Report on Sri Lanka to US congress

Click here to read the US state department report on Sri Lanka

US state department has handed over a report to the congress detailing incidents that allegedly occurred during the final months of the war in Sri Lanka.

The US embassy in Sri Lanka said on Wednesday that the report to the powerful Congressional Appropriations Committee details incidents "that may constitute violations of international humanitarian law or crimes against humanity and related harms".

'First hand accounts'

The report to the committee consisting of members from all parties has been prepared following a Congressional request.

US embassy in Sri Lanka says that the the information contains "first-hand accounts communicated by persons from within the government-declared No Fire Zones and locations close to the fighting".

It also says that the report compiles alleged incidents involving both sides in the conflict.

During the final days of the conflict between Sri Lanka and the LTTE both parties have been accused of putting the lives of civilians trapped in a narrow strip of land, at risk.

The Sri Lankan military has blamed civilian deaths on the Tigers, saying they are using people as human shields, while the military was accused of indiscriminate bombing.

US Ambassador- at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp told the BBC of credible reports that these acts have killed "thousands of civilians".

"Hundreds of thousands of people trapped in this area were essentially denied adequate food and medical care," he added.

'fabricated allegations'

The Sri Lankan Government says the report appears to be unsubstantiated, and maintains the Armed Forces were scrupulous in protecting civilians.

In a statement the Sri Lankan foreign ministry alleges, "there is a track record of vested interests endeavouring to bring the Government of Sri Lanka into disrepute, through fabricated allegations and concocted stories".

The United Nations has previously raised concerns about human rights violations in Sri Lanka's civil war but the US is the first country to publish an independent third party report.

European parliament

Meanwhile, the European parliament passed a resolution on Wednesday calling the Sri Lankan government to uphold human rights.

In a special reference to media freedom European parliament said, "the Sri Lankan government must cease its repression of the media in the name of its anti-terrorist legislation".

It also called upon the Tamil leadership to "commit themselves to a political settlement and renounce terrorism and violence once and for all".

© BBC

Related Links:
U.S. Embassy Statement on Report to the U.S. Congress
US urges Sri Lanka to probe, prosecute possible war crimes - AFP
Sri Lanka blasts US report on human rights abuses - Guardian
US report on Lanka’s war on terror will ‘fan secessionist flames':FM - The Island

Read More

Summary only

EU human rights report could cost Sri Lanka $100 million

By Mian Ridge - Sri Lanka came under fresh pressure to address the plight of its Tamil minority this week after a report from the European Union slammed the island for its recent human rights record.

The report lodges some of the strongest international criticisms since Sri Lanka ended its war against Tamil rebels in May, and could prompt the EU to remove more than $100 million in trade concessions.

Previous criticism from abroad has had little impact on the Sri Lankan government, which remains more popular at home than ever. It said Thursday it would study the EU's report and respond by a Nov. 6 deadline.

The inquiry, conducted over the past year to determine whether the country should continue receiving trade concessions, found that Sri Lanka was in severe breach of human rights law in its final bloody push against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It should lose the concessions, the report stated.

The details of the report coincide with the discovery of hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers who had fled the island, on boats bound for Canada and Australia – a reminder of the suffering faced by many of Sri Lanka's Tamils nearly half a year after the government declared the 25-year war against the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, over.

Since the war's end in May, Western countries and the world's sizeable Tamil diaspora have pressed for some kind of accountability for thousands of Tamil deaths and human rights violations during the last phase of fighting.

The US State Department released Thursday a report on allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka during the last months of its civil war. The US emphasized that the report had not reached legal conclusions and recommends that Sri Lanka investigates the allegations.

There have also been repeated calls for the immediate release of more than 200,000 Tamils who remain in camps in the island's north.

But at home, plaudits

Despite castigations from abroad, Sri Lanka's government is more popular at home than ever, after winning what many had viewed as an unwinnable war.

Sinhalese constitute around 74 percent of Sri Lanka's population and Tamils around 18 percent. Their discrimination as the minority helped fuel the Tamil Tigers' long war.

Last week, Sri Lanka announced it would hold both presidential and parliamentary elections before next April – two years ahead of schedule. The announcement followed President Mahinda Rajapaksa's eighth decisive victory in provincial elections. Victory in general polls seems almost certain for the ardent Sinhalese nationalist.

