By Mark McDonald | IHT Rendezvous
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But the fog of war still has not lifted in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka said Tuesday that it would not be sending a review of alleged war crimes to the United Nations for discussion. There’s no need, a senior government official said, because its international critics in New York won’t be persuaded anyway.
A United Nations report has already called for an international inquiry into likely atrocities. Investigators found credible claims that a lot of hands had a lot of blood on them. The Tigers, after all, pretty much invented suicide bombing and the use of female suicide bombers. And Sri Lankan artillery batteries unleashed hell, even if civilians were in the way.
Here’s one representative sentence from the U.N. findings: “The Government systematically shelled hospitals on the frontlines.’’ And this sentence, which found that the Tigers “started point-blank shooting of civilians who attempted to escape the conflict zone.’’
It was that kind of war. More like murder.
In December, after the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission had taken testimonies from hundreds of battlefield witnesses, the government completed its review of the war.
Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance, the leading political party of the minority Tamils, told The Associated Press that the government’s submersion of the report was meant to deflect a likely storm of criticism over its end-game prosecution of the war.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry secretary told the Daily News in Colombo that government critics could not be persuaded by any explanation or defense. “We know that we can’t make them happy no matter what we do,’’ said Karunatilaka Amunugama.
In a recent commentary in The New York Times, the journalist Namini Wijedasa said the government report was “a valuable document, but regarding the war’s final weeks, it is largely an apologia for the army.’’
Sri Lanka’s Independence Day falls on Saturday, marking the former colony’s break from Britain in 1948. The timing would seem propitious for a reversal of the government’s stance on its refusal to make a break with its more recent past.
Forwarding its report to the U.N. might also elicit some assistance from Washington if the United States and the European Union place further sanctions on Iran. Sri Lanka gets 93 percent of its oil from Iran.
A senior U.S. Treasury official, Luke Bronin, is scheduled to have talks in Sri Lanka on Thursday. Iranian sanctions will certainly be on the agenda.
“We need an alternative. We’ll tell them to give us an alternative,” President Mahinda Rajapaksa told reporters on Tuesday, noting that in the end, U.S. and E.U. sanctions “are not punishing Iran — they are punishing us, small countries.’’
He was asked if he would ask for a waiver of the sanctions, for a way to escape the Washington-Tehran crossfire.
“We might,’’ the president said. “Otherwise, how do we survive?’’
© IHT Rendezvous
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The fog of an uncivil war in Sri Lanka
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
'Black January' marked amidst rival protests
Photo courtesy: vikalpa.org
BBC Sinhala
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The annual Press Freedom Index issued by Paris based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has ranked Sri Lanka 163 out of 178 countries ranked. Sri Lanka was ranked 158 in 2010.
The campaign in Colombo, organised by Sri Lanka's Alliance of Media Organizations, to mark killings of journalists and threats and intimidation against media personnel in January, is also supported by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The protest marks recent attacks in January including the murder of Sunday Leader editor, Lasantha wickrematunga in 2009, the disappearance of political columnist Prageeth Ekneligoda in 2010, the attack on Sirasa media network in 2009 and the brutal attack on television producer Lal Hemantha Mawalage in 2008.
Press Freedom Index
The protest that was to be held in front of Colombo fort railway station was forced to shift to Lipton Roundabout as pro-government groups staged a protest at the railway station hours before 'Black January' protest.
Sarath Kumara Perera, the convener of Free Media Association (FMA) which staged the pro-government protest accused the 'Black January' protesters of being "traitors" and "trying to create unrest in the country" using foreign funding.
Traffic in front of the railway station was disrupted by the protest, co-organised by the FMA and Organisation of Self-Employed.
Chandana Sirimalwatta of Journalists Against Oppression, categorically rejected FMA views.
Media in Sri Lanka has a right to reveal what is actually happening in the country, he said, and accused the pro-government protesters of being involved in media oppression.
Releasing the PFI, the RSF said: "The stranglehold of the Rajapakse clan forced the last few opposition journalists to flee the country. Any that stayed behind were regularly subjected to harassment and threats."
It added though attacks were less common, impunity contributed to self-censorship “by almost all media outlets”.
© BBC Sinhala
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Families and activists demand information on Sri Lanka's disappeared journalist, civilians
Photo courtesy: vikalpa.org
By Krishan Francis | Winnipeg Free Press
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The civilians disappeared after they allegedly were abducted by a pro-government militia, and columnist and cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda had criticized the government before he went missing two years ago Tuesday.
The protesters carrying candles and photographs of the missing marched to a church where they prayed for freedom for the victims.
