TYO-UK (Tamil Youth Organisation - UK) welcomes the broadcast of the documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ by Channel 4 as a harrowing but vital insight into the truth of the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka during 2009. It is an outstanding example of investigative journalism that has uncompromisingly presented the horrors that occurred. The documentary’s irrefutable evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity serves as a reminder to all journalists of the responsibility they carry to highlight such atrocities wherever they occur.

The horrors that the documentary exposed, were repeatedly and clearly voiced by many, including the Tamil Diaspora, and international human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, throughout the first half of 2009, as events unfolded. Serious concerns were repeatedly raised regarding credible accounts of daily rape, torture, abduction and mass killings of Tamil civilians. Yet sadly, these calls were dismissed as mere rhetoric and propaganda.

In 2009 the Tamil Diaspora took to the streets around the world, including Britain, calling for international intervention to stop the slaughter of Tamils in the North-East of Sri Lanka, but their calls were ignored. The UK and US government did little save attempting to placate our desperate pleas with public statements. The United Nations, which should have been responsible for investigating the claims, dismissed reports by its own officials in Sri Lanka that tens of thousands of civilians were being killed in targeted shelling of civilian areas, including hospitals. All the while, as ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ showed, the UN monitored the killings of civilians in no-fire zones using satellite technology.

It is a damning indictment of the world’s failure to act, that the UN, the governments of the US, UK and EU members, not only knew about these atrocities, but effectively endorsed and funded it.

TYO UK wishes to draw particular attention to the actions of the UK government, which during the final three years of the war, approved arms sales of more than £13.6 million to the same regime that now stands accused of mass war crimes against the Tamil civilians. In fact Britain still continues to fund the Sri Lankan Government and military, and thereby the oppression of Tamils, in the guise of supporting rehabilitation. This week the British High Commission in Colombo announced £500,000 would be handed to the Sri Lankan military to facilitate ‘reintegration’. In Sri Lanka’s Northeast, as with many other civilian duties, this is performed under the authority of the same Sri Lankan Army which executed hundreds of civilians and POW’s, and killed thousands more through targeted shelling of civilian places.

More than two years after the horrific massacre of Tamils in Mulliyavaikal, there has been no significant progress on addressing the issues of accountability and justice. A UN Panel of Experts released in April a damning report, detailing the ‘credible allegations’ of war crimes, including, specifically, the targeting of no-fire zones, hospitals and schools – areas that the Sri Lankan government itself designated as civilian safe zones, asking people to congregate, before indiscriminately shelling these very areas.  Two and half months after the release of the report, the United Nations has still not taken any decisive action. The report called for an international inquiry to investigate allegations of war crimes, yet the UN continues to ignore the advice of its own experts.

As the report categorically states, this massacre was the result of ‘systematic’ and ‘repeated’ shelling of Tamil civilians. The Eelam Tamil nation has long argued that this persecution of the Tamils is not the action of one ruthless regime but of successive governments, with the backing of the majority Sinhala population. The Sri Lankan government’s blanket dismissal of charges of civilian casualties and its absolute refusal to cooperate with an international investigation, has been almost unanimously supported and endorsed by the opposition political parties, the mainstream Sri Lankan media and the wider Sinhala public.

TYO UK joins the Eelam Tamil nation worldwide, in stating that this massacre was an intentional attempt on part of the Sri Lankan state to annihilate the Tamils in the Vanni, i.e. genocide. Crucially, persecution of Tamils in the North-East continues today, as ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ clearly shows. Sri Lanka’s much proclaimed ‘peace’ has not brought equality, safety, justice or freedom to the Tamils. In fact it has only heightened the culture of brazen impunity with regards to persecution of Tamils. 
After two years Sri Lanka has proven their expected unwillingness to take any sort of meaningful action to address the legitimate grievances of the Tamil people and hold an independent inquiry into the conduct of the Government and its armed forces during the war.

It is now in the hands of the international community to bring justice to the victims.
Moreover, in such circumstances, the situation for Tamils is terrifyingly precarious and continues to deteriorate on a daily basis. In a state where over 130,000 Tamil civilians remain unaccounted for, UK’s decision to deport Tamils to Sri Lanka is wholly unacceptable and in clear violation of Britain’s responsibility to protect those in need of refuge. 

