TID asks witness to implicate a senior army officer in the assasination of senior journalist

By Ananda Weerasuriya | Daily Mirror
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Making an explosive statement in open court before the Mount Lavinia Magistrate, a suspect former Army Intelligence Unit member, said today that the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) promised to make him a state witness, provide security and a foreign job if he had implicated a senior Army Officer to have been involved in the assassination of the Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga.

The former Army Intelligence member, Kandegedara Priyawansa who had been arrested and detained for alleged involvement in the assassination of the Sunday Leader Editor made this statement when the inquiry was taken up before the Mount Lavinia Chief Magistrate Ms. Nirosha Fernando.

“The TID promised to make me a witness and offered a foreign job if I implicated a senior army officer for the murder”, he said

The Army Intelligence member and a garage owner in Nuwara Eliya, Pichchei Jesudasan are in custody for allegedly being involved in the assassination of the newspaper editor.

© Daily Mirror

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Relatives of missing people ‘still in grief’

By Arthur Wamanan | The Nation
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The people who were affected due to the war should be compensated and be given equal prominence, Dr Murali Vallipuranathan, a community medicine specialist attached to the Health Ministry, told the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

He said people belonging to all communities, who had been affected due to the civil war and riots, should be equally compensated.

The government has the responsibility to accept the mistakes committed in the past, Dr. Vallipuranathan said.

He said the relatives of the missing people continued to suffer due to mental agony.

He therefore said the government should declare the deaths in custody and put an end to the mental agony of the relatives.

Dr. Murali Vallipuranathan during the session on December 8 told the commission that it was acting in such a way that incriminated the LTTE.

He said the commission should not have called the doctors who served in the Wanni, as the cases against them were not dropped and they were at the mercy of the government.

He pointed out that certain questions posed towards the doctors incriminated the LTTE.
The LLRC maintained that it was not functioning to praise the government but to ascertain the truth as to what happened during the final stages of the battle last year.

He was quick to assert that he did not sympathise with the LTTE and did not approve of its actions.

The commission, responding to Dr Vallipuranathan’s views, said the questions were asked from the doctors to ascertain the truth as to what happened at the final stages of the war.

The commission pointed out that it was not incriminating any organisation.

Massacre

In his submissions, Dr Vallipuranathan said his father (49) was among the 85 civilians who were massacred at Pankulam, Trincomalee, on their way to Jaffna.

He said the incident occurred the day after LTTE had attacked Pankulam police station.

“According to the few survivors of the massacre at that time, it was carried out by security forces. To date, no proper inquiry was held and nobody was charged for this gruesome massacre,” he told the commission.

In addition, Dr Vallipuranathan stressed that the displaced people should be resettled in their own places.

He pointed out that resettling them in their own places would help them overcome psychological and mental issues and get back to normal life.

He said that the military had put up luxury quarters on his father’s land in Vasavilan, a high security zone.

He said the land was not vacated even after a Supreme Court directive in 2006.

The commission in response to this issue said that it was looking into this matter, as there were several complaints.

The commission requested the doctor to provide the address and other details for it to look into the matter.

Dr Vallipuranathan also briefed the commission on the issues faced by the people who lived under the LTTE controlled areas in the 1990s due to restrictions on certain essential items.

Malaria

In his submission, Dr Vallipuranathan said certain medicines were not allowed to be transported into LTTE-controlled areas during the conflict in the 1990s.

He added there were many deaths due to malaria in the LTTE-controlled areas during the late 1990s. He pointed out that 451 deaths out of 540 due to malaria were reported from the north and east between 1997 and 1999.

He also pointed out that during the final stages of the war, the government had claimed there were only 70,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone and had sent medicines and food items to the said amount.

“At the end of the war, the government statistics itself shows that the population that lived under LTTE control was more than 300,000,” he said.

In his submission, Dr Vallipuranathan also said he was not allowed to assist the war casualties soon after the end of the war.

“Though I gave my name to serve in these camps, my name was deliberately excluded,” he said.
He said he was aware of other Tamil doctors who were not allowed to serve in camps.

© The Nation

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Sri Lanka: Picking up the pieces

Filmmaker: Yasir Khan - Cameraman: Fadi Benni | Al Jazeera
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Clearing the thousands of mines left in the war-torn villages of Sri-Lanka is a dangerous and demanding job for those that have been assigned with the responsibility of doing it.

The all-female de-mining team of Sri Lanka's northern Mannar district struggles in the blazing heat to navigate the hazardous task at hand and systematically clear the villages of all the traces of war that remain in a place long after the conflict itself has passed.

