The advancing Sri Lanka Army massacred civilians by paving their bunkers with tanks, by throwing explosives inside the bunkers and by shooting the injured, says a medical worker who came out of Mullivaykkal during the last days of the war, became incarcerated in a camp and now escaped the island.

"Around a hundred thousand captured civilians herded to Mullaiththeevu were kept in rows within barbed wires, most of the time without water or food under the hot sun, and were bullied and ill treated with arrogance," he writes in a lengthy note that reached TamilNet.

The note in Tamil was provided by the Norwegian Tamils Health Organisation (NTHO), urging TamilNet not to reveal the identity of the health worker for reasons of his security.

The medical worker was injured in a fire-bomb attack of the SLA on May 12th.

On alleged earlier firing on civilians, who in desperation tried to get into SLA controlled area, and on violence in recruitment during the last days that especially affected the families of LTTE heroes and fighters, the medical worker attributed responsibility to some elements long infiltrated into the LTTE, to work on behalf of Colombo. LTTE senior ranks were shaken by such treachery, he writes.

Further personal observations culled out from his notes follow:

Colombo particularly targeted hospitals and makeshift hospitals. When people moved away from Ki'linochchi, its hospital started functioning in the school building at Udaiyaar-kaddu. More than two thousand shells were fired on this building by the SLA.

Ki’linochchi to Tharmapuram, Vaddakkachchi, Visuvamadu, Udaiyaar-kaddu, Puthukkudiyiruppu – until reaching Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal, at an average 50 civilians were killed every day in Sri Lankan attacks. 8000 were already killed before herded into Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal.

Medical work decimated and workers were shaken at the death of patients, nurses and workers.

When there were more than 300,000 people, Colombo sent food for only 30,000.

Important medicines such as anaesthetic drugs were not sent. Life-saving surgery without anaesthesia was a cursing ordeal for the patients as well as doctors.

Mothers and children standing in queue to receive infant milk food were targeted in the SL shell attacks. Without seeing no one could visualize the sorrow of the child that lost the mother and the mother who lost the child.

SLA shell attacks, guided by spy craft were targeted on queues for gruel also. Despite casualties the queue would form again.

While even gruel was scarce to people, lands they cultivated were harvested by the SLA.

At one stage, the LTTE leadership ordered food meant for combatants to be shared with civilians. The fighters fought only with gruel food and to the last LTTE served gruel to people.

Around 1000 waterholes were dug and several hundreds of toilets were made for civilians at the initiative of the LTTE. Water often mixed with sand was collected in shell-halves and was filtered by cloth.

There were no epidemics.

Pregnant mothers and infants bearing shell fragments came to makeshift hospitals.

These hospitals functioned 24 hours and wailing was always heard around them.

Many dead bodies couldn’t be buried in certain situations of SL attacks and hungry dogs dragged them.

Every time moving patents to ICRC vessel there will be targeted shelling from the SLA. A few hundreds taken for ICRC treatment died. How that happened was not known and whom to ask.

Even in emaciated conditions people donated blood for treatment and some of them later died of their own injuries.

More than a thousand people were killed on the day when the SLA entered into Maaththa’lan and Pokka’nai (20th April).

On May 15th and 16th the SLA entered and rampaged the pocket of land crowded with nearly a hundred thousand people.

I had to pass through at least around 300 bodies when I came out. Some were alive but couldn’t walk. I helped a few who could walk. Some held my feet when I tried to go away. What could I do?

There is a long list of people who were eliminated and disappeared after capture by the SLA. The army-controlled area was a place where murders took place in front of one’s eyes.

In Mullaiththeevu, a hundred thousand people made to stand in rows would all of a sudden be ordered to squat by the SL army. The soldiers would make sadistic laugh at seeing the melee of people falling on each other in the exercise.

Long poles were used to beat the people and to threaten them.

Old and young stood under hot sun for a long time, immensely suffering from thirst.

Mullaiththeevu to Vavuniyaa was scenery of disaster.

There were 20 to 25 people in a tent in the internment camp at Cheddiku’lam. Food was sometimes thrown from a vehicle.

Everyday in the internment camp around 30 people died.

It was a place of epidemics.

Thousands suffered of Chicken Pox, hundreds had brain fever, many elders died and some committed suicide.

The bribe to SL army for a person to come out was several hundred thousands of rupees.

In the last days of the war over 18,000 killed, more than 5,000 lost limbs, more than 7,000 seriously injured and several thousands suffered minor injuries. Several thousands suffer mental illnesses. More than a hundred medical workers- doctors, nurses and volunteers perished.

Knowledge and exercise of precaution reduced casualty. No one died of any epidemic under LTTE control.