Mr. Rajapaksa has said he will wait until after the vote to introduce political reforms aimed at addressing Tamil grievances. He speaks often of the need for reconciliation, but critics are growing more skeptical about what this might mean in practice.

On Monday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said a new commitment from the government to return 100,000 of the original 273,000 displaced people stuck in camps "breaks a promise to camp residents and the international community."

In May, the government had said 80 percent of the displaced people would be able to return home by the end of the year.

"Enough is enough," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. "It is well past time to release civilians detained in the camps. Sri Lanka's international friends should tell the government that they will not accept any more broken promises."

The EU's report provides evidence of police violence, torture, and breaches of employment laws, notably the use of underage children.

EU: Sri Lanka's biggest export market

The concessions at stake made the EU Sri Lanka's largest export market in 2008, accounting for 36 percent of all exports. Garments earned the country a record $3.47 billion from EU markets and were its biggest source of foreign exchange, followed by remittances and tea.

Over the weekend, 76 migrants believed to be Tamils fleeing the island were arrested on a ship off Canada's coast. There are reports that a further 255 Tamil migrants, who couldn't afford to board that vessel, paid instead for a passage to Australia. They were intercepted in Indonesia and given temporary asylum.

© Christian Science Monitor

Related Links:
Sri Lanka and the EU:Plus and minuses - The Economist
Government will not betray nation - Ceylon Daily News
EU snubs Sri Lanka over its human rights record - Deutsche Welle

Read More

Summary only

Almost 30,000 lost jobs in first quarter

By Gihan de Chickera and Yohan Perera - Almost 30,000 people have lost their jobs in the first quarter of this year, the government said in parliament yesterday.

According to a Labour Ministry response tabled in the House, a survey conducted by the Labour Department had revealed that 29,159 jobs had been lost in various fields in the country during the first three months of 2009.

The Ministry said the government together with the International Labour Organization (ILO) would implement an unemployment benefit scheme to people who lost their jobs due to the global economic crisis.

The tabled answer added that the ministry planned to implement a re-employment programme by registering persons on the Sri Lanka job net.

Earlier, the opposition asked if the government admitted that as stated by the ILO 192,000 jobs had been lost in the first quarter of 2009.

The government rejected this figure, and said according to a Labour Department survey only 29,159 jobs had been lost in the same period.

© Daily Mirror

Read More

Summary only

UN investigator urges convention to protect detainees

The UN's top investigator on torture and punishment called Tuesday for a new UN convention to protect the rights of detainees, saying many are held for years and sometimes for a lifetime in inhuman and degrading conditions.

"In many countries of the world, places of detention are constantly overcrowded, filthy and lack the minimum facilities necessary to allow for a dignified existence," Manfred Nowak said. "Moreover, tuberculosis and other highly contagious diseases are rife."

In a statement to the UN General Assembly committee dealing with humanitarian issues, he said the suffering caused by the few hours of torture in the early days of detention -- often to extract confessions -- is often outweighed by the suffering detainees have to endure for years.

While many people think torture is primarily the fate of political prisoners, Nowak said "in reality, most of the victims of arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman conditions of detention are ordinary people, usually belonging to the poorest and most disadvantaged sectors of society" -- including children, the disabled, gays and lesbians, drug addicts, illegal aliens, and members of religious and ethnic minorities.

According to "cautious estimates," he said, more than 1 million children are currently being held in police stations, pre-trial facilities, prisons, closed children's homes and similar places of detention.

"In general, I am alarmed by the very low age of criminal liability in many countries," he said. "During my missions, I came across boys and girls as young as 9 or 10 years who were deprived of their liberty, many of them in prolonged pre-trial detention."

"Far too many of the children whom I met on my visits are held in severely overcrowded cells, under deplorable sanitary and hygienic conditions. Moreover, I have found children deprived of their liberty to be at a very high risk of ill-treatment," he said.

Nowak, an independent investigator appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, told the assembly committee that the "time has come to draft and adopt a special UN Convention on the Rights of Detainees."

One of the most important rights and needs of detainees, he said, "is sufficient contact with the outside world."

Detainees should also enjoy freedom of religion, expression, information and association, and in principle, they should also enjoy the right to vote, Nowak said.