Following the women we witness the excitement and fear each time a mine is found and get to see how many of the women take the job to support their families, due to the cruel brunt of war leaving them as the sole breadwinners.

They clear the villages of landmines not simply because it is their job, but because they are are all personally involved, each with their own losses and tales of hardship and are keen to finish the job so that people can move back home from refugee camps and begin to live in peace again.

© Al Jazeera

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Sri Lanka port project: Chinese company gets 25-year tax concession

The Sunday Times
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A Chinese company, a shareholder in the development of the South Container Terminal under the Colombo Port expansion project, will get a 25-year corporate income tax holiday along with several other tax concessions that the Government announced recently, an official said.

China Merchant Holdings (International) Co. Ltd, Aitken Spence Plc Consortium and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority are the shareholders in the project to expand the port on a build-operate and-transfer (BOT) basis. The total investment of the project is around US $ 500 million (Rs 54 billion) and it has been identified as a Strategic Development project coming under the Ministry of Economic Development.

The other tax benefits will include exemption from the payment of Value Added Tax for five years on the importation of project related goods and local purchases.

Further tax concessions limited to the project construction and implementation period will include the Port and Airport Development Levy, the Nation Building tax and some Custom duties. Similar concessions have also been given to an Indian-owned company, Cairn Lanka (Private) Limited, which will explore Oil and Gas in the Mannar Basin. Cairn Lanka (Private) Limited, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn India.

© The Sunday Times

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Wikileaks: Sri Lanka 'rejected rebel surrender offer'

BBC South Asia
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The Sri Lankan government rejected a surrender offer by Tamil Tiger rebels at the end of the war, reports released through the Wikileaks website say.

They say that Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa dismissed US pressure to allow a mediated surrender with the words "we're beyond that now".

The leaked US cables suggest requests for the International Red Cross to go into the war zone were refused.

Sri Lanka's government has repeatedly denied all these accusations.

The Sri Lankan civil war came to an end in May 2009 with the death of their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran after the Tamil Tigers made a last stand in the north-east of the island.

The leaked US documents - which appeared in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten - say that on 16 May 2009 the Norwegian ambassador called his US counterpart to report that he had received a phone call from Selvarasa Padmanathan - known as "KP" - stating that the rebels were prepared to surrender without conditions to a neutral third party.

Correspondents say that although Padmanathan was abroad at the time, it would not have been unusual for him as rebel head of foreign relations to make the offer.

'Energetically refused'

The documents say that the US ambassador then called the International Red Cross (ICRC) who told him that their staff were prepared to go into the conflict zone by military helicopter to mediate a surrender.

ICRC head of delegation Paul Castella is quoted in the document as saying that Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa initially agreed to the arrangement, but first wanted the names of the rebel leaders who were prepared to surrender.

But the documents say that "despite helpful efforts from Norway" the rebels failed to provide such a list.

The documents say the government rejected repeated US requests to allow the ICRC into the conflict zone to help many dead and wounded civilians there.

According to the US cables, presidential adviser Basil Rajapaksa "energetically refused" to give the ICRC permission, accusing it of failing on "three consecutive days to evacuate the wounded, even though the Additional Government Agent had said it was safe to do so".

© BBC News

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'India's support important to tackle impasse over war crime report' : SL President

Indian Express
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Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa today said that India's support was important in his government's attempt to tackle the current impasse over a report by an UN advisory panel, accusing it of committing war crimes during the last phase of conflict with the LTTE.

"India has always acted with co-operation with Sri Lanka. Our relations have been good at all times", Rajapaksa said while addressing the local heads of media institutions during his regular monthly interaction.

He was responding to a query on India's stand on the panel report which had accused both Sri Lanka and the LTTE of war crimes allegedly committed during the last phase of the military conflict that ended in May 2009.

"India will respond appropriately at the appropriate time", the Sri Lankan leader said.

The Sri Lankan president added that his government was not taking the report lightly.

"We will respond to the Secretary General in an appropriate manner", Rajapaksa said.

GL Peiris, the minister of External Affairs said that the top level Indian delegation comprising Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon and Defense Secretary Pradeep Kumar would be arriving in Colombo next week.

According to media reports, Indian would urge Colombo to speedily address the accountability and reconciliation issues raised in the report.

An Indian government statement last week said the report was being studied carefully.

The panel headed by Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney general and his co-members, Steven Ratner, a US based attorney, Yasmin Sooka has come under heavy domestic criticism.