Several thousands of Sinhala youth of the SLA, from poor families, regrettably laid down their life in the war.

The sadistic lust of Mahinda Rajapaksa is very astonishing - inflicting pain on ordinary civilians in every possible way, and then projecting that as forms of his soothing operation to the outside world.

The world may forget, but Tamils will never forget the true face of the civilisation of 21st century, the world has shown to them, writes the medical worker in his notes.

A Pakistani navy ship arrived in Sri Lanka on a goodwill visit aimed at strengthening existing ties and the level of cooperation between the two countries, according to navy sources in Sri Lanka.

PNS ‘Zulfiquar’, Pakistan’s destroyer class ship arrived in Colombo harbour on Saturday, September 5 and was ceremonially welcomed by the Sri Lanka Navy in the presence of Pakistan Defence Adviser Colonel Syed Khurram Hassnain Alam.

"This will provide an opportunity for close interaction between both friendly navies", a spokesperson for Pakistan high commission in Sri Lanka said, announcing the ship’s visit.

“Such relationships have picked up momentum in the last few years owing to growing interdependence at state level in facing emerging challenges and to enhance security and defence of vital national interests though such visits to regional countries are a regular feature” he added.

PNS “Zulfiquar” is 123 meters long, 13.2 meters wide and 30.7 meters in height with a displacement of 3143.9 tonnes and a crew of 14 officers and 188 sailors, SLN sources told media in Colombo.

The Ship’s Commanding Officer Captain Zahid Ilyas called on Sri Lankan Navy Commander Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe at the Navy Headquarters later.

Almost 4 months since the end of the war, little progress has been made at the camps that hold nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians which have been described as “shocking and disturbing”, recent press reports said.

New mobile phone footage of conditions in the Manik Farm camp in Vavuniya shows ill people lying on mud floors with intravenous drips in their arms and no hospital beds in sight.

The footage was apparently recorded two weeks ago and provided to Channel 4 news by a group called War without Witness.

"Patients on intravenous drips lying on mud floors, a man so weak he is unable to brush the flies from his face," Channel 4 said in its broadcast, adding, "[t]he concern now is that when the monsoon rain season begins, the camp will be flooded."

One third of all children under 5 in the camps have malnutrition and 8% of those have it in its acute form, the report said.

“It is a horrendous place to be for anyone” James Elder, the UNICEF spokesman, told Channel 4. He has since been told to leave Sri Lanka by the government, which has accused him of spreading propaganda in support of the Tigers.

Aid workers made fresh plea for the government to take action due to the already poor conditions in the camps and mounting fear of worsening conditions in the coming monsoon season.

Recent floods from last month have already destroyed two thousand settlements and have further worsened sanitation conditions, submerging toilets and contaminating water.

The impending monsoon season, due in October, will be highly destructive to the weak infrastructure of the camps, aid workers say.

“A potential crisis could brew there if the rains come through and those camps are still as congested as they are [now],”a Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (CAFOD) official who visited one of the IDP camps recently told the BBC.

“Nothing has changed over the last three months for the people that are living in the camps. They are overcrowded with poor sanitary conditions and inadequate health care,” CAFOD’s head of international program said.

“The people have basic food and supplies but many remain traumatised and due to restricted movement are still separated from their families causing even more distress.”

Sri Lanka's Resettlement Minister Rishard Bathurdeen has blamed UN agencies for what he calls a poorly constructed drainage system that collapsed during the floods.

But Human Rights Watch said the government must take "full responsibility" for the squalid conditions.

The New York-based group urged Colombo to release inmates to live with their families and friends, a demand consistently rejected by authorities.

"Locking families up in squalid conditions and then blaming aid agencies for their plight is downright shameful," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"This is illegal, dangerous, and inhumane," he said, adding the floods had "heightened the risk of outbreak of disease".

The government has severely restricted access to the camps and does not allow journalists to visit the area on their own.

Although the government originally promised to resettled 80% of the detainees by the end of the year, there is concern that seems to have been delayed indefinitely now.




United Nations spokesman in Colombo, Gordon Weiss, says they are not seeing enough progress in return of the displaced Tamils to their homes.

"We want to be clear that we expect people will be allowed to return home very soon and much faster than is taking place at the moment," he said.

"We want to understand how people are being screened, because there are a lot of people inside these camps who clearly present no appreciable security risk to the government, lots of women with young families, lots of young children, separated and orphaned children, people who are ill."

U.N. spokesman Weiss says it is not possible to indefinitely fund the camps, which are being run with assistance from the UN and other international donors.

"There needs to be a degree of clarity about how this money is being spent, what it is being spent for, in other words there needs to be a conclusion because the involvement of the United Nations in these camps is on the understanding that the people will not be there for a long time," he said.

