Another senior Sri Lankan minister has come forward to deny reports that the armed forces deployed cluster bombs during the armed conflict, after reports that remnants of the munitions had been discovered across the Tamil North-East. Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Parliamentary Reforms and Mass Media Karunarathna Paranawithana denied reports that cluster munitions were used and instead slammed demining organisations for allowing the findings to become public. A former official employed by the demining organisations active in the North-East leaked photographic evidence of the cluster bombs to non-governmental organisation Together Against Genocide, with the story being published in Guardian earlier this week “The organizations carrying out the demining work have no moral obligation to reveal the information to media,” said Mr Paranawithana. Demining is a separate profession and they have no right to talk about it outside.” “We see this as something done to put the government in a difficult situation at a time when the topic of Sri Lanka will be discussed in Geneva once again,” he added before reiterating “similar allegations have been made against Sri Lanka in the past but Sri Lanka’s army is not an army that has used cluster bombs”.
The Sri Lankan government announced it will be sending a team to Indonesia to “interview” a group of stranded Tamil asylum seekers, who were attempting to flee the island. Sri Lanka’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Harsha de Silva said on Thursday that a “three-member team” would be dispatched to Indonesia, where the 44 Tamil asylum seekers are currently stranded. He added that though the refugees claim to have fled from Sri Lanka, the boat came from South India. "First thing tomorrow morning a three member team will be leaving to the location where they are now housed 250 km away from where their rickety boat which is no longer sea worthy was beached,” he said . “They will interview everyone to establish their identity."
Human rights organisations have urged next week's oral update on Sri Lanka's progress on last year's resolution to include clear benchmarks which include immediately achievable steps, in a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussain. The letter, signed by FORUM-Asia, Franciscans International, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurist, International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) and the International Service for Human Rights, said while the "government’s assurances on progress have been plentiful its performance on the ground has been mixed and not befitting expectations outlined in your report and in the resolution as well as those of victims and people on the ground," but acknowledged "some positive developments on international cooperation".
A soldier attempting to break in to a home late at night on Monday has angered residents of a Kilinochchi village. The house in Dharmapuram, Kilinochchi, was home to a Tamil woman and her two young daughters. According to a complaint lodged with Dharmapuram police, a soldier tried to force entry at around 1am on Monday. Neighbours chased the soldier who escaped and hid in the nearby army camp. Locals identified the soldier as one of three stationed at the camp.
Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Karunaasena Hettiarachchi said he had no currents comments, on recent reports that cluster bombs had been used by the Sri Lankan government whilst shelling No Fire Zones at the end of its armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Responding to reports in The Guardian based on leaked photographic evidence of cluster bombs found during de-mining activities in the North, Mr Hettiarachchi said that he did not wish to comment on the report. Photographic evidence obtained by The Guardian showed demining teams excavating near cluster munitions from...
A well-known businessman from Vavuniya, Shanmugan Selvarasa, was kidnapped by unidentified men on Tuesday evening learns Tamil Guardian. The 55 year old man was returning from the work to his house by motorcycle when he was abducted at the entrance of his house. His family have lodged complaints at Vavuniya Police station. Shortly after the complaints the police station arrived at his house and took Mr Selvarasa’s motorcycle and cell phone as part of the investigation. Mr Selvarasa, is a well-known businessman in the area who owns a collection of stores called Shanmugan Stores and several...
"I believe that the issue of confronting and resisting demilitarisation for the Tamil community has to start from home. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are actually living in a state of abnormalcy. This may sound strange but this is absolutely essential and key to any resistance. It is important to learn not to live with militarisation and to internalise oppression. The easiest path to breaking the inherent collectivity of a community is for it to internalise oppression and accept it as a way of life. We need to educate our children that what they see around them is not normal and that they should not accept it as normal. The most difficult need that has no alternative is a process of political consciencitisation. I truly believe that this is necessary both in the homeland and the diaspora," Lecturer in Law, University of Jaffna and Co-Spokesperson of the Tamil Civil Society Forum, Kumaravadivel Guruparan, at the Mamanithar Late Prof C.J. Eliezer AM Memorial Lecture, Monash University, Melbourne, 12 June 2016.
The Chairman of Sri Lanka’s Presidential Commission into Missing Persons has requested yet another extension to the mandate of the office, just days after the government announced it was to be disbanded. Maxwell Paranagama reportedly submitted a request to extend the term of the commission by one year, reports news24.lk . The Sri Lankan government had announced that the current mandate of the Paranagama Commission to end on the 15th of July 2016.
The international community must stay “fully engaged” on Sri Lanka to ensure all aspects of a UN resolution are fully implemented said the Global Tamil Forum, in a statement released on Wednesday. “Sri Lanka has time and time again shown it is both unwilling and unable to investigate allegations of war crimes against its own forces or hold perpetrators of grave abuses to account,” said the statement. Noting that Sri Lanka had agreed to a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council in September last year, the GTF stated that “it appears the government is now trying to back away from this commitment”. “Given the history of failures of Government Commissions and judicial processes, international participation as specified in the resolution is a must to guarantee the credibility and effectiveness of the Special Court,” it added. “GTF therefore calls upon the Council Members and the High Commissioner of the UNHRC to urge the Sri Lankan government not to renege on this all important commitment to the UN.”
The Associate Director of Fitch APAC Sovereigns Sagarika Chandra said the challenge for Sri Lanka will be to meet criteria laid out before it by the International Monetary Fund, at a presentation delivered last week. The Sri Lankan government still must refinance a figure close to 3 billion US dollars for the rest of the year and still remains vulnerable to shifts in investor sentiment said Fitch Ratings. Lanka Business Online reported Ms Chandra as stating, “from a rating stand point key drivers of ratings are really progress on the IMF program and certain degree of predictability with...