Govt of Sri Lanka has been imprisoning without charge over a quarter of a million ethnic Tamils displaced by the conflict. The state has locked them!!

250,000 Tamils jailed in camps, says ICG

Testimony by Andrew Stroehlein, International Crisis Group's Communications Director to the European Parliament Sub-committee on Human Rights, October 1, 2009.

“Since the end of the war and the defeat of the terrorist Tamil Tigers, the government of Sri Lanka has been imprisoning without charge over a quarter of a million ethnic Tamils displaced by the conflict. The state has locked them in internment camps in the north of the country. The camps are surrounded by barbed wire, and as an incident just this past weekend in Vavuniya demonstrates, the Sri Lankan army will shoot at anyone who tries to escape. Such restrictions on freedom in the absence of due process are a violation of both national and international law.

Conditions in the camps are poor and deteriorating. They are overcrowded, with medical facilities, access to clean water and sanitation all woefully inadequate. These conditions are expected to worsen dramatically with the onset of the monsoon season. The military is preventing humanitarian organisations, including the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), from undertaking effective monitoring and protection in the camps.

The government has made numerous promises to release those held in the main camps, but these are little more than attempts to deliberately mislead the international community. Very little has come of any of Colombo's pledges. The worst kind of duplicity was seen just a few weeks ago, when the government announced it had released 10,000 displaced persons. In fact, we know at least 3,300 people had been moved from an internment camp to another detention facility. (UNHCR press release, 29 September 2009)

The government claims two reasons for continuing to imprison the internally displaced persons (IDPs), but neither argument holds up. First, they say de-mining must occur before people can be allowed back, but this is nonsense, as tens of thousands could be released immediately to live with host families now living in towns and villages free of mines.

Second, the government claims to be conducting a screening process to weed out Tamil Tigers from the 264,000 in the internment camps. The government itself will not say how many people have already been through the screening process, the ICRC has not been able to monitor any screening at all, and when you ask people in the camps themselves, no one seems to know much about any such process. The fact is, all talk of release dates and resettlement schedules is nonsense.

No donors should fund any substantial development work until there is a clear plan, with cross-ethnic consultation and some restoration of democratic rights. We must ensure international monies are not used to fund unfair and destabilising political arrangements that set the stage for the island's next violent ethnic conflict.”


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We are prepared to work with the Govt to launch a website so that the IC & millions of Tamils living here & abroad know the fate of their relatives!!

Give details of IDPs: Mano Ganesan

The Civil Monitoring Commission (CMC) yesterday urged the government to publish the names, addresses, NIC numbers and other personal details of the 150,000 internally displaced people it claims to have registered and the details of the 110,000 others to whom it had issued identity cards.
CMC convener Mano Ganesan who heads a group of parliamentarians for Human Rights made this urgent request from the government and said the opposition was prepared to work with the government in setting up a website to carry IDP details.

He said Ravinatha Ariyasinha -- Sri Lanka’s EU Ambassador at Brussels during a hearing on Sri Lanka told European Parliament’s Human Rights Committee Chairman Heidi Hautala that details of the IDPs would be published soon.

Mr. Ariyasinha had also said that 54 international agencies, INGOs and NGOs were engaged in humanitarian work at the IDP camps.

Mr. Ganesan expressed his satisfaction on the completion of registrations and issuance of IDs to large segments of the internally displaced people as told to the international community.

However he said it was surprising to find that our parliamentarians have not been given this information.

“We are also surprised that while 54 NGOs are permitted to assist the IDPs the elected representatives who are office bearers of the Parliamentarians for Human Rights are not permitted to be at the service of our own people,” Mr. Ganesan said.

He said thousands of IDP family members living here and abroad contacted the monitoring commission.

“We are prepared work with the government in launching a website so that not only the international community but most importantly millions of Sri Lankan Tamils living here and abroad will know the fate of their near and dear ones” Mr. Ganesan said.

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Sinhala IGP helps Sinhala DIG accused of rape..!!! This is the way they Do it ...!!! Believe it or Not...!!! What a SHAME.!!!

IGP helps DIG accused of rape

2009-10-05 | 6.20 PM

Sources from the Police Department allege that the IGP was not taking any disciplinary action against the accusations of rape and sexual harassment leveled against acting DIG of the southern area in the Eastern Province, Ranjith Wijesundera due to the continuous supply of meat sent to the IGP from Ampara.

The IGP has taken action against the police officers who have complained against DIG Ranjith Wijesundera on his alleged sexual harassment even against female police constables.