Other agencies echo this concern. “At the moment this process [of returning the displaced] is painfully slow. The Sri Lanka government must make good its commitment by making a start and allowing the most vulnerable groups to return home” said the CAFOD official.

The camps fail to meet international standards on basic access to food, water and shelter. Overcrowding and lack of freedom to movement heightens any risk of disease and violence within the camps.

Outbreaks of diseases such as Hepatitis A, chicken pox and skin ailments are prevalent and concern that cholera may develop, an earlier report by Aljazeera said.

Aid agencies sounded the alarm to the UN Humanitarian Co-ordinater even before the war was over, that "current conditions in Menik farm are not only a violation of IDP's fundamental rights to freedom of movement, education and livelihoods, they are also failing to adequately fulfil rights on basic access to food, shelter and water," Aljazeera said.

Most of the shelters hold twice the number of people recommended under international standards.

Over 220,000 people are held in overcrowded and poor sanitary conditions in the six-zones of the Manik Farm camp, while minimum international standards – outlined by the Sphere Project – would allow for a maximum of 140,000 people in the cramped space, the report said.

Further, with nearly four hundred babies born every month in the Manik Farm camp, the people there are in need of considerable assistance and care, which they are not getting.

Sarvodaya leader Dr A. T. Ariyaretna presented the statistics when he was making a commemorative address in honour of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, at the SEDEC centre in Colombo.

Mr. Ariyaretna said that Sarvodaya movement was able to put together and supply some 800 cots for the infants in a short period of time, although the initial requirement was 400 cots at the request of the health authorities at the Menik Farm.

"If Mother Theresa were alive today, she would have rushed to the IDP camps in Vavuniyaa to help the inmates there," he said.

North American Tamils expanded their boycott campaign over Sri Lanka goods to over a dozen cities across the US and Canada, targeting GAP and Victoria's Secret stores on Saturday, September 12, youth organizers of the event said.

Leveraging the "No to Sri Lanka" website run by Canadian youth activists to spread the campaign message, the organizers held protests in San Francisco, Chicago, North Carolina, Boston, Atlanta, New York city and in several Canadian cities.

The protesters stood inside malls, outside shopping centers, and some in the median of busy streets, urging ethical shoppers to resist buying garments made in Sri Lanka.

"We wanted to convey a unified message that by conducting business with Sri Lanka's apparel manufacturing industry, GAP and Victoria Secret are indirectly funding a brutal regime that is accused of possible war crimes, and which is holding nearly 300,000 Tamils in military supervised camps with little or no freedom of movement," spokesperson for co-ordinating the protests said.

Dozens of protesters, including women and children held placards and distributed leaflets in several places in the campaign cities, and drew the attention of large crowds of people,

The busy intersection at Market St. and Powell St. outside the GAP store was targeted by protesters in San Francisco. Protesters met with the store management and explained why protesters object to GAP's business with Sri Lanka.

Another group of protesters met outside Victoria's Secret store on Powell St. in San Francisco while similar protests were held in major cities across north America.

Volunteers distributed more than 3000 campaign fliers while walking from Macy's to Victoria Street and to GAP around 4 blocks also on Michigan Street in Chicago.

Nearly 20 protesters were present at the Atlantic Station shopping district near the Victoria Secret and GAP Stores in Atlanta, and held placard from 3-5 PM at the busy intersection and the entrance to the shopping district.

Volunteers left fliers in the windshields of the vehicles parked in the public parking garage and distributed fliers to interested shoppers.

Many US state statutes prohibit using Mall premises for protests.

"With the successes so far, and additional knowledge gained in understanding procedural matters related to picketing, we hope to further expand the protests to other cities, and to continue campaign in a sustained basis, until an acceptable solution is found for the 300,000 internees," organizers said.

GAP has its headquarters in San Francisco and sells apparels under the brands GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy among others.

Weeks after the airing of footage showing the purported execution of naked, blindfolded civilians by troops in Sri Lankan Army uniform, the Colombo government is still trying to challenge the authenticity of the video. However, experts have challenged all attempts by the government, arguing that the footage could not have been falsified.

Sri Lanka’s technological refutation of the authenticity of the video is based on a processed video-file taken from the broadcaster’s website, rather than the original mobile phone footage, experts said.

An analysis commissioned by US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) of the original video distributed by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) and Sri Lanka’s subsequent technological refutation says Colombo’s experts looked “at a second generation transcoded video to derive erroneous conclusions,” reported TamilNet.

Earlier this month, Sri Lanka’s Media Centre for National Security held a press conference attempting to discredit the video, on a technical basis. Among their claims was that the video footage had been edited in a “clumsy fashion”, that one of the purportedly dead men could be seen moving after he was shot and that the entire footage was faked.