"I have gone everywhere possible over the past two years to know the whereabouts of Prageeth," said Sandhya Ekneligoda, the journalist's wife. "We must join hands and take this struggle together," she told other women who participated in the campaign.
Last year Sandhya sought the help of the United Nations to help trace the journalist, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon announced that the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNESCO the world's body's educational organization are looking into the case.
However, there has been no information on Prageeth.
Sandhya chanted prayers at the church calling for "strength and freedom" for her children and husband.
"Give me a family, find my husband and children," read banners carried by the protesters.
Opposition politician and activist Mano Ganeshan accused the government of abductions.
"There is no one else to do it but the government," he said. "We tell the government to explain what happened to these people before trying to defend yourselves internationally."
Foreign governments and human rights groups have heavily criticized Sri Lanka's human rights record, especially during the final stages of the civil war that ended with the defeat of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.
Scores of ethnic Tamils suspected of having links with the rebels disappeared after being abducted. Journalists were killed, some imprisoned and others were taken away and severely beaten.
© AP
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
‘In ravaged times, poets become the voice of the voiceless’ - Tamil Poet Cheran
By Bhamati Sivapalan | Tehelka
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A lot of your literature deals with the Sri Lankan Tamil experience. In places caught in ethnic conflicts, we witnesses destruction of cultural identity. In this context, how do you position your work?
My first collection of poetry was titled The Second Sunrise in English. It was written in 1981 after the burning of the Jaffna public library. When I look back, I am reminded of a saying by a German writer and intellectual: “First you burn books, then you end up burning human beings.”
That's very pertinent to what you're asking. I was very close to that library. Every Saturday my father would take us to the library. I would spend 4-5 hours there. I was a young university student in Jaffna at the time of the burning. We couldn't go to the library when it was being burnt but we went the next day. We saw a large number of Sri Lankan soldiers and other agents of the state stationed next to it in a huge stadium. They were laughing and mocking us. That is my very first memory of the library being burnt.
My poem was symbolic. It simply depicts the burning of the library as the second rise, which is unimaginably ironic, right? It’s a second sunrise in the sense that the Tamils were about to resist the cultural genocide. And this was the time when various Tamil militant movements emerged.
In the past 30 years, there has been a systematic attempt by the state of Sri Lanka to ethnically cleanse and culturally subjugate the entire Tamil population. And the culmination of that particular project, ethnic cleansing and pogrom, is the May 2009 genocide of Tamils.
How does your work counter this narrative of cultural genocide?
Well in one sense, in the past 30 years, my eight collections of poetry have been a witness to the ongoing resistance of the Tamils and the genocidal massacres of the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. So in that sense I became a witness to that history. My witnessing is not just as a historian or an archaeologist or a social scientist. It’s the poet as the witness, which involves a different kind of sensibility. It’s a different kind of imagination that is involved in this particular kind of being a witness, which you can very clearly see in my work.
A lot of poetry that comes out of conflict spaces often tends to be primarily valued as a sociological document. Does its value then, as a craft for the literary devices, run the risk of going unnoticed?
That’s an interesting observation… I would like to mention that the cultural theorist Leo Lowenthal who said that historians, social scientists and sociologists should be prevented or banned from using poetry as raw material for their works. But on the other hand, when public intellectuals like journalists, politicians and academicians are silent to this kind of genocide or ethnic cleansing, the poets step in and articulate a particular kind of resistance. That shouldn't be the primary work of a poet. However, in the absence of all other voices of resistance, in the absence of counter narratives, sometimes it happens that the poets become the voice of the voiceless.
The second point is that, it is not that the poetry I wrote or the ones that my colleagues wrote were simply agitprop poetry. It’s not ‘kavitai koshum’ (sloganeering poetry) as we say in Tamil. But rather this is a different kind of poetry with a different sensibility and speaks to a particular kind of nuance at times of conflict, war, disappearances and genocide. The particular poetic movement that emerged in the north east of Sri Lanka in Tamil greatly impacted the Tamil poetry in Tamil Nadu and in various other parts of the world. When my poetry was translated to Kannada, some of the key Kannada literary critics and poets felt that the poetry from north eastern Sri Lanka had an organic combination of poetry, protest, resistance and aesthetics that was unique. So that is what I think differentiates the kind of poetry that I wrote and my colleagues wrote. That's a very important distinction. We can't simply say that this is a kind of poetry that witnesses an agony and resistance but there is more to it.
Bhamati Sivapalan is a Video Correspondent with Tehelka.com
© Tehelka
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sri Lanka jail riot 'injures 31' in Colombo
BBC News
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Most of the injured are prisoners who were shot by guards. Police deny claims that three inmates were killed.
Several buildings were set alight in the remand wing of Colombo's main prison before order was restored.