Female Sub Inspector Niluka Palipahana who was in charge of the Women and Children’s Bureau at the Ampara Police who had complained to the Police

Headquarters of being sexually harassed by the DIG has been immediately transferred to Colombo. She was then transferred to the Narahenpita Transport Division and later to Kandy. The IGP has acted to transfer her three times within six months for complaining against the DIG.

The DIG in question had even taken steps to evict the female sub inspector from her official quarters in Ampara through a court order.

Police sources also say that the DIG has also made unwanted overtures towards the wife of disabled police officer Inspector Chaminda Thilak Jayasena who lives in the Ampara police quarters. The police officer was injured and left blind in one eye during the LTTE attack on Vellaveli in Batticaloa on March 13, 1996. He has three children and his wife was a teacher.

However, she had left her job to look after her injured husband and three children and it is in such a scenario that the DIG has started to make unwanted overtures towards her. Three officers in the Ampara Police have also threatened her to agree to the DIG’s requests.

The disabled police officer had complained about this issue to the IGP on August 10, 2009 and in response, the IGP had transferred the three police officers who threatened the wife to a police station in Kandy and the disabled police officer has been transferred to a police post in Kurunegala.

The disabled police officer had then made an appeal to Coordinating Secretary at the Defence Ministry, Mithra Gankanda to look at the transfer on a humane manner due to his present situation. The Police Department had then transferred him to a police station in Kandy.

The IGP who has taken steps to transfer every police officer who has complained against sexual harassment allegedly meted out by DIG Ranjith Wijesundera has allowed the accused continue in his post in the East.

© IT Division - Lanka News Web.com

USA: Remained concerned about extrajudicial killings, disappearances and abuse of Tamil detainees by Sinhalese...!!!

US responds to Lanka’s protest

State Dept., clarifies Clinton’s comments

Responding to Sri Lanka’s protests over remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States said it had no recent evidence of women being raped while in government custody but that it remained concerned about extrajudicial killings, disappearances and abuse of detainees, AFP reported yesterday.

In a letter to Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, the State Department said the US government and international human rights groups over the years had detailed "numerous cases of rape and sexual violence in Sri Lanka, particularly acts committed against women held in detention by the government."

However Melanne Verveer -- the State Department’s global women's issues ambassador-at-large, in the letter said, "In the most recent phase of the conflict, from 2006 to 2009 ... we have not received reports that rape and sexual abuse were used as tools of war, as they clearly have in other conflict areas around the world."

"We hope that this clarification puts the issue in its proper context," she said in the letter, adding that Washington remained concerned about extrajudicial killings, disappearances and detainee abuse in Sri Lanka.

"Secretary Clinton believes that Sri Lanka must focus to the future and move forward on the promotion of peace and the protection of human rights," the letter said.

Sri Lanka lodged its protest with the US embassy in Colombo over the remarks made by Ms. Clinton last month at the United Nations Security Council.

"We've seen rape used as a tactic of war before in Bosnia, Burma and Sri Lanka and elsewhere," the US secretary of state had said during a resolution calling for an end to sexual violence in armed conflict, according to published reports of Ms. Clinton's remarks.

Her comments sparked an outcry across Sri Lanka, where government forces in May crushed Tamil Tiger rebels after decades of fighting.

Colombo faced condemnation for its handling of the final stages of the war against Tiger rebels and managed to stave off a Security Council resolution calling for war crimes investigations thanks to the vetoes of China and Russia.

The United Nations has said that more than 7,000 civilians perished in the first four months of intense fighting this year.

Sri Lanka is now facing international pressure to free 250,000 ethnic Tamil civilians who managed to escape the fighting but are now held in internment camps while they are screened to see whether they have any connection to the LTTE.

President hails US clarification

By Ajantha Kumara Agalakada

President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday said he was grateful to the U.S State Department for correcting the statement made by U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accusing the Sri Lanka Army of adopting sexual abuse as a war tactic.

“The steps taken by the state department to correct the statement is a gesture of goodwill,” the President said addressing an election propaganda rally in Galle yesterday.

Meanwhile, the government yesterday said the explanation forwarded by the State Department was accepted in good spirit and the matter was closed.

Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe addressing a media conference in Colombo said the letter of explanation sent by ambassador at large on global women’s issues at the State Department Melanne Verveer to Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama cleared the air and was accepted as the official position of the US government.

“She had said in her letter that there was no evidence of rape or any other sexual violence between the period 2006 to 2009 by armed forces nor sexual abuse has been used as a tool of war. It seems that Mrs. Clinton had casually mentioned the name of Sri Lanka when she accused other countries of using sexual violence as a tool in war on September 30 in her address at the UN annual sessions,” Minister Samarasinghe stressed.