The government ministers have taken the lead in public protest campaigns clamming the report as an international conspiracy against Sri Lanka's sovereignty.

Significantly no attempts have been made to target the UN compound or its staff through demonstrations.

© Indian Express

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UN complicit in Sri Lanka genocide

Photo courtesy: Tamilnet.com

By Sam Pari | Green Left Weekly
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Two years ago, a war without witness was executed by the state against the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka.

In September 2008, after ordering all United Nations personnel, non-government organisations and media out of the Vanni region, the Sri Lankan government embarked on a vicious military campaign.

While it informed the world it was fighting the Tamil Tiger rebels and was following a “zero civilian casualty” policy, photographs, video footage and phone conversations with our relatives in the war zone told us a different story.

We watched in horror as images of injured babies, maimed pregnant women and rows of dead civilians leaked out. Hospitals were bombed. Refugee camps were shelled. Surrendering civilians were executed.

Even the International Committee of the Red Cross was blocked from saving the injured.

As members of the Tamil diaspora took to the streets, campaigning for the international community to act to stop the bloodshed, the world did nothing.

More than 100,000 Tamils rallied around the world, yet our cries fell on the bureaucrats’ deaf ears.

Kevin Rudd, then Australia's prime minister, preferred “soft diplomacy” with Sri Lanka, in contrast to his stand on Burma, Zimbabwe and Libya.

We slowly realised the UN was well aware of the high civilian casualties. Leaked satellite images revealed the UN knew of the Sri Lankan Air Force's targeted bombing and shelling of civilian locations.

Following his resignation, the former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, revealed the civilian death toll could be up to 40,000, while “significant others have said that the figure may well be far higher”.

Why would the world allow civilians to be killed in such a gruesome manner?

At the time, China and Russia prevented the war in Sri Lanka being discussed at the UN Security Council. Both countries are allies of Sri Lanka, China having invested heavily there.

UN officials are said to have told Vijay Nambiar — who the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed as his chief of staff — that the final death toll could exceed 20,000, but Nambiar urged his staff not to “rock the boat” by criticising the Sri Lankan government.

Witness reports later revealed senior UN officials, including Nambiar, and senior Sri Lankan officials, including the defence secretary (and brother of the President), Gotabaya Rajapaksa, were involved in the surrendering of Tamil Tiger combatants, who were later executed.

After waiting two years for an independent inquiry into this incident, Tamil rights groups have submitted their own complaint to the International Criminal Court.

When the war came to a bloody end on May 18, 2009, Sri Lankan government puppets were quick to continue the propaganda, claiming all was well in Sri Lanka, encouraging Australian tourists while discouraging Australia from accepting Tamil refugees.

The reality was different. Hundreds of thousands were held in military-run internment camps, disappearances were rife, and rape and torture occurred. There was a reason the number of Tamil refugees arriving by boats in Australia had suddenly sky-rocketed.

The unrelenting campaigning by the Tamil diaspora and human rights groups finally forced Ban Ki-Moon to establish a panel of experts last year to assess the mounting allegations of war crimes. Sri Lanka was quick to condemn this decision and banned the panel from visiting the island.

The panel's final report, submitted to Ban Ki-Moon more than a fortnight ago, has at last been published.

The panel has found allegations of war crimes to be credible and has admitted the UN failed to act to protect civilians, despite knowing about the high civilian casualty rate.

The panel has also recommended an international independent inquiry into war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Today, tens of thousands of Tamils are missing. Up to 14,000 Tamils, including 500 children, have been held for the past two years in secret prisons; no one knows if they are alive.

The Tamil homeland in the north is under military occupation and forced resettlement of Sinhalese families is taking place, changing the demography of the region.

After Rwanda, the world said “never again”. But in early 2009, what happened to the Tamils was far worse. Not only did the UN fail to act to stop the persecution of Tamil civilians — it was complicit.

Dr Sam Pari is a spokesperson for the Australian Tamil Congress.

© Green Left Weekly

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Tamil anger at new Sri Lankan envoy

Photo courtesy: Business Today

By Rebecca Thistleton | The Age
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Australia has approved the controversial appointment of a former naval commander as Sri Lanka's high commissioner, prompting Australia's Tamil community to accuse the government of protecting a war criminal.

Retired Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe was appointed as high commissioner to Australia on Friday.