These conclusions do not challenge the authenticity of the shocking minute long video of Sri Lankan soldiers executing naked and bound prisoners, , the TAG experts said in their preliminary note.

“Sri Lanka has been putting forward spurious claims in an attempt to distract the international community from the wider issue – the mass killings of Tamil civilians by artillery bombardment as well as summary executions,” a TAG spokesperson told TamilNet.

“Personally, I think Steven Spielberg would have a hard time staging this grim scene,” Channel 4’s Foreign Affairs correspondent, Jonathon Miller, wrote on his blog.

The group who originally released the video also condemned Sri Lanka’s analysis.

This was “a piece of video evidence, where anyone can clearly see some unarmed men were been killed in cold blood by some armed men who appeared to be wearing the uniforms which are very much identical to that of the Sri Lankan army,” Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) said in a statement.

“[W]hat is fake is not the video clip, but the so called ‘technical analysis’,” they said.

"It was as if someone was filming it for fun. This was being circulated by the soldiers. It has been going round for a while. It was taken as if it was a souvenir," a spokesman for JDS told reporters.

JDS is made up of journalists from Sri Lanka, from both the Sinhalese and Tamil communities, who, having fled persecution on the island, are mainly based in Europe.

Despite the Sri Lankan Government’s claims that the video is fake, it still refuses to launch an independent investigation onto the events.

This is despite having reassured the United Nations that such an investigation would be set up soon.

"We have received a guarantee from the government that it will be create an independent body to investigate such incidents. So far they have not kept [their] word. If nothing happens, we have to do something... the government has only 'weeks or months, not years, to initiate such an investigation," the UN’s Sir John Holmes said in an interview with Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper.

However, the Sri Lankan government has now started to deny the need for an independent inquiry.

Sri Lanka doesn’t “have to have so-called independent inquiries into any Tom, Dick and Harry allegation,” Professor Rajiva Wijesinha from the Sri Lankan Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights said, appearing on Channel 4 news to refute the video.

“This isn’t a Tom, Dick or Harry allegation. This is an allegation that the United States ambassador to the UN says gives her grave concern,” the interviewer responded, but his comment was dismissed by the Sri Lankan ministry official.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s office also released a statement expressing concern about the video.

“We have viewed with utmost concern the reports and information received from various sources of serious human rights violations including those related to war crimes,” the statement said.

Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN and dozens of other organisations from around the world have expressed similar concerns and called for an independent inquiry.

"These reports are very disturbing, they are of grave concern," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told reporters.

"We'd like more information as we formulate our own national response," she added.

The on-going analysis of the original video and Sri Lanka’s technological refutation was commissioned by TAG as part of the group’s wider compilation of war-crimes evidence, sources there told TamilNet.

JDS has confirmed that the original recording they distributed was recorded as a .gp3 file, and all media, including Channel-4, derived their web-broadcast versions from this, TAG said.

Sri Lanka’s technology-based refutation turn on effects that stem from the H263 (.gp3) to H264 (.avi played in Flash-9, 10) conversion process, the US experts hired by TAG say in their initial note.

“The improved algorithmic features of H264, especially the de-blocking filter at the decoder, can improve the quality of the transcoded version," the experts said.

The audio/video synchronization difference pointed to by Colombo is a known possibility of the conversion process, experts said, according to TAG.

TAG said the analysis has been commissioned as part of building a dossier of war crimes in Sri Lanka to bring about prosecutions in future.

Examination of the meta-data of the JDS version of .gp3 reveals a recording format of H263, and a recording time of 18th July 2009 UTC 9:06 a.m. (Sri Lanka Time UTC+ 5:30 = 2:36 p.m.), according to TAG.

"While JDS said that the video was likely shot in January, the video file indicates a more ominous date of 18 July, two months after the war ended with more than 300,000 Tamils held in internment camps. Implications of this are horrible to contemplate," TAG said.

“This video captures merely one instance of the summary executions and ‘disappearances’ which Sri Lanka has practised for decades,” TAG said.

“A cursory analysis of the extensive records of the SLMM shows that since 2005 Tamils have been routinely arrested or abducted, executed and their tortured bodies dumped by roads and public places across the government-controlled parts of the island,” TAG said, referring to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

“It is the digital age that has made it possible for evidence of war crimes to seep past Sri Lanka’s information blackout,” TAG said, adding that it understands that ‘trophy’ videos of execution and torture recorded by soldiers are being traded as mementos.

JDS received the video from a Sri Lanka Army officer, said UK’s Channel 4 news, which first aired the footage. The British broadcaster broke the story and showed the video on their flagship news program on August 25.