Foreign Minister Bogollagama immediately summoned US ambassador Patricia Butenis and sought an explanation over the derogatory remarks. Sri Lanka also demanded an explanation from Washington through her envoys in the UN and Washington and the explanation of Verveer was the result was accepted as the official position of the US government.

Foreign Minister Bogollagama explained to Butenis that the humanitarian operations were carried out by the armed forces according to the international law and the Geneva conventions. The armed forces have never trespassed their legal limits.

The matter was closed then and there as the relationship between the two countries are as good and strong as ever. The US has always been helpful and cooperative and Sri Lanka does not want to pursue this distasteful issue any further, Minister Samarasinghe emphasized.


dailymirror.lk

Most of all, give us our Freedom...!!! There’s Only One Answer – Self Determination for the Tamil people in SL..!!!

Tamils make history at the UK Labour Party Conference


2009-10-03 | 3.45 PM

Tamils made history in the UK with a momentous passing of an emergency resolution on Sri Lanka at the Labour Party Conference on Thursday, 1 October 2009.

The sitting government party passed a resolution condemning the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka by that government. Resolution was passed unanimously by thousands of delegates at the conference and in front of millions of live TV viewers.

The notable resolution was delivered by Mr Paul Kenny, General Secretary of GMB, Britain's general trade union, representing over 5 million members through its affiliate bodies. Delivering a bold, yet passionate speech, Mr Kenny was able to clearly articulate the desperate

situation faced by Tamils locked up in ‘internment camps’ in Sri Lanka.

The emergency resolution, passed unanimously by delegates of the sitting government party, focussed on ending the detainment of civilians allowing them to return to their homes, allowing free access to journalists to report the ground situation and welcomed the recent decision of the EU to reconsider Sri Lanka’s favoured trading status of GSP+ to encourage such cooperation from the government of Sri Lanka.

In his statement, Mr Kenny did not shy from exposing the Sri Lankan government's ongoing media censorship, lack of access to aid groups and failure to fulfil their pledges. "The Sri Lankan government has made promises to the United Nations and world governments, including our own, to close these camps and let the people return to their homes and it’s not happened. They have not kept their promises, but we must hold them to those promises", he said.

Mr Kenny's sentiments were echoed by an appeal from Mr Sen Kandiah, the Chairman of Tamils for Labour and a senior member of the British Tamils Forum. “Please support this motion calling for the closure of the concentration camps and give our people the food, the medicine, the dignity they deserve.... “Let the Tamil people set their own destiny… but most of all, give us our freedom” he urged.

Siobhain McDonagh MP for Mitcham and Morden spoke of the anguish felt by her constituents that have prompted her commitment to helping the British Tamils to save their families, relatives and friends in Sri Lanka.

In a heartfelt appeal to the delegates, to shoulder their own commitment on the Sri Lanka issue, urging that a boycott of goods and avoiding holidays in the unsavory state would ensure their money would not “prop up that government!”

“Next time you want to buy underwear from Marks & Spencer, you want to buy a t-shirt from Next, you want to go on a holiday of a lifetime in a beautiful island off the coast of India - Do you really want to spend your money on a government that chooses to lock 300,000 people up behind barbed-wire. A country that is the most dangerous in the world to be a journalist! A country where we can see on Channel 4 News, young men, naked and bound shot at close range. Is that what we want for our money, for our democracy?”

Foreign Secretary, David Miliband MP, having been acknowledged by Ms McDonagh for his timely visit to Sri Lanka with his French counterpart, in his address commended the party’s democratic assistance in other parts of the world and implied to achieving the same in Sri Lanka. “And in those democracies, like Sri Lanka, where civil war claimed lives and liberty, we say governments have a duty to uphold the civil, social and political rights of all their citizens, whatever their ethnicity or religion. We also know that for too many people in our world, equality
is a dream”, he said.

British Tamils Forum is encouraged and welcomes the move by the Labour Party and their MP’s ongoing commitment to the issues that concern their Tamil constituents.

British Tamils will continue to politically engage with all parties in Britain to bring a permanent solution to the suffering of Tamil people in Sri Lanka and restore a life of peace, justice and dignity in their traditional homeland.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Kenny, General Secretary, GMB
Introduction to Emergency Resolution on Sri Lanka
Labour Party conference, 1 Oct 2009

Conference, the civil war in Sri Lanka is over and that’s good news, but we now know what should be happening, now is the time for reconstruction, reconciliation for building the peace.

But something else is happening on the ground, something we should all be very worried about.

