US official visits Sri Lanka as IMF loan is released

(July 24, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Immediately after the IMF emergency loan was approved for Sri Lanka, the newly appointed United States Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Eric P. Schwartz is to arrive arrive in Sri Lanka tomorrow (25), US Embassy in Colombo announced. US was earlier accused of delaying the loan for Sri Lanka.


Schwartz has worked with Sri Lanka earlier as UN Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery from 2005 to 2007. 

He is scheduled to visit the IDP camps in the North and will meet with senior government officials and civil society representatives.

This tour is significant as Sri Lanka looks improving its diplomatic ties with US and the West that are worried about the developing close ties of the island nation with China.

Thirty-four media workers killed during present government rule in Sri Lanka

Another 50 scribes in self-exile

(July 23, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a newly formed expatriate journalists' association says that people of Sri Lanka are deprived of their right to information and media and journalists are forced to practice unprecedented level of self censorship.

JDS points out that thirty-four journalists and media workers have been killed with no recourse to justice since the present United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government came into power in April 2004 . Out of 34 killed three were Sinhala journalists, one Muslim and 30 were from the Tamil community, JDS observes. In addition, 10 journalists and media workers were abducted.

The tense situation in Sri Lanka resulted in more than 50 journalists leaving Sri Lanka fearing persecution: They now live in the following countries:

Austria 01; Australia 03; Canada 03; Denmark 01; France 12; Germany 04; India 05; Malaysia 01; Netherlands 02; Nepal 02; Norway 02; Switzerland 16; UK 10; USA 02.

RECORDED LIST OF KILLINGS OF JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA WORKERS
APRIL 2004 – MARCH 2009 (Tamil rebels are accused for killings of some of hese journalists - Editor)

2004
1. Aiyathurai A. Nadesan – Journalist / 31 May
2. Kandaswamy Aiyer Balanadaraj – Writer / 16 August
3. Lanka Jayasundera – Photo journalist / 11 December

2005
4. Dharmaratnam Sivaram – Editor / 28 April
5. Kannamuttu Arsakumar – Media worker/ 29 June
6. Relangee Selvarajah – Journalist / 12 August
7. D. Selvaratnam – Media worker/ 29 August
8. Yogakumar Krishnapillai – Media Worker / 30 September
9. L. M. Faleel (Netpittimunai Faleel) – Writer / 02 December
10. K. Navaratnam – Media worker / 22 December

2006
11. Subramaniam Suhirtharajan – Journalist / 24 January
12. S. T. Gananathan – Owner / 01 February
13. Bastian George Sagayathas – Media worker / 03 May
14. Rajaratnam Ranjith Kumar – Media worker / 03 May
15. Sampath Lakmal de Silva – Journalist / 02 July
16. Mariadasan Manojanraj – Media worker / 01 August
17. Pathmanathan Vismananthan – Singer and musician / 02 August
18. Sathasivam Baskaran – Media worker / 15 August
19. Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah – Media owner / 20 August

2007
20. S. Raveendran – Media worker / 12 February
21. Subramaniam Ramachandran – Media personnel / 15 February
22. Chandrabose Suthakar – Journalist / 16 April
23. Selvarasah Rajeevarman – Journalist / 29 April
24. Sahadevan Neelakshan – Journalist / 01 August
25. Anthonypillai Sherin Siththiranjan – Media worker / 05 November
26. Vadivel Nimalarajah – Media worker / 17 November
27. Isaivizhi Chempian (Subhajini) - Media worker / 27 November
28. Suresh Limbiyo - Media worker / 27 November
29. T. Tharmalingam - Media worker / 27 November

2008
30. Paranirupesingham Devakumar – Journalist / 28 May
31. Rasmi Mohamad – Journalist / 06 October

2009
32. Lasanntha Wickrematunga - Editor / 08 January
33. Punniyamurthy Sathyamurthy - Journalist / 12 February
34. Sasi Mathan – Media worker / 06 March

Mercy Mission arrives in Cape Colorado instead of Captain Ali

(July 07, 2009) The load of relief items collected by Tamil Diaspora in UK in April in the name Mercy Mission to be dispatched defiantly to the civilians that were trapped in a Sri Lanka government designated no-fire zone prior to the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), is finally arriving in Sri Lanka today in a ship named Cape Colorado instead of the Captain Ali that languished for months near Colombo and Chennai ports seeking permission to be unloaded.

