Friday, 9

THE TAMIL CANADIAN ELDERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere “Martin Luther King Jr.
5310 Finch Ave. East, Unit. 10, Scarborough-On. M1S 5E8, Canada.
Phone # 416 613 2787, Efax # 647 247 1010

E-mail: humanrights2611@gmail.com

REG# 1854792

December 09, 2011

Dr. Chaloka Beyani
Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais des Nations
Switzerland.

cc:

His Excellency Ban- Ki – Moon, United Nations Secretary General
Her Excellency Madam Navaneetham Pillai – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Hon. Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch
Hon. Larrry Cox – Amnesty International
Hon. John Baird – MP, Foreign Minister of Canada.
Hon. Chris Alexander MP Ajax/Pickering, Vice Chair All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and other Crimes against Humanity
Hon. Scott Reid – Chair, Subcommittee on International Human Rights


Re: United Nations Human rights day [December 10, 2011] Let us not forget the sufferings of the IDPs. in Sri Lanka and all over the World

We, The Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights, Canada are concerned about the Internal displaced People in North & East of Sri Lanka.

While the Internally displaced people live in temporary erected sheds and in temporary transit camps without any basic facilities such as infrastructure, schools, hospitals, library, transportation the Government of Sri Lanka is spending billions of Dollars received as Aid from the International Community, donor countries & UN in hiring PR Firms like Bell Pottinger for Image building. It is unfortunate that the Government Propaganda machine has been so effective to cover up most of the Crimes committed by the President and his siblings. President Rajapaksha and the ruling family for the lust of absolute power introduced the 18th amendment to the constitution. These amendments allows the executive President to serve an unlimited time in office, with control over Public service commission, Police commission, Election commission and Judiciary, in short the Sri Lanka Presidency into the office of an all powerful DICTATOR.

Yours Truly.

Kumarathasan Rasingam – President

Perampalam Kanapathipillai- Secretary

Ms Umadevi Sivasundram – Treasurer

Selvarajah Ramupillai – Director

Thiyagarajah Sivasundram – Director

Ms Valthuruthamma Vethanayagam – Director

Vijayakanthan N Swaminathan – Director

Subramanian Masilamany – - Director

http://www.themarknews.com/articles/7643-the-plight-of-sri-lanka-s-internally-displaced

The Plight of Sri Lanka’s Internally Displaced

by Robert MuggahPrincipal, SecDev Group; associate, International Relations Institute

  • First Posted: Dec 02 2011 00:55 AM
The Sri Lankan government is actively undermining efforts to address a growing humanitarian crisis.

Something rotten is going on in Sri Lanka. More than two years after comprehensively dispensing with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE), the government is at risk of losing the peace. Rather than reducing the presence of the armed forces in occupied areas and promoting a stable transition, the government is militarizing the country. Far from realizing the promised peace dividend, the North and East now consist of a patchwork of military installations and high-security zones.

A bleak future

The international community was spectacularly ineffective in influencing the Sri Lankan government’s self-styled “humanitarian operation” to liberate the North and East between 2006 and 2009. After decades of supporting Sri Lanka’s development, organizations had little capacity to deter the government’s treatment of the displaced. Instead, foreign-aid workers were (and still are) viewed with suspicion and publicly vilified. And having skillfully played his hand against the meddling westerners, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration still enjoys remarkable levels of popularity among the southern Sinhalese population.

There appears to be little relief ahead for the country’s displaced. The recent passing of the 18th Amendment – which removes the limit on the number of times the president can run for office – has shored up the executive’s authority. Furthermore, despite pressure from the United Nations Secretary General to investigate and prosecute war crimes, the Sri Lankan government’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission issued only tepid interim conclusions. Unsurprisingly, recommendations have yet to be implemented. The government’s commitment to meaningfully addressing local grievances is dubious: In 2010, just over $15 million was committed to helping internally displaced people, as compared to almost $2 billion for defence.

