146,679 people unaccounted for in the Vanni War: Bishop of Mannaar

Photo courtesy: vikalpa.org

Tamil Net
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According to records of the SL Government Agent offices of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts, the population of Vanni was 429,059 in October 2008. The total number of people who got into SL government control after the war was 282,380, according to UN update as of 10 July 2009.

“Due clarification should be made regarding what happened to 146,679 people, which is the discrepancy between the number of people who came to government controlled areas between October 2008 – May 2009 and the population reported to be in Vanni in early October 2008,” said the Catholic Bishop of Mannaar, Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph in his submission to the LLRC Saturday. The Bishop has also raised the issues of militarization, colonisation, land grab, Sihalicization, Buddhicisation and civil as well as human rights abuses that take place in the Tamil land following the war.

The LTTE, other armed Tamil groups and the war, are not the cause, but only results of the conflict. Their actions were prompted by the failure of successive governments to respond favourably to Tamil’s efforts to resolve their problems through peaceful and political means. Roots of the conflict and reasons for the war that caused so much pain, destruction and polarization dates much further, the Bishop pointed out.

Citing the case of Rev. Fr. Jim Brown, whose case of disappearance in 2006 was part of the mandate of a previous presidential commission proved futile, the Bishop said “we must express our disappointment that previous Commissions of Inquiry have failed to establish the truth into human rights violations and extrajudicial killings they were inquiring and bring justice and relief to victims and their families.”

“Although establishing the truth is not explicitly mentioned in your mandate, we believe you will share our conviction that there can be no genuine and lasting reconciliation without truth,” the Bishop told the LLRC.

Commenting on colonisation activities the Bishop said: “There is suspicion amongst historical inhabitants in the district that these are part of a government plan to bring about demographic changes in terms of ethnic and religious composition of the districts and the Northern Province as a whole. Such efforts in the past have been a key factor that led to the conflict, war and violence and as we try to move towards reconciliation, it is crucial to learn lessons from the mistakes made in the past and not repeat such mistakes.”

While expressing his disapproval over limiting the amount of money spent on each permanent house in the North and East to 3,25,000 which is hardly enough for decent housing, the Bishop also has cautioned against possible obstacles to the Indian plan to build 50,000 houses.

© Tamil Net

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Dark days are back in Jaffna

By Sutirtho Patranobis | Hindustan Times
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In January, 2010, Jaffna was thrown open to Lankan citizens after decades of isolation. Passing through the former LTTE capital, Kilinochchi, thousands flocked to the peninsula in rickety buses over the potholed A9 highway. Jaffna residents were beleaguered by the sudden attention from southern tourists and traders but it seemed acceptable in exchange for a post-war sense of normalcy.

A year later, that sense of normalcy is dipping. A spate of murders - some suspect extra-judicial killings -- and abductions around the district have brought back dark fears. What is deepening the fear is that the crimes were committed even though the district is still under tight security - or at least enough number of well-armed policemen and military personnel are seen to be on duty.

Opposition leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe told Parliament that an all-party delegation should be urgently sent to the Tamil heartland to assess the situation. Government minister, and Tamil politician, Douglas Devananda added that "a fear psychosis" was prevailing. Tamil parliamentarians submitted a list of 15 incidents reported in less than two months.

Among the most shocking incidents were the beheading of a young man, killing of a Hindu priest and the murders of an education department officer and an environmentalist.

The response from the authorities was immediate and innovative: leaflets were distributed and announcements made asking the citizens to be wary and take care of themselves. Women were asked to wear imitation jewellery and homeowners asked to keep a light bulb on at night; don't go out alone at night, residents were warned.

"Such violence were the daily events when the government troops were locked in fierce war with LTTE but the re-emergence of the dark era even after the military defeat of the LTTE has raised a million dollar question on the motive of such organised crime," Journalists for Democracy, a group working in exile, said in a statement.