The Tamil Diaspora now seems less interested in the welfare of the internally displaced people who are now held in government run camps amidst severe hardships and they have focused their attention in setting up of a Transnational Self-governance for the Ealam Tamils. The separatist Ealam movement has lost ground in Sri Lanka amidst the severe suppressive measures of the government to crack down on the LTTE remnents.

However, the 27 container load weighing 884 tons of relief items will be vital for the Tamil IDPs to ease their hardships at least a little. Proud Sri Lanka government rejected these relief items but later agreed to accept it under the influence of India.

'Catastrophy for Sri Lanka to take triumphant position' - Ramachandra Guha

London (PTI): A noted historian has warned that it would be catastrophic for Sri Lanka to take a triumphant position on its victory over LTTE and it is time the country gave democracy and pluralism a chance. 

"In the aftermath of defeat of Tamil Tigers, it would be catastrophic if the Sri Lankan Government were to take a triumphant position. I am told there is a proposal to build statues of a Sri Lankan King who died 2,000 years ago to commemorate the victory," Ramachandra Guha, the Bangalore-based historian and biographer said while delivering the fifth Nehru memorial Lecture 2009 on "Democracy and Violence in South Asia and Beyond" at the Nehru Centre here on Friday night. 

Patrick French, a noted writer presided over the function, which was attended by the Indian High Commissioner to the UK, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee. 

Drawing a parallel between the violence in Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Sri Lanka, Mr. Guha who has previously taught at the Universities of Yale and Stanford, said: "Just as Kashmir is a big blot on India's democracy, the treatment of Tamils is a signal failure of Sri Lankan democracy. 

"As in Kashmir, the problem arose because of denial of democracy's software and hardware - elections were rigged both in Kashmir and Northern Sri Lanka," he said, adding "cultural pluralism in terms of language, in terms of dress, in terms of faith is a serious part of democracy." 

The historian said "in northern Sri Lanka, apart from rigging the elections, there was discrimination on the basis of language and religion". 

Mr. Guha said in 1956 Sinhala was made the sole official language of the island placing it on a position of superiority. This act of injustice was compounded in 1972 when Buddhism was made official religion of Sri Lanka - meaning Buddhists were superior to Tamils, Muslims, Christians and Hindus. 

"Discrimination on the basis of religion and language was further intensified by the burning of the great Jaffna Library in 1981 when the Sri Lankan army in an act of petty and vicious vindictiveness put to flame the great repository of Tamil culture and two years later, there was a progrom against Tamils in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, orchestrated and directed by ruling politicians," he stressed. 

Mr. Guha also noted that the LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran had assassinated every rival Tamil politician. Emphasising that the Tamils in Sri Lanka had also made "terrible mistakes", he said "Prabhakaran led the Tamil people down the road to disaster." 

Answering a question, Mr. Guha said he wanted India to be a "more contented and less violent place." 

He said "the greatness of modern Indian democracy is that every citizen is equal, regardless of language and religion. That is what Sri Lanka can learn from India."

Sri Lanka: Politicised Courts, Compromised Rights - International Crisis Group

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Colombo/Brussels, 30 June 2009: The Sri Lankan government must reform the country’s judicial system urgently if the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers is to lead to a lasting peace.

Sri Lanka’s Judiciary: Politicised Courts, Compromised Rights, the latest policy report from the International Crisis Group, warns that the Sri Lankan judiciary is not working in a fair and impartial way that secures justice and human rights for everyone regardless of ethnicity. This risks undermining the government’s recent military victory over the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). A durable national reconciliation process is only possible if human and constitutional rights are fully restored. 

“The judiciary has not acted as a check on presidential and legislative power but has instead contributed to the political alienation of Tamils”, says Robert Templer, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director. “Under the former chief justice, the Supreme Court’s rulings strengthened political hardliners among Sinhala nationalist parties”.

Rather than assuaging conflict, the courts have corroded the rule of law and worsened ethnic tensions. They are neither constraining militarization of Sri Lankan society nor protecting minority rights. Instead, a politicized bench has entrenched favored allies, punished foes and blocked compromises with the Tamil minority. The judiciary’s intermittent interventions on important political questions have limited settlement options for the ethnic conflict.

Today, neither the lower nor the higher courts in Sri Lanka provide any guarantee of personal security or redress against arbitrary state violence. Although torture in police custody is endemic, courts are unwilling to provide adequate remedies for illegal or abusive detention. Police, judges and government officials have acted in ways that further the goals of powerful political actors, undermine the rule of law and deepen the current political and humanitarian crisis. The possibility of transitional justice, which is necessary for society to break the cycle of violence, is still missing.

