Tamil Justice

AlJazeera – Sri Lanka refugees living in limbo

As Sri Lanka prepares for its first presidential election since the end of the civil war, around 100,000 ethnic Tamils are still being held in refugee camps in the north of the country.

The incumbent president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is expected to face a strong challenge from the retired army general, Sarath Fonseka.

One of the big election issues has been the treatment of the minority Tamils, after thousands died in the final stages of the war.

Wayne Hay was granted a rare opportunity to travel to the former battleground, to see how the Tamils are coping in peace time.

Sri Lanka Guardian (22/01) – ‘Commissions for Human Rights violations have failed’

Marwaan Macan-Markar interviews KISHALI PINTO-JAYAWARDENA, Sri Lankan human rights advocate

Sri Lanka’s nearly three decades of civil war may be over, but questions about war crimes and gross human rights violations committed during the final stages of that battle in 2009 continue to haunt the South Asian nation.

Yet a commission of inquiry to examine such allegations is not the answer, says Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena, a lawyer and human rights advocate. “Commissions of inquiry have been very counter-productive for victims seeking justice,” she says.

Such commissions have largely served the interests of governments to take cover behind international and domestic criticisms of flagrant human rights violations, adds the 42-year-old who authored a report, ‘Post-War Justice in Sri Lanka: Rule of Law, the Criminal Justice System and Commissions of Inquiry’, released this week by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

The Sri Lankan conflict involving the secessionist Tamil Tigers saw over 70,000 people killed. The United Nations estimates that 7,000 civilians died during the final months of the battle, which ended in May last year. More

The Guardian (21/01) – Uncovering Sri Lanka’s war crimes

by Peter Bouckaert

Despite promises to the UN, the Sri Lankan government has yet to investigate the serious crimes of Sri Lanka’s civil war

Despite verbal acrobatics reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, Sri Lankan officials have been unable to dismiss a shocking mobile phone video from last January purportedly showing Sri Lankan soldiers summarily executing naked and bound captives. The government has consistently claimed the video is fake, without providing any evidence that the gruesome scene was staged or the footage tampered with.

Now, the top United Nations envoy responsible for investigating extralegal executions around the world has added his voice to those believing the tape to be genuine. After commissioning three experts on forensic pathology, video analysis and firearms to review the tape, the envoy, Philip Alston, told the BBC, “You cannot fake the precise sort of reaction which the human body makes when shot at close range by such a weapon.”

Of course Sri Lanka’s public relations team went into its usual overdrive, denouncing the “bias” of the UN expert and suggesting that he was on a “personal crusade” to force a war crimes investigation over the allegations. More

The Washington Post (19/01) - War refugees struggle to rebuild in Sri Lanka

by Krishan Francis

The Associated Press

The vast rice fields of Kilinochchi are overgrown with shrubs. The herds of cattle and goats have disappeared. The tractors and motorcycles are gone. Buildings and homes have been bombed into heaps of concrete rubble.

War refugees have found little left of their old lives as they trickle back to their villages in the former Tamil Tiger stronghold eight months after Sri Lankan forces crushed the rebel group.

“We are happy to be back but confused about what to do next,” Subramanium Muthurasu, 66, said. “We have to start farming, but we don’t have the resources. We stand empty-handed.”

Muthurasu, who once grew rice and tended cattle in the village of Karaichchi, is desperate to find a way to make money now that he has the extra responsibility of taking care of his daughter, widowed by the war, and her five children.

The government says the returnees are getting food rations and money to help them out, but conceded it was not enough. More

Groundviews – Paying global media for local elections

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Cricinfo

Daily Mail

Hindustan Times

Indian Express

NY Times

Sydney Morning Herald

The Hindu

The Independent

The Telegraph

Times of India

AM - New deal offered to Oceanic Viking’s Sri Lankans

The Australian - Australia makes new offer to boatpeople

Brisbane Times – Sri Lankan solution will not deter people smugglers

News.com.au – Refugee intake not being revised – Smith

The Australian – Boatpeople seek talks on future

The Australian – Coalition increases border policy attack

The Sydney Morning Herald – Closing the sea route the only way to stem refugee tide

The Age – Asylum seekers ‘beaten’ in Indonesia

Young Tamils swap bombs for BlackBerrys

Taken from the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice blog :

The Australian Government says it enjoys ‘warm’ bilateral relations with Sri Lanka.

Does this mean that Mr Rudd’s Government has used the good relationship between the two countries to make sure Colombo hears a clear “let the near quarter of a million people in the camps go”? After all, even the mild mannered UN has now called for this.

According to TamilNet, the answer is no. It quotes senior Australian officials as saying “Australia is reluctant to call for a closure of these camps and release of the innocent IDPs as soon as possible“.

Rather, it turns out that the Government is using Australian tax dollars to pay for leading ad agency, Saatchi and Saatchi, to help scare off potential asylum seekers to Australia.

Using state of the art “social control” tactics, the campaign uses “street drama to take its message directly to the people. Actors will play people smugglers, and warn locals their efforts to escape from Sri Lanka will end in disappointment.”

9news reports that Catholic Churches are also being targeted, with literature and pamphlets being distributed around parishes warning asylum seekers they will not be welcome in Australia. The push has been dubbed the “Stay the Bloody Hell Away” campaign by media, in reference to Tourism Australia’s much-maligned “Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” campaign.

Saatchi and Saatchi can be expected to do something clever, creative and certainly not cheap. But how effective will this campaign be?

Click here to read blog post