We therefore call on Britain to take decisive action to uphold international law and ensure justice and accountability with respect to Sri Lanka’s war crimes. To this end, we call on Britain to:

• Take the lead in pursuing an international investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka
• Seek the suspension of Sri Lanka’s membership of the Commonwealth
• Impose sanctions on Sri Lanka, including in the fields of arts and sports, until the government there cooperates with international investigations, and
• Immediately cease the deportation of Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka

As the shells fall, the trench provides little protection. It is only three feet deep and the adults, crouched protectively over their children, can barely get their heads below the level of the ground.

But someone has not jumped into the trench; someone with a small video camera. Despite the nearby crump of the shells, he keeps filming.

A woman in the trench is clutching a baby and crying desperately.

"Please get in the bunker! Don't take the video!" she shouts in Tamil. "What are you going to do with the video? They are killing everyone …"

Two years later there is an answer to that woman's terrified question.

- Callum Macrae, director of Channel 4’s film, ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’. See the full text of his comment here.

The film will be broadcast at 11pm, UK time, on Tuesday June 14

The majority of the Sri Lanka women's cricket squad have signed up for jobs in the armed services.

Some 90% of the national cricketers in the pool have already been recruited, with 14 out of 30 joining the air force, and 13 recruited by the navy.

See BBC Sinhala service’s report here.

Captain Shashikala Siriwardene told the BBC she also expects to be recruited by the Sri Lanka navy soon.

"I hope all 30 members of the national pool will soon find jobs in the security forces," she told the BBC.

The cricketers will not take part in any combat operations and can hone their sporting skills while in uniform.

"The cricketers will [also] be playing for the army, navy and air force cricket teams and have the freedom to train for our national commitments," Ms. Siriwardene told BBC.

The move comes after attempts by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to find a sponsor for the women's team have failed so far to create much interest.

Since late 2010, the Sri Lankan government has made much of the country’s soaring stock market as indicative of a post-war boom.

The claim has also been repeated by some international analysts.

However even by October 2010, it was becoming clear that the stock index was being boosted by the government itself.

State-owned pension funds were doing much of the buying - even as foreign investors have been largely taking their funds out.

See our earlier post ‘Sri Lanka’s stocks: a closer look’

But now the chickens are coming home to roost.

As Central Bank governor Nivard Cabraal disingenuously put it early last year (see p2 here):

“The EPF has, of late, increased its exposure in the Sri Lankan equity market which was recently acclaimed as one of the best performing stock markets in the world.”

Now much of the funds of the Employees Trust Fund (ETF) and Employees Provident Fund (EPF) are tied up in Sri Lankan stocks.

(All private sector employers in Sri Lanka have long had to contribute 12% of employees’ earnings to the EPF and at least 3% to the ETF. Employees themselves also contribute 8% of earnings to EPF. State sector workers, however, get their pensions without any contributions.)

Last week the leader of the main opposition UNP (United National Party), Ranil Wickremesinghe, warned that the stock market would collapse if these monies were withdrawn. (See Sunday Times’ report here)

Or, put another way, if the stock market collapses, the contributions to the ETF and EPF now ‘invested’ in stocks would vanish.

Recently, the cash-strapped government has come up with a new extraction scheme, in the form of the Private Sector Pensions Bill.

The Bill has triggered widespread protest and strikes, but the government is determined to force it though. (See also this survey)

Wickremesinghe accused the government of using the new scheme to extract funds to pay back a controversial and expensive loan taken from HSBC bank, and to settle monies lost in a disastrous oil hedging deal.

A Sri Lankan economist, Harsha De Silva, has pointed out that the Bill has nothing to do with pensions. (see his interview here)

“First of all let me emphasize that it is not a pension bill. A pension is a perpetual payment that will go to the receiver, but here the pensions will only be paid as long as there are funds in the employees account.

“The plan is to use the funds for [government's] investment activities whilst the funds in the accounts remain unchanged.”

Meanwhile, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has rejected accusations that it is behind the government’s Pensions Bill.

"The private sector pension fund initiative was not at all part of our program [with the government]," Brian Aitken who heads an IMF mission to Sri Lanka said.

