Open appeals to relevant authorities. 

Dear Sirs,

SAUDI ARABIA/INDIA/SRI LANKA: Death sentence facing two Sri Lankans and an Indian in Saudi Arabia

Name of persons facing death sentence:
1. Halemma Nissa Cader, a Sri Lankan national from Trincomalee, a mother of an eight year old son
2. K.M.S. Bandaranaike, a Sri Lankan national from Kurunegala
3. Naushad, an Indian national from Tamil Nadu
Deadline for appeal: on 19 February 2008

I urge you to provide legal assistance to these migrant workers so that they will be able to lodge their appeal by February 19 which is the final day for such an appeal. If they do not file an appeal they may be executed quickly thereafter as is the custom in Saudi Arabia. I also urge you to appeal to His Royal Highness the King of Saudi Arabia to grant clemency to the accused and to commute their death sentences. As the global community has agreed on a moratorium of the death sentence under the auspices of the United Nations, I urge you to appeal to the Saudi Arabian authorities to honour this moratorium.

Yours sincerely,
ruwan wijerathne
Sri Lanka

Open appeals to Government Of Sri Lanka 

Dear Sirs,

SRI LANKA: Alleged torture and laying false charges against family members by Kolonne police

Details of victims
1. S.H. Ajith Kumara (31); assaulted in the house and an army check point; tortured in Kolonne police station on 16 December 2007; currently remanded in Kuruwita prison
2. W.H. Rosalin (67); mother of Ajith Kumara; assaulted in the house on December 16, 2007; arrested from the Embilipitiya Hospital; released on bail on 21 February 2008
3. S.H. Ramyalatha (38); sister of Ajith Kumara; arrested in the house on December 16, 2007; released on bail on February 21, 2008
(the victims mentioned above are residing at No. 481 Moragoda, Wijeriya)
4. Chanaka Thusitha Kumara (24); nephew of Ajith Kumara; assaulted in an army check point on December 16, 2007; released on bail on January 31, 2008
Charged with:
1. possession of firearms
2. assaulting the police
3. obstructing the official duties of the police officers
Name of alleged perpetrators:
1. Udaya Kumara, police officer
2. Premalal, police officer
3. Officer-in-Charge and other officers
(All are police officers from the Kolonne Police station, Embilipitiya Dist. Ratnapura Division, Sabaragamuwa Range)
Date of incident: 16 December 2007
Place of incident: in the house of Ajith Kumara; at the Kolonne Police station

I am writing to voice my deep concern regarding the alleged torture and fabrication of charges of of Ajith Kumara by the Kolonne Police on 16 December 2007.

According to the information received, Udaya Kumara and Premalal two officers from the Kolonne police forcibly dragged Ajith Kumara naked and assaulted him with a pole and the, when he fell down, they trampled and kicked him causing pain to his sexual organs. When Ajith Kumara’s mother and sister tried to intervene to stop the assault, they assaulted them too and the mother fainted.

Ajith Kumara managed to escape from the premises but was arrested at an army check point when his nephew was transporting him in his motor cycle. Ajith Kumara and his nephew were allegedly assaulted at the check point and taken to the Kolonne police station and again assaulted. Due to these assaults, Ajith Kumara was subsequently warded in the Embilipitiya Hospital and Ratnapura Hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in the police assault.

I have been informed that Ajith Kumara’s mother was taken to the Kolonne Hospital by Ajith Kumara’s  sister (Seemawathi) and transferred to the Embilipitiya Hospital. The police allegedly threatened the family to get her discharged and ultimately arrested her from hospital and sent her to a prison. Ajith Kumara, his mother, his sister (Ramyalatha) and his nephew were charged with possession of firearms, assaulting the police and obstructing the official duties of the police officers.

I have been also informed that Udaya Kumara and Officer-in-Charge of Kolonne police have threatened the family for complaining to the Human Rights Commission and the Inspector General of Police. In particular, the OIC further threatened to kill them, burn their house and hire a villager to stab them. Both these threats were made while they were at the premises of the Embilipitiya Magistrate’s court on 17 January and 31 January respectively.
 
I, therefore, urge you to make immediate inquiry into this alleged torture and fabrication of charges against Ajith Kumara and his family members. Those responsible for torture should be prosecuted under the CAT Act No 22 of 1994 and punished by law. I also urge that the National Police Commission investigate this allegation in accordance with the Rules of Procedure (Public Complaints) 2007, and take proper legal or disciplinary action against those responsible if the allegation is proven true. Under the circumstances that Udaya Kumara, a police officer and the Officer-in-Charge of the Kolonne police have threatened the family members, I further urge that proper protection be provided from any further harassment or threat.

I take this opportunity to draw your attention to the fact that there is no attempt to investigate the allegation of fabrication of charges by police. In most cases, police allegedly used to fabricate charges in order to punish or show the people to obey whatever they want rather than use its authority to protect them. In this regard, there needs a system to examine the charges police make and legal or disciplinary action should be taken if police are found to fabricate the charges.

Yours sincerely,
Ruwan Wijerathne
Trincomalee,Sri Lanka
                           

Anura makes final journey tomorrow

KOTTE: Colleagues of former Minister and one time Speaker Anura Bandaranaike bade farewell to their colleague in Parliament as his remains were brought to Sri Jayawardenapura Parliament Complex yesterday at 11.35 a.m. for members and staff to pay their last respects.