A tragic irony is that the solutions to Sri Lanka’s seemingly intractable displacement crisis are far from elusive. Government authorities, members of the political elite, local researchers, and activists of all types are cognizant of what needs to be done. Yet, in the absence of equitable national land and return policies and a more transparent attempt to redress past wrongs, the tragic legacy of displacement will most likely be renewed instability.

http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-196-2011

SRI LANKA: International human rights agencies failed to notice the collapse of the Sri Lanka’s public institutions of justice

December 9, 2011

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A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011

The international community, including leading human rights agencies and organisations, has failed to understand the depth of collapse of rule of law in Sri Lanka and have failed to make any effective intervention in this regard.
International conventions for several decades now have centered around minority rights and more recently on alleged war crimes. However, violations of minority rights are only a part of the abysmal lawlessness that prevails in the country as a whole and this affects both the majority and the minority. These violations cannot be separated in any meaningful manner. Without addressing the general conditions that have lead to collapse of rule of law, none of the violations of the human rights, including harsh violations of rights of the Tamil minority, can be resolved. It is impossible to remove a part out of the total problem and treat it successfully.
The heart of the problem is the 1978 Constitution and the practices that have accumulated over the last 33 years under this Constitution. The problem of this Constitution essentially, is that it places the executive president above the law and outside the jurisdiction of courts. This means anything that the executive president wants to keep outside law, can be kept outside the law. This applies to all, including the minorities.
It is a sad reflection on the global human rights movement that despite many local human rights organisations and regional organisations like the Asian Human Rights Commission having stressed and emphasized this constitutional issue, not a single international agency or organization has taken up this issue in their interventions and their statements. The issue of constitutionally generated lawlessness has gone unnoticed.

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/11/13/legalising-rajapaksa-banditry/

LegalisingRajapaksa-Banditry

Rajapaksa Family already planning more land grabbing

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa,Mahinda Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa

Kleptocrat: A ruler whouses power to steal the country’s resources.
Oxford Dictionary

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

Mindless-extravagance;land-grabbing; media-muzzling: the three Rajapaksa preoccupations areintimately interconnected.

The Ruling Siblings needmoney to strengthen their power and to sustain their voracious appetite forexhibitionism, and the fastest way to make a fast-buck in a cash-strappedeconomy is grabbing other people’s properties and selling/leasing them. Sincesuch kleptocratic ways might alarm and alienate the Sibling’s Southern-base,muzzling the non-compliant media is of vital importance.
Those who allowed themselves to be deluded by the Siblings’ disingenuous assurancesabout the one-off-nature of the Expropriation Bill are in for a shock. Evenbefore that Bill was passed into law, the Rajapaksas were getting ready withtheir next, even more draconian, land-grabbing measure: “The government todaysought to amend the Town and Country Planning Ordinance to acquire lands foreconomic, social, historical, environmental and religious purposes withinmunicipal and urban areas… According to the Bill, it is possible for theauthorities concerned to declare land areas as conservation areas, protectionareas, architectural and historical areas and sacred areas… In the acquisitionof lands under the provision of this Bill, it will not be considered whetherthere are buildings within them or not” (Daily Mirror – 8.11.2011).
If this Bill is passed into law (a near certitude given the compliance of thejudiciary and the cravenness of the legislature) the Siblings and theirfavourite-acolytes will be legally empowered to grab any piece of land, anyasset, they desire by the simple expedient of declaring it to be a‘conservation, protection, architectural, historical or sacred’ area. It wouldnot matter if the land concerned contains a factory or a school, a hospital ora park, an office or an orphanage, a temple, kovil, church or a mosque, or,simply, the home of some citizen. Rich or poor, Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim, noLankan will be able to feel safe from the marauding regime, once banditry isthus legalised.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16051177

The report in the Independent comes as part of a wider investigation in the UK by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism into the work of the public affairs company, to highlight some of the issues around regulation of PR companies and lobbyists.

Bell Pottinger describe themselves as "reputation management" specialists.

Correspondents say that their client list includes several countries with dubious human rights records including Uzbekistan, Belarus and Bahrain.

Last year the Sri Lankan government conceded that it paid Bell Pottinger about £3m ($4.7m) a year to try to enhance the country’s post-war image. It said that the company was hired to lobby UK, UN and EU officials.