As international alarm and outrage mounted, on September 3, the Sri Lankan government directed the Chairman of the state run Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and Independent Television Network to hand over all video tapes in relation to Vanni war front immediately to the Media Minister and to ensure and verify whether any video tapes used or unused are missing or stolen while in the custody of the two institutions.

The United States State Department is preparing a report on war crimes committed by Sri Lanka to be presented to the US Congress next week, local media in Colombo reported quoting US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp.
Stephen Rapp, US's ambassdor at large for War Crimes Issues (WCI) told Time magazine that his office is responsible "to collect information on ongoing atrocities... [and] give a signal [when] something serious is occuring."
“There are situations that have already been handed to us. There is a report from the Department of State on the war in Sri Lanka due in Congress on September 21. Additionally the office, together with the Secretary for Global Affairs and the Secretary of State, has the responsibility to collect information on ongoing atrocities and it is then the responsibility of the President to determine what steps might be taken towards justice. Like the canary in the coalmine, we give the signal that something very serious is occurring,” Rapp was quoted as in a response to a question posed by the Time magazine.
With United Nations remaining impotent to act carry out investigations into the conduct of Sri Lanka military during the last several months of the war, the report to be released by the United States State Department on September 21, remains, perhaps the last credible instrument in the hands of the West to begin to find the truth on the allegations of war-crimes by the Sri Lanka Government and the Liberation Tigers, a spokesperson for a US-based activist group said.
Whilst rights groups and Tamils, inside and outside Sri Lanka, want an international probe into Sri Lanka’s actions, the Sri Lankan government wants the international community to ignore its human rights violations and mistreatment of refugees and, instead, help it rebuild after the end of the war.
When Time asked Ambassador Rapp "if the requirements of peace get in the way of justice?" the Ambassador responded "I think we've learned that contrary to fears, holding people accountable for atrocities does not make the problem worse, it makes it better. When Milosevic was indicted for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, people were convinced that they would never have peace and he would be worse than ever. Within a short time he was charged and jailed in his own country.

"Justice is a necessary ingredient to the establishment of peace. There's always an argument that justifies doing nothing, but you can't defer it forever," Rapp said.

In the amendment 1169 to H.R. 2346, an Act making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, U.S. Senators had earlier proposed to "prohibit certain forms of financial support to Sri Lanka," unless certification is made by the Secretary of State that "Sri Lanka has taken certain steps to address the humanitarian situation in areas affected by the conflict in Sri Lanka."

The forthcoming war-crimes report from the US State Department is mandated by the above Act.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has dismissed western models for development that give precedence to industrial growth and outlined a strong agriculture based development model influenced by traditional Sinhala Buddhist doctrine.

“We must have a Sri Lankan model,” he told Forbes magazine in an interview on Friday, August 28.

“I prefer it to be agriculturally based. If you can be self-sufficient in food, then the industries will come,” Rajapakse said.

Sinhala Buddhist socio economic doctrine favours small farms run by peasant households, most of whom will resort to the traditional technology of cultivation.

An idealised and harmonious society centered on the tank, the temple, and the paddy (rice) fields is the most desired form of a Sinhala Buddhist national existence, according to a leading scholar.

Rajapakse’s vision of a strong agriculture based developmental has its roots in this doctrine, the Buddhist scholar said.

The implementation of this model in the past decades entailed the transplantation of large number of Sinhalese peasants to ‘border areas’ of the northeast, leading to colonisation of Tamil traditional homelands, he added.

In addition to dismissing socio economic development through industrialisation, Rajapakse, in his interview with Forbes, also rejected the need for a conventional political solution to resolve the decades long ethnic conflict.

The President suggested that improved economic conditions would be sufficient to address Tamil grievances.

“Without development, there won’t be peace; we must develop the economy,” Rajapakse said.

Reconciliation with Tamil communities in the island’s north and east, he added, meant providing basic needs to them such as electricity, water, shelter, education.

“They (the Tamils) want to start their paddy fields, go back to their farms,” he said.

Belittling the grievances of a Nation that has lost tens of thousands of people in a brutal war and is being incarcerated enmasse, by suggesting their grievances are just economic is not the way for reconciliation, said a Tamil political commentator, responding to Rajapakse’s comments.

Meanwhile, whilst countries across the globe turn towards increased communication, improved transportation and open access to build their economy, Sri Lanka is following its President’s vision in the opposite direction.

For example, the country will “not open up closed roads” despite defeating the Tamil Tigers because this could “cause the economy to collapse” claimed the country’s Prime Minister.

"Do you remember what happened to the Soviet Union under Gorbachev? He opened the roads immediately and what happened? The entire country collapsed. We can't afford to do that," Ratnasiri Wickramanayake told a business forum in Colombo, according to Lanka Business Online.

