• Difficult road on accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka says Biswal

    Mar 25

    The US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal said whilst being encouraged by the new Sri Lankan government’s promises of reform, there remained tough challenges, including a difficult road ahead on accountability and reconciliation, as well as demilitarisation of the conflict affected areas.

    Ms Biswal, who had visited Sri Lanka last month, made these comments before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on Tuesday, regarding the ‘US rebalance in South Asia: foreign aid and developmental priorities’.

  • Sri Lankan national federation warns against 'Eelam' agenda

    The Federation of National Organisations (FNO), has warned against the 'separatist' agenda being pushed through the calls for the 13th Amendment.

    Gunadasa Amarasekera, whose Patriotic National Movement - an ally of the National Freedom Front - is a member of the FNO, said the 13th Amendment must be "pruned".

  • Indian warships due to arrive in Trincomalee

    Four Indian Navy ships will arrive in Trincomalee for a three-day visit, during which they will take part in training exercises and cultural events, the Indian High Commission in Colombo said.

    The ships are part of the First Training Squadron, part of the Indian navy's Southern Naval Command.

  • Concrete acts of co-operation' with OHCHR needed says Amnesty International
    The Sri Lankan government must take “concrete” steps towards co-operating with the United Nations said Amnesty International in an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday.

    Calling the Sri Lankan government's commitment to prioritise engagement with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) “promising”, Amnesty International said “it needs to be backed by concrete acts of co-operation, including to determine truth and pursue justice for crimes under international law”.

    “Amnesty International cannot stress enough the need for a thorough accounting and justice for the victims of violations and abuses in Sri Lanka,” said the organisation.

    The non-governmental organisation continued to say it “strongly encourages Sri Lanka to use the time until the Council considers the OHCHR Inquiry report in September 2015 to take specific measures to improve its human rights situation.”
  • Amnesty for Sri Lankan army deserters
    The Sri Lankan army is to introduce a period of amnesty for all deserters, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe told a media briefing at the Ministry of Defence on Wednesday.

    The amnesty, which is to take place between April 2 to April 16, would allow all deserters who have been 'Absent Without Official Leave' for more than 6 months to receive an official pardon.

  • UK reiterates commitment to OISL investigation
    The United Kingdom stated it remained committed to a Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) investigation into Sri Lanka’s (OISL), in an address to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.
  • APPG-T chief encourages other councils to follow Redbridge's lead on Tamil justice call

    The chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, Conservative MP Lee Scott, said he was "pleased", Redbridge Council has taken the lead on calling on the UK and the UN to deliver justice for Tamils in Sri Lanka, and encouraged other councils to follow suit.

    Lee Scott said “it is important that the entire population of this country is informed of the positive contribution that the Tamil community makes to this country and of the issues faced by their kith and kin in Sri Lanka. I am pleased that Redbridge has taken the lead on this and I would like to see other Councils follow suit”.

    “On the day Redbridge Council passed this motion, I was at the United Nations in Geneva working to bring about the changes required in order to deliver justice, peace and a permanent political solution to the Tamil nation in Sri Lanka,” he added.

    The leader of the Conservative Group in Redbridge, Councillor Paul Canal, who proposed the motion, said he was "grateful to have received cross-party support", in the Labour-led council.

  • Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force formed with British support – report

    Sri Lanka’s elite police force, the Special Task Force, was formed after intensive advice from British security experts, according to a new report by the International Human Rights Association Bremen.

    The report Exporting police death squads - From Armagh to Trincomalee, supplementary to an earlier document detailing Britain’s involvement in Sri Lanka’s war against Tamils, says British security officials, in the early 1980s, advised senior Sri Lankan policemen on the UK’s counter-terrorism experience in Northern Ireland, even arranging for them to visit Belfast.

    British mercenaries are also thought to have trained the STF, which is implicated in several cases of human rights abuses, including abductions and killings, at its inception.

    "The new evidence reveals that Sri Lanka's Special Task Force was created only after intensive advice from British diplomats about UK counter-insurgency policy in Northern Ireland, where a similar police commando unit had recently shot dead six people. This raises important questions about UK State complicity in designing Sri Lanka's death squad,” the report’s author Phil Miller told the Tamil Guardian.