Men, women and children are being rounded up and placed in camps. More than a quarter of a million Tamils are living in desperate conditions and nobody hears them.

Families lie awake at night crying for their loved ones, loved ones they cannot reach and get no word from.

And how bad is life in these camps?

The Sri Lankan government have turned away foreign journalists because they are afraid of the world hearing the truth.

But stories seep out and they tell of desperation and heartbreak.

The camps are tightly packed and they are surrounded by barbed wire. They are tightly guarded. Life for people in these camps is truly desperate.

The Sri Lankan government calls them welfare villages but history has very different name for them.

Do we care? Of course we do.

Our Labour movement is a national movement.
One that says we stand by the oppressed. One that stands foursquare for human rights. One that promotes human dignity.

This conference has no shame in calling for a humanitarian solution in Sri Lanka. It should have no hesitation in calling for the government in Sri Lanka to keep its promises. It should have no hesitation in saying to the authorities there, “Open your doors, let in the journalists, what do you have to hide?”

The Sri Lankan government has made promises to the United Nations and world governments, including our own, to close these camps and let the people return to their homes and it’s not happened. They have not kept their promises, but we must hold them to those promises.

And Things could get worse very quickly.

The monsoon rains are due and with them comes the risk of flooding. Already heavy rains have flooded latrine pits causing raw sewage to flow around the tents that people live in.

So there is no time to lose. Our government must keep up the pressure.

We can’t just complain about the regimes we don’t like, we’ve also got to tell other regimes, whether it’s in Sri Lanka or in the US, as in the case of the Miami five, that justice is justice.

We must demand, we must demand, that Sri Lanka opens its doors to aid charities and journalists.
We must demand that relatives on the outside get full details of who is being held, where and in what conditions.
And demand Sri Lanka does what human dignity requires -
Let these people free!

The suffering of the children in these camps must touch the hearts of everybody in this hall.
So let’s go back and do what we do. Let the message go out from here, from Labour, that we hear you - You can trust us to help the Tamil people.
Please support this resolution.

----------------------------------------------------------

Speech by Sen Kandiah,
Leader of Tamils for Labour,
Labour Party Annual Conference 2009, 1 October 2009

Conference,

One thing all us Tamils have in common, is family in Sri Lanka. And all of us are receiving horror stories on a daily basis. What we are talking about is nothing less than concentration camps – holding our family, our loved ones.

A cousin of mine is in one of the camps. He is 55 years old. His age is benefit to him. He tells us of the appalling things happening to young people:
Some disappear. Some move to other camps. Young girls are being raped. Children are being taken from their parents. What threat do they pose? The answer is none. They are innocent kids who want to run and play like our kids – but they can’t. Instead, they cower in the corner, under the control of soldiers wielding AK47’s.

And why don’t you hear about all this? Because the government in Sri Lanka has closed its doors to the outside world.

Our Prime Minister was good enough to see me, to hear about my people’s suffering. He said – “we will do the right thing.”

The Tamil people of Sri Lanka have suffered 60 years of oppression under the Sinhalese majority.

This cannot go on.

For me there’s only one answer – self determination for the Tamil people.

Let the Tamil people set their own destiny. That’s our ultimate objective. What I say to you today – is please support this motion calling for the closure of the concentration camps and give our people the food, the medicine, the dignity they deserve.

But most of all, give us our freedom.

Lanka News Web.com

We call for an End of Sinhala Military Admn and Restrictions placed on Tamil Civilians & Urge the Restoration of full Civilian Administration NOW..!!!

Tamil speaking communities including Muslims uniting in Sri Lanka for minority rights

2009-10-03 | 4.30 PM

In an unprecedented move in the recent past of Sri Lanka, the Tamil and Muslim minority communities have initiated a new effort to unite as a Tamil speaking polity. Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils and Muslims use Tamil as their common language. However, in recent times, the dominant forces of the Tamil liberation struggle ignored the cultural subtleties in relations with Muslims compelling them to suffer and to alienate from their lingual umbilicus. Although Tamil liberation struggle united the diverse Tamil speaking regional communities like Jaffna, Mannar, Vanni and Batticaloa, it failed to integrate the Indian origin Upcountry and Colombo Tamils.

After the military debacle of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), the Tamil and Muslim political elements in the main stream have initiated a new dialogue with a view to form a common front to fight for minority rights amidst growing Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism in state and the polity of Sri Lanka.
V.Anandasangaree, the leader, of Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mano Ganesan, M.P.
and leader of Colombo based Democratic People's Front (DPF), Rauff Hakeem, M.P. and leader of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Dr. K. Vigneswaran, the leader of All Island Tamil United Front (AITUF) and R. Sampanthan, M.P and leader of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that are in the dialogue have been able to issue a joint statement, a progressive move in minority politics in post-LTTE Sri Lanka.

