Warnings more Tamils will flee Sri Lanka

With the government facing continued pressure over asylum seekers, Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is in Colombo to seek a solution to what is a growing problem at home.

Foreign Minister Smith received assurances from the Sri Lankans that more would be done to crack down on people-smugglers and people movement from the minority Tamil community. But human rights advocates say the civil war has left the Tamils with little reason to remain in Sri Lanka, and unless something is done to improve the situation, Tamil asylum-seekers will continue to head for places like Australia.

Presenter: Michael Edwards
Speakers: Stephen Smith, Australian Foreign Minister; Jehan Perreira, executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka

MICHAEL EDWARDS: If the Government's biggest political problem of the moment is asylum seekers then the source of that angst centres on Sri Lanka.

Most of the current wave of those seeking asylum are Tamils, fleeing what they say is persecution following the end of the Sri Lankan civil war.

And it was Stephen Smith's job in Colombo to let the Sri Lankan Government know that it could be doing much more to stop the problem of people smuggling.

STEPHEN SMITH: In terms of capacity building and cooperation on prosecutions. We think there is more that we can do on information sharing which the Minister referred to.

So we face a heightened challenge from the criminal syndicates behind the people smuggling and we need to up our cooperation, up our efforts to combat that and that is what we have agreed to do today.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Stephen Smith and his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohitha Bogollagama signed an agreement to boost law enforcement cooperation on people smuggling.

Mr Smith says it's a big step forward in tackling the problem.

But he also agrees with many, particularly human rights advocates, that the issue is not entirely about law enforcement.

The Foreign Minister also says that helping Sri Lanka rebuild after its civil war is an important factor in reducing the demand for people smuggling and he's pledged Australian support to help it do so.

STEPHEN SMITH: Sri Lanka faces the great challenge of, in the aftermath of a civil conflict, a terrible civil conflict which lasted for 25 to 30 years, to rebuild, reconstruct and to reconcile and heal and in that respect Australia wants to give Sri Lanka as much assistance as it can.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Human rights advocates say the demand for people smuggling will continue unless something is done about the plight of Sri Lanka's Tamil community.

Jehan Perreira is the executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka.

JEHAN PERREIRA: Until I think the checkpoints are removed, Tamils feel that they are not specially, under special scrutiny by the military and until the Government comes up with the political solution, at least a political proposal that meets the aspirations of Tamils to be equal citizens, to have some power in the areas in which they are a majority, I think Tamils will want to leave Sri Lanka.

© ABC Radio Australia

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Court relaxes bail conditions on Vanni doctors

By T. Farook Thajudeen - Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi relaxed bail conditions imposed on two Doctors who were alleged to have canvassed false information of an alleged genocide of Tamils by the Sri Lankan forces to the international community.

At the outset of yesterday’s magisterial inquiry the CID informed court that they were investigating as to whether the doctors had been actively involved in any unlawful activity or had any connections to the LTTE movement and moved for a date to file the report.

Counsel Poobalasingham appearing for the two doctors Dr. Thangamoorthi Satyamoorthy and Dr. Kathies submitted that his clients were finding it difficult to be present before the Vavuniya Police as per their bail requirements as their workload at the Vavuniya Hospital was extremely high and moved court to relax their bail conditions. The counsel further submitted that the doctors intended collecting their outstanding salaries for the period in which they were in detention and asked the court to allow them leave to collect the outstanding salaries.

The magistrate lifted bail conditions imposed on the suspects to appear in person before the police and said the court will not restrict the doctors’ right to claim their outstanding salaries. Further hearings were fixed for Feb. 8.

© Daily Mirror

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Talks fail, Sri Lankan unions decide to go for joint work-to-rule campaign

The unions of the four main state institutes, Petroleum, Water, Electricity and Ports have decided to commence its planned work-to-rule campaign from next Wednesday as the talks they held with the Treasury Secretary failed to produce any compromise.

The union leaders this evening met with Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundara to discuss over their salary increment, but the talks has ended without any success, said Ananda Palitha, the committee member of Joint Forum for Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) unions.

According to him they will certainly go for the earlier announced union action with the support of Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), the Port Authority, and the Water Board from November 11th.

CPC union said that the government has one more day to prevent the general public from certain difficulties by announcing a salary hike.

The four unions are demanding a compulsory salary hike which is generally granted by the government every three years, but yet failed to grant this time.

The government has promised a salary hike to all state workers in January of next year.

The unions of the CPC had staged a four-day work to rule campaign earlier immensely inconveniencing the general public.

© Colombo Page

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Sri Lanka Says 164,000 War Refugees Remain in Northern Camps

By Paul Tighe - Sri Lanka said 164,000 civilians displaced by the civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels remain in camps in the north and the government intends to reduce the number to less than 50,000 by the end of January.

