Sri Lanka's Buddhist monks, charged with crimes, are to have their court cases tried in a "separate court" said Prime Minister Jayaratne on Friday.

According to Jayaratne, the decision - currently a draft bill sitting with cabinet, was made in order to ease an overwhelming backlog of court cases involving monks.

Sri Lanka's Buddhist monks have undoubtedly had a busy few months of late (see below). However, Sri Lanka's inherent failure to investigate and prosecute crimes perpetrated by members of the Buddhist clergy, makes the government's reasoning an all the more ludricious attempt to justify the state's blatant disregard for the rule of law.

Sinhala Buddhist monks attack Japanese Buddhist temple (01 Oct 2011)

Monks destroy Muslim shrine as police stand idle (15 Sep 2011)

Calls for closure of Sri Lankan children’s homes (11 Sep 2011)

Relatives of missing hold up pictures (Pictures: TamilNet)

Relatives of people that had disappeared during and after the war in Vanni staged a protest in Jaffna on Human Rights Day on Friday.

Hundreds of soldiers and policemen across the peninsula harassed civilians in an attempt to intimidate and block the protest from going ahead, TamilNet reported.

The protest is the latest sign of simmering anger and injustice felt by Tamils in the North-East.

However, the growing defiance and peaceful protests staged by the Tamil people, continue to be repressed by the Sri Lankan government and ignored by the Sinhala press.

The organisers, the Civil Monitoring Committee from Colombo, were blocked by Sri Lankan security forces from attending the protest.

The police attempted to disperse the protestors, saying no permission had been obtained, but intervention from the former MP S. Kajendran of the TNPF and TNA MPs Mavai Senathiraja and Vinayagamoorthy forced the police to abort their attempts.

The protesters held up pictures of their missing relatives in emotional scenes, while security forces looked on.

Several of the protesters reported that they had witnessed their children or relatives, reach the army controlled territory in 2009, but have not had any information of their whereabouts since.

Parents of people abducted from the internment camps and of persons abducted after their release from detention were also present.

One of the main demands of the parents was the publication of all names of those still in detention.

Although it has been over 36 months since the end of the military conflict, the government of Sri Lanka has not released any lists with the names of those still incarcerated in camps and prisons across the island.

At a discussion hosted by the Asia Society on December 6, 2011, documentary filmmaker Callum Macrae, Malinda Seneviratne, Editor-in-Chief of Sri Lanka's The Nation, and Bob Templer of the International Crisis Group present and assess both the Sri Lankan government and international community's perspectives on that country's decades-long sectarian conflict. Tunku Varadarajan, editor of Newsweek International, moderates the discussion. (1 hr, 16 min.) 

See also Asia Society's related blog post here.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillai, has deferred a planned visit to Sri Lanka.

Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday she said there should be accountability for the crimes committed during the war on the island.

Commenting on the invitation she received from the Sri Lankan government to visit the country, she said she will not visit until Sri Lanka’s report by the LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) is first made public by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Ms Pillay also said she hopes the LLRC report will be discussed at the Human Rights Council session in March, along with the UN’s Panel of Experts report.

Ms. Pillay made her comments in response to a question on Sri Lanka by the Inner City Press.

‘Footage shows photographs of sexually abused women upon whom the military exercise a further act of domination with the camera. In one film taken on a smartphone soldiers are recorded throwing the bodies of dead females into a truck, rating their bodies as they fling them into a pile.

This objectification and absolute disrespect for the dead is emphasised once again by the presence of the lens, which is said to be recording the acts as ‘trophy footage’. The filming of brutal executions by the perpetrators is another decisively symbolic act of power.

However, like all weapons, these images can be used to exploit, but also have the potential to protect. The unstable nature of the photograph means it is unable to be monopolised, it can elude total partisan intervention. In the age of the network, the potential for the photograph to be re-written is intensified. The image can become the last civil refuge for those denied the privileges of sovereign citizenship. It can be employed as such regardless of whether this was the photographer’s original purpose, depending instead on the spectator and the discourse it is placed within.

Now these images have been leaked, picked up by Channel 4 and filtered onto the web where they remain, they have the potential to be removed them from their previous complicity in the act of war.

What was once a form of abuse for the people in the frame now has the opportunity to be a key part of a process for justice and retribution.’

Richard Howitt, who led a delegation of fellow European parliamentarians on a visit to Sri Lanka, says that the Colombo government is restricting access to vast areas of the north of the island to prevent the discovery of the many civilian dead buried there.

“What everyone says is that it’s because [it is] literally where the bodies are buried, and that if people with forensic skills go in and investigations start, then the true horrors of what happened in those final days with so many innocent civilians said to have been killed absolutely unnecessarily, that that would come out and that the Sri Lankans will do everything to prevent that” he siad.

The delegation was able to visit parts of the North-East, but was not allowed to enter military exclusion zones.

Civilians from the affected regions will not be allowed to resettle in their homes for the foreseeable future, Mr Howitt told the BBC. (see report here)

The government defended its exclusion zones, saying that civilians will not be allowed to resettle until the area has been cleared of landmines.

“There had been no landmine deaths since the end of the war and it would be risky to send people into those zones” Defence Ministry spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told the BBC.

