By Matthew Russell Lee
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“It's not a question of speaking to witness,” Nesirky said, emphasizing twice that it is “not an investigation, not an inquiry, not a probe.” The obvious question is, why not? More than a year after thousands of civilians were killed, the UN is only now convening three individuals to advise Ban on what he might do.
Inner City Press is told that the panel will have staff, to be based in New York. Meanwhile in Sri Lanka, the government is said to be setting up some protests to be held in front of the UN in Colombo. If Sudan were to do this, the UN would denounce it. But here?
Russia has chimed in, as it did during the conflict, calling the slaughter entirely an “internal matter.” As one wag put it, “They should know.”
Footnotes: The "no visas" announcement was made by External Affairs minister GL Peiris, who twice rebuffed the Press while in the US lobbying against the UN panel. Then, Hillary Clinton stood by Peiris. And now?
The Sri Lankan Mission to the UN put out the foreign ministry's statement, a day late and in an unwieldy format. The Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona is still apparently not back in New York. Sri Lanka has thumbed its nose at GSP Plus as well. What will happen with the IMF?
© Inner City Press
Friday, June 25, 2010
As Sri Lanka says no visas, UN says no need to visit or talk to witnesses
Friday, June 25, 2010
Jaffna, where women weep
By Melani Manel Perera
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Anyone who visits Jaffna for pleasure is in for an agreeable time these days. The Jaffna Peninsula is a pretty place, and is slowly modernising, both in the city of Jaffna and along the A9 Roadway. Roads, railway lines and bridges are being fixed. Sites like the Nagadeepa Viharaya Buddhist Temple are increasingly popular. Everything is beautiful.
However, anyone interested in knowing know how people live will find a different story. In Jaffna, the civil war between the Sri Lankan army and Tiger Tamil rebels has left so many women without husbands. The government and public institutions have no plan to help or protect them. Often, these women have four or even five children, to be raises on their own, doing odd jobs. The children sometimes go hungry. Only private groups provide some help in finding jobs for them.
Subajini Thurairajah, coordinator of the Women Cultural Centre (WCC), told AsiaNews that on Jaffna Peninsula there are about 26,300 widows, and that many tens of thousands more can be found in the northern and eastern provinces, especially Tamil and Muslim.
Many widows have had “troubles” with Sri Lankan soldiers, with some people suggesting they “get married,” Thurairajah said. However, soldiers who are temporarily stationed in the area just want “to have fun”. Many locals are upset that, with so many women without a man, the government does not issue orders to Sinhalese soldiers to respect them and refrain from taking advantage of their situation of need.
“These widows are still living the trauma of the cruel events of the war, especially the horrible moment when their husbands died, often before their eyes. Some do not know how to tell the children that their beloved father is no more. It is hard to tell children that their father died hit by a nameless bomb, without rhyme or reason.”
Only women who lost their husbands before 2008 were given a death certificate, which was denied to the others.
Making matters worse is a certain prejudice widows suffer from within Tamil society, for they are seen as bearers of bad luck. Women who lost their husbands are not invited to happy occasions and upper caste Tamils avoid and exclude them.
“We do not like this pattern,” the activist said. Instead, “we want to help these women. We must help them develop a different outlook to life so that they can find a place for themselves in society. We must give them greater dignity as women and mothers.”
© Asia News
Friday, June 25, 2010
UN war crimes panel chief 'criticises Sri Lanka ban'
Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney general, was named Tuesday to lead a team advising UN chief Ban Ki-moon on possible war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during its 37-year separatist war that ended in 2009.
"Everybody loses out if we cannot go to Sri Lanka, it will make it harder for the truth to be unearthed," Darusman told the BBC, describing Sri Lanka's decision to ban them as "most unfortunate."
His remarks came after Sri Lanka's External Affairs minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris said Colombo will not grant visas to members of the panel.
The panel was "totally unnecessary," Peiris said Thursday.
He said Sri Lanka had announced its own commission into the end the war, which pitched government troops against Tamil Tiger separatists, and post-conflict ethnic reconciliation.
The UN panel was set up after international pressure for an independent probe into allegations that Tamil civilians were killed by government troops and that surrendering rebels were also executed in cold blood.
The United States, which has been pushing for a war crimes probe, urged Colombo to "take advantage" of the UN initiative.
Ban has asked his three-member panel to complete its work in four months.
