'MV Captain Ali' - Amid assurances, lack of movement at the ground level

After the positive statement by the External Affairs Minister Hon. Mr. S.M.Krishna on Wednesday evening (24 June 2009) regarding the Mercy Mission ship the MV Captain Ali, Mercy Mission personnel, supporters, volunteers and the Tamil Diaspora as a whole were relieved that there was movement on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka and that the desperately needed humanitarian relief aboard the ship would be delivered to the 300,000 Tamil civilians in the internment camps in Sri Lanka.

As of Friday evening (26 June 2009) Mercy Mission has yet to be formally notified of the 24 June decision and statement by the Indian and Sri Lankan governments. There has also not been any movement at the ground level and the MV Captain Ali remains anchored five (5) miles off the Port of Chennai, mercy mission said in a statement today.
The statement said that the situation on the ship is now critical. The crew and passengers have been onboard for 51 days without respite and in very harsh, stressful conditions. The passengers, Uthayanan Thavarajasingam and Kristjan Gudmundsson have formally requested that the authorities allow them to disembark and to take the next flight to London and Iceland.

The mercy mission officials request that the Government of India to allow the MV Captain Ali to enter Chennai Port and unload the humanitarian relief and keep that “in transit” and handed over to the Indian Red Cross for transportation to Sri Lanka and distribution in the internment camps.

It also request the government of India to allow the passengers to disembark and proceed to the nearest international airport where they will be able to fly to their home countries.

Indian External Affairs Minister Hon. Mr. S.M.Krishna requested the Sri Lankan delegation that met him on Wednesday, that as a humanitarian gesture to allow the ship
Captain Ali to off load the relief items on board meant for IDPs in Northern Sri Lanka. The Minister in his official statement said that "Sri Lankan delegation agreed to our suggestion and these would now be routed to Sri Lanka through the Indian Red Cross.”

swiss NGO welcomes the formation of Transnational Govt of Tamil Eelam

'ACOR SOS Racisme' Switzerland based NGO against Racism welcomes the formation of a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam.

"Despite exile, repression, disappearances, ethnic cleansing or, more accurately, because of theses evils, the rights of the Tamil people have to be protected. The right of the Tamil people neither to be oppressed nor discriminated, their right for self determination, all their basic human rights and the humanitarian law have to be ensured them in Sri Lanka and abroad. For that reason 'Association COntre le Racisme (ACOR) SOS Racisme' welcomes the establishment of a working committee for the formation of a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam," Mr. Karl Grünberg, the General Secretary of the NGO said.
The full text of the report released by Mr. Karl Grünberg, the General Secretary of the NGO, is as follows:

ACOR SOS Racisme welcomes the establishment of a Working committee for the formation of a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam

After several weeks of slaughter, the Government and the Army of Sri Lanka crushed on May the 17th the last spot of resistance in the zone of Vanni. Alas, the international community supported that catastrophe or let it be done.

With Veluppillai Prapakaran and his last companions, women, children, elderly, sick or wounded persons – all civilians – lost their lives by thousands during that assault. The detention in concentration camps of the 300’000 civilians who lived in the LTTE controlled areas, the refusal of any legal recognition for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, shows that under the pretence of fighting terrorism the Government of Sri Lanka lead the war against the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

The experience of the 61 years since independence reminds a painful reality. The fight for the rights of Tamil people took the form of an armed conflict because of the lasting racist discriminations having been imposed for years on the Tamil people and because of the frightful pogroms which took place in 1983.

In reaction to these violence hundred of thousands Tamil people sought asylum all over the world and built up Diaspora communities and supported LTTE which they saw as the legitimate representative of their aspirations.

After the military defeat of the LTTE, Tamil people of Sri Lanka and in the diaspora face a worsened situation. Rajapakse’s regime will not concede after its victory what he refused to a fighting movement.

His regime imprisoned in Colombo the 3 Tamil physicians who kept on making their duty among the civilians suffering the shelling of the Sri Lankan Army and witnessing its crimes.

Despite exile, repression, disappearances, ethnic cleansing or, more accurately, because of theses evils, the rights of the Tamil people have to be protected.

The right of the Tamil people neither to be oppressed nor discriminated, their right for self determination, all their basic human rights and the humanitarian law have to be ensured them in Sri Lanka and abroad.

For that reason ’“Association COntre le Racisme (ACOR) SOS Racisme” welcomes the establishment of a working committee for the formation of a Provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam.

ACOR SOS Racisme is a Swiss NGO which has been created to fight for the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. In the early eighties, fleeing the terror which spread up against their people in Sri Lanka, Tamil refugees sought asylum in Switzerland as they did in many countries. In European countries, and even in Switzerland although this country never was a colonial power, remains a racism which developed during colonial times. Therefore, after having escaped racism in their own country, Tamil people had to go on suffering racism.

ACOR SOS Racisme hopes that the international civil society will join its appeal to support the new page Tamil people are about to write.

Karl Grünberg
Secretary General
ACOR SOS Racisme
Lausanne, Geneva, 24.June 2009

Sri Lanka accuses IMF of playing politics

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2009 (AFP) - Sri Lanka on Friday accused the International Monetary Fund of politicizing financial aid following the fund's delay in considering a 1.9-billion-dollar bailout for the war-ravaged economy.
Never ever has the IMF taken political factors into account. Now, it seems for the first time they are doing that -- indirectly," Sri Lankan Trade Minister G.L. Peiris told AFP in Washington ahead of talks with fund officials.

Sri Lanka tapped the IMF for aid in March in a bid to stave off its first balance of payment deficit in four years after the island's foreign currency reserves fell to around six weeks' worth of imports.

The loan has been put off due to political pressure from the United States, Britain and other Western nations over Colombo's handling of the final stages of a battle against Tamil separatists and charges that thousands of civilians were killed.

The Tamil Tigers were defeated last month.

Peiris said the IMF and Sri Lankan authorities had completed what he called "tactical discussions" over the 1.9-billion-dollar standby facility as early as April but that the fund's board had still not met to consider the issue.

"So we think that it is wrong and, apart from the fact that it is unfair because Sri Lanka has to be helped in this situation, not obstructed, it is a very unsound and dangerous precedent for the future," he warned.

The IMF is now going to be embroiled in controversial political issues as part of the criteria governing their judgment in respect of particular transactions. That is very much our view."

The IMF declined to comment on Peiris's remarks.

The fund said on May 15 that it was at an "advanced stage" of discussions with Colombo on the bailout prospects and that it looked forward to having a program brought to the board for approval "in the coming weeks."

The United States, the main shareholder in the IMF and whose approval is key to the release of the money, has welcomed the end to the Sri Lankan fighting but urged Colombo to meet the needs of 300,000 war displaced people who remain in temporary government shelters.

Washington has also supported calls for a probe into alleged war crimes committed by Sri Lankan government troops.

"We continue to press the Sri Lankan government to grant humanitarian relief organizations full access to the internally displaced persons who are now residing in the camps and to engage in political reconciliation with Sri Lanka's Tamil minority," Assistant US Secretary of State Robert Blake said.

"Overall access has improved, but more progress is needed," he told a congressional hearing on Thursday.

Peiris said Colombo was not prepared to allow international non governmental groups into the camps, saying the authorities had not completed "screening" the occupants. Fifty-two NGOs are scrambling for access to the camps.

The United Nations has also been at odds with the Sri Lankan government over its treatment of the displaced persons. Colomba has arrested two United Nations employees, both ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils.

Human rights organizations claim Sri Lankan authorities have taken thousands of Tamils from the camps for the displaced.

Some rights campaigners compared the plight of the Tamils in the camps to that under Nazi Germany.

"This connotation of a Nazi concentration camp is a figment of their imagination. It is not true," Peiris said.