The recent appointment of a new chief justice is an opportunity for reforms to begin. A first step toward restoring judicial independence would be a return to an orderly appointment and transfer of judges. This needs to be done both in the lower and appellate judiciary. There should also be fundamental reform of Sri Lanka’s extensive and often abused emergency laws, which are used disproportionately against Tamils. Provisions in the emergency laws concerning arrest, detention and derogation from routine criminal procedures need to be removed, as well as those that criminalize free speech and the exercise of associational rights.

“Fixing institutions and reforming laws will only have a limited effect until political actors, and especially the presidency, feel the cost of infringing on judicial independence”, warns Donald Steinberg, Crisis Group Deputy President for Policy. “Without a concerted effort by the bench and bar, the political costs of interfering with the judiciary will remain minimal”.

Health authorities on high alert to control spread of communicable diseases in refugee camps in Sri Lanka

Due to fear of dangerous outbreaks of communicable diseases in crowded Tamil refugee camps northern Sri Lanka, surveillance by the Ministry of Health staff has been strengthened. The greatest disease outbreak reported so far was chickenpox, with more than 12,000 cases, but those numbers had since been decreasing, a UN report say. Medical officers working with the displaced suspect that most of the chickenpox patients contracted the disease before they arrived in camps.

The number of new cases reported is steadily declining and admissions to hospitals are 40–50 patients per day, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed on 19 June.

“In Vavuniya, the number of Hepatitis A cases is also declining. A total of 2,139 cases were reported as at 12 June,” the report added.

Until 18 June, 1,060 cases of dysentery and more than 5,000 cases of diarrhoea had been reported from the camps,the UN says.

Until 19 June, only 29 cases of malaria had been reported, but health officials initiated a high alert when two cases were reported on 18 June from zone 4 in Menik Farm.

A letter to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

IRIN, humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, posted the following news story on June 30.
SRI LANKA: Rains raise fears of malaria setback
Following is the response of the Lanka Polity Editor:

Dear Sir,

As concerned citizens of Sri Lanka, we highly appreciate the efforts of the UN humanitarian agencies to better the lives of the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. But the present situation of the country in which the authorities are engaged in spreading the view that the UN and other international agencies that raise humanitarian and human rights situations are 'enemies of the nation', the UN media needs to be extremely cautious when reporting.

Your reporting is the only responsible source to estimate the situation in the guarded refuge camps in Sri Lanka’s north. Most of the other news sources are directly biased to the military style propaganda of the government and the remaining elements of the rebels.

We want to show a basic error in this report. You write “Health experts warn that the arrival of monsoon rains in July could increase the risk of waterborne diseases for tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps in northern Sri Lanka,” Actually, the monsoon rains have arrived in the Southern, Western and Central regions that receive rain from the southwestern monsoon. There can be some rain in Northern, Eastern and North Central Provinces but it is not the monsoon for them. These areas receive rain from the Northeastern monsoon that arrives only in November, December every year. The four months ahead are the driest months for these areas. You can consult the Meteorological Department and verify the facts. We think that your or your “health experts” warning is baseless regarding the “increase the risk of waterborne diseases” if it is due to the monsoon rains.

This kind of carelessness in reporting actually fuel the malicious allegations against the UN that portrays the reports as destructive pro-rebel propaganda that aims at creating a bleak picture and panic.

Therefore, we urge your organization to be more responsible regarding the basic facts when reporting and to maintain high credibility in your reports.

Thanking You,

Editor, Lanka Polity

 

Colombo to use a bacteria for mosquito control

Image by jwinfred via Flickr

Public Health Department of the Colombo Municipal Council has taken steps to use Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis) for mosquito control a dengue is spreading throughout Sri Lanka taking hundreds of lives.

Bti is a naturally occurring bacteria that is specific to mosquitoes and black flies, says goodbug,com website. It means that it is non-toxic and safe to use around humans, pets, wildlife and other insects. Bti is a spore forming bacteria that produces a protein crystal which is toxic when ingested by mosquitoes and black flies. Mosquito larvae that have ingested the bacteria and its protein crystals stop feeding within hours and will die within days. Repeated use of Bti is recommended to control mosquitos.

While Bti is non-toxic to humans, it is not approved for use in drinking water supplies. Sri Lanka imports Bti from US.