When the panel was named on Tuesday, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky emphasised it had a mostly consultative role and that "primary responsibility for investigating rests with the authorities of Sri Lanka".
However, many diplomats see the UN's move as a precursor to a full-blown war crimes investigation.
The UN itself has said that at least 7,000 Tamil civilians perished in the first four months of 2009 before the government secured final victory over the Tigers that May.
© AFP
Friday, June 25, 2010
Sri Lanka to block visits by UN probing war crimes
By Mel Gunasekera (AFP)
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Troops finally wiped out the separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas in May last year after decades of ethnic bloodshed, and the government has denied repeated allegations that thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting.
"We will not issue them with visas. We will not allow them into this country," External Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris told reporters.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's appointment on Tuesday of the panel to advise on any violations of international human rights was "totally unnecessary," Peiris said.
He said Sri Lanka had announced its own commission into the end of the war and post-conflict ethnic reconciliation.
"We feel the panel is an unnecessary interference. The government should be given a free space to make its own findings," he said.
The UN panel was set up after international pressure for an independent probe into allegations that Tamil civilians were killed by government troops and that surrendering rebels were executed in cold blood.
It will be chaired by Marzuki Darusman from Indonesia, the UN's special envoy for North Korea, and hopes to complete its work in four months.
When the panel was named, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky emphasised it had a mostly consultative role, and that "primary responsibility for investigating rests with the authorities of Sri Lanka".
However many diplomats see the UN's move as a precursor to a full-blown war crimes investigation
The UN itself has said that at least 7,000 Tamil civilians perished in the first four months of 2009 before the government secured final victory over the Tigers -- who as recently as 2006 controlled one-third of the island.
The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said last month the Sri Lankan government had killed thousands of its civilians by shelling "no-fire zones" in the last months of the war.
The ICG said the military encouraged hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians to move into government-declared "no-fire zones" and then subjected them to "repeated and increasingly intense artillery and mortar barrages."
"This continued through May despite the government and security forces knowing the size and location of the civilian population and scale of civilian casualties," the ICG reported.
The group said it had collected eyewitness statements as well as hundreds of photographs, videos, satellite images, electronic communications and documents from multiple sources to support the charges.
Sri Lanka is extremely sensitive about criticism of its hardline war policy, which it views as having successfully brought peace to the island.
President Mahinda Rajapakse has always rejected calls for an independent probe and in March warned Ban that he would take "appropriate action" if a UN panel was set up.
Sri Lanka managed to stave off censure at the UN Security Council last year thanks to the support of Russia and China, close allies and key suppliers of military hardware to the island.
The government last week held official celebrations to mark the defeat of the Tamil Tigers defeat, with Rajapakse delivering a speech insisting that his soldiers did not kill a single civilian.
© AFP
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Blast wounds nine in Sri Lanka capital
"We are ruling out terrorist involvement, the incident was probably due to a personnel vendetta," police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody told AFP.
The blast in the Pettah area of the city was believed to have been caused by a hand grenade or improvised explosive device.
It was the first blast in the centre of Colombo since government troops defeated Tamil Tiger rebels in May last year after decades of bloody civil war.
The Pettah area is known for clashes among rival business interests and underworld gangs.
© AFP
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Sri Lankan brotherhood
By Eric Ellis
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Step forward, Sri Lanka, a year after the end of the 30-year civil war between the ruling Sinhalese of the island's mostly Buddhist south and the separatist Tamil Tigers of the Hindu/Tamil north-east.
The war was a triumph for the Rajapakse brothers, led by the President, Mahinda, who rather sees himself as the modern-day incarnation of an ancient Sinhala monarch who also vanquished his Tamil foes.
The presidency is but one of the jobs the 64 year-old Mahinda occupies. He's also Minister of Finance, Planning, Highways, Ports, Aviation and Defence. That's a lot of tasks but a nation devastated by war needs a lot of rebuilding. So, step forward three of his brothers, and their sons, to help in that effort.
Mahinda appointed his unelected brother Gotabaya as Defence Secretary in 2005, and he is the widely hailed if not always loved mastermind of the victory over the Tamils. A former manager of a Californian 7-Eleven store, ''Gota'' is in charge of the military (army/navy/air force), the coast guard, the police and national intelligence, external and internal.