Prisoners say they want better food and conditions. Police said inmates were angry at moves to curb drug smuggling.
The head of Sri Lanka's prisons department admitted that the treatment of prisoners in the jail fell short of acceptable standards.
A local resident told the Associated Press news agency that disturbances had been going on for several days.
Wounds 'not serious'
Throughout Tuesday smoke billowed from the Welikada (Magazine) prison as dozens of inmates demonstrated on the rooftops. Some held up a banner calling for the head of the prison to be removed.
The BBC's Charles Haviland says the air outside the jail was acrid with tear gas and smoke - inside the barrier gate the prison is teeming with police and armed military.
Ambulances have been taking the wounded to Colombo's National Hospital. A senior staff member there told the BBC that 26 inmates and five officers were being treated, although the injuries were not serious.
The prisoners had gunshot wounds, mostly below the knee. The officers had head or leg injuries after being assaulted.
Earlier, one of the inmates told the BBC Sinhala service that three prisoners had been killed when officers at the gates shot at a large group in the compound.
The deaths are unconfirmed and exactly what happened is unclear.
Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said gunfire and tear gas had been used after prisoners rioted over new regulations.
"The new prison administration have launched a massive programme in order to curtail the drugs inside the prison and apart from that to prevent drugs going inside the prison," he said.
"I think this is the reason for this protest."
But the prisoners said the new rules in fact banned food from outside.
Later the head of the prisons department told BBC Sinhala that the treatment of the prisoners was less than ideal and that this would be corrected.
Prisons Commissioner PW Kodippili said food had been sent in but there was no immediate confirmation of this from the prisoners.
He also said that 180 remand prisoners suspected of links with the Tamil Tigers had now been transferred to another jail.
© BBC News
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
In Sri Lanka, Eknelygoda asks that humanity trump cruelty
By Bob Dietz - Asia Program Coordinator | Committee to Protect Journalists
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The Alliance of Media Organizations, spearheaded by the Free Media Movement, has earmarked January 25, as Black January Day on account of the numerous attacks against the media unleashed by the government in the past three years, especially in the month of January. These include the murder of Sunday Leader editor [Lasantha Wickramatunga], the fire bomb attack on Sirasa/MTV studios and the attack on Rivira editor Upali Tennakoon in 2009, [see CPJ's Special Report: Failure to Investigate], the disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, the sealing of Lanka newspapers and the detention of its editor in 2010, and the arson attack on Lanka eNews office in 2011.
January 24 marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, a cartoonist and columnist for the pro-opposition Lanka eNews website. The case is among several anti-press attacks that are tied up in court hearings without substantive law enforcement action. Eknelygoda's wife, Sandhya, and two sons have gotten no word from any official body of the Sri Lankan government, from the lowest police desk to the highest levels of the ministry of justice, about what happened to the journalist.
On Tuesday, as she did last year, Sandhya Eknelygoda will take another step in pressing the government to conduct an investigation into her husband's disappearance. Here is the plan, according to an email message sent over the weekend:
Women have taken the initiative to commemorate the second year of the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda and of all the other disappeared persons on the 24th January 2012, in front of the Fort Railway Station at 4.30 p.m.
They will sit down in deep silence to make their protest to the murderers and the destroyers of these valuable lives, with the firm determination to eradicate this inhuman and barbarous culture of revenge and criminality against humanity.
The most interesting feature would be the procession of women moving to the church in New Chetty Street, Kochcikade to invoke the blessings of Virgin Mary, Prajapathi Gothami, Goddess Paththini, and Goddess Kali.
All sympathy and support is welcome to share in this symbolic gesture of this heroic effort of these women who are suffering daily with the awful and unbearable loss of their loved ones.
On January 25, 2011, Sandhya Eknelygoda submitted a petition calling on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. officials to encourage the Sri Lankan government to investigate the disappearance of her husband. The request to the U.N. has been unmet.
In March 2011, CPJ and four other groups sent a letter to Ban asking him to direct the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNESCO, which oversees press freedom, to look into the case of Eknelygoda. There has been no meaningful response from the United Nations. Sandhya Eknelygoda's personal appeal to the president's wife, Shiranthi Rajapaksa, has also gone unanswered.
Consider this vast indifference. What can this soft-spoken mother of two teenage boys possibly do? Yet her words this year invoke a faith in humanity that transcends the cruelty she has experienced, as she calls on like-minded women to "sit down in deep silence ... with the firm determination to eradicate this inhuman and barbarous culture of revenge and criminality."