Last week, the government announced that it would recruit Tamil personnel for its police force; a move that would probably improve policing in Tamil-dominated north and east where lack of communication between Tamil citizens and Sinhalese policemen is a sharp hindrance against policing. Currently, less than 5% of Sri Lanka's 85,000 policemen are Tamils.

© Hindustan Times

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Sri Lanka: Media freedom still distant

By Amantha Perera | Inter Press Service
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January is indelibly linked to the tumultuous recent history of the media in Sri Lanka. Two years ago, on Jan. 8 Lasantha Manilal Wickrematunge, editor of the The Sunday Leader newspaper, was murdered while on his way to work.

The two-year murder investigation has not yielded any credible indications or pointers to the identity of the assassins, who fled after waylaying Wickrematunge’s car on a public road in broad daylight. The blame game instead has been in full swing with charges and counter-charges flying around.

Wickrematunge was a staunch critic of the administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and in a posthumous editorial published after he was killed - but reportedly written by him before the event - held the government responsible for any harm that may come to him. The government has flatly denied it was in any way connected to the murder.

When the assassination took place in 2009, Sri Lanka was a country in flux - a 25-year bloody civil conflict was reaching its end with the military poised to defeat the separatist Tamil Tigers. Four and half months after the Wickrematunge murder, the Tigers were no more, following final battles fought on a narrow beach front along the country’s northern shore. During the ensuing one and half years - as the island adapted to the absence of war - the media landscape also changed.

The reporting climate is still far from being conducive to assertive journalism, but has improved from what it was during the final phase of the war.

There has been a decline in the number of recorded attacks on the media, and no assassinations of journalists were reported last year.

Sri Lankan journalists can now travel in parts of the war-devastated north that are open to the public and report. During the final years of the war, between mid-2007 and May 2009, independent reporting from these areas was impossible.

Large areas in the north still remain out of bounds and foreigners need to seek government approval to travel and report in the north - some receive it, some don’t.

An international network filmed a long documentary report on demining work in the former war zone last October, and several foreign correspondents have also travelled to and filed from northern Jaffna. On the other hand the BBC has complained that it has been barred from hearings of a government commission looking into the conduct of the last days of the war.

"The situation has improved, we admit that " says Sunil Jayasekera, the convenor of the Free Media Movement (FMM) the country’s foremost media rights group. "But the lack of attacks and the absence of killings do not mean that we have an environment of media freedom, there is a long way to go for that."

Paris based media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has welcomed "the fall in the number of physical attacks, threats and cases of imprisonment" in its year ending situation report from Sri Lanka. But the press freedom group also echoed Jayasekera, warning that self-censorship is still common.

According to RSF at least 55 journalists and media workers fled the country during the last three years. Some have returned and recommenced their work. Others have returned for short stints to visit family. Most have remained overseas.

One journalist who fled the country in mid-2009, but returned for a short time last year, told IPS that he felt safe enough to visit but not to work. His predicament illustrates the current uncertain reporting climate. "I have thought of coming back, but still feel not quite sure of my safety," he told IPS on condition of anonymity. He had to leave the country following indications from management that his security was at risk.

Jayasekera says that there are still high levels of anxiety and journalists continue to look over their shoulders. "There is a lot of political involvement in our media, there are political affiliations among owners as well as journalists. That is not a good environment within the media," he said.

The journalist who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity said that the Wickrematunge murder drove fear into others. "He was the strongest critic of the government, but he was also an internationally known journalist and a powerful figure. Once he was killed, everybody else started questioning ‘if this can happen to Lasantha, it can happen to us.’" That fear is yet to fully disappear.

The inconclusive Wickrematunge murder investigation and the disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda still hang over journalists like dark clouds. Ekneligoda disappeared in January 2009 and so far his whereabouts have remained unknown.

The RSF report says that the government is not promoting full editorial freedom and attacks against journalist are still reported. Photographers covering an anti-government protest by undergraduate students were assaulted by uniformed police officers in December.