Detainees also have a right "to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, clothing and housing ... (and) to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes the need for medical services in detention facilities," he said.

Nowak said he was encouraged that Uruguay's president got rid of tiny metal boxes that hundreds of convicts and pretrial detainees spent months, and even years, in at the Libertad prison after he denounced the appalling conditions. And he praised Nigeria's former president for closing down a "torture room" at police headquarters in Lagos where more than 100 detainees -- including women -- were subjected to a variety of tortures including gunshots in their legs that were left untreated.

Nowak criticized the government in Equatorial Guinea for rejecting a report on his visit last November and December which said detainees were forced to spend weeks, even months, in dark, filthy police cells with nothing but a concrete floor and no toilets.

Some cells were so overcrowded, he said, that there was no space for all the detainees to sleep at the same time -- a problem he also found in Georgia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Togo and Moldova's separatist Trans-Dniester region.

Nowak said in the coming months he has invitations to visit Zimbabwe and Jamaica, and hopes to go to Cuba and Iran next year. He lamented that most Arab countries, except for Jordan, have not allowed him to visit.

© The Associated Press

Read More

Summary only

Journalist complains of death threats and unknown persons pursuing him

Mr. Senaka Ekanayake, the editor of SATANA, a local newspaper, complained of constant death threats received over the last few days and of unknown persons visiting his house in search of him, in a telephone interview given to the Asian Human Rights Commission yesterday, October 20, 2009. He further mentioned that despite of complaints having been made to the Sri Lankan police and other authorities he has not received any protection. He is now living in hiding, fearing for his life and is unable to continue with his work as a journalist.

The former editor of the same newspaper, Rohana Kumara, was assassinated on September 7, 1999 after he published information against the government of the day. Kumara’s assassination is a well known case in Sri Lanka and to-date; no one has been arrested or prosecuted for this crime.

Mr. Ekanayake has been arrested and remanded twice for two periods of ten months relating to his investigative journalism and held under provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. On both occasions he was released as there was no evidence to proceed against him. On the first occasion he was conducting an investigation into disappearances in the Kalpitya area. While investigating this matter he received taped interviews done by a group of people in the area against the Officer-in-Charge of the local police station which revealed that the officer was engaged in corrupt practices to extort money from various small businessmen like illicit liquor traders and fisher folk. Mr. Ekanayake was stopped at a checkpoint by eight offices dressed in civilian clothes that had been waiting for him. He was taken to the Kalpitiya Police Station and severely assaulted with S-lon pipes, punched and kicked. As a result of the assault he lost two teeth.

Following this assault he was brought before a Magistrate’s Court on false charges of trying to sully the reputation of the President of Sri Lanka and engaging in false propaganda. Whilst in detention he was questioned by a senior intelligence officer about the information he was collecting and as to whether such information was being sent to foreign journals and human rights organisations. However, there was no prosecution for any of these charges.

Later he was again arrested while collecting information relating to disappearances and other human rights abuses. He was remanded on false charges and released after a further ten months.

Ever since his release he has been receiving death threats and in the recent weeks there has been unknown persons arriving at his house at night to make inquiries about him. He states that he is able to remain safe only because he is in hiding and he is afraid that his life is in danger by these persons who are pursuing him due to his work as a journalist.

© Asian Human Rights Commission

Read More

Summary only

Trade union action in the offing

Essential utility services would be disrupted over the next few days as a series of trade union actions have been lined up in the semi government sector demanding salary increments and reduction of prices of essential commodities.

Lanka Petroleum Corporation Combined Trade Union Alliance (CPCCTUA) issuing a statement states trade union action of work to rule will be followed from the 22nd October. The statement emphasizes that due to this trade union action there would be a shortage of petroleum would occur through out the country and the public would be inconvenienced. The statement further states the government should take complete responsibility as it had failed to find solutions to issues of employees. CPCCTUA spokesman D.J Rajakaruna said tomorrow’s (22) work to rule campaign would be a 24-hour protest. He said the distribution of fuel could be disrupted during the trade union actions today and tomorrow.