© CPJ
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sri Lanka: Further repression of media, civil society, minorities
Human Rights Watch
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The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa continued to stall on accountability for abuses by the security forces, threatened media and civil society groups, and largely ignored complaints of insecurity and land grabbing in the north and east, Human Rights Watch said. The long-awaited report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), published in December, largely absolved the military for its conduct in the bloody final months of the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ended in May 2009.
“In 2011, accountability remained a dead issue, the media faced increasing censorship, and the long-standing grievances which led to the conflict were not seriously addressed,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Sri Lankans face a lack of justice, weak rule of law, land grabbing, and a censored media from a government that is increasingly authoritarian.”
In its 676-page report, Human Rights Watch assessed progress on human rights during the past year in more than 90 countries, including popular uprisings in the Arab world that few would have imagined. Given the violent forces resisting the “Arab Spring,” the international community has an important role to play in assisting the birth of rights-respecting democracies in the region, Human Rights Watch said in the report.
The government’s failure to hold perpetrators of abuses accountable remained a key issue throughout the year. No one was prosecuted for atrocities committed during the conflict with the LTTE. The government ignored the findings of a Panel of Experts report, commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which found rampant abuses by both government forces and the LTTE, and called for an independent international mechanism to investigate laws-of-war violations. The government insisted instead that its LLRC would be the mechanism to address wartime abuses, though the mandate, composition and procedures of the commission were deeply flawed. The LLRC effectively exonerated government forces for laws-of-war violations, rehashed long-standing recommendations, and took no concrete steps to advance accountability.
The commission’s findings stand in stark contrast to those of the UN Panel of Experts, the UN special envoy on extrajudicial executions, and nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch. Although the LLRC found that government shelling resulted in civilian casualties, an allegation that the government had strenuously denied, it did not even consider the repeated attacks on civilian areas and hospitals as possible indiscriminate attacks prohibited by the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said.
“The abuses by government forces detailed in the UN Panel of Experts report are strangely missing in the LLRC’s findings,” Adams said. “Even the LLRC’s useful recommendations seem destined to join those of other Sri Lankan commissions that got filed away and ignored.”
Free expression in Sri Lanka was under assault in 2011. The editor of a Jaffna-based newspaper was beaten with iron bars by a group of unidentified youths in late July. Also in July, a team of Radio Netherlands journalists were harassed by police and later robbed and attacked at gunpoint by men in a white van, a notorious symbol of terror in Sri Lanka. The chairman of the Sunday Leader, whose brother Lasantha Wickrematunge had been gunned down in 2009, received a phone call from President Rajapaksa who threatened to attack him personally in response to articles in the Sunday Leader about high-level corruption. In December, two human rights activists, Lalith Kumar Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganathan, disappeared, apparently abducted while en route to a planned protest rally in Jaffna. Weeraraj’s father stated that his son had received anonymous phone calls prior to the protest telling him that he would be eliminated if he continued his political involvement.
In November, the government-owned Daily News announced that the government would issue guidelines and a code of conduct for the country’s media. The Media Ministry called on all news websites to register. At least five websites critical of the government were subsequently blocked inside the country.
“A free media is an essential building block of a democratic state,” Adams said. “The Rajapaksa administration is putting this in jeopardy by reacting to criticism with heavy-handed measures.”
The government says that there has been meaningful progress on reconciliation, but there is little evidence to support that contention, Human Rights Watch said. Talks between the government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on distribution of powers remained stalled through most of 2011. While campaigning ahead of elections in Jaffna in June, members and supporters of the TNA were attacked by army personnel wielding rods, batons and sticks.
There were some improvements for the Tamil population in the north and east in 2011. Freedom of movement to the north has allowed for greater access by humanitarian, local human rights and media groups, as well as by families. However, the government took inadequate steps in 2011 to normalize living conditions. Security in the region remained poor, with alarming incidents reported of gender-based violence and enforced prostitution. The unsettling attacks mid-year by “grease devils” – unidentified male assailants – exposed the vacuum in the security forces’ ability to respond adequately to civilians’ needs for protection. The heavy military presence in the north and east was a continuing source of distrust among the largely Tamil population.
The issue of land, one of the central problems undergirding the decades-long conflict, remains unresolved. Although the cabinet in April passed a circular intended to address the issue of land ownership and competing claims, particularly for those who fled during the war, little was done to implement its provisions.
Further, the government failed to appoint a National Land Commission, as required under the 13th amendment to the constitution. Reports of land-grabbing by the military in the north and elsewhere in the country increased through 2011. In some cases, the military provided some compensation, but sporadically and only when initiated by the owners, not the occupiers.
“The government has barely made an effort to address the grievances of the Tamil population,” Adams said. “Instead of the government facilitating greater dialogue, Tamil political representatives are subject to threats and harassment.”
