Sri Lanka News Bulletin 1 June - 14 June 2001
1. Peace process
==========
After blowing hot and cold
on the issue of de-proscription of LTTE, Sri
Lanka
formally announced that nearly two years of work by Norway
to broker peace in the country has reached a deadlock.
Some government
ministers also expressed reservations
about the performance of Erik
Solheim. A senior minister
claimed that the Norwegian peace envoy
Solheim's
initiative is a suspect among Sinhalese because of
the
pro-LTTE statements he had made in the past. Sri
Lankan Prime Minster
also indicated that Solheim, should
now accept the fact that his
attempts had failed, and
that he ought to give up. The President said
that her
government will press on with constitutional reforms to
confer
more rights on the Tamil minority regardless of
the LTTE participating
in peace talks. She said the
government will need the opposition's
cooperation for
this.
In the meantime, an umbrella body grouping of about
30 peace and human
rights organisations issued a
statement calling on the government to
drop the ban on
LTTE.
As hopes faded two encouraging events unfloded.
Firstly, two Roman
Catholic bishops from Sri Lanka,
Malcolm Ranjith from the South and
Rayappu Joseph from
the North went to Oslo and held talks with
Solheim.
Before departing they met LTTE leaders and the
President.
Secondly Norway Foreign Minister, Thorbjoern
Jagland visited Colombo
accompanied by Solheim. Norwegian
embassy spokesman in Colombo Tomas
Stangeland said that
the President has asked Jagland to sum up the
status for
the ongoing peace process. The two men arrived in Colombo
on
June 7th, however, Solheim was dropped from the only
meeting Jagland had
with the President. They left after a
twelve hour visit to Colombo
without talking to the press
about the results of the talks. Once in
Norway the
Foreign Minister said that it is now time for
stronger
political engagement by Norway, in order to make
headway in the stalled
peace negotiations. Norway's
Foreign Minister said he would now
schedule meetings with
the LTTE guerillas, but that no venue or dates
had been
set.
This was followed by intense media speculation that
Erik Solheim has
been sidelined, by a high-level
delegation as facilitators for peace
talks. Solheim
strongly rejected this allegation. He said, "I
can
confirm to you while the Foreign Minister and the
deputy Minister
will be involved in high-level, myself
and Sri Lanka's Norway envoy Mr.
Westborg will continue
to act as the facilitating team".
In the meantime, LTTE
issued a statement saying that the Sri Lankan
government
was trying to marginalise the Solheim, because of his
impeccable neutrality. The statement also condemned Sri
Lankan and
Norwegian governments for the unilateral
changes in the facilitator's
role without consulting with
them. They accused that this amounts to a
breach of the
protocol.
Latest reports in the state run papers claim
that Sri Lanka may be
willing to temporarily lift a ban
on separatist Tamil Tiger
rebels to break the
impasse.
2. Censorship
==========
The government
suddenly announcement that it is lifting censorship
on
war related news reports. No reason was given. Many
organisations
welcomed this.
National Peace Council
called for the lifting of self censorship also.
An NPC
official said that the authorities should now prove
their
genuineness by putting BBCs Sinhala and Tamil
programmes, back in Sri
Lanka broadcasts. These
programmes were banned after the Sri Lankan Army
was
defeated by the LTTE in Elephant Pass, last year.
The
Free Media Movement (FMM) of Sri Lanka said that it hopes
the
censorship will not be re-imposed once the military
situation
escalates again.
The Editors' Guild of Sri
Lanka welcomed the lifting of a three year
military
censorship as "long overdue," but urged the government to
lift
a ban on travel to the island's embattled
north-east. The Guild said it
wanted free access for all
accredited journalists to the embattled
northern and
eastern regions which are currently off-limits apart
from
government tours.
New York based media watchdog
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
welcomed the
decision by the President to lift the censorship on
war
coverage. The CPJ expressed its hope that the SL
authorities will
now work to lift other obstacles that
prevent reporting Sri Lanka's
civil war.
3.
Progress in court cases
==========
The Criminal
Investigations Department has handed over a report to
the
Jaffna magistrate on their investigation into the
killing of Jaffna
based journalist M. Nimalarajan last
year. Contents of the report are
not known. Amnesty
International in its 2001 annual report has noted
the
suspicions on members of the only Tamil political
party in the
government coalition, EPDP, for the murder
of Nimalranjan.
The Attorney General in Sri Lanka has
ordered the acquittal of 11
people accused of killing
young Tamil detainees in Bindunuwewa in
October 2000.