"If there is one conclusive investigation into at least one of these two high profile cases, it will go a long way to ease fears among journalists," Jayasekera said. "We live in an environment where we can only report what governments or those in power wish to make public," he said, "we have to make the government legally bound to release information to the public."

© IPS

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Price rises deepen discontent in Sri Lanka

By Saman Gunadasa | World Socialist Web Site
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Working people in Sri Lanka have been hit hard by a wave of price increases, especially for food and other essential items. While food prices are rising internationally, the impact has been compounded by the government’s austerity measures, including a wage freeze and cutbacks to price subsidies.

The official inflation rate rose from 4.3 percent last July to 7 percent and 6.9 percent in November and December respectively, according to Sri Lanka’s Statistics Department. Prices for basic food items, however, have increased far more quickly. Officially, food prices rose by 10 percent in November and December compared to the corresponding months the previous year.

Coconuts and coconut oil, which are an essential part of the local diet, jumped in December by around 63 percent compared to same month in 2009. Most vegetables went up by 5-50 percent. Onions—another basic item—rose by around 30 percent. Egg and chicken prices increased by 10 and 30 percent respectively. Prices for wheat flour—the country’s second staple after rice—and sugar both went up by 15 percent. Fish prices soared by 20-30 percent, and cooking gas by 3-6.5 percent.

To deflect discontent, the government claimed that the price hikes are due to “natural” or “seasonal” fluctuations. Heavy rain and floods have affected onions to some extent. But the government has taxed all the imported essential food items. Increases in global food prices and other inputs such as fertiliser, along with related intermediary services such as warehousing and transportation, have contributed to the sharp rises.

Sri Lanka Coconut Growers Association president Anton Fernando admitted that the low use of fertiliser in coconut cultivation, due to high prices, was the main reason for decreased production. In addition, increased taxes on maize imports, used for feeding poultry, affected the price of eggs and chicken.

On top of these price rises, the government will increase electricity charges by 8 percent from this month. This hike is a result of the government’s withdrawal of the fuel subsidy to the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), one of the IMF’s requirements for the CEB’s “restructuring”. Higher electricity charges will further drive up the prices of almost every essential item.

In his New Year message, Rajapakse indicated that more attacks on living conditions would follow. He insisted that sacrifices were necessary to “raise the position of our country in the world”. He added: “There will no doubt be a considerable increase in the sacrifices needed to those made to gain victory in the last five years.”

Rajapakse was referring to the Colombo government’s civil war. In July 2006, just seven months after assuming office, Rajapakse restarted the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). A military victory was ultimately achieved in May 2009 at the cost of tens of thousands of civilian lives. The government imposed the financial burden of the war, compounded by the global recession, on the back of the entire working class. Its measures included a wage freeze imposed from 2006.

To avert a balance of payment crisis, the government was forced to obtain a stand-by loan from the IMF in July 2009, which is conditional on cutting the budget deficit to 5 percent by 2012, half the 2009 level. The budget deficit was slashed to 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) last year and must be further lowered to 6.8 percent this year.

To achieve these targets, the government has begun increasing taxes on essentials, while lowering taxes for big business and foreign investors, slashing price subsidies and privatising basic infrastructure. After a 10-day assessment visit in early December, an IMF team declared that the government was on the “right track”.

The Central Bank estimated that GDP grew by 8 percent last year, while the IMF’s calculation was 7.5 percent. This growth was mainly due to increased economic activity in the war-torn north and east, including the resumption of farming and fishing, and growth in the tourism and telecommunication sectors. This expansion, which is fragile in the context of deepening world crisis, has not improved the living conditions of the working people.

According to the latest official statistics, average real household income has fallen over the past four years. According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey, average household income was 26,286 rupees ($US240) in 2006-07, and it nominally increased by 35 percent to 35,495 rupees ($311) in 2009-10.