Most of the nearly 300,000 displaced persons illegally confined in military-controlled detention centers after the war were able to leave by early 2010, but many have still not been able to return to their previous homes or communities. About 57,000 people live with host families, and another roughly 53,000 remain in the camps, in part because de-mining activities have not yet been completed in their original home areas.
By December, the government had released all but about 1,000 of the nearly 12,000 LTTE “surrenderees,” alleged combatants and supporters that it was detaining without charge or trial, and claimed that those remaining would be released by mid-2012. The government says these former combatants have been rehabilitated and trained to enter civilian life. The government said another 1,000 “hardcore” LTTE members are being held at Camp Boosa. The conditions for all of these detainees are not known.
Allegations of mistreatment and torture in custody have not been investigated.
The Emergency Regulations were allowed to expire on August 31, but the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and other laws and regulations permitting detention without charge for up to 18 months leave an abusive detention regime in place.
Local government elections held between March and October further consolidated the hold of Rajapaksa’s United Freedom People’s Alliance party. It won control over 270 of the 322 local authorites contested. As in previous years, the president relied on close family members to strengthen his hold on government. Various Rajapaksa brothers remain as cabinet ministers with important portfolios. Opposition parties were effectively sidelined.
Sarath Fonseka, the former army commander who challenged Rajapaksa during the 2010 presidential election, was sentenced to an additional three years in prison after his current sentence expires in January 2012.
“As the Rajapaksa government has strengthened its grip politically, basic rights protections in the country have deteriorated,” Adams said.
© HRW
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Armed men on nocturnal terror visits to deter students’ struggle
By Leon Berenger | The Sunday Times
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The armed men immediately went around searching the building that also serves as an office of the university student organization, dragging out those already in bed, and assembling all the occupants in the inside verandah.
“Ko Sanjeewa Bandara,” the leader of the group demanded from those assembled. “Oka pathayalaya nayakek, kiyapan koheda inne,” (The fellows is an underworld leader, tell us where he is) the leader of the group demanded from the students.
“We told the men that Sanjeewa Bandara is the leader of the Inter-University Students Federation (IUSF) and not an underworld leader, and also that he was not a resident of this particular hostel,” Nuwan Jayaweera told the Sunday Times.
“We further informed the men that, if it is Sanjeewa Bandara they were looking for, it was easy to trace him as he appeared at news conferences, students protests all over the city at day, and could be easily spotted,” he said.
“This infuriated him, and he warned us to close down the place within a day, or face the consequences, which he promised would be ugly,” Mr. Jayaweera added.
According to the students present, the armed men were widely believed to be from the Army Intelligence, and the motive for their late night visit was purely aimed at intimidating the organisation that is in the forefront of the ongoing student protests throughout the country.
When the armed group left after about 45 minutes, during which time they searched the entire place, the students followed them, only to turn back after the ‘invaders’ raised their rifles and threatened to open fire.
During the raid, the students also observed that more armed persons had ringed the building from several sides. “Shortly after the incident, we made a complaint with the Homagama Police, but nothing has come out of the investigation, and we do not expect any positive results either. Even the police by now, would be aware of the identity of the men,” Mr. Jayaweera added.
The Homagama incident is not an isolated one, with students’ groups and others claiming that such late night, and even day visits by armed persons to private households, are widespread in many parts of the country.
The homes targeted are those of university student leaders and hardcore activists behind the wave of protests that was triggered-off by the proposed setting up of private universities in the country, among other issues.
One such home visited was the one belonging to Miss D.A. Perera, a fourth-year student of the Arts Faculty at Sri Jayawardenepura University.
“Two mufti-clad men entered my shop that adjoins my home and made inquiries about my eldest daughter who is attending Sri Jayewardenepura University,” said K.A. Perera, a staunch supporter of the left movement.
“They were decent in their approach, as they identified themselves from military intelligence. However, they were also giving a message. I suspect, the visit may have been different, if I was not present that day,” he said.
“The two men wanted to know my political affiliations and that of my daughter. I told them that I do not belong to any major political party, but instead, follow the left path, and that would not change,” Mr. Perera added.
“In the meantime, I was expecting such a visit at any moment. Even my daughter cautioned me towards this end, adding that the homes of several students had already been visited,” he said.
The two men later left the Perera home after a chew of betel, saying that they too had a job to do, but not before the grocer spotted a piece of paper in their possession, with a list of names and addresses.
IUSF President Sanjeewa Bandara alleged that some 250 homes from all parts of the country had experienced such visits from the beginning of this month, and that the trend was continuing.
“In most cases, the occupants of the homes were asked to get their children off the street protests, or face the consequences. In some cases, there were repeated visits to a particular household,” Mr. Bandara added.