"In this particular case I have to be clear, because I know that there could be room for confusion. We had nothing to do with the design or the implementation of this particular pension reform bill."

See the rest of his comments here.

Indians top tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka, the country’s tourism authority says. (See Xinhua’s report here)

68,830 Indians visited Sri Lanka between January and May this year – up 54% from the same period last year.

British tourists came second, with 41,474 arrivals – up 7% from the same period last year. A large number of these are Tamil and Sinhala expatriates with UK citizenship.

The number of Pakistani tourists in Jan-May 2011 doubled from last year – to 6,027.

Last year Sri Lanka reported a total of 600,000 foreign tourists, with Indians and Britons leading.

By way of comparison, in 2010 over 2.8 million tourists visited Tamil Nadu, the highest amongst the Indian states. (See The Hindu’s report here)

Rathika Sitsabaiesan, MP, representing the Scarborough-Rouge River constituency, addressed the Canadian Parliament for the first time on Friday:

'The IBAHRI outlined its concerns to the Government of Sri Lanka in regard to the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and the proposed 19th Amendment – which limits the term of the Chief Justice to five years and gives the President of Sri Lanka the authority to appoint the Secretary to the Judicial Services Commission,' 

'In conjunction, the 18th Amendment and the proposed 19th Amendment represent a gradual erosion of judicial independence in Sri Lanka.'

"This report and all its recommendations should be seriously considered. It is a careful and professional study written by three internationally recognized experts. Last week, Chris Heyns, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, reported to this council that war crimes had been committed during the final months of the war. Four independent experts concluded that a horrific video allegedly showing government soldiers executing prisoners in cold blood is authentic. Significantly, the government itself had reported that its forces killed one of the dead women in the video, directly implicating its 53rdDivision in the executions."

"Among the report's recommendations is the call to create an independent international mechanism to conduct investigations into alleged violations by both sides. Regrettably, the Sri Lankan government has dismissed the report with a blanket denial."

"It is time for the Human Rights Council to take steps to ensure accountability for crimes committed by both sides during Sri Lanka's armed conflict."

 Following the US Embassy's Defense Attaché, Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith's peculiar remarks at Sri Lanka's three day seminar, the US State Department have responded swiftly in a statement describing his remarks as 'personal opinions' and stipulating that they 'do not reflect the policy of the United States Government'.

The statement went on to reiterate the United States' concern over the findings of the UN Panel report and commitment to ensuring credible accountability. 

Sri Lanka ranked fourth amongst states ‘Getting Away With Murder’, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said this week. (see the 2011  Impunity Index)

Sri Lanka fourth comes after Iraq, Somalia and the Phillipines. (Philippines ranks higher due to a single incident – the massacre of 32 journalists and media workers in 2009.) 

Sri Lanka ranks higher than Afghanistan, Mexico and Colombia.

On Sri Lanka, CPJ pointed out that the repeated lack of adequate investigation or arrest of suspects left "persistent questions as to whether authorities have been complicit in some of the crimes."

Although the want of an effective rule of law in Sri Lanka has been greatly highlighted and criticised of late, it is not confined to Rajapakse's presidency. The intimidation, abduction and killing of journalists, particularly Tamil journalists, has been the order of the day for consecutive governments.

See letter, dated 24/11/1999 by 'Canadian Journalists for Free Expression' to then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, expressing concern over the killing of journalists and the censoring of the media during her

See also our earlier post this week, 'Remembering Nadesan'

Judge Richard Goldstone (former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda), writing for the BBC on the extradition of General Ratko Mladic, said it represented yet another key milestone in the "end of the effective impunity for the worst war criminals".

Making particular reference to Sri Lanka and Syria, Judge Goldstone warned perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide that they will be brought justice.

"It is my hope that the leaders of Sri Lanka and Syria will not be granted immunity for the crimes they are alleged to have committed against innocent civilians in their countries.

"The arrest in the past few days of Gen Mladic must cause added discomfort for others alleged to have committed serious war crimes.

"They must be concerned that eventually they will be brought to account before relevant domestic or international courts and will have to answer to many tens of thousands of victims for the crimes alleged to have been committed by them."

See Judge Goldstone's remarks in full here.