Reflecting government policy, even the major A9 highway linking Jaffna to the south, which was opened to much fanfare nearly six months ago, has seen little traffic as vehicles are denied permission to travel along it.

Sri Lanka is not only rejecting Western development and modernisation models, but also its investment, reports noted.

Sri Lanka ranked 111 out of 179 on economic freedom according to the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.

The Index slammed the country for its roadblocks to foreign investment, its financial system and its opaque property laws. With scores of ministers and 10 to 15 per cent of the workforce employed by the government, Sri Lanka was one of the world’s most administered countries, the Index said.

Transparency International placed it between India and Pakistan as one of Asia’s most corrupt economies.

The World Bank measured the ease of doing business around the globe and ranked Sri Lanka 102nd out of 181 countries, knocking it for its tax regime, legal system and will come,” Rajapak0D
However, despite shunning western models of development and modernisation, Sri Lanka still seems to crave Western money, noted a Tamil commentator, referring to increased tourism developments.

Whilst making it difficult for western investors to invest in the island, Sri Lankan government wants to increase revenue it receives from tourism.

Tourism is seen as an industry that would be compatible with Sri Lanka’s development model, requiring no industrialisation or open access.

Sri Lanka has embarked upon building a 175 million dollar luxury tourist resort in the offshore tracts of the Dutch Bay in Katpiddi, according to reports.

The narrow stretch of land lying between the Dutch Bay and the Indian Ocean will have 60 chalets and 20 villas in the first phase, costing 1000-1500 dollars per night and will have 80 villas in the second phase to be sold to Arabs, Europeans and Sri Lankans as holiday or retirement homes.

The Katpiddi region of the North Western Province was part of the Tamil homeland and even now is a territory of Tamil speaking people.

Neil de Silva, chairman of the project refused to say how much the investors paid for the land to the local people.

The resort, expected to be ready in 2011 will be managed by International luxury hotel chain Six Senses.

The European Union is unlikely to renew GSP+ concessions to Sri Lanka, a leaked report suggested.

A confidential 130-page report obtained by The Economist concludes that Sri Lanka has “failed to honour important human-rights commitments, and is ineligible for GSP Plus.”

The report, conducted by EU investigators, said that there was “complete or virtually complete impunity in Sri Lanka” and referred to the IDP internment camps as a “novel form of unacknowledged detention”.

It also includes allegations that Government backed paramilitary groups were involved in “child abductions, torture and killings of civilians”.

The Economist commented that “rarely has a government soiled its reputation as dramatically as Sri Lanka’s”.

The EU ambassador to Sri Lanka, Bernard Savage declined to comment on any of the findings of the report.

"The full text of that has been made available to the Sri Lankan authorities. Once we have gathered all the reactions, particularly those of the Sri Lankan government, the report will be finalised within a short time," he told the new magazine.

Sri Lanka’s Trade Ministry released a statement admitting it was “very unlikely” that they would keep hold of the GSP Plus concessions, following a damning 130-page report by the European Union.

S Rannugge, secretary in Sri Lanka`s Export Development and International Trade Ministry, confirmed that the review highlighted human rights abuses and torture allegations carried out by the Sri Lankan Government.

Colombo has been under scrutiny from Western nations, following the final phase of the 25 year civil war.

The manner in which the war was fought, with reports of thousands of civilian deaths, left Sri Lanka facing heavy criticism for its tactics.

Sri Lanka’s admission into the GSP Plus program has been under review since October 2008, after increasing pressure on the EU to investigate human rights abuses.

Since then, investigators have been refused entry into the country and categorically rejected by the Sri Lankan Government.

The GSP Plus program allows Sri Lanka to export over 7,200 items to the EU duty free, it being the only country in South Asia to have this privilege.

Companies such as Marks & Spencer’s have benefitted from this the most, allowing them to import low cost garments into their European stores tax free.

If the GSP plus program is withdrawn, it is likely that these companies will move their factories elsewhere.

Sri Lanka’s textile industry netted a record $3.47 billion from EU markets last year, making it the country’s top source of foreign exchange, followed by remittances of $3 billion and tea exports of $1.2 billion.

Before the GSP plus program was in place, the USA was the biggest buyer of Sri Lankan goods. Now the European Union is the largest export market for Sri Lanka accounting for 36% of all exports.

The review follows a number of countries, including Britain and the USA, publicly abstaining from voting for Sri Lanka to receive a $2.6 billion loan from the IMF in July.

Randeep Ramesh, India correspondent for the Guardian, labelled this “an unprecedented move”, whilst also commenting, that, “if the EU does withdraw the trade concession it will mark a turning point in relations.”

A final decision is to be made in October, but even Sri Lanka is not confident that they will continue to enjoy this benefit. The final decision is non-appealable.