UN Runs Scared of Sri Lanka, Says National Staff Not Immune -- But Genocide Suspects Are

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- As the Sri Lankan government locked up an astrologer who dared make predictions that President Rahinda Rajapaksa didn't like, the UN in New York stayed silent. Inner City Press asked, for the third time, what is being done about the two UN staff members who were grabbed up by the government using unmarked vehicles.


Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq said he was aware of the question, but that they still have no answer. Inner City Press asked, isn't it the UN's position that its staff members have immunity? Haq acknowledged that it normally the position. But why not in Sri Lanka?

In fact, the UN Mission in Kosovo actively invoked immunity on June 26 in favor of a person changed with genocide. When Agim Ceku was arrested in Bulgaria, based on an Interpol warrant, it is reported that a UN documentary showing was made in order to get Ceku released. Inner City Press asked Haq about this as well on Friday. Haq said to ask the UNMIK mission.


Inner City Press immediately put questions to them, but has received no answer. Immunity for those charged with war crimes and genocide, but no defense of immunity for UN staff in Sri Lanka. Why not?

Kosovo's Ceku and UN flag, get out of jail free card not shown in Sri Lanka

At the Security Council on June 26, speeches went on all day about the protection of civilians. While the UN's top humanitarian John Holmes appeared to downplay Sri Lanka in his initial testimony, other than saying that "the weapons have finally -- and thankfully -- fallen silent in Sri Lanka," the underlying report notes its in 30th paragraph the
"repeated use of heavy weapons by Sri Lankan armed forces in attacks on area containing large numbers of civilians, including the so-called 'no-fire zones,' with reports of multiple strikes on medical facilities."
Even though the report went on about LTTE refusal to let civilians go, Sri Lanka in the Security Council debate criticized the report. Holmes in his rebuttal was conciliatory, but said that the definition of armed conflict comes from international jurisprudence and applies to Sri Lanka.
When Holmes emerged from the Security Council at 6:30 p.m., Inner City Press waited to ask him a few questions. "You've got to be kidding," he began, before to his credit answering four questions.
Did he or the UN do anything about the MV Ali ship of humanitarian aid that was blocked by Sri Lanka? No, Holmes said. But he's heard that it may be unloaded in India and thence to Sri Lanka. This has yet to happened.
Any update on the detained doctors? No, Holmes said.
What about the disbanding of the inquiry into the killing of, among others, the 17 Action Contre La Faim aid workers? Holmes said the UN had yet to receive formal notification of the disbanding, and might comment if and when notification is provided.
What about the detained staff? Holmes said the UN is asking. Aren't they immune? Only international staff are, Holmes said. We will have more on this.

S Lanka camp young 'malnourished'

The high rate of malnutrition reported among children in camps for displaced people in Sri Lanka is a cause for concern, a senior UN official says.

The UN's representative on children and armed conflict told the BBC's Sinhala service that the government should set up special feeding programmes.

Her comments come after a Sri Lankan charity said 5,000 children in the camps are malnourished.

Almost 300,000 people are being held in camps after they fled the civil war.

It was in the final weeks of the war that hundreds of thousands of civilians streamed out of territory held by the rebel Tamil Tigers.

The sooner they can get back to normalcy, to education, to schools, it is the best thing

Radhika Coomaraswamy
UN special representative
Since then they have been kept in government-run camps in the northern district of Vavuniya.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN's special representative on children and armed conflict, told the BBC Sinhala Service's Saroj Pathirana that the UN hopes to send a delegation to advise the government on a range of issues relating to child welfare.

"The malnutrition rates are very high, especially among young children, and [there is a] need for special feeding programmes and all those kind of things in the camps for the children.

"So, our sense is that the sooner they can get back to normalcy, to education, to schools, it is the best thing," she said.

Her comments follow concern expressed by Sri Lankan charity Sarvodaya about rates of chronic malnutrition in the camps.

Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, chief executive of Sarvodaya, told the BBC Sinhala service on Tuesday that the malnutrition was a result of fleeing from place to place in the final stages of war, without having a proper meal.

He added that the Sri Lankan health ministry was working with the charity and other aid agencies to tackle the problem.

Ms Coomaraswamy said that a UN delegation would also hope to provide advice on how to treat former child soldiers.

"The issue for us are child soldiers. Are they being separated from the adults and given the special treatment and rehabilitation they deserve, she said.

She added that the UN is also concerned about the plight of children separated from their families.

"The delegation is to look into whether there is enough effort being taken to reunite them with parents," she said.

UN Jaffna officials accused of misreporting in favour of GOSL, SLA

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 June 2009, 17:23 GMT]
Civil society sources in Jaffna raised accusations against United Nation (UN) Jaffna officials for releasing facts and statistics, related to the detainees held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps, provided by Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and SLA, instead of the true situation prevailing in the camps, to the outer world. For instance, the UN officials in their June 15 report said that only four detainees had died in the past six months in Jaffna camps where as many have died including a woman due to septicemia, in a meeting held in Jaffna town Thursday, participants in the meeting said. The meeting was attended by UN Jaffna officials and organizations working with the UN in Jaffna.The UN report created a furor among the representatives of civil organizations attending the meeting who said that the UN officials in Jaffna are helping the government and the SLA to hide the true situation in the camps from the world.Another glaring misrepresentation in the UN report was the number of Vanni civilians held in Thellippazhai SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp (SRC).The report says that only a hundred detainees from Jaffna camps, where there are around 11,223 detainees, have been taken to Thellippazhai SRC while the number of young men and women detainees held there is around 800 hundred, civil society representatives said.Apart from this, Education Officials who had visited Thellippazhai SRC say that more than a hundred children between the ages of 14 to 18 are detained there.Particularly, June 15 June report does not mention these children and pregnant women held in Thellippazhai SRC.The UN officials in Jaffna have betrayed the Tamils by having failed to collect the true facts and figures related to the condition of the detainees in the camps and to have helped the government and the SLA to release reports based on false statistics fed by both, civil society representatives raised accusations.Meanwhile, 35 types of infectious diseases have been observed in the camps and among these typhoid fever and jaundice are found to be spreading fast, health officials said.Cases of tuberculosis too exist in the camps but no action has been taken to isolate these from others let alone providing the needed medical treatment or preventive measures, they said.Malnutrition, particularly among the children and elderly in all the camps in Jaffna is conspicuous and the condition of the victims may prove critical in the coming days, they added.

CANADA: Archbishop urges government action on Sri Lanka

Ecumenical News International, Toronto]

The head of the Anglican Church of Canada has urged the Canadian prime minister to lead international efforts to protect the civil liberties of Sri Lankans following a government victory over the rebel Tamil Tigers.In a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper dated June 23, Archbishop Fred Hiltz called on the Canadian government to respond generously to the humanitarian needs of Tamils in the island nation's Vanni district.Hiltz described the Vanni Tamils as "long deprived of basic commodities and securities, and more recently, exposed daily to the dangerous crossfire of (Sri Lankan) government and rebel forces."With as many as 200,000 Tamils living in Canada's largest city, Toronto is said to be home to the largest expatriate Tamil community outside Sri Lanka.In recent months, the city saw sometimes daily mass protests by Tamils, who appealed to the Canadian government to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to end its 25-year-long civil war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Quoting observations from church partners in Sri Lanka, Hiltz also urged the Canadian government to seek assurance from Sri Lanka that it will protect the civil rights, safety and wellbeing of minority Tamils throughout the country."An impartial political culture will restore civilian administration, rule of law, and trust," says the letter.Hiltz also urged the Canadian government to take a leadership role in the reconciliation process, "aimed at addressing and dismantling the root causes of historic tensions between Sri Lanka's Sinhala and Tamil peoples."The BBC reported on June 25 that Indian authorities said Sri Lanka had agreed to accept a shipment of aid from Europe for Tamil civilians displaced in the final months of the civil war.The full text of Hiltz's letter is available here.