When adjusted for inflation, however, household income fell by 2.5 percent during this period. In the plantation sector, average household income nominally increased by 32 percent to 25,649 rupees, but in real terms dropped by 4 percent.

While prices are skyrocketing, the government announced only a 5 percent increase on the monthly salary allowance and a 600-rupee cost-of-living allowance for public sector workers in last November’s budget. Pensioners were given a small increase of 300 rupees a month. Rajapakse abandoned his own promise in last January’s presidential election of a 2,500-rupee monthly pay increase for public sector employees.

Hard-hit plantation workers spoke to the WSWS. From a Hatton tea estate, S. Velu rejected the official claim of higher household income. To achieve the income figure reported by the government, three members of the same family living together would have to work for 22 days and fulfil all the production targets set by the plantation companies. He said such a situation was rare, and most families were living in dire poverty.

Velu explained: “After all deductions, including the cost of a pay sheet, last month my take-home salary was 6,000 rupees. My wife got 6,500 rupees. This amount is hardly sufficient. We need at least 15,000 rupees for household food expenses.”

The tea plantation worker pointed out that union leaders had joined the government, claiming they would push it to meet the needs of workers. “But prices are increasing daily and nobody talks about that. President Rajapakse promised that, after the end of the war, people would get a better life. However, now the living conditions are worse than during the war.”

Another plantation worker A. Mahathevan, 33, a father of four, explained that salaries were hardly enough for food, making it difficult for workers to provide education for their children. “We are fed up with all the trade unions and political parties,” he said.

Plantation trade unions, including the Ceylon Workers Congress, Up-country Peoples Front and National Union of Workers, are coalition partners of the government and support its measures.

Other unions have also diverted the discontent of workers into futile protests. The Trade Union Confederation, which claims to be “independent”, launched a petition campaign before the November budget calling on President Rajapakse to implement his promised wage rise. Since Rajapakse rejected the request, the union body has kept completely silent.

Last month, the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-led private sector Inter-company Employees Union held a conference to discuss wage demands. Union leaders rhetorically criticised the high cost of living, but did not announced no campaign to defend the living standards of workers.

The WSWS also spoke to Lakshmi, a female worker in the Katunayaka Free Trade Zone (FTZ) near Colombo. She works for an artificial flower manufacturing company, which exports to European markets. Lakshmi explained that she could not pay for accommodation and food with her monthly wage of just 12,000 rupees, which includes all incentives and overtime payments.

A worker from another FTZ factory, Texlan, said: “We cannot live on our income. The government suppresses our demands. There’s no democracy. The trade unions are betraying us. We are not afraid to come onto the streets to fight for good wages. There should be a viable leadership to follow.”

© WSWS

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Rain triggers Sri Lanka mudslides

Al Jazeera
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At least 16 people have been killed in flash floods and mudslides in Sri Lanka, as monsoon rains have swamped parts the country.

The Disaster Management Centre said on Tuesday that more than 120,000 people have been forced from their homes and were living in camps. Many were staying in government buildings set up as makeshift lodgings.

The eastern and northeastern areas of the country have been worst hit, with vast areas of rice paddies destroyed.

The government has deployed the air force and navy to drop food and rescue stranded residents, mainly in the district of Batticaloa.

Al Jazeera's Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the capital Colombo, said sustained rains in recent days had hampered rescue efforts.

"Another problem has been the saturation on the ground, the very slow pace at which flood waters are receding," she said.

"In the future, livelihoods will be affected. Over 130,000 acres of paddy land have been washed away. Drinking water wells will also be affected, lots of them have been polluted and contaminated."

Sri Lanka depends on monsoon rains for irrigation and power generation, but the seasonal downpours frequently cause deaths and damage property in low-lying areas.

The island's two main monsoon seasons run from May to September and December to February.

© Al Jazeera

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Sri Lanka's war crimes panel arouses strong emotions

Photo courtesy: Tamilnet

By Charles Haviland | BBC News
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In a crowded room in a government building there was an agitated buzz of people talking Tamil.