“We are now moving with incremental swiftness” to settle people from the camps, Rajiva Wijesinha, the secretary at the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, said late yesterday, according to the government’s Web site.

More than 280,000 mainly Tamil civilians have been held in the camps since the army defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May, ending the group’s 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka’s north and east. The U.S. and United Nations are leading international calls for the swift release of the displaced people.

The need to ensure security in the north, the slow pace of clearing mines from former conflict zones and a lack of infrastructure as a result of the war are delaying the program to settle the civilians, Wijesinha said.

“The pressure from the West was quite extensive” to get people out of the camps, he said, adding that countries such as India, Pakistan and China understood the security concerns of the government in Colombo.

“These countries also had questions about the refugees and their rehabilitation, and a political map for the devolution process, but they did not pressure us,” Wijesinha said.

Caught in Fighting

The army defeated the last LTTE forces in a battle on the northeastern coast in May. Tens of thousands of civilians were caught between the rebels and army units.

Sri Lanka rejected comments in September by Navi Pillay, the UN Human Rights commissioner, that the Tamils are being held in “conditions of internment.”

Last month, more than 10,000 people were resettled around Kilinochchi, the northern town where the LTTE had its headquarters. The area was heavily mined and had to be cleared, the government said at the time.

An estimated 1.5 million mines and unexploded ordnance contaminated 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) of the north when the war ended, Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka’s army commander, said Oct. 27.

While army units in the north will be reduced in time, they “cannot be removed” because of the danger of the LTTE’s possible resurgence, Wijesinha said. The group’s revival is unlikely without foreign intervention, he said.

The conflict left about 90,000 people dead between 1983 and this year, the secretary said.

Separatist Threat

Sri Lanka is still threatened by separatist forces, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a speech Oct. 19. The government’s war on terrorism was based on achieving an “undivided country, a national consensus and an honorable peace,” he said.

Tamils make up almost 12 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million people. Sinhalese account for 74 percent, according to a 2001 census.

While the government is committed to devolving some power to minorities, federalism is ruled out, Wijesinha.

“There is a danger of legitimization of separatism” in a federal structure in a country like Sri Lanka, he said.

Rajapaksa last week named a five-member committee that will investigate a U.S. State Department report on alleged human rights violations in the last weeks of the war, including the shelling of civilians by the army and the LTTE using civilians as hostages. The team consists of lawyers and a university chancellor, the government said at the time.

Sri Lanka has already responded to 99.9 percent of the allegations, Mahinda Samarasinghe, the minister for disaster management and human rights, said last week. The government has described the U.S. report as “unsubstantiated.”

The State Department said last week the abuses listed in the report are based mostly on reporting by the U.S. embassy in Sri Lanka, international organizations and the media and are “credible.”

© Bloomberg

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Lankan workers stranded in Jeddah

Sri Lankan migrant workers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia say they have been living under a bridge seeking help from the authorities to come back home.

One Sri Lankan worker who wished to be anonymous told BBC Sinhala service that nearly 3000 migrant workers, including Sri Lankans, have been living under the Sharafiya bridge in the Saudi capital for months.

"We all have been house maids or in factory workers and were forced to leave the workplace due to various harassments or as a result of not being paid by the employers. Now we are stranded here having no means to go back home," he said.

No food

Many stranded workers neither have money nor food, unless some passers by offer something to eat, he added.

"There are some who have been living under this bridge for over one year," he said.

He accused the Sri Lankan authorities of not taking efforts to send them home.

Rejecting the accusation, the Sri Lankan authorities say the workers, who have overstayed their visa in Saudi Arabia, are using the bridge as a tactical move to leave the country without paying a penalty fee.

Kingsly Ranawaka, chairman of Foreign Employment Bureau, told BBC Sandeshaya that Sri Lanka has repatriated nearly 5000 similar workers over the last 17 months.

"When migrants come to this place the Saudi government offer them free air tickets and send them home," he said.

He added that the government will take steps to bring the workers home but warned that another group will replace the current migrants as soon as they were removed.

© BBC Sinhala

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New regulations for reality programs, musical shows

By Indika Sri Aravinda - The government is to introduce new regulations to broadcast reality musical programs on television or radio stations from next year. Such programs will have to obtain clearance from the public performance board from January, the Chairman of the board Asoka Serasinghe told Daily Mirror online.

He further said that visuals and lyrics of the songs to be telecast on television will also be filtered by the board.

The Public Performance Board is concerned over the airing of unsuitable music content on television especially visuals showing semi nude men and women, Mr. Serasinghe added.