Immigration, a big revenue-earner for a labour exporter like Sri Lanka, also comes under Gota's remit as do, oddly, the Urban Development Authority and the department overseeing land reclamation.
Elder brother Basil is an adviser to his presidential sibling. He got elected to parliament in April. But no time spent hanging around the government benches learning the ropes for him; he was immediately appointed Economic Development Minister, managing the regeneration of the war-ravaged Tamil areas. Basil also has a big say in another big Sri Lankan money driver, tourism, as Colombo seeks again to persuade travellers it is safe to loll on its idyllic beaches. Basil also oversees the country's foreign-investment promotion body.
If three's not enough Rajapakses for one administration - politician father Don had nine offspring - add eldest brother Chamal to the mix, the parliamentary Speaker. And the sons; Chamal's boy is a regional provincial chief minister and Mahinda's 24-year-old son, Namal, just got elected to parliament.
The Rajapakses' control over Sri Lanka is near absolute. By one measure, they steer departments accounting for 80 per cent of the national budget. But few Sri Lankans (dare) suggest they are not doing a good job. Amid unconvincing claims of electoral fraud, Mahinda was re-elected to the presidency in a landslide earlier this year. His United People's Freedom Alliance then swept parliamentary polls in April.
That all suggests war-weary Sri Lankans were rather more exercised about rewarding the victors after a conflict that defined the island for nearly two generations than to worry, for the moment at least, about voting themselves and their economy into an elective dictatorship.
Though the Rajapakse model is Singapore, the feel is more like Suharto's Indonesia, as power pyramids to the palace, where diktats matter more in the execution of policy than the vaguely checked and balanced niceties of parliamentary democracy. Foreign investors arriving on the island looking for the next Asian economic miracle know it's a good idea to try to get an audience with Basil Rajapakse.
While the Rajapakses' ruling style may not quite be to Western taste, the Rajapakses are the last to care as they pragmatically snuggle up to China, Iran and India to offset American and British influence in business.
Indeed, a recent week's interviews in Sri Lanka suggest that Sri Lankans quite like their ruling family and are more than prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even their dyed-in-the-wool opponents, particularly in business - the opposition United National Party has traditionally been the party of business - grudgingly accept the Rajapakses' hand in the deal-making mix if they can deliver the promised prosperity that has eluded Sri Lanka for decades.
A year after the war's end, Sri Lankans are starting to glimpse the peace dividends trickling in. From a very low base, there are more tourists on the island; the few hotels are roaring and more are planned. Where at worst I once counted nine security checks on the hour's drive from Colombo airport to town, last week there were none. The financial district, bombed into oblivion by the Tigers in the 1980s and 1990s, has reopened and you no longer need to negotiate airport-style security to get access to it. Roads that Churchill built are now being upgraded, donors are opening wallets and the neglected south, the Sinhalese heartland that provided cannon fodder for the Tamil war, is becoming a building site.
It doubtless helps that it is the Rajapakses' ancestral district. In the President's home town of Hambantota, a huge port is nearing completion, financed and built by Beijing to become one of its ''string of pearls'' - quasi-sovereign Chinese economic outposts to guarantee the supply chain to feed and maintain the mainland economic beast.
Beijing is also building Sri Lanka's second international airport here and the big idea is for the area to become what Phuket is to Bangkok or Penang is to Kuala Lumpur - economic, tourism and transportation hubs bypassing the faraway dominant capital. In Sri Lanka's unique case, development of the south as the alternative to Colombo also keeps economic power away from the Tamil regions, denying meaningful development in its two main centres, Jaffna and Trincomalee, with their enormous harbours.
So, how long can this Rajapakse era last? Well, if Sri Lanka is morphing into a south-Asian Indonesia, then it is only about 1970 and the Rajapakses-as-Suhartos haven't yet broken into stride. The Suharto era ended in tears and big problems Indonesia still hasn't fixed. Singapore seems the better option.
© The Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Sri Lankan visa unlikely for UN probe panel
By Sutirtho Patranobis
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On Tuesday, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon appointed Indonesia’s Marzuki Darusman, South African Yasmin Sooka and Steven Ratner from the US to “advise him on the issue of accountability with regard to any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka.’’
The reaction from the Lankan government — which has denied targeting civilians — was immediate and angry.