This is what we said in November 2010:

"Conventions, treaties and diplomatic etiquette mean that while a country is undertaking its own internal investigation, the international community will remain reluctant to push through an independent inquiry. Or so Sri Lanka hopes […]

"However, in a state like Sri Lanka, time is of the essence. As international human rights organizations […] have rightly and repeatedly pointed out, there is no protection for witnesses in Sri Lanka. Viewed in conjunction with on-going abductions, countless disappearances, high profile assassinations and a complete disregard for the rule of law, the plight of witnesses or outspoken critics is truly terrifying.

"The argument of respecting a state's sovereignty can only go so far in the face of allegations of war crimes. […]

"In practical terms, the more time Sri Lanka is allowed to waste, the more time it has to destroy the evidence and eliminate the witnesses of its crimes.

"How many more extensions and excuses is the UN prepared to endure, before it feels the need to press forward on an independent international inquiry?"

A member of parliament from the main opposition UNP has spoken out against the proposed ban on the import of wheat.

Harsha de Silva said the government’s plan would mostly affect Tamils, as they were the highest consumers of wheat products on the island.

"The statement by the Prime Minister that wheat flour imports should be banned is an irresponsible statement and must be retracted," de Silva said.

"While it may be his choice to consume only rice, or he wishes more people in this country ate rice, he must be made aware that some people in Sri Lanka are totally dependent on wheat flour."

"Even though price of wheat flour doubled since then to close to Rs 85 a kilogram currently, the HIES for the year 2010 found that estate Tamil households consumption only fell marginally to 15.4 kilograms per month," de Silva said.

"The 2010 data, which covers the entire island, also show that the household wheat flour consumption in the Jaffna district was 19.3 kilograms per month while in Vavuniya it was 18.1 kilograms per month."

"Therefore, someone must explain to the Prime Minister that given the preference for wheat flour in their daily meal even at much higher prices, not only Tamils living on the estates but in the North as well continue to purchase significant amounts of wheat flour," de Silva said.

"This is because this segment of our population is used to, and simply enjoy, consuming rotti and other food prepared using wheat flour."

"Banning the import of wheat flour, or even increasing the taxes on wheat flour to very high levels, would exacerbate what in economics we call 'Horizontal Inequalities'," de Silva said.

"Simply put, the Prime Minister must be briefed that such a half-baked policy will have a significant negative impact on the Tamil people of this country just when policies must be designed to reduce such inequalities."

See related article:

SL Prime Minister calls for wheat and fruit import ban (07 Dec 2011)

Food for thought (04 Nov 2010)

Responding to calls for the LLRC report to be made public, Sri Lankan government spokesperson, Keheliya Rambukwella criticised such calls as an "indecent hurry" and asserted that the report would be presented in parliament at the "appropriate time".

"We do not agree with the view that there should be an indecent hurry to make it public", said Rambukwella.

"The 9/11 commission in the US took five years to release its report", he added.

The LLRC report was handed to Mahinda Rajapaksa on 21st November. Since the UK government and US senators, along side several international aid agencies, have called for the findings to be made public.

Leaked extracts were recently published by lankanewsweb.com. According to the website, which is banned in Sri Lanka, the government is preparing to sacrifice nearly one hundred soldiers, including senior military leaders, in order to save Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and President Mahinda Rajapakse.

The soldiers will be held responsible for the atrocities committed during the war in 2009, in the hope that the Rajapakse brothers will be let off the hook.

"They are now being trained in serving the public"

The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, D.M. Jayaratne has called for a total ban of wheat flour imports, the Daily Mirror reports.

Jayaratne said the price of wheat products, including bread, should be increased until it is unaffordable for most people.

He hopes this measure would force people to move towards consuming locally produced rice flour.

“Some say rice flour does not expand as wheat flour but one could prepare rotti or a similar delicacy instead of bread,” he told parliament during a debate on the budget.

The Prime Minister also called for a ban on the import of fruits.

See related article:

Food for thought (04 Nov 2010)

The Sri Lankan Navy are reported to be running 'medical and dental camps' in Allappidi, Nagadeepa, Pungudutheevu Island, Mandatheevu Island, Keeramalai and Delft Island.

Navy personnel were seen to be controlling the dispensation of medicines to civilians, carrying out investigate tests and overseeing specialist referrals to Jaffna teaching hospital.

See related articles: 

Tamils protest against navy confiscation of land (06 Dec 2011)

Sri Lankan Navy pelts Tamil fishermen with stones (06 Nov 2011)

Growing calls for prosecution of Sri Lankan envoy to Australia (17 Oct 2011) 
 

A secret video, taken by undercover reporters at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, reveals senior executives at Bell Pottinger boasting of their influence and access to senior members of the UK government, including the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Posing as agents for the government of Uzbekistan - heavily criticised for its brutal, dictatorial state and flagrant human rights violations - reporters inquired how the UK based PR firm would be able to alter Uzbekistan's negative online comments.

In response, senior executive, Tim Collins, said, "We've got all sorts of dark arts". Collins added that the comments were not added in the written presentation, "because its embarrassing if it gets out".

On a separate occasion, undercover reporters probed Pottinger's work for the Sri Lankan government.

See here for report by The Independent and here for report by The Guardian.

Watch video from 02:07.

Transcript reproduced below: