The need to reduce the size of the military presence in the North-East was a key issue flagged in the North said the US Ambassador to the UN whilst speaking on her visit to the North-East of Sri Lanka.
Speaking to ft.lk in an interview, Ms Power said that key issues demilitarisation, land grabs and accountability had been flagged as being still unaddressed by Sri Lanka’s government.
“The issue of demilitarisation. The recognition that the size of the military presence had become somewhat smaller, but that it needed to still come way down. There was an expression of the sense of urgency about the size of the military presence coming down.
Two, and very related, giving the land back to the people who had lived on it for many years and related issues, but I met not only the local officials but also individuals who were heading households who didn’t have access to their land and were desperate to get it back. In one case, the woman who was summoned by the military 34 times because there was a structure there that the military wanted to destroy. So they wouldn’t let her live in the land but they were not moving quickly to destroy the structure, so she kept getting displaced from her land and kept having to go back.
I think third, accountability was a very prominent issue raised because of the vast numbers of missing family members of the people who are up there, so I heard about that. All forms of accountability were raised, but finding the people and then the other forms of accountability for the people who were involved in their abduction or killing. But actually just accounting for the missing seemed to be a real concern. Everyone seemed to either have a missing family member or know someone with a missing family member, all the families there seemed to have been affected in some way.
The other thing is economic development. The Budget had just come out and people were still going over it, but there was a real belief on the part of people there that because of all the damage in the war, there should be additional allocations to the north in order to reconstruct. I can’t speak for the Finance Minister’s Budget, but I think that it is true that across the country there are people who are craving faster and more robust economic development. They want the Government to catalogue that and they want the United States to energise foreign direct investment and trade and create more jobs. People just want to be able to feed their families and have homes that they are not going to get thrown out of and to walk in safety on the streets”
Responding to questions on whether the issue of sexual violence had been raised, Ms Power said,
“The short answer is yes. They did raise the concerns. I think the concern is that the crimes are being carried out, but the impunity issue also came out. There wasn’t a lot of confidence that if something bad like that happened, the perpetrator would be held accountable. We met one woman who amazingly had been sexually abused in 2008 at the tail end of the war. She had been pulled away and raped I think by several soldiers in the Sri Lankan military. Amazingly she had decided to bring a case against them and she won the case and the soldiers are in jail for 25 years.
Her husband had been very supportive of her bringing the case and that is amazing from a cultural standpoint, but since the judgment said the soldiers were ordered to pay some kind of fine, and because the community thought she was going to get all this money and thinks she has received this money, they are harassing her and intimidating her. So she said her life has got so much worse since the conviction and she hasn’t got a penny from the soldiers and her husband now is behaving very differently towards her and her children are stigmatised. So there is the crime itself and then there is the whole pipeline of justice which needs to clearly be strengthened dramatically.”
Responding to a question on whether she was satisfied on measures taken to end impunity for attack son journalists, Ms Power spoke about her visit to th eUthayan newspaper offices in Jaffna.
“It is a serious concern. First, it was incredibly moving to see the computers that had been shot up and the bullet holes in the walls and more importantly the pictures of all the individuals who had risked their lives, not only journalists but riding a motorcycle to deliver papers to a neighbouring town, or a guard outside just doing nothing other than night duty. So it really was a moving visit and it brought out just how vulnerable journalists have been in this country for too long.
Second thing, talking to the journalists – not just at Uthayan but others at a roundtable later – there was a very clear message sent, and I don’t think anyone was being polite – which is that they feel totally different. That the voice inside their head that existed for so long – ‘if I write this, will I have to look over my shoulder when I am heading home?’ – that voice has faded. However, they drew very clear distinctions – they said ‘we are not being attacked anymore for what we write, but because those who attacked us have not been punished or investigated even, we will not be able to feel fully safe.’ Because it is entirely possible that this culture could come back, and frankly the killers of these people could be at large.
In my meetings with senior Government officials, this is a point that I have been able to convey and relay. I said press freedom is alive and well in Sri Lanka again, that’s great. But without moving forward on some of these cases – you can’t solve all the cases at once. But what the journalists said to me was if one of these cases on the wall, and we talked about which case would be a better case to bring – we really got into those details. And that is the same message the US is delivering. You can’t solve everything at once. But you can make a dent in impunity by moving forward and investigating cases and making those who might think again about terrorising journalists – it might make them think twice. And it would also offer some solace to the families of those who died and who have felt completely ignored in the processes afterwards.
An investigation into one journalist’s death in the north would powerfully reinforce the other investigations that are happening in Colombo on the other cases. Even though it is starting very slowly and not nearly as quickly as anyone would want, but that there is now justice that applies to all communities and press freedom is going to be something that is enforced, rather than something that just exists in the air. It is something that requires support from the State, and not just restraint from the State. I have made that point in all my meetings.
See full interview here.
Speaking to ft.lk in an interview, Ms Power said that key issues demilitarisation, land grabs and accountability had been flagged as being still unaddressed by Sri Lanka’s government.
“The issue of demilitarisation. The recognition that the size of the military presence had become somewhat smaller, but that it needed to still come way down. There was an expression of the sense of urgency about the size of the military presence coming down.
Two, and very related, giving the land back to the people who had lived on it for many years and related issues, but I met not only the local officials but also individuals who were heading households who didn’t have access to their land and were desperate to get it back. In one case, the woman who was summoned by the military 34 times because there was a structure there that the military wanted to destroy. So they wouldn’t let her live in the land but they were not moving quickly to destroy the structure, so she kept getting displaced from her land and kept having to go back.
I think third, accountability was a very prominent issue raised because of the vast numbers of missing family members of the people who are up there, so I heard about that. All forms of accountability were raised, but finding the people and then the other forms of accountability for the people who were involved in their abduction or killing. But actually just accounting for the missing seemed to be a real concern. Everyone seemed to either have a missing family member or know someone with a missing family member, all the families there seemed to have been affected in some way.
The other thing is economic development. The Budget had just come out and people were still going over it, but there was a real belief on the part of people there that because of all the damage in the war, there should be additional allocations to the north in order to reconstruct. I can’t speak for the Finance Minister’s Budget, but I think that it is true that across the country there are people who are craving faster and more robust economic development. They want the Government to catalogue that and they want the United States to energise foreign direct investment and trade and create more jobs. People just want to be able to feed their families and have homes that they are not going to get thrown out of and to walk in safety on the streets”
Responding to questions on whether the issue of sexual violence had been raised, Ms Power said,
“The short answer is yes. They did raise the concerns. I think the concern is that the crimes are being carried out, but the impunity issue also came out. There wasn’t a lot of confidence that if something bad like that happened, the perpetrator would be held accountable. We met one woman who amazingly had been sexually abused in 2008 at the tail end of the war. She had been pulled away and raped I think by several soldiers in the Sri Lankan military. Amazingly she had decided to bring a case against them and she won the case and the soldiers are in jail for 25 years.
Her husband had been very supportive of her bringing the case and that is amazing from a cultural standpoint, but since the judgment said the soldiers were ordered to pay some kind of fine, and because the community thought she was going to get all this money and thinks she has received this money, they are harassing her and intimidating her. So she said her life has got so much worse since the conviction and she hasn’t got a penny from the soldiers and her husband now is behaving very differently towards her and her children are stigmatised. So there is the crime itself and then there is the whole pipeline of justice which needs to clearly be strengthened dramatically.”
Responding to a question on whether she was satisfied on measures taken to end impunity for attack son journalists, Ms Power spoke about her visit to th eUthayan newspaper offices in Jaffna.
“It is a serious concern. First, it was incredibly moving to see the computers that had been shot up and the bullet holes in the walls and more importantly the pictures of all the individuals who had risked their lives, not only journalists but riding a motorcycle to deliver papers to a neighbouring town, or a guard outside just doing nothing other than night duty. So it really was a moving visit and it brought out just how vulnerable journalists have been in this country for too long.
Second thing, talking to the journalists – not just at Uthayan but others at a roundtable later – there was a very clear message sent, and I don’t think anyone was being polite – which is that they feel totally different. That the voice inside their head that existed for so long – ‘if I write this, will I have to look over my shoulder when I am heading home?’ – that voice has faded. However, they drew very clear distinctions – they said ‘we are not being attacked anymore for what we write, but because those who attacked us have not been punished or investigated even, we will not be able to feel fully safe.’ Because it is entirely possible that this culture could come back, and frankly the killers of these people could be at large.
In my meetings with senior Government officials, this is a point that I have been able to convey and relay. I said press freedom is alive and well in Sri Lanka again, that’s great. But without moving forward on some of these cases – you can’t solve all the cases at once. But what the journalists said to me was if one of these cases on the wall, and we talked about which case would be a better case to bring – we really got into those details. And that is the same message the US is delivering. You can’t solve everything at once. But you can make a dent in impunity by moving forward and investigating cases and making those who might think again about terrorising journalists – it might make them think twice. And it would also offer some solace to the families of those who died and who have felt completely ignored in the processes afterwards.
An investigation into one journalist’s death in the north would powerfully reinforce the other investigations that are happening in Colombo on the other cases. Even though it is starting very slowly and not nearly as quickly as anyone would want, but that there is now justice that applies to all communities and press freedom is going to be something that is enforced, rather than something that just exists in the air. It is something that requires support from the State, and not just restraint from the State. I have made that point in all my meetings.
See full interview here.