MAJ. GEN. DIAS GETS DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENT

"Destroy them!! kill, kill, kill, kill them all!!!"

The 57-division’s Commanding officer Jagath Dias has been appointed as Sri Lanka’s Deputy Ambassador to Germany, informed sources said yesterday.
A government official told the Daily Mirror that Major General Dias would leave the country to take over his duties soon.

Major General Dias led his Division from the beginning of the Wanni operation three years ago and directed the capture of vital LTTE held areas such as Madhu Church, Kokavil town, Thunukkai and Mallavi and the strategically important LTTE capital Kilinochchi.

The 57-division led by him was the main strike force of the army in its operations against the Tiger cadres.

Some weeks ago, Major General Udaya Perera, who was the Director Operations of the Army was appointed Deputy Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Malaysia.

Six priests held prisoner and in solitary confinement in refugee camps

Six Catholic priests are kept in isolation in the camps of Sri Lanka. The bishop of Jaffna has requested their release, but has not yet received any response from the Ministry of Defense. A humanitarian worker working in the fields in which 300 thousand displaced persons live tells their story and denounces the disappearance of three government doctors who had circulated the figures of the dead during the last days of war between the army and Tamil Tigers. There is no news of their fate. Ranil Kumaratunga is a name we use to maintain the anonymity of the source of AsiaNews.

The Government of Sri Lanka should immediately release the six Catholic priests who were imprisoned and kept in secret solitary confinement in centres for Internally displaced persons (IDPs). Four are from the diocese of Jaffna, and two belong to Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate (OMI). These priests unselfishly helped Tamil people during the war, until the last hours of the military campaign. These priests have only helped people. The Government of Sri Lanka has put them in isolation in the IDP camps where no-one is allowed contact with them. There are fears for their safety, their emotional and psychological conditions, and also for their physical health. The bishop of Jaffna has asked the Secretary of Defense for the release of the six priests, but so far there has been no response.

After that the army has carried out the operation to remove the leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in the war zone had been a few people. The military have taken and taken to isolated places because they were the only eyewitnesses of brutality carried out in the safety zone. Among these people there were six priests.

During the final phase the war, 25 thousand Tamils were killed. The authorities in Colombo must release the three government doctors who published the statistics of the number of victims – data the authorities reject. The three doctors, after being accused of complicity with the LTTE, have disappeared.

The IDP camps are scattered between Mannar and Vavuniya. Approximately 500 hectares of land occupied by forests [equal to 5 sq km, ed] were evacuated and now the inhabitants of the districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu and people living in certain areas of Jaffna, Mannar and Vavuniya are held in refugee camps.

Around 300 thousand people live in camps, in tents and temporary accommodation. The tents are five for five people, but house between 15 and 16 people. There is a chronic shortage of water and lack of health services for everyone: for about 1500 people there are only two bathrooms. The request of humanitarian agencies to build at least 2500 toilets is of absolute urgency. All refugees are living in detention and internment centres which lack adequate food supplies, medicine and shelter, with no access to information or possibilities of outside communication.

Because of the painful situation in the camps a large number of elderly people die of infections like diarrhoea and chickenpox which spread quickly. There is an urgent need to organize relief services and humanitarian organizations must be allowed to work in the camps.

There is a fundamental need for treatment and psychological support to help people who have been traumatized by war. NGO’s are not allowed to work among the people: they can visit the camps, bringing aid but they must hand it over to the military who are the only ones allowed to distribute it. They control the camps and take keep everyone under constant surveillance. The priests who are allowed to celebrate mass are always accompanied by the army.

The world is silent before this tragedy. No journalist, no agency, no human rights activist, and even relatives of the IDPs are allowed visit the camps. People who live there are deprived of their freedom and want to know when the government will allow them to return home. The authorities say that the areas from which the refugees come are dotted with mines and it takes time to render them safe, so they must remain in IDP camps.