© Daily Mirror

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163,000 people in Sri Lanka camps under deteriorating conditions-UNHCR

“Following the recent returns, some 163,000 people still remain in the camps where conditions are deteriorating,” UNHCR said in a media communiqué issued on Nov 6th.

Other independent reports say that amid heavy rains and thunder storms many of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) held in Menik Farm camp are leaving from their shelters and seeking refuge in the public halls and school buildings located inside the camp.

UNHCR media brief notes that discussions with the Sri Lanka government regarding the situation in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu are ongoing, “to ensure that minimum return standards, such as completion of demining and access to services, are adhered to.”

According to government and independent civil society sources only a few people have settled in their own homes or allowed to stay with their relatives. Many of the IDPs brought to Jaffna peninsula Saturday Nov 7th have been lodged in militarized “interim camps.”

There are allegations that the Government of Sri Lanka is deliberately barring and delaying people returning to Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts and schemes to alter demographics are already being carried out in the districts.

In a query to Lt. Gen Sarath Fonseka – the much decorated “war hero” speculated to be Sri Lanka opposition common presidential candidate, Democratic People’s Front (DPF) led by Mano Ganesan has asked to reveal the stance of the “common candidate” on IDP re-settlement without changing Wanni demography, prior to extending the support of DPF.

© Tamilweek.com

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UN still worried about refugees in Sri Lanka

The UN has said that while the pace of Tamil refugees returning to their homes has accelerated in Sri Lanka, the condition of the temporary camps in which the remaining continue to be is deteriorating.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told journalists that in the past two weeks, an estimated 39,000 people have returned to their former villages — mostly in the north and east of Sri Lanka — as part of the government’s resettlement plan.

Agencies quoted Mahecic as saying in Geneva that another 16,500 people were released from the camps and were being accommodated with host families. This group, he added, included pregnant women and elderly people. A number of those with disabilities have also been released to specialised care institutions.

About 163,000 displaced Tamils now remain, Mahecic said, adding conditions inside those camps are deteriorating.

“UNHCR and other UN agencies continue to advocate strongly with the government of Sri Lanka to expedite the return of all remaining IDPs [internally displaced persons] to their areas of origin in safety and dignity and in line with international standards,” he said.

© Hindustan Times

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SRI LANKA: Gov’t, EU in Back-channel Talks Over Fate of Trade Pact

By Feizal Samath - Sri Lanka has reacted strongly to a European Commission (EC) probe on its human rights record, saying it is politically motivated.

But beyond the public sparring and rhetoric, informal diplomatic contacts between the two sides are underway to save a crucial trade pact and hundreds of jobs in the garment industry.

Sri Lanka stands to lose its trade concessions from the European Union under the Generalised System of Preferences Plus (GSP+), which has allowed tax- free Sri Lankan exports to Europe since 2005. This, following the release last month of EC’s probe of the island state’s compliance with international treaties on human rights.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama presented a 48-page government response to the EC mission in Colombo and EU diplomats on the damning report by the EC over Sri Lanka’s alleged breach of international conventions on core human rights, labour rights and conventions on environment and good governance principles.

Highly placed garment industry trade unionists privy to the informal engagement between the government and the EC are eagerly awaiting the outcome of such talks.

"We reliably understand (from our contacts in Brussels) that an EC diplomat arrived last week for consultations on the GSP+ with the government and that the government is seeking technical assistance to help it fulfill these conventions," said one trade union official, who declined to be named.

"We were informed by an international NGO [non-governmental organisation] to be ready for a meeting with the official, but that didn’t happen as he was authorised only to meet government officials."

The EC office in Colombo confirmed an EC deputy director was visiting Colombo but that it had nothing to do with the GSP+ trade benefits scheme. Sri Lanka has applied for a second round of concessions for the new scheme, which began in 2009, but must await the outcome of an EC probe on whether Colombo has implemented 27 international conventions, a pre-requisite to approval.

Bernard Savage, EC Head of the delegation to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, declined to comment on the government response. "I cannot comment. All I can say is that we received the government’s observations," he told IPS from the Maldives where he is on official visit.

Thousands of jobs in the garment industry, the country’s biggest export and the main sector that would be affected if the concessions were called off, are at stake if the concessions are not granted. Savage told IPS in an interview last week that the EC decision on Sri Lanka’s application would be announced by December and effective six months later. Until then, Sri Lankan exporters would continue to enjoy the trade benefits.

The government response, submitted to the probe committee report on the deadline set by the EC, said the probe was "politically motivated and accompanied by a high degree of prejudice."

Substantiating this claim, the report quotes an incident last year where EC officials had threatened to withdraw GSP+ if the war was not called off.