Sri Lanka has recalled its envoy to Japan after Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake was finger printed, made to wait for approximately half an hour and processed through normal passenger channel instead of the VIP lounge at Narita airport in Japan.

Wickramanayake, had visited Japan at the invitation of the head monk of
a well-known Buddhist temple in Kobe to the chief guest at a religious ceremony.

According to a source at the Prime Minister’s office, the officials who went to receive Wickaramanayake had apparently slipped-up by waiting outside instead of going into receive the Premier, as he entered the airport terminal after landing.

As a result Wickramanayake and the entourage had been cleared only through the normal passenger channel and not through the VIP lounge.

Japan had begun fingerprinting foreigners about a year ago as a security measure, but VIPs are exempted if embassy officials coordinate with the immigration to ensure quick clearance.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has recalled Jayantha Palipane, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Japan over the incident and directed the Sri Lankan Embassy in Japan to conduct a probe, according to Foreign Ministry sources. Sources also said that the decision to recall Palipane was not based merely on the incident involving the Sri Lankan premier but on some past incidents as well.

Whilst Colombo has tried to portray that the Sri Lankan embassy in Japan was at least partially responsible for the ordeal of the Prime Minister, reports citing diplomatic circles in Colombo claim that the visa issued to Wickramanayake by Japan was a temporary visa normally issued to ordinary visitors.

Some media reports in Colombo claim the recall of Palipane is Colombo’s the latest 'panicked restructuring' of its foreign service.

Recalling of the ambassador may look as a response to an incident at the Narita airport involving the prime minister of Sri Lanka, but it is only a pretext, according to the sources.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was making use of career diplomats and academics to paint a deceptive picture of his government before and during the war. But now the government, either not trusting its own diplomats or considering them a spent force, replaces them with military and political appointments in the style of some totalitarian regimes, the sources further said.

Palipane is a senior career diplomat of nearly quarter a century of service. 

 

Noting that "hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamils displaced by the military offensive are living in camps in appalling conditions. Moreover, foreign media channels have reported horrifying evidence of the worst violations of human rights, including starvation, rape, killings and torture.

International agencies are calling for full access to these camps in order to provide life-saving treatment and medical supplies and to allow free and independent media access," parliamentarian, John Murphy, appealed at the House of Representatives on Thursday, September 13, "to all governments of the world who have respect for human rights, the rule of law and free speech to join together and call on the government of Sri Lanka to right the wrongs forthwith."

More excerpts from Murphy's address follow:

"To date, the Sri Lankan government has arrogantly refused free media and humanitarian access to these camps. Why is the Sri Lankan government hiding from the truth? Surely providing unimpeded media and humanitarian access to these camps would provide a perfect opportunity for the Sri Lankan government to demonstrate that it is doing all it can to alleviate the suffering of the Tamil people. Clearly, the Sri Lankan government does not want the truth revealed.

"I am horrified to learn that a Sri Lankan journalist, Mr J S Tissainayagam, was detained for five months without charge in 2008 and has since been convicted and sentenced by the Colombo High Court to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment...What an appalling assault on free speech by the Sri Lankan government. Australia, as a country that asserts the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, including views on all matters of public policy, the behaviour of the Sri Lankan government is in direct conflict with our values as well as those of other democratic nations and, as such, must be loudly and publicly condemned.

"In a further assault on freedom of speech, an Australian United Nations official, Mr James Elder, was recently ordered by the Sri Lankan government to leave the country because of comments he made about the military offensive and its impact on innocent civilians. Mr James Elder is a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund in Colombo and has made several statements on foreign television news channels and print media concerning the horrendous humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka....It is obvious that there exists no freedom of the press in Sri Lanka. The actions of the government of Sri Lanka must be condemned and must be condemned loudly."

India is willing to share its nuclear technology with Sri Lanka for power generation using Thorium as the main source of energy according to Sri Lanka’s Science and Technology Minister Tissa Vitharana.
The news of India’s willingness to share nuclear technology comes as both countries are in the process of finalising a joint venture to build coal power plant at Sampur in Trincomalee.
Professor Vitharana told the Daily Mirror newspaper on Friday, September 4, India is prepared to support Sri Lanka with setting up a nuclear power plant and that he had requested IAEA support for the project.

Professor Vitharana also told the paper he had invited Indian nuclear scientists to conduct a feasibility study on the use of Thorium deposits – said to be found in abundance along Sri Lanka’s southern costal belt – as a source of nuclear energy for power generation.

“I had fruitful discussions with the Indian delegation in Geneva when I attended the IAEA’s annual sessions recently. They are prepared to assist us in utilizing Thorium as a source of energy for a future nuclear power plant and to share the necessary technology as India has successfully developed the use of Thorium for nuclear power generation,” Prof. Vitharana told Daily Mirror.

