight and immunity to diseases. Vitamin A deficiency affects one third of children below 6 years of age and iron deficiency affects over one half of children 5-10 years old. One out of every five children suffers from iodine deficiency disorders – the single most important preventable causes of physical and mental retardation.
Diarrhoea continues to contribute to child under nutrition mainly due to inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Around one third of households have no access to sanitation and about one quarter has no access to safe drinking water. The wide disparities that prevail across the regions and districts of Sri Lanka create major challenges in dealing with malnutrition.
Dynamism in the rural and agricultural sectors is essential to narrow the rural-urban income gap and reduce rural poverty that is closely related to food security. The World Development Report 2008 (WDR) argued that an emphasis on agricultural investment, reforms and policies in agriculture are essential. It disclosed that agricultural and rural sectors in developing countries have suffered from neglect and underinvestment over the past 20 years. Only a mere 4 per cent of official development assistance was for agriculture.
Even in countries that are heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is only a small proportion of total government spending. These are fundamental reasons for the soaring food prices we are experiencing and the large number of people in the world being hungry.
The World Bank argues strongly for more and better investment in agriculture and rural infrastructure. Higher levels of investment are needed by governments in science, agricultural research, infrastructure, and human capital. There should be better policies and institutions that are major drivers of agricultural productivity growth. Despite high returns on these investments, developing countries grossly under invest in these public goods.
In Sri Lanka, agricultural growth has been only 1.2 per cent per year and lagged behind those of other sectors. Production of several crops declined over a period of time and even when there was growth these have been modest. The yield levels attained in almost all crops is much less than the potential. This applies as much to plantation crops as to small holder agriculture.
Agricultural growth could contribute to reduction of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Poverty and food insecurity are largely problems in the rural and estate areas in Sri Lanka. The development of Sri Lanka’s agriculture requires many thrusts. There has to be much more investment in research and rural infrastructure development. The agricultural extension services that are hardly serving its purpose should be reformed and reconstituted.
The problems of marketing of agricultural produce have to be resolved by developing storage and milling capacity, promoting competition and improving transport facilities. There should be more constructive private sector-public sector collaboration. Land policies require to be reformed in the context of current situations to permit land use on the basis of economic returns. Productivity increases in agriculture could play an important role in the reduction of poverty, hunger and malnutrition.
© The Sunday Times
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