He said that, the homes targeted belonged mainly to student leaders and other frontline activists behind the protests, and in some cases, even that of demonstrators caught on camera and from television grabs.
He added that, the intruders were working in collaboration with the local Grama Sevakas, where they collected personal information of an individual student, before moving in at night. “In addition to that, they were also in possession of students’ personal files taken from the administration section of each university. What is even more damning is that they spread false rumors among the villagers, that this particular student is connected to international groups sympathetic to the separatist Tamil cause,” Mr. Bandara told the Sunday Times.
Waruna Rajapaksa with the ‘People’s Struggle’ movement and Western Provincial Councillor, warned that the student crisis had come to a frightening point, with the army getting involved to stifle democratic rights.
“Instead of addressing the issues at hand in a democratic and fair manner, the Government has opted for a military solution. “It is like using a sledge hammer to squash an egg”, is how Mr. Rajapaksa described the current approach by the State.
“The students involved in the Homagama case are affiliated with our movement, and therefore, were concerned of the unfolding developments,” Rajapaksa said.
Rajapaksa’s People’s Struggle movement is a breakaway faction of the left-leaning Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP).
However, in this case, the JVP and the dissidents have united to condemn the involvement of the army in suppressing student actions, and have warned, that the issue could develop into a full blown crisis, should the Government insist on a military approach to solve the problem.
“The Government is bankrupt of ideas and solutions, and has therefore, opted for the military approach. This should never be the case. The authorities must have a re-think, before moving in on this particular direction,” JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said.
He warned that, if the Government has its way with this so-called private universities to be opened in the country, it would mean the death knell of free education, starting from the primary to the halls of higher education.
He added that, the budgetary allowance for free education in the country was just 1.6% of the GDP, a pittance when compared with the allocations to other sections. “Very soon, the parents will be called on to provide the desk, chair and even the piece of chalk to the classroom.
The Government is bankrupt for ideas and solutions to the burning issues faced by the people. It is not only the student crisis, but the increasing burdens forced on the people, like the cost of living and the high unemployment rate are issues the State must look into at the earliest,” Mr. Somawanasa added.
He said that, looking at the present trend the Government is taking towards the university crisis, it will soon bring out the army to stifle anyone who dares oppose the establishment, be it trade unions or whatever.
In conclusion he added that, the students must be allowed to exercise their democratic rights without hindrance, while the Government must make a genuine effort to look into their problems and try and bring about solutions at the earliest.
Dr. Nirmal Devasiri with the Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA) said that propagating revolutionary ideas was not illegal and is allowed within a democratic framework. “It is ‘madness’ to link the present student uprising to terrorism. No sane person will think of an armed struggle in the present scenario. Young people must be given the opportunity to express their political beliefs,” he added.
He added that, late night visits to the homes of students will only bring out negative results. “We have seen this in the past, and it should not be allowed to happen again,” Dr. Devasiri cautioned.
He said a student had informed him that his house experienced such a visit simply because he was studying at a university. “This is ridiculous” Dr. Devasiri added.
Meanwhile, Leader of the House, Nimal Siripala de Silva informed Parliament that certain international elements were trying to bring about a regime change in the same manner as they did in Libya.
“These so-called international-group-funded forces to take to the streets in Libya and they are making a similar attempt here,” he said without elaborating.
He was responding to questions by the Opposition that the Government was trying to undermine students’ rights In a public statement made earlier, former JVP frontliner and presently a Government minister, Wimal Weerawansa lashed out at the heads of universities for mishandling the situation.
Higher Education Secretary Dr. S. Navaratne said they were not aware of any army involvement- such as the home visits, etc.
He added that, the planned meeting between the university authorities and student leaders on Saturday last week, could not take place, as they- the student representatives, did not show up.
Earlier, Dr. Navaratne cautioned that other interested elements were seeking to ride on the student issue, purely to enhance their personal agendas. “This will never be allowed to be the case” he said.
The Army, however, vehemently denied that soldiers were involved in covert operations such as visiting the homes of university students.
Army spokesman Brig. Nihal Hapuaarachchi said such operations were the job of the police, as it is a civilian matter, and the Army has nothing to do with it. He urged persons who experience such a visit, and suspect it was from the army, to bring the matter up with the nearest police station at the very earliest.
Govt. pits Army against students to block protests
Students and activists belonging to the ‘People’s Struggle’ movement were, this week, furious, after authorities used the Army to block a protest campaign in the heart of the Jaffna Peninsula.
The group made up of some 800 activists had traveled to the north in 12 buses, but was intimidated, harassed and were forced to turn back halfway through their journey, a spokesman for the group said.