He said the feasibility study would include such matters as cost effectiveness, safety in use of nuclear material and safety in waste disposal and added that he had spoken to the IAEA requesting its support for the project.

He said India had successfully developed a pilot plant using Thorium instead of Uranium and were now on the verge of commissioning a major nuclear power project with Thorium as the source of energy.

“While we could get the benefit of the new technology developed by India to utilize Thorium as a source of energy, we also need to conduct a proper survey to determine the full extent of Thorium reserves in Sri Lanka. This will be a part of the feasibility study before a final decision is taken to determine whether we turn to nuclear energy to supply power to the national electricity grid,” Prof. Vitharana said.

He said with the world in the throes of a fuel crisis because of increasing demand and diminishing fuel resources, Sri Lanka too would confront major problems in obtaining sources of energy and added that with the defeat of the LTTE, the need for economic development and the reduction of poverty have become major problems for the government.

“This cannot be achieved without adequate and affordable energy and power supply. At present, most of the income derived from the export of tea and rubber is spend to import petroleum products,” Prof. Vitharana said.

He said this situation would get much worse in future and it was essential for Sri Lanka explore the possibility of utilizing locally available fuel resources.

The Alternative Energy Division of the Science and Technology Ministry together with the Sustainable Energy Division of the Power and Energy Ministry have been promoting alternative sources of locally available energy resources for power generation -- mini-hydro power plants, wind, solar and bio-gas.

But these sources cannot completely replace fossil fuel. The ‘Inter Ministerial Committee for Generation of Bio-Fuel’ set up by the Science and Technology Ministry explores the possibility of increasing the use of bio-fuel like Ethanol and Bio-Diesel (Jatropha) for vehicles.

“It is essential to have a major source of energy for the electricity grid in the future. More and more countries are now turning to nuclear energy as a suitable additional source for supplying the electricity grid considering it will take at least 10 years after the decision is taken to develop nuclear energy before it can be generated,” Prof. Vitharana said.
Meanwhile an Indian delegation arrived in Sri Lanka to finalise the paper work for a proposed coal power project at Sampur. According to Sri Lankan government sources the paper work is expected to be completed by October this year.
The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) of India has invested US$500 million in the power project to be launched as a joint venture with the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) with both parties to be equal partners.
Whilst India is funding the Sampur power plant in the eastern province, China is funding a similar project at Norochcholai in Northwestern province.

Sri Lankan officials have responded angrily to reports that the European Union may withdraw the GSP+ concessions that Sri Lanka is currently entitled to.

“Western countries should remember that economic power has shifted from the west to the east,” said Palita Kohona, Sri Lanka’s new ambassador to the UN.

“New markets open up in the east. Our friends China, India, Japan, Korea, Iran … a whole range of countries [can help]," he was quoted as saying.

The comments followed increasing speculation that the GSP plus program, worth around £1 billion in trade concessions, would be cancelled for Sri Lanka.

"Sri Lanka has enough friends around the world. You have to realise that financial resources and power is no longer concentrated in one part of the world” continued Kohona.

"We can handle the loss" said the diplomat, who was also recently refused a visa by the British High Commission.

Dayan Jayatilleka, who was until last month, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, disagreed with Kohona’s comments.

“The cold hard fact is that we need GSP Plus far more than the EU needs to give it to us”, wrote Jayatilleka in a newspaper column.

“It is not our right or entitlement; it is what it is: a concession... conditional upon certain things because we sought eligibility upon certain claims and obtained the concession in the first place upon those claims and promises.”

“Frankly, if you are asking someone else for their money or preferential access to their markets, you cannot really demand it and get stroppy when it is not forthcoming,” Jayatilleka rounded off his column in The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, The Sunday Times reported that President Mahinda Rajapakse was angered by another Sri Lankan ministry’s comments that “GSP Plus is very unlikely.”

Sri Lanka’s Trade Ministry released a statement admitting it was “very unlikely” that they would keep hold of the GSP Plus concessions, following a damning 130-page report by the European Union.

S Rannugge, secretary in Sri Lanka`s Export Development and International Trade Ministry, told Reuters that the review highlighted human rights abuses and torture allegations carried out by the Sri Lankan Government.

The Sri Lankan President has now intervened in the matter.

At a meeting at Temple Trees, Rajapakse appointed a team of four ministers to make a strong plea for the concessions not be withdrawn. The team comprises Export Development and International Trade Minister G.L. Peiris, Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, Justice Minister Milinda Moragoda and Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.

“All four must work as a team and give me results,” the President told ministers.

A final decision is due in October.