The government keeps the refugees segregated for fear of LTTE militants infiltrating the camps. Plainclothes agents of the intelligence services roam the camp, checking on every possible sign that may reveal the presence of cells or supporters of the Tamil Tigers; some people have disappeared. (Asianews

Sri Lankan reporter 'kidnapped'

By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Colombo
A Sri Lankan journalist says she was kidnapped from outside her home in the capital Colombo and held for a day by people claiming to be the police.

Krishni Ifam, a Tamil reporter who works for media development NGO Internews, said the men had warned her to give up journalism altogether.

She said she was then released in the central city of Kandy late on Wednesday with a tiny amount of cash.

Police in Sri Lanka could not be reached for comment.

Unmarked vans

Ms Ifam has been speaking about her ordeal on a private television station and, separately, to the BBC.

She said men who said they were policemen forced her to get into their vehicle outside her Colombo home early on Wednesday and drove for several hours while keeping her blindfolded.

She said they had taken her belongings, asked if she was writing articles for foreign media outlets and warned her to give up journalism altogether before releasing her.

Ms Ifam used to write for a prominent Tamil-language newspaper.

Separately, a columnist who usually covers astrology was picked up late on Wednesday by men with identity cards from the Criminal Investigation Department. His wife said he was still being held 24 hours later.

In both these cases the vehicles used were said to be unmarked white vans, which have become notorious in Sri Lanka as a means of abduction and sometimes disappearance.

The Sri Lankan government insists that the media here are free.

But many journalists say they do not feel free to write or broadcast what they want - many have been physically attacked and others have fled into exile.

On Sri Lanka, UK Says IMF Loan's Not Moving, UN Silent on Abducted Staff and Doctors Amid Its Claims of Myanmar

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 25, diplomatized -- Two weeks after the Sri Lankan government grabbed up two UN staffers, using unmarked vehicles, the UN in New York still had nothing to say. Inner City Press asked on June 25, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said, "I still don't have anything." Video here, from Minute 15:18.
Later on June 25, Inner City Press ran after UK minister Lord Mark Malloch Brown to ask if he was the one working on Sri Lanka for his government. "I have," he said. Inner City Press asked, what about Sri Lanka's application for a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, on which Malloch Brown's boss David Miliband had spoken -- had the thinking changed?
"Thinking for what?" Malloch Brown asked."The IMF loan has not gone through." Inner City Press mentioned that the U.S. has appeared to changed its tune.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's not moving," Malloch Brown said. Inner City Press asked about the two grabbed up UN staff, and that other countries had spoken about it. No one takes a harder line than us, Malloch Brown said.

UN's Ban and UK's Malloch Brown, claims not shown

[Elsewhere at the UN on June 25, Belize's prime minister mocked Malloch Brown as "the noble Lord," saying to take what he said with a "large grain of salt." Video here, from Minute 40:06.]
Footnote: Ban Ki-moon himself appeared on the US television show Charlie Rose on June 24. The host asked about the Economist's critique of Ban's tenure, but cut Sri Lanka out of the quote.
Ban responded by saying that he had saved 500,000 people in Myanmar. Inner City Press was nearly immediately told by a range of viewers that this was an outrageous claim, akin to Al Gore's claim to have invented the Internet and yet somehow worse. One Tamil who contacted the Press asked, if Ban claims to have saved 500,000 Burmese, what must be be said to have done to 20,000 Tamils? While brutal, there is a logic. We may have more on this.
At the June 25 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas on what the 500,000 figure was based. "On the number of people in need when he obtained access for humanitarian workers into Sri Lanka," Ms. Montas said. She then corrected herself: "Myanmar, I mean." Video here, from Minute 15:18. It's true -- Ban Ki-moon has yet to get full humanitarian access to the interned people in Sri Lanka. Watch this site.