At a meeting with Sri Lanka’s Minister of Export Development and International Trade on March 13 last year in Brussels, an EC Commissioner said, "this war is never, never, never going to be solved militarily. The only possible solution is a political one. We have been telling you this for a long time. You have ignored us. We now have a powerful weapon in the GSP+, which we will not hesitate to use".

The EC report was critical of alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka, particularly during heavy fighting in the last stages of the war between government forces and Tamil rebels. The near 30-year-long revolt was crushed by government troops in May.

Garment manufacturers said the concessions are vital to the industry, which is Sri Lanka’s biggest foreign exchange earner along with remittances from migrant workers.

However, one industrialist who was part of a team of officials from the garment industry, other sections of government and lawyers that prepared the government brief, said the EC probe smacked of a strong bias.

"For example, 15 member associations of the Joint Association of Apparel Exporters, which goes by the acronym JAAF and represents the industry, sent submissions to the EC probe team but none of our submissions was cited in the report," he said.

"The investigations relied a lot on the anti-government submissions," lamented the businessman, who declined to be named. Submissions from the industry largely supported the government contention that there has been progress in the implementation of the conventions on labour and human rights.

"We now have to contact our friends in Brussels and keep the dialogue going to ensure the concessions continue," he said.

Separately, Anton Marcus, general secretary of a trade union representing workers in the country’s free trade zones where many garment factories are located, said the union-styled Apparel Industry Labour Rights Movement or ALaRM was going to meet on Nov. 8 to discuss a course of action on the government response.

"We are meeting to discuss a course of action which we will explain to the media on Thursday at a press conference," he told IPS.

Marcus said trade unions had pleaded with the government to start a dialogue with the EC, which the former had refused, saying it would not take part in any investigation, as it was an insult to a sovereign nation. "Now they want to start a dialogue, which they should have done in the first place," he said, referring to the report.

The government, while rejecting the EC report, said the government and the EC should continue to have a constructive engagement on the "issues at hand."

The garment industry has suffered over the years, initially following the end of textile quotas some years back before it was hit by the rising costs of production, which has seen a sharp rise in job losses.

Currently, there are 270,000 workers in the industry, according to government estimates although the industry says it is much less because a number of smaller units have collapsed. From around 400 factories and 500,000 workers in the 1980s, the industry has slumped to less than 250 factories while many are struggling to survive.

"There are many orders, but the problem is costs. Interest rates are high at 22 percent and our return is only 3 percent. We just can’t survive. Many small industrialists have wound up or sold their factories to the bigger players," noted Cassian Fernando, a garment industry veteran who sold his factories two years ago. He believes the industry will consolidate to just 15 big companies in the years to come.

Some garment industry workers hit by closures are seeking jobs as domestic aides overseas. "There are quite a few who are undergoing training before going abroad," said W.P. Aponsu, president of the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agents.

© Inter Press Service

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Australia urges Sri Lanka reforms, reconciliation

Australia on Sunday urged Sri Lanka, having defeated the Tamil Tigers in May, to now embrace political reform and reconciliation to stem the flow of asylum seekers leaving the country.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will meet his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohitha Bogollagama in Colombo on Monday amid a standoff in Indonesia involving 78 Tamil asylum seekers, who are refusing to leave an Australian vessel that rescued them last month.

"I will reiterate Australia's view that having won the war, Sri Lanka now needs to win the peace through political reform and reconciliation," Smith said in a statement.

"Mr Bogollagama and I will discuss bilateral and regional cooperation on people smuggling and ways in which Australia will continue to assist Sri Lanka rebuild after decades of internal conflict."

The standoff in Indonesia involves an Australian customs vessel which rescued a group of boatpeople in Indonesian waters. It took them to the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pinang but the Sri Lankans have refused to leave the vessel.

On Friday Indonesia extended for another week a deadline for the ship to leave its waters.

The arrival in Australia of several boats carrying asylum seekers, many of them Sri Lankans displaced by the civil war, has ignited what is a hot-button political issue in Australia.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has had to defend his border security policy, which critics say has been softened and is attracting more boatpeople.

Opinion polls show the popularity of Rudd's government has taken a tumble in the past few weeks as a result of its handling of the issue.

Sri Lanka's envoy to Australia said on Sunday that many of the boatpeople were "economic refugees" who were using the war as an excuse to seek a better life.

High Commissioner Senaka Walgampaya told Channel 10 that any Sri Lankan nationals were welcome to return home, but warned that action would be taken against any later found to be "fugitives from justice".

Almost 300,000 civilians were forced from their homes and moved into the cramped camps in the north of Sri Lanka during the final months of Sri Lanka's 25-year-old civil war against separatist Tamil rebels which ended in May.

© Reuters

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