The director of the Coordination and Response Division of the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging, made a number of comments following a 3 day official visit to Sri Lanka.

The UN official visited the North-East, where many people still lack basic services and facilities, following the Sri Lankan government onslaught in 2009.

According to OCHA people in the region have asked for basic assistance such as sanitary facilities, clean water, shelter, electricity and livelihoods support.

Commenting on the situation, Ging said:

“In 2012, it is absolutely unacceptable that tens of thousands of people are living in such appalling conditions without access to the most basic services,”

Speaking on the importance of donors to increase humanitarian contributions, Ging said,

“We need their help to restore dignity and hope for those who have endured and lost so much and now urgently need support in rebuilding their lives,”

The Economic Development Minister, Basil Rajapaksa, assured Ging that Sri Lanka had ‘successfully resettled’ people that were displaced during the end of the conflict, stressing that the current issue was that people displaced during the earlier periods of conflict still remained to be resettled.

Minister Rajapksa’s ‘resettlement’ assurances come in the light of reports of evictions of Tamil families, just 2 weeks after being 'resettled' and Sinhala military settlements in Tamil areas.

Furthermore documents gathered from Mullaitivu district, reveal that the new settlements being built for the military were to cost 3 times more than the settlements promised to the displaced Tamils.

At the start of 2012, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), acknowledged that 400,000 internally displaced peoples (IDP’s) had been allowed to return home, but stressed that it did not mean that the IDP’s had reached a desirable solution, recognising that they were still in need of assistance and protection.  According to the IDMC, approximately 100,000 IDPs remain in the infamous displacement camps.

The continued land grabbing, militarisation, Sinhala colonisation, lack of educational infrastructure development  and IDMC findings, strongly suggest that the Sri Lankan government’s idea of ‘resettlement’ will not fulfil Mr. Jing’s recognition of the need to, “restore the dignity and hope for those who have endured and lost so much and now urgently need support in rebuilding their lives.”

Ging however praised Sri Lanka on the scale of the resettlement and development of infrastructure.

If the term ‘scale of resettlement and development of infrastructure’ includes the scale of the Sinhala colonisation in the northern provinces, and the development of Hambantota, then yes praise is most certainly due.

Civil officials in the Amparai district have stated that over 3,500 families have been driven from their land, with over 12000 acres of land being seized from the Tamil population, reported TamilNet on Sunday.

Since 2007, over 20 Saiva temples have been destroyed, with suspected backing by Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) commandos.

Reports from the district have indicated that newly constructed Buddhist Stupas have cropped up on land appropriated from Tamils.

Rauf Hakeem, the Minister of Justice in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government recently assured a foreign envoy that steps would be taken to return the lands and properties that were illegally appropriated from civilians during the conflict.

The UNP councillor for the Southern Province, Krishantha Pushpakumara was arrested for obstructing police officers in the Akmeemana region.

Sri Lankan police have arrested a total of five local government politicians within 24 hours - two on charges of assault, including a health minister that assaulted a doctor.

“I do not know when the study would be completed, but I don’t think the SLAF would utilize the entire facility and purchase 14 helicopters.”

“A corresponding contract for supplying the helicopters will be carried out on account of the Russian state credit given to Sri Lanka by Russia in 2010 for purchasing Russian armament.”

The Sri Lankan navy has established two further naval bases in the northern part of Vanni, reports the Jaffna newspaper Uthayan.

The two bases have been built on the site of former LTTE naval bases.

The Sri Lankan Navy Commander, Vice Admiral Somathilaka Thisanayaka opened the sites on Wednesday.

Visiting the island of Sri Lanka, India's Commerce minister, Anand Sharma, said that India hoped to invest in ports, and the exploration of oil and gas.

Following India's pledge to establish an economic zone in Trincomalee district, Sharma said,

“Also they are wiling to be a major partner in oil and gas exploration. An offer has been given by ONGC Videsh Ltd. Also IOC is keen to develop oil refinery here".

His comments come days after Sri Lanka's Petroleum Industries minister denied a deal with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

Anyhow, what ever happened to those 50,000 houses?