He said their convoy was stopped at some seven checkpoints and were told that the road to Jaffna was not motorable as a bridge had collapsed.
At one checkpoint, the group was told that a suicide jacket had been found in the vicinity and that to proceed further was a risk. “It was clear that these foolish stunts were made to prevent us from going ahead with our leaflet campaign to be held in Jaffna town”, the spokesman added.
The group’s campaign was aimed at calling on the authorities to indicate the whereabouts of two of their activists, Lalith Kumara Weeraraju and Kugan Muruganathan, who were abducted late last year in Jaffna.
© The Sunday Times
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sri Lanka’s defence secretary targets workers and youth
By K. Ratnayake | World Socialist Web Site
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Remarks by the top defence official, the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, are an ominous warning that the government is refocusing its police-state apparatus, built up over a quarter century of civil war, against protests by workers and youth.
The defence secretary’s speech, entitled “Future challenges of national security in Sri Lanka,” was delivered in Colombo on January 11 before top military officers, state bureaucrats and others. It was widely publicised and broadcast on all private and state television stations on January 13.
Gotabhaya Rajapakse was chiefly responsible for prosecuting the government’s communal war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), along with former army commander Sarath Fonseka, who has since fallen out of favour and been imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Rajapakse is part of the military-political cabal—including the Rajapakse brothers, senior generals and state bureaucrats—that runs the government.
The timing of the speech was significant. Unrest among workers and youth is growing. In the same week, thousands of university students held demonstrations to oppose the government’s privatisation of university education. Plantation workers also held protests against the imposition of increased workloads.
On Tuesday, university teachers came out again to press for a salary increase and to show opposition to a private university bill. On Wednesday, thousands of the electricity and water board workers demonstrated in Colombo, demanding higher wages. The government is calculating how to suppress these struggles.
Rajapakse began his speech by referring once again to the “threat” of the revival of the LTTE abroad and in the country. Such comments are mandatory as the government needs to constantly stir up anti-Tamil communalism—the chief weapon used by the ruling elite for decades to divide the working class and rural poor, and block a unified struggle to defend living conditions and democratic rights.
The government restarted the war in 2006 and up until the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009 constantly exploited the “threat of terrorism” to justify the suppression of strikes, with the assistance of the trade unions.
The defence secretary warned his audience that although the LTTE had been crushed, “not to take it for granted” that it could not re-emerge. He claimed there were “on-going activities” of LTTE-linked organisations outside Sri Lanka—naming groups such as the Transitional government of Tamil Eelam, the British Tamil Forum and the Tamil Eelam People’s Assembly.
Rajapakse declared that the aim of these groups was “winning international opinion for the separatist cause, increasing international pressure on Sri Lanka in various areas, and pushing for international investigations into war crimes to undermine the efforts of the ‘democratically’ elected government.”
Pro-LTTE groups are engaged in a futile campaign to seek the support of the “international community” for a separate capitalist state of Eelam in the North and East of Sri Lanka. All the major powers, including the US, backed the war against the LTTE. They have rejected the formation of a separate Eelam and virtually dropped any demand for an international inquiry into the military’s atrocities during the war.
Without providing any evidence, Rajapakse claimed that “there is a possibility …terrorists will reorganise within this country.” Pro-LTTE groups abroad, he said, were aiming to “encourage and facilitate the resumption of an armed struggle in Sri Lanka.” There were detainees who could not be rehabilitated, including those whose “terrorist intentions may remain unchanged.”
The purpose of this “terrorist threat” is to justify the maintenance of the country’s huge military machine and police-state apparatus. The defence secretary declared that it was “of critical importance to maintain a strong [military] presence in areas… used by the LTTE for terrorist activities.” He added: “[M]aintaining a sizeable army and establishing camps in strategic locations throughout Sri Lanka is essential.”
Rajapakse then made clear that the government’s real concern was not the re-emergence of an armed LTTE, but the rising levels of social discontent. He declared that the “more realistic potential threat to our national security is the possibility that certain groups may strive to create instability” in Sri Lanka through indirect methods.
The defence secretary continued: “[H]aving seen political change accomplished in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya through uprising, some parties … might resort to such activities even here…we have already seen certain groups encouraging students to take to the streets in various protests in the recent past.”
The reference to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is significant. The revolutionary upheaval in Egypt in particular saw the involvement of broad layers of workers in opposition not only to the Cairo regime’s anti-democratic methods but also to the austerity agenda being imposed.
In Sri Lanka, as in Egypt, there is a deep social chasm between rich and poor. The Rajapakse government is imposing the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for privatisation, deep inroads into public spending and the lowering of wages and conditions. These measures are provoking growing opposition among workers, youth and rural poor.