  • Sri Lanka orders releases of Indian fishermen ahead of talks
    The Sri Lankan government ordered the release of 54 Indian fishermen on Monday, hours before the two countries were set to meet for talks in Chennai over the ongoing fishing issue, reports Colombo Page.

    The fishermen were arrested on Sunday morning by the Sri Lankan navy for alleged poaching. Ten trawlers were also seized.
  • Sri Lankan government pledges to return 818 acres in Sampur
    The Sri Lankan government pledged on Tuesday to return 818 acres of land in the Sampur region of the Eastern province to "original owners" by the end of April, said the Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs, D M Swaminathan.

    The government also promised to release 234 acres of land, currently under the Sri Lankan navy, to its original owners, reported the state media site, News.lk, adding that the "preliminary phase of the transfer had already begun".

    The new pledges come a day after the government promised to release 425 acres of army occupied land in Jaffna.

    Commenting on the announcement, during a ceremony attended by the Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena, the Northern Province's chief minister said that whilst “we are no doubt glad a start has been made to give back our people’s lands... their expectations had been far in excess to that seen on the ground today”.

  • Govt ally rejects 19A as 'constitutional coup'
    The government ally and Buddhist monk party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) rejected the government's proposed 19th amendment to the constitution as a "constitutional coup", stating that the proposal were aimed at taking power away from the executive president, and making the prime minister powerful.

    “The people elected President Maithripala Sirisena with a mandate to curb the arbitrary powers of the Presidency and not to make the Prime Minister the Head of the Government nor allow Parliament to override the Executive. The Prime Minister can be made the Head of the Government only if approved at a referendum,” the JHU General Secretary, and Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka, was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying on Tuesday at a press conference in Battaramulla. 

  • New Sri Lankan govt reiterates Rajapaksa given 'maximum security'
    Sri Lanka's new government rejected criticism of the security it had granted the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, stating it had given him "maximum security".

    Speaking to journalists the cabinet spokesperson and minister, Rajitha Senaratne confirmed that Mr Rajapaksa's security included 21 vehicles and 213 officers, including 108 Sri Lankan army soldiers.

    Rejecting an accusation made by Mr Rajapaksa that his security had decreased, Mr Senaratne was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying that Mr Rajapaksa "didn’t provide any security to his predecessor Chandrika Bandaranaike and she had to go to the Supreme Court to get her security."

  • ICRC received over 16,000 requests to trace disappeared in Sri Lanka
    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed receiving 16,100 requests to trace missing persons since 1990, in a statement issued following the conclusion of ICRC Director of Operations Dominik Stillhart's five-day visit to Sri Lanka.

    Mr Stillhart, who met with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on his trip, said "the ICRC’s experience from its work with families of missing persons in other countries is that their needs are multifaceted".

    "Their priority is the need to know the fate and whereabouts of a missing relative, without which they have no closure and a mechanism which is distinct from an accountability process is required to address this need,” he added. “But they also have other needs such as psychosocial and economic support and administrative or legal concerns arising from having to resolve pension or property rights."
  • India assures assistance to Tamil refugees

    India's Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijju said the government will continue to give assistance to refugees from Sri Lanka who have been seeking refuge in Sri Lanka for over twenty years.

  • Sri Lanka Campaign launches 'Manifesto for Peace'
    The Sri Lanka Campaign, in a report released on Monday, outlined a set of deliverables that it found be a prerequisite to peace on the island.

    Stating that the needs of the survivors of the civil war had to be considered for a lasting peace in Sri Lanka, the report listed elements as part of a ‘Manifesto for Peace.”

    These included:

    1) The factual establishment of what took place in the final stages of the war, including the publication of a comprehensive list of the dead, with cause of death where possible, and the names of those detained and those still not accounted for.

    2) Credible investigation and prosecution of senior political and military commanders of the Sri Lankan Army, and surviving members of the LTTE, for their role in the final stages of the war before a court with international oversight and jurisdiction.

    3) The absence of the military from day-to-day life of Tamils in the north and east.
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