Human rights activists say no reason was given for
the
acquittal. They include three policemen and two
security officers.
The Attorney General has so far
refused to grant the bail applications
of six young
Tamil plantation workers held for more than three
years
under the country's Prevention of Terrorism (PTA)
legislation. The
six have not been convicted of any
crime.
The Mannar district judge M.H.M Ajmeer has told
officers of the Special
Investigation Unit (SIU) of the
Police that he would have to dismiss
about 200 cases
filed by them as these have been pending for a
almost
three years without the Attorney General
instituting proceedings against
persons who have been
charged under the PTA and the Emergency
Regulations.
4. Impeachment of supreme court judge
==========
A parliamentary opposition attempt to
impeach Sri Lanka's supreme court
chief judge, Sarath
Silva, on allegations of misconduct is triggering
an
unprecedented conflict between the two institutions.
Speaker Anura
Bandaranaike received a motion from the
main opposition United
National Party (UNP) seeking the
impeachment of the chief judge,
possibly paving the way
for an inquiry by a select committee. The
Supreme Court
has since ruled that the Speaker cannot appoint
a
parliamentary select committee to investigate the chief
judge as it will
be in violation of Article 78 (A) of the
constitution.
According to the Asian Human Rights
Commission's (AHRC) statement this
decision was made by a
panel of three Supreme Court judges, appointed by
the
chief judge himself. Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
has also
praised the impeachment motion saying that the
it was an opportunity to
address the crisis in the
Justice system in Sri Lanka.
5. No confidence motion
against the government
==========
The government will
be facing a no-confidence motion which the
opposition
United National Party proposes to move soon. The
President's
ruling party has 107 seats in the 225 seat
parliament. Her party is
governing through coalition with
the main Muslim party, SLMC, which has
11 seats. The SLMC
is reconsidering its support because it says that
the
government has failed to fulfill its promise of
creating a separate
administrative district for minority
Muslims in the country's east.
(However, SLMC has
decided to oppose impeachment motion against chief
judge
Sarath Silva.) A call by senior government minister to
the
opposition UNP party to form a national unity
government was rejected by
UNP.
6. Other
news
==========
Medical officers in Jaffna hospital
who were going on a protest said
that the hospital has
been used as a human shield since 1996. Request to
remove
the Sri Lanka army camp near the Jaffna hospital and declare
it
and its environs as a demilitarised zone under the
supervision of the
ICRC has not been heeded until this
day, they saud.
War related deaths according to government
sources: 12 people killed on
June 1. On June 5, STF raid
Tiger hideouts in the East kills 16 Tiger
cadres. On June
6 at least 29 killed after Sri Lanka troops,
rebels
clash. On June 7, 13 killed in clashes in Sri
Lanka's northern war zone.
On June 11 six combatants die
in fighting. Government also claimed that
a plane
ferrying troops to the northern Jaffna peninsula from south
was
fired at by the LTTE but just missed getting
hit.
The Sri Lankan navy is set to take delivery of the
first fast attack
craft out of an order for four placed
with Israel last year.
President Kumaratunge defended the
IMF's $253 million standby
facility against opposition
allegations that it was a sell-out and
would force the
government to cut welfare and raise taxes."If the IMF
had
not stepped in, we would have crashed in the same
way
economies in east Asia crashed" she said.
The World
Bank has allocated 100 million U.S. dollars for the
infrastructure development of Sri Lanka's state
universities.
The World Bank said Wednesday that it plans
to grant a loan of $30
million toward the recently
initiated restructuring of Sri Lanka's
central bank.
On July 17 the first "nation wide" census in 20 years
will be conducted.
Tamil parties have criticised that a
valid census among Tamils is
impossible due to the
massive displacements.
Sri Lanka has been granted 94
million rupees (about 1.04 million U.S.
dollars) for
humanitarian assistance for the displaced and
resettlers
in the northern Jaffna peninsula from the
European Commission. The
International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) and Action Contre La
Faim (ACF) will be
partners in implementing the European Commission's
latest
scheme of humanitarian assistance to the country.
A
Frontline article on the IDPs (internally displaced people)
can be
found at:
http://www.frontlineonline.com/fl1812/18120610.htm
contact:
Australia - Willie mailto:willie@apex.net.auwillie@apex.net.au
New
Zealand - Malathy mailto:malathy@ihug.co.nzmalathy@ihug.co.nz
END