The government is well aware that the trade unions are increasingly unable to contain workers. At the same time, the main opposition parties—the United National Party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—are becoming as discredited as the government. That is why the government is preparing the state apparatus in advance to crush any protests.
The defence secretary declared that Sri Lanka was a “democratic nation” but lectured workers and youth not to exercise their democratic rights to defend their interests. In reality, Sri Lanka remains a police state. All the anti-democratic powers that were employed during the war—including arbitrary arrest and detention without trial—remain in force despite the formal ending of the country’s state of emergency. Thousands of Tamil youth remain in custody without charge, two years after the end of the war.
The Socialist Equality Party warns that the Rajapakse regime will have no hesitation in using the security apparatus against the working class and youth. Just as the opposition parties supported the civil war, so they will fall in behind any crackdown on protests and strikes that threaten the capitalist order.
The working class must prepare for the coming struggles by building a revolutionary leadership directed at abolishing the capitalist system that is the root cause of war, social inequality and attacks on democratic rights and at establishing a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement socialist policies. Such a perspective is only possible by uniting the struggles of working people in Sri Lanka with those in the Middle East, Asia and internationally for a world planned socialist economy. That is the program for which the SEP fights.
© WSWS
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sri Lanka: Tea rich but nutrient poor
IRIN
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One in every five children younger than five is malnourished nationwide and one in six newborns has a low birth weight, one cause of infant deaths, according to a recent study from the Colombo-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).
But the situation is worse for children of tea estate workers, with one in three classified as underweight and 40 percent of babies born with too-low weight, IPS noted.
Ramasamy Ramakrishnan, 46, a tea estate worker and father of five, and his wife, who is also a tea harvester, earn US$130 monthly to support a family of seven, including five school-aged children.
"It is difficult. We survive somehow. But I cannot find any other job," he told IRIN.
His family is among the one-and-a-half million people - or some 5 percent of Sri Lanka's 21 million population - who work in the tea sector, according to government estimates.
The most recent national poverty study conducted in 2009-2010 noted that 11.4 percent of these families lived below the national poverty line of 3,028 Sri Lankan rupees per month, or roughly $27.
Income nutrition cycle
Household income plays a major role in determining nutrition levels of under-fives, with those among the country's poorest 20 percent three times more likely to be malnourished as those in the richest quintile, noted IPS.
In the government's most recent demographic and health survey (DHS) conducted in 2006-2007 some 17 percent of under-fives surveyed were stunted - a sign of chronic malnutrition and lack of nutrients.
Nuwera Eliya District - 150km south of the economic capital of Colombo - and the adjoining Badulla District, which both have large tea plantations, recorded the highest stunting rates nationwide that year, 44 and 33 percent respectively.
Angela de Silva, a lecturer at the University of Colombo's Faculty of Medicine and vice-president of the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka said poverty and poor living conditions created an inter-generational cycle of malnutrition.
"The disadvantaged kid grows up to be a disadvantaged mother, often with early marriage, teenage pregnancies or starting off pregnancy with both micro- and macro-nutrient malnutrition; in turn she has a low birth-weight baby and poor pregnancy outcomes."
Regional approaches
Sri Lanka's government has programmes that promote exclusive breastfeeding in the baby's first six months - recommended by the World Health Organization to boost a child's lifelong nutrition - and provide nutrients and supplements to vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and infants, in government clinics.
There are plans to "fine-tune" this breastfeeding promotion to target regions where malnutrition is high, said De Silva.
Education levels and mothers' knowledge about basic healthcare play a major part in determining their children's nutrition levels, said Kumari Navaratna, a senior health specialist at the World Bank's Colombo office.
"The primary caregiver for a child is the mother and evidence again and again is showing that if the mother is knowledgeable on appropriate feeding and caring practices, she is able to provide the best care to the child."
Regional targets
The Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka and Ministry of Health have advised taking into account regional economic and nutrition disparities as well as varying knowledge levels when tackling malnutrition.
Since May 2011 the government's National Nutrition Council has established a multi-sectoral pilot project in areas with high malnutrition, including Nuwera Eliya District.
District health, agriculture and livestock departments are designing regional nutrition interventions, including growth monitoring programmes and child-friendly clinics.
Government welfare policies dating back to independence in 1948 have largely failed to achieve long-term nutrition improvements, said Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, head of the Point Pedro Institute of Development in Sri Lanka and research fellow at Monash University in Australia.
"Government welfare policies should focus on the quality of outputs rather than the quantity of inputs, which has been the case hitherto."
To tackle malnutrition, policies have focused on handouts, such as nutritional supplements, without considering vulnerable groups' needs separately, or policy efficacy, said Sarvananthan.
© IRIN
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