The South African High Commissioner to Colombo, Geoff Doidge has announced that his country will make an initial investment of US$ 122 million, whilst speaking at a dinner hosted by the Export Development Board of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce for a South African business delegation.

The Eastern Province elections saw low turnout by Muslims reported TamilNet.

The polls, held on Saturday, saw around 60% of registered voters casting their vote.

TamilNet said that turnout was low, especially in Muslim areas, thought to be due to an “internecine fight between Muslim political parties”.

Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake is visiting Sri Lanka next week and will meet with External Affairs Minister GL Peiris to discuss ‘a wide range of issues, including progress in implementing the LLRC action plan’, according to the State Department.

He will also hold a roundtable with civil society representatives said a statement on the State Department’s website:

Two people have been ‘summoned’ for inquiry in connection with the waving of the Eelam national flag during a protest in Nelliyadi, Jaffna, reports Uthayan. 

The incident involved masked men on motorbikes driving through carrying Tamil Eelam flags while the Sri Lankan Army stood by and watched.

Tamil civil society activists have written to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressing their concerns that Sri Lanka will use an upcoming visit from Pillay’s team to propagate a manufactured view of progress in post-war efforts on the island, reported TamilNet on Saturday.

Extracts reproduced below:

“While we welcome the visit of the team, we are concerned that the team might not be given the access that would enable an independent assessment of the Government of Sri Lanka’s performance of its obligations under Resolution A/HRC/19/2.

“To avoid giving the GOSL the opportunity of appropriating the UN OHCHR team’s visit for their propaganda purposes we consider it important that your office seeks guarantees from the GOSL that the mission will have sufficient freedom in being able to devise their own agenda... particularly during their visits to the North and East parts of the country.

“A visiting football team sends out the superficial message: all is well in Sri Lanka. It does not reveal that 4,000 university teachers have been striking for the past two months demanding better wages and greater spending on education, or that the government ordered the closure of all universities last week. It conceals a genocide that claimed 1 lakh Tamil lives in 2009 and a structural racism that marginalises minorities. In enthusiastically supporting the sporting spirit, even sections of the media fail to note that the football team had no permission to play in Tamil Nadu.”