A man tried to organise things, telling them to get their sad case histories ready to submit.

Men and women of all ages held up pictures for the camera - pictures of their missing sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters - with dates of disappearance: January 2008; April 2007.

Raw emotions

The people were clamouring to appear before the war commission.

Before the commissioners arrived they unburdened themselves to us.

A woman told us her son aged 17 disappeared eight years ago while tending goats. Perhaps he was taken by the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). He was later seen in an army detention camp but then vanished.

An elderly man told us his son disappeared four years ago - the police had not been able to find him.

Once they were testifying to the panel, raw emotions came through.

A weeping mother, R Bhuwaneswari, clutched a bundle of victims' written testimonies as she addressed the team.

Her 15-year-old daughter was forced to stay back by the Tigers as the family escaped the war zone. She was later seen in a government-run camp but is now missing.

"Tell her to give the information to the commission secretary," the commission chairman and former attorney-general, CR de Silva, told the interpreter.

"We'll try to trace her daughter."

'Nothing happens'

But Ms Bhuwaneswari continued speaking.

"They all say there's peace, but there's no peace," she cried, weeping.

"We people don't have any happiness or freedom. We live with tears. We've reported our missing children to so many but nothing happens. You at least, please give us some good news. There are so many wives crying for their detained husbands.

"If my daughter were here now she would have sat her O-level exams."

Another woman, R Virginia Shanthi, said she and many others had been assaulted while their children were taken.

Her son disappeared in 2007 on his way to a beer store in an area which she said was under navy control.

"We hope you'll dry the tears of these mothers," she told the panel, breaking down.

"We are hurt, both mentally and physically. We are becoming ill, thinking about our lost ones."

Scores of others waited restlessly to testify but there was not time for many. They were asked to submit written details of their missing family members.

Senior Catholic churchmen including the Bishop of Mannar, Rt Rev Rayappu Joseph, had already given a long submission criticising the government and military's actions in the north.

He told the BBC he would have liked more time for people to unburden themselves. He wanted them to accept that their relatives were dead and try to get death certificates for them.

At a later session the wife of the LTTE's former local commander, Anthony Rayappu, said she had seen him taken away by the army but there was now no clue of his whereabouts.

Not independent

At one of the Mannar hearings a soldier in uniform made witnesses nervous as he took photographs of them and the panel. His presence was brought to the attention of commission officials who asked him to go outside.

The commission, which began hearings in August, is supposed to determine who was responsible for the failure of a 2002 ceasefire, suggest ways to prevent another war and foster reconciliation and to promote restitution for those affected.

International human rights groups have refused to testify, complaining that it lacks a mandate to investigate alleged war crimes.

They also say the panel members are too close to the government and therefore not independent. The government denies this.

In May this year the LLRC is to give the president its final report, which may or may not be made public.

All of its public hearings so far outside Colombo have been in Tamil-majority areas.

But this month it will visit the Sinhalese-majority town of Anuradhapura, where 27 people were killed and 94 injured by an LTTE suicide bomber in 2008.

Witnesses have given extremely diverse accounts.

Bishop Joseph's team said it believed there were as many as 146,000 people still unaccounted for during the last phase of fighting - a figure higher than most other calculations.

But last week Champika Ranawaka, a government minister from a Sinhalese nationalist party, the JHU, declared that only about 1,100 civilians were killed in the war's last three years.

He said the ethnic majority had come out of the war worse than Tamils because Sinhalese people displaced from the north had never returned home.

© BBC News

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Over 800,000 hit in Sri Lankan floods

By R. K. Radhakrishnan | The Hindu
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Over 800,000 people have been affected in Sri Lanka as the monsoon fury worsened, leading to breaching of tanks, landslips and flooding.

The numbers affected could be higher since statistics are not available from at least four of the affected districts.