Trade unions point out having removed the salary discrepancy occurred in 2006 salary modification, and to increase the salary from 1st of January 2009, a combined committee with managing authority and representatives from trade union was appointed in 2008. The trade union action to be taken would be due to the refusal to implement of the suggestions made by the committee. This too was made possible only after conducting a one day token strike to create an agreement with the managing authority. At a discussion held on 23rd of last month on this matter between all trade union delegates and the minister an agreement was reached to pay Rs.5000 allowance from the 1st of January, 2009 till the cabinet approval was taken for 2009 salary increments. This complex situation has occurred due to refusal of carrying out this agreement also by the authority. According to employees state the minister’s attitude to avoid solving the issue and the decision of the management not to give into the demands of the employees would make it necessary for trade unions to take tough action to win workers’ rights.

Meanwhile, Ranjan Jayalal, the Convener of the Lanka Viduli Seva Sangamaya, had said they would stage a protest on 28th of this month demanding a salary increase. Salary increments in the estate sector, CPC, CEB and the Ports Authority are given once in three years, in accordance with a collective agreement signed between the employees and the employer. The salary increments due this year have not yet been given. The last salary increment was given in 2006.

President of National Trade Union Alliance and Parliamentarian K.D. Lalkantha said repeated requests to President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a salary increase and a reduction of the cost of living had failed to yield results. “We are left with only the option of going for an indefinite general strike, covering all sectors, until the government grants our demands, as 80% of the people are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.

© Lanka Truth

Read More

Summary only

Petrolium union office attacked

by Dasun Edirisinghe - The main trade union office of the Ceylon Petroleum Common Service Union (CPCSU) was attacked by an unidentified gang on Tuesday midnight. The office is located between two main security barriers within the CPC premises. The media spokesman of the union and an executive officer of the CPC D. J. Rajakaruna was also attacked by a person attached to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s trade union at the Muthurajawela storage complex of the CPC, the union alleged.

President of the CPCSU Ashoka Ranwala told The Island that the gang came to the premises for the attack in a van bearing registration WPNA-6150. Two individuals, accompanied by an Executive Officer of the Security Division of the Corporation, and they attacked the office and damaged all its furniture and windows. They had damaged cut outs too. The group had damaged the office using clubs and other implements.

"According to our members the van entered through the first Security barrier at 12.42 a.m. and left at 12.48 a.m. The supporters of the government in the CPC did this to stop our ongoing protest against the government’s delay in increase our salaries," Ranwala said.

D. J. Rajakaruna, when contacted by The Island said that he was attacked in front of the security officers on Tuesday morning, but they didn’t take any action to stop it. After both attacks on the office and himself, they complained to the security department of the CPC. But, they turned a blind eye on the issue.

Minister of Petroleum and Petroleum Resource Development A. H. M. Fowzie, when contacted by The Island, said he was not aware of the incident. He promised an impartial investigation.

© The Island

Related Links:
Attack on Union Office in consequent of ‘work to rule’ announcement - Lanka Truth

Read More

Summary only

Sri Lanka says EU trade loss won't hurt exports

The potential loss of a European Union trade concession that helped Sri Lanka boost business in its largest export market will not have an adverse impact on exporters, the island nation's central bank said on Wednesday.

The EU published a probe on Monday that found Sri Lanka in breach of human rights laws, which threatens the Indian Ocean island nation's access to the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus scheme. [ID:nLJ731429]

"Our exporters are resilient and the loss would be minimal," K.D. Ranasinghe, director at central bank's economic research department, told Reuters.

With early presidential and parliamentary elections due by April, the present government may be reluctant to be seen as giving in to the EU, which has asked Sri Lanka to provide a response by Nov. 6.

Sri Lanka rejected the findings and said it would defend itself, after refusing last year to cooperate with a rights probe it viewed as a violation of sovereignty while it was fighting to defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels. [ID:nCOL517986]

The central bank on Tuesday, quoting the European Commission, said the GSP Plus concession gave it an extra 78 million Euro ($116.5 million) in 2008, which was 1.4 percent of Sri Lanka's total exports that year.

"Therefore, the loss of preferential duty margin by around 6-7 percent arising from a potential withdrawal of the GSP Plus facility is not expected to have an adverse impact on Sri Lanka's exports," the central bank statement said.

The suspension of GSP plus, which helped Sri Lanka earn a record $3.47 billion from garment exports in 2008, could deal another blow to Sri Lanka's apparel industry, which is already suffering because of the current global economic state.