“Sri Lanka regards the appointment of the Sri Lanka Panel of Experts as an unwarranted and unnecessary interference with a sovereign nation,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
The recommendations of the panel, expected to be submitted to Ban Ki-moon in four months, will not be binding as the issue of rights violation in Sri Lanka was not made part of the United Nations Security Council’s agenda.
Also, the panel is likely to have a tough job carrying out investigations on ground as the government might deny the members visa to enter Sri Lanka.
© Hindustan Times
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
World newspapers call for more media rights in Sri Lanka
The Board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), meeting in Düsseldorf, Germany, on June 7, condemned intimidation and violence against journalists in Sri Lanka and called on the government to adhere to its constitution, which recognises freedom of expression as a basic human right, a statement from the organization said.
It said:“Sri Lankan journalists continue to face routine threats, violence and abductions, despite the end of the conflict in May last year. In the first five months of 2010, journalists have been arrested and imprisoned without charge, and media outlets have been closed and censored. “At least 12 journalists have been killed and scores of others attacked with no one having been convicted in any case.”
© Daily Mirror
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sri Lanka slams UN panel to probe war crimes
'The move is unwarranted and unacceptable to a sovereign nation like Sri Lanka,' media minister Keheliya Rambukwella said in a reaction to the panel's appointment late Tuesday.
Sri Lanka has been facing increasing international pressure to investigate alleged rights abuses committed by both sides before Sri Lanka's military killed the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, ending a 26-year civil war on the island.
The external affairs ministry was expected to give a detailed reaction on the panel's set-up, which went ahead despite government opposition to the UN plan.
The three-member panel is chaired by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darusman and includes Yasmin Sooka, a human rights expert from South Africa, and Steven Ratner, a US lawyer, the UN office here said.
Sri Lanka last month appointed its own commission to investigate events during the last eight years of the conflict with the LTTE.
UN undersecretary general for political affairs Lynn Pascoe visited Sri Lanka last week where he met President Mahinda Rajapaksa and visited former combat zones.
He told reporters that the panel would advise the UN chief on how to look into accountably issues of events that took place during the final stages of the military operations.
The UN estimated that 7,500 civilians were killed in the last months of the civil war, a claim denied by the Sri Lankan government.
© Sify News
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
UN Ban's Panel may not speak to Fonseka or travel to Sri Lanka - Report may be secret
By Matthew Russell Lee
Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky if, for example, the panel will interview Sarath Fonseka, who served as General in charge during the final stage of the conflict and who has spoken of orders to kill people who surrendered, a war crimes.
Nesirky replied that "the mandate is such that some of the precise details, the who and how, still need to be worked out." The aim, he said, is to speak with "the concerned officials," and to finish in four months.
Which officials are more "concerned" than President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brothers Gotabaya and Basil, and his Ambassador to the UN Palitha Kohona, named by Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar as having given assurances that those who surrendered would be treated in accordance with international law - before they were killed?
(Kohona disputes the timing of his communications with Nambiar, something that at a minimum one would expect this UN panel to inquire into and resolve.)
Inner City Press asked Nesirky, in light of the European Union's announcement that it will only extended the GSP Plus tariff benefit if the Rajapaksa administration takes specific human rights related actions in the next six months, if the UN believes or wants one of the actions to be cooperation with the UN panel.
Nesirky replied, we're focusing on the work of this advisory panel. So much for coordination.
So much, too, for consistency. Murzuki Darusman served on Ban's panel on the death of Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. That panel's report was released to the public. Darusman came to the UN briefing room on the day of its release, and Inner City Press asked him questions.
In this Sri Lanka case, though, Nesirky would not say if the panel's report will be made public, nor if any of the three members will take questions from the Press.
Inner City Press asked, for example, how Mr. Darusman will handle his four month Sri Lanka focus with his new other job, as special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea / DPRK.
Has Steven Ratner performed any other service for the UN, other than advising Kofi Annan about Cambodia's Khmer Rouge in the last 1990s? Nesirky did not answer any of these. And so we'll add a third, about the third member: is Yasmin Sooka more about reconciliation or accountability?
Even as Nesirky announced the names, confirming what Inner City Press has asked him on the record the previous day, his Office did not have ready biographies for the three, as is the usual practice.
Later on Tuesday, after Inner City Press asked Nobel laureate and Elder Martti Ahtisaari a question, Ahtisaari said of Sri Lanka that it was sad that in the international community, no one had been prepared to do anything. Sad indeed.
© Inner City Press
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