Sri Lanka’s failure to seek justice for the slaying of 17 aid workers in Trincomalee indicates the government’s intrinsic unwillingness to prosecute its security forces for atrocities, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said in a report marking the 6th anniversary of the killings.

On August 4 2006, 17 Tamil speaking aid workers were executed by gunmen in the Action Contre la Faim (ACF) office compound in Muthur, Trincomalee. There has been neither progress in government inquiries nor any charges for the killings, despite forceful evidence of security force participation.

James Ross, legal and policy director at HRW said:

“The sixth anniversary of the summary executions of 17 aid workers has brought the Sri Lankan government no closer to obtaining justice for the victims,

“President Rajapakse’s callous indifference to the suffering of the aid workers’ families will be a sad hallmark of his administration.”

In July 2009, the army and navy were exonerated in the ACF killings by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry which instead blamed the LTTE or Muslim militia.

HRW reports that witnesses faced difficulty in testifying under the commission and no effort was made to resolve a failed police investigation.

Regarding Sri Lanka’s imminent ‘National Action Plan’ Ross said:

“Governments that demanded action at the UN Human Rights Council shouldn’t be mollified by the Sri Lankan government’s tepid proposal to pursue criminal inquiries,

“Regarding investigations into wartime abuses, the government’s ‘action plan’ reads more like an ‘inaction plan.’”

Read the full HRW report here.

Extracts from a report by William McGowan for the Foreign Affairs magazine (Emphasis by TG)

See here for full report.

In Sri Lanka last September, a Sinhalese mob led by some 100 Buddhist monks demolished a Muslim shrine in the ancient city of Anuradhapura. As the crowd waved Buddhist colors, gold and red, a monk set a green Muslim flag on fire. The monks claimed that the shrine was on land that had been given to the Sinhalese 2,000 years ago -- an allusion to their proprietary right over the entire island nation, as inscribed in ancient religious texts.

In April, monks led nearly 2,000 Sinhalese Buddhists in a march against a mosque in Dambulla, a holy city where Sinhalese kings are believed to have taken refuge from southern Indian invaders in a vast network of caves almost two millennia ago. The highly charged -- but largely symbolic -- attack marked a "historic day," a monk who led the assault told the crowd, "a victory for those who love the [Sinhala] race, have Sinhala blood, and are Buddhists."

Militant Buddhism there has its roots in an ancient narrative called the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle), which was composed by monks in the sixth century. According to the Mahavamsa, the Buddha foresaw the demise of Buddhism in India but saw a bright future for it in Sri Lanka.

"In Lanka, O Lord of Gods, shall my religion be established and flourish," he said.

The Sinhalese take this as a sign that they are the Buddha's chosen people, commanded to "preserve and protect" Buddhism in its most pristine form.

[...] Much of the Buddhist clergy gave its blessing to a final offensive on the separatist Tamil Tigers. In May of 2009, the Sri Lankan military emerged from that battle triumphant.

Although human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council, have called for an investigation into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes, the Rajapaksa government has resisted. The monks have backed this obstinacy, saying that such demands attack what Sinhalese refer to as the Buddhist "motherland."

Another sign of militant Buddhism's enduring power is the government's refusal to confront the human rights abuses committed in the war's final push. President Rajapaksa, who went to Kandy, the cultural capital, immediately after the 2009 victory to genuflect to the country's top Buddhist clerics, has rejected a UN Human Rights Council resolution, passed in March, that called for an inquiry into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes.

In fact, as the UNHRC voted on the March resolution, hundreds of Buddhist monks led a prayer vigil in Colombo against it. Hundreds more led protests when it passed. The Los Angeles Times quoted one demonstrator as saying, "Evil forces both local and international have joined hands to deprive Sri Lanka of the present environment of peace and take this blessed island back to an era of darkness."

The fundamentalist idea that Buddhism is a unique national possession has encouraged a sense of moral superiority, which makes it hard for many Sinhalese to accept how bruised their Buddhism has become. As one prominent lay Buddhist painfully (and discreetly) explained to me more than twenty years ago, "Buddhism is hollow now in Sri Lanka. We are only going through the motions."

Today, those motions are growing ever more disturbing.