EU members states are due to vote in the next two months whether to suspend Sri Lanka's GSP Plus participation. If that happens, Sri Lanka would lose the preference six months later, and keep the higher but still concessional duties under normal GSP.

Last year, Sri Lanka said it would set aside $150 million to cushion affected exporters against the loss of GSP Plus, and said that was its estimate of the total potential financial impact.

Now that Sri Lanka is in the middle of a $2.6 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme, the fate of the plan, which Sri Lanka insisted was not a subsidy but a support scheme, is unclear. The IMF generally frowns on subsidies.

In 2008, the European Union was Sri Lanka's largest export market, accounting for 36 percent of its $8.1 billion in total exports, followed by the United States with 24 percent.

© Reuters

Read More

Summary only

Sri Lanka government warns to blacklist irresponsible media web sites

Sri Lanka Government today asked the public to be watchful of the false stories published by irresponsible web sites to destabilize the society.

Speaking at a press briefing held in Colombo this morning the Media Minister, Laxman Yapa Abeywardena said the government will take measures shortly to blacklist and publicize those websites which resort to distorting facts to create a rift between the government and 'other' parties.

The unfounded stories intend to dupe the public. This is not the duty of the media and this should be stopped quickly, the Minister stressed.

The government is to carry out an awareness program naming these sites by the print media from tomorrow.

The journalists say the government using its powers is attempting to suppress the media, this time the websites that post stories against the government.

However responding to those allegations Media Minister stressed that there is no suppression of media, but only attempt to save the society from false campaigns.

© Colombo Page

Read More

Summary only

Sri Lanka ranked 162 in the latest press freedom rankings

Political power grabs dealt press freedom a great disservice again this year. A military coup caused Fiji (152nd) to fall 73 places. Soldiers moved into Fijian news rooms for several weeks and censored articles before they were published, while foreign journalists were deported. In Thailand, the endless clashes between “yellow shirts” and “red shirts” had a very negative impact on the press’s ability to work. As a result, the kingdom is now 130th.

The authoritarianism of existing governments, for example in Sri Lanka (162nd) and Malaysia (131st), prevented journalists from properly covering sensitive subjects such as corruption or human rights abuses. The Sri Lankan government had a journalist sentenced to 20 years in prison and forced dozens of others to flee the country. In Malaysia, the interior ministry imposed censorship or self-censorship by threatening media with the withdrawal of their licence or threatening journalists with a spell in prison.

War and terrorism wrought havoc and exposed journalists to great danger. Afghanistan (149th) is sapped not only by Taliban violence and death threats, but also by unjustified arrests by the security forces. Despite having dynamic news media, Pakistan (159th) is crippled by murders of journalists and the aggressiveness of both the Taliban and sectors of the military. It shared (with Somalia) the world record for journalists killed during the period under review.

The Asian countries that least respected press freedom were, predictably, North Korea, one of the “infernal trio” at the bottom of the rankings, Burma, which still suffers from prior censorship and imprisonment, and Laos, an unchanging dictatorship where no privately-owned media are permitted.

The media in China (168th) are evolving rapidly along with the rest of the country but it continues to have a very poor ranking because of the frequency of imprisonment, especially in Tibet, Internet censorship and the nepotism of the central and provincial authorities. Similarly in Vietnam (166th), the ruling Communist Party targets journalists, bloggers and press freedom activists over what they write about its concessions to China.

In the good news section, Maldives (51st) climbed 53 places thanks to a successful democratic transition while Bhutan (70th) rose another four places thanks to further efforts in favour of media diversity.

Asia’s few democracies are well placed in the rankings. New Zealand (13th), Australia (16th) and Japan (17th) are all in the top 20. Respect for press freedom and the lack of targeted violence against journalists enable these three countries to be regional leaders.

South Korea (69th) and Taiwan (59th) fell far this year. South Korea plummeted 22 places because of the arrests of several journalists and bloggers and the conservative government’s attempts to control critical media. The new ruling party in Taiwan tried to interfere in state and privately-owned media while violence by certain activists further undermined press freedom.

Two Asian countries were included in the index for the first time: Papua New Guinea (56th), which obtained a very respectable ranking for a developing country, and the Sultanate of Brunei (155th), which came in the bottom third because of the absence of an independent press.

© Reporters Sans Frontières

Read More

Summary only