Assistant Director of the National Disaster Management Centre Pradeep Kodippili said the number of people affected island-wide was 819,759 (215,986 families). Sunday's rainfall of 300 mm in a day in Battocaloa is the highest in recent memory.

As many as 482,830 persons belonging to 127,980 families in the Batticaloa District and 306,998 persons belonging to 80,410 families in the Ampara District have been affected by the floods, the worst affected two districts in the island.

The entire arc spanning from Trincomallee in the north to Ampara in the south — covering 10 districts — have been affected. Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera put the losses due to the rain at LKR 30 billion.

In Anuradhapura district, one town — Horowpathana — was under water and the Tikkampatna dam had breached. Many roads in the hilly Kandy and Nuuwara Eliya have been rendered useless because of landslips.

Transportation by road and rail have come to a standstill in most of the affected districts.

More than 36,000 persons living in camps for the internally displaced in Batticaloa are among the affected.

Over 6300 IDPs in Polonnaruwa also have been affected by the floods.

Moved to safety

The Air Force rescued 24 persons from Batticaloa since Sunday evening. It said its Bell 212 helicopter transported a pregnant lady from Valaichchenai to Polonnaruwa Hospital.

Another helicopter carried out a ration drop at Thoppigala on Monday morning, providing relief aid to flood victims.

© The Hindu

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Pakistan to train SL spies

Daily Mirror
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Pakistan has offered to train the intelligence officers of Sri Lanka, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said yesterday.

He was talking to a Sri Lankan parliamentary delegation headed by Speaker of Parliament Chamal Rajapaksa who is currently visiting Pakistan, the APP reported yesterday.

The Sri Lankan delegation included among others Minister of Disaster Management A.H.M Fowzie.

The Pakistan President also stressed on enhancing the economic cooperation between the two countries, including exchange of gem and stone cutting experts.

© Daily Mirror

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Sri Lanka: Two years after the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge

By Basil Fernando | Asian Human Rights Commission
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Two years have passed since one of the most infamous assassinations in Sri Lanka in recent times. The editor of the Sunday Leader and an internationally known journalist, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was killed in an attack that occurred in broad daylight. It is reported that the police have submitted around 50 reports at various court hearings regarding this murder but that they have been unable to bring any credible evidence against any of the perpetrators of this murder.

Two questions arise: is this due to the incapacity of the police investigators? Or is it due to the pressures brought on the investigators and those who are in charge of such investigations not to condult credible investigations into this murder? The possibility that the failure is in the capacities of the investigators is a difficult hypothesis to maintain as in the past much more mysterious and intricate crimes have been solved in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, if the question was one of incapacities in terms of expertise or technical difficulties, it is the obligation of the policing department and the police to seek assistance from international agencies as they have done in the past. No attempt was made to get the advice of professional investigators or forensic experts to assist in the investigation of this case. Therefore the possibility of the failure of the investigation on the basis of incapacity can be easily dismissed.

However, the argument for the other alterative, that it was due to political pressure that the investigation does not happen, is very much more plausible. First of all the open allegation by the family members and those who were close to the assassinated Lasantha Wickrematunge is that the assassins were those associated with the political leadership of the government. Lasantha Wickrematunge himself predicted the possibility of his assassination on political grounds. There had been previous attacks on him and his newspaper, which too have never been properly investigated. The previous attacks were indicative of the possibility that the final attack was also made the same persons. The public enemies of Lasantha Wickrematunge on record are also prominent politicians.

It is under these circumstances that the state owed a greater responsibility for providing all resources for to make a proper investigation into this crime. This has not been done and this points a finger at the government.

Today, the fact of the control of the police by the political authorities is no longer a matter of controversy. The collapse of the public authorities in general and the police in particular has been observed and commented upon by almost everyone. Vast documentation exists on this issue.