Since learning of his nomination for the role earlier this year, Australia's Tamil community has lobbied the Gillard government to reject Admiral Samarasinghe in response to Sri Lanka's refusal to allow an international war crimes tribunal.
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Australian Tamil Congress spokeswoman Sam Pari said the Tamil community felt betrayed and disappointed as the appointment would give an accused war criminal diplomatic immunity.

Admiral Samarasinghe became Sri Lanka's navy commander after the 26-year war against the Tamil Tigers ended in 2009.

While no allegations of war crimes were made against him, the United Nations released a report on April 25 recommending investigations into alleged war crimes.

Federal MP John Murphy, who opposed Admiral Samarasinghe's appointment, told Parliament in February he was an ''entirely inappropriate person'' to be Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Australia.

Mr Murphy said he was representing the Sri Lankan community and the admiral's involvement with the war was concerning as he was director-general of naval operations when innocent civilians were targeted. The war is believed to have cost up to 100,000 lives.

© The Age

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ANC supports UN panel report on Sri Lanka

BBC Sinhala
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The African National Congress (ANC) has expressed its support to the UN expert panel report on accountability issues in Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers.

The ANC, the majority party in the South African government, says it supports the recommendations made in the experts’ report that an independent body need to be established to investigate alleged war crimes committed by both the parties during the last phase of the conflict.

“We also call on the government of Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to address the core grievances of the Tamil population and engage in a genuine reconciliation process,” the statement said.

South Afriica’s Yasmin Sooka, a prominent South African jurist who served in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was among the members of the panel chaired by former Indonesian Attoney General Marzuki Darusman.

Maldives response

The Panel concluded that there were serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE.

Meanwhile, the Maldives government has strongly criticised the expert panel report.

Addressing media in Colombo on Friday, Maldives Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Naseem said that his government is “deeply concerned” about the report.

“We feel that it is not really productive for people in Sri Lanka or of Sri Lankan dissent,” he said.

The Sri Lanka government has rejected the report, describing it as “flawed” and “biased”.

© BBC Sinhala

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Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary condemns UN panel

Photo courtesy: Business Today

By A.A.M.Nizam | Asian Tribune
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The Defense Secretary, Mr. Gotabhaya Rasjapaksa has said that the Darusman panel has failed to recognize the immense steps the government has taken to bring peace and reconciliation, matched with development, to the north and north-east of the country that not too long ago was controlled with an armed iron fist by the LTTE.

He has said that within the first 12 months of the war ending, we even resettled over 350,000 displaced Tamils, an achievement that was applauded by Secretary General Ban ki-Moon himself and several international humanitarian organizations. But instead of acknowledging any of this, he has pointed that the panel has painted a wrong picture that there is an enduring legacy of bitterness still prevailing in these areas’.

The Defense Secretary has pointed out that Sri Lanka has always been a responsible and accommodating member of the United Nations, and has never failed to respond to UN requests for Sri Lankan troops to participate in peace-keeping missions or humanitarian missions such as in Haiti, and on some occasions Sri Lanka agreed to the request even when the Sri Lankan troops were stretched to the limit during the various stages of Sri Lanka’s own conflict. He has said it is very unfair for the Secretary General to pick on Sri Lanka for this sort of arbitrary treatment.

Mr. Gotabhaya has said that appointing the panel, which in turn comes out with a report that goes far beyond its original mandate, is a brazen violation of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, and the Secretary General is needlessly pushing Sri Lanka against the wall and forcing the country to seek the help of its friends in the UN Security Council like Russia and China’.

He has commended Russia for not even waiting for any formal request for help from the Sri Lankan government. He has pointed out that within two days of the report coming out, Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Vladmir Mikhaylov has declared in Colombo that ‘Sri Lanka had every right and obligation to do everything within its means to protect its people from terrorism. Unfortunately it seems the panel of experts went beyond its task as had been made known to our representative in New York.’

Mr. Gotabhaya has emphasized that the Secretary General should have asked the opinion of the Security Council or the General Assembly on this matter, but rather than doing so, a panel was appointed, and the decision to appoint this panel was a personal initiative of the Secretary General and taken without regarding the position of Sri Lanka as a sovereign state and a member of the UN.

He has further said thzt the panel appears to have opted for selective amnesia when it came to discussing the atrocities committed by the Tamil Tigers, while going into lengthy anguish made over the perceived sins of the Sri Lankan military.

He has said that rather than acting as a trio of advisers offering sound counsel to Ban ki-Moon, the panel comes across like three stooges offering succor to remnants of the LTTE scattered across Western capitals.

© Asian Tribune

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