They call for an immediate end to the intolerable conditions faced by the minority communities, in particular Tamils in present Sri Lanka and end to military administration and restrictions placed on civilians urging the restoration of full civilian administration to facilitate return to economic and social normality.

Appealing the IDPs be released immediately to return to their homes and permitted to resume without hindrance their traditional livelihood activities, the statement also urges that immediate arrangements be made to allow the Muslim people who were evicted from the North and have suffered acute hardships for nearly two decades to return to their homes and to resume their economic and social activities without hindrance.

Full statement is as follows:



The Tamil speaking peoples of Sri Lanka have suffered great hardships for many decades since Independence. They have faced discrimination and had to suffer ethnic riots, pogroms and ethnic cleansing; in the pogrom in 1983 sections of the state were involved. In the last thirty four years Sri Lanka was consumed by an ethnic civil war in which the Tamil and Muslim people and others in the North and East and elsewhere were victims. The Tamils in particular bore the brunt of the suffering. During the last stages of the war the people of the Vanni suffered traumatic pain which, despite the conclusive end of the war, has still not abated. While we are deeply concerned about the human rights violations everywhere in our island such as death threats, the killing of civilians, and the disappearance of journalists and others, we feel the need to prioritise in this communiqué such collective and unbearable pain of large numbers of our population as compels immediate intervention.

We the undersigned affirm the following and call for an immediate end to these intolerable conditions, and in particular:

•We state that the forcible detention of hundreds of thousands of Tamil citizens of Sri Lanka in camps for Internally Displaced Persons is illegal, without basis in the Constitution and in gross violation of international human rights norms.

•These people should be released immediately to return to their homes and permitted to resume without hindrance their traditional livelihood activities such as farming and fishing, or to take up residence with friends and relatives, or to exercise their lawful right to abode elsewhere at their discretion. Those likely to face criminal charges should be produced in a court of law without further delay.

•We strongly urge that the camps, for so long as they exist, should be open to relatives, religious functionaries, parliamentarians, provincial councilors, civil society, UN agencies, journalists, and national and international aid and humanitarian organisations.

•We urge that immediate arrangements be made to allow the Muslim people who were evicted from the North and have suffered acute hardships for nearly two decades to return to their homes and to resume their economic and social activities without hindrance.

•Similar arrangements must be made to re-settle in their original homes all those in the East, who remain displaced and continue to suffer greatly.

•The restrictions on movement in and out of the Northern Province and some locations in the East should be lifted and the need for permits to enter or leave should be rescinded forthwith. In particular, any form of quarantine of the Northern Province is a violation of basic rights and should be lifted.


•The curfew and other restrictions on normality in many parts of the Northern Province and elsewhere are unjustified and we demand that normality be returned without delay. People in certain parts of the country live in fear, avoid even essential travel, and are inhibited in employment related and social activities.

•We call for an end to military administration and restrictions placed on civilians, and we urge the restoration of full civilian administration to facilitate return to economic and social normality.

- Lanka Polity
Lanka News Web.com

TAMIL IDPs not received the freedom they expected when escaping the clutches of the LTTE during the war..!!

Economic imbalance in IDP camps

CSII receives 723 complaints

By Yohan Perera

The JVP led Centre to Scan Issues of IDPs (CSII) had received 723 complaints from the displaced people in Welfare Villages in Vavuniya, its convenor JVP Parliamentarian Vijitha Herath said yesterday.

He pointed out that the major issue had been the growing mental distress of the less fortunate who were unable to obtain essential items unlike the others who were economically capable.

Mr. Herath told a news conference that this situation had become a serious issue in the camps according to the complaints received from the IDPs.

Quoting these complaints he said that there were IDP families who had brought large sums of cash with them when they were left their homes while there were others who received cash from their relatives residing abroad. He said these people with cash were able to purchase the necessary provisions from various shops that were set up within the camps while others who were without cash were unable to do it.

“This has caused mental distress among the poor people within the camps and it had become a serious issue,” he said. Some displaced people had complained that there was difficulty in obtaining milk powder while stocks of essential items such as rice, flour and dhal were provided for groups of 50 families.

Mr. Herath read out a letter sent by a female who had worked as the Planning Officer in a state organization in which she had appealed for freedom.

She had also said that they had not received the freedom they expected when escaping the clutches of the LTTE during the war.

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