What sharply comes through this murder is that when the government does not want investigations to be done, the police investigation units no longer have the capacity to carry out any investigations. What happens by way of submitting reports to the courts is mere compliance with the legal obligations. However, the legal obligations relating to carrying out the obligations is not accompanied with the filing of the reports. Filing reports has become an empty exercise and, in fact, an exercise in hypocrisy. The police officers in charge of the investigation have to submit such reports to the courts and, if they are not submitted, then the judges have the right to take such officers to task. To overcome this problem, more reports are submitted claiming that the investigations are being conducted without giving any details of what is actually being done by way of continuing investigations.

In Sri Lanka the judiciary has not adequately challenged the police practice of the submitting of reports being simply a formality and that it is being engaged in compliance with the legal rules in purely hypocritical way. The question of the duty to investigate and the obligations of those engaged in this need to be more clearly spelled out by the judiciary itself, who ultimately have the obligation of conducting the judicial process.

Judicial process relating to murder becomes a pointless exercise if serious and credible investigations are not done. This is not a matter only on this particular case but about the whole issue of serious crimes. If political or other purposes could stand against the officers who conduct investigations into serious crimes, then the system of investigations into murder cannot effectively function.

If investigations into serious murder become a farce it threatens the security of the public. Throughout civilization one of the major concerns has been about how the murders of persons could be stopped. What has been inbuilt in the laws relating to murder and the investigations are the rules that have been developed over centuries in order to stop people killing each other.

If the rule made to stop people killing each other can no longer be implemented in Sri Lanka, that is a societal crisis of the highest nature. It is, in fact, as bad as can be.

Many look into the absence of an investigation into the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge in a more cynical way, saying that such murders will never be investigated. What the cynics do not realise is that this is not about one man's death but about social obligation to investigate murder.

Can Sri Lanka remain a stable society if the rules relating to murder are so flagrantly abused? This is a question that needs to be reflected upon on the second anniversary of the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was an opinion-maker in Sri Lanka.

There is some paralysis in the opinion making process in Sri Lanka, perhaps due to fears generated by murders of similar sort that were not investigated. This has led to the opinion-makers themselves remaining silent on great issues that affect society itself, including in terms of rules relating to murder and other serious crimes.

Added to this is the nationalist sentiment that the investigations into this murder may cause political rifts which may be dangerous to the idea of the nation as it stands now. If one murder were to be properly investigated, then what would happen to many others that are not investigated, which may be of those who were terrorists? The fear that a proper investigation into one murder may lead to others seems to lurk very high as a concern of many persons who don't want such investigations.

Nationalism that does not care about murders of citizens is a serious contradiction in itself. Nationalism is about citizens and their lives. If the lives of the citizens do not matter then how does a nation stand together? The nation is a gathering of individuals. If the death of an individual does not matter then there cannot be a deeper cause for internal divisiveness than that. One individual does not trust that another individual will intervene on his behalf if a catastrophe were to befall him, that they will not defend his right to life. What then is this so-called idea of the nation, a nation that does not care for the lives of the individuals? These are serious questions that arise on this occasion and not to reflect on such issues but merely make some kind of ritual celebration of the second anniversary is itself a farce. If death memorials become a farce, then what else is there in society to create basic societal meanings?

That is the kind of societal crisis that Sri Lanka is facing today. Rule of law is now been reduced to a noon day dream.

© AHRC

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At least 20 buried alive in Sri Lanka hill country

Colombo Page
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Sources from Sri Lanka's hill capital Kandy says that rescue operations are underway to save the lives of several people that are buried under a collapsed earth mound in Getambe village.

At lease 20 people are believed to be buried alive when an earth mound collapsed on five houses.

The number of deaths has not been confirmed yet but at least five bodies have been recovered, reports say.

The people of the area have heard a loud noise Sunday morning as the earth slip occurred. Several people have escaped the disaster and a few more have been rescued from the debris and admitted to the hospital, sources said.

Sri Lanka Police, armed forces, Fire Brigade, and volunteers are engaged in the rescue operation.

© Colombo Page

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