The remains were kept in Parliament where Bandaranaike was a member since 1977, until 12.45 p.m.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe received the remains of their departed colleague as the cortege arrived at the Parliament complex at 11.35 am.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka, Speaker W. J. M. Lokubandara, Chief Government Whip Minister Jeyaraj Feranadopulle and Chief Opposition Whip Joseph Michael Perera joined the President and the Opposition Leader accompanying the remains to Parliament.

MPs representing all political parties paid their last respects and conveyed their condolences to the family members including former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Sunethra Bandaranaike.

The cortege left the Parliament premises at 12.45 p.m. to reach the ancestral home of Anura Bandaranaike, in Horagolla. The funeral will take place at Horagolla tomorrow evening.

Jobs for Lankans in Libya Rasika SOMARATHNA COLOMBO: Libya has opened its doors for Sri Lankan migrant workers with a major share of the country’s foreign job market being offered to skilled Lankan labour, according to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two countries on Sunday. According to the MoU signed between the two countries, Lankans would be offered lucrative opportunities mainly in the construction, port, oil and tourism sectors. According to sources, emphasis has been laid in promoting skilled manpower in accordance with Sri Lanka’s recent policy change of giving prominence to such workers with better perks to discourage the common practice of sending untrained labour. Libya is considered as an awakening economic giant in the region with the country experiencing an economic boom specially in the construction, oil and tourism industries. The Sri Lankan delegation headed by Foreign Employment and Welfare Minister, Keheliya Rambukwella is touring the Middle East to garner support from countries in the region for better employment opportunities and effective protocol on migrant worker rights and welfare. The Government of Qatar has also requested Sri Lanka to provide them with skilled para medics for opportunities in the health sector. The Qatari Government has mooted a plan to construct an ultra modern health village in the country and the majority of employment opportunities is expected to go Sri Lanka’s way as a result of authorities being impressed by the quality of Lankan workers employed in the country’s health sector. Sri Lanka’s export income depends on migrant worker remittances which constitutes 35 per cent of the total earnings.

US State Dept. donates $220,000 worth anti-terrorism equipment to police

The United States Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Office of Antiterrorism Assistance will donate approximately $220,000 worth of equipment to the Sri Lanka National Police (SLNP) in a brief ceremony Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. at the American Embassy.

The purpose of the equipment is to sustain and enhance the critical capabilities of the security forces of Sri Lanka in their efforts to fight terrorism, according to a media release from the US Embassy in Sri Lanka.

The donation consists of three Explosives Incident Countermeasures kits, two Post-Blast Investigation kits and two Hostage Negotiations kits, which will be divided between the SLNP and the Special Task Force.

IGP Y.P. Victor Perera, as well as Senior Deputy Inspector General – Administration – Mr. Bodhi Liyanage; Senior Deputy Inspector General – Range III – Mr. Mahinda Balasooriya; Senior Deputy Inspector General – Range IV – Mr. Nimal Illangakoon; and Deputy Inspector General – Commandant / Special Task Force – Mr. Nimal Lewke are expected to attend the donation ceremony.

Courtesy: Government Information Department

Let us Protect our Friend

By Thrishantha Nanayakkara

Good friends are different from covert enemies in that friends help each other to stay away from danger by giving prior advises.

Maybe a lot of Sri Lankans do not know that the US Department of State is a silent but genuine friend of Sri Lanka. Let me quote one example that I know for sure. US Department of State has been continuously empowering Sri Lanka to develop effective approaches to detect and remove anti-personal landmines. When a lot of other NGOs adopted destructive mechanisms like removing the top soil layer in the sensitive farmlands in Jaffna where the fertile soil layer is very thin, the US State Department assisted agencies used trained dogs to sniff for landmines that causes minimum damage to the environment. Not only that, their approach extended beyond just “giving fish to those who need fish” like many other NGOs do, to “giving fishing rods to those who need fish” by sharing know-how and empowering local institutes. All these things were done in silence like a true friend of Sri Lanka.

However, when I saw the latest State Department country report on Sri Lanka, I was shocked and scared to believe my suspicion that this great institute may have been misled by terrorists to achieve several heinous objectives.

We all know that LTTE made an attempt to bribe State department officials with an initial down payment of $1 million to remove the LTTE from the list of proscribed foreign terrorist groups. Given the character of the LTTE, it is hard to believe that they would stop their effort to use their notorious techniques to mislead the State Department. Given the high level of security mechanisms maintained by the US State Department, LTTE might choose to bribe the second layer that is the information sources to the State Department. For instance, the ground level operation of many NGOs whose reports have been cited by the State Department do not have internal security checks as powerful as those at the State Department.

Very recently, the Sri Lanka army arrested a lorry belonging to a reputed international NGO carrying illegal items to rebel held areas. When questioned, the country director of the concerned NGO was not aware of such a delivery. My suspicion further deepened by the statement made on the recruitment of child soldiers. The concerned international NGO has given the picture that the LTTE’s child recruitment record is improving while the Government is seemingly cooperating with a break away LTTE group to recruit child soldiers. What irritates here is to see the level of recklessness of assessing such a flawed claim in the context where the manpower of the Sri Lanka army is almost ten times that of the LTTE and that the army does not suffer from any difficulty in recruiting legitimate soldiers. Moreover, most of the news papers that the State Department has cited could have been tapped by paid lobbyists. We clearly saw how such an attorney paid by an LTTE front organization called Tamils for Justice wrote utter rubbish to Washington Times. The least I would expect from the US State Department is to quote such mockery as “credible” or “reliable” sources in their official statements even if it was Washington Times. The simple test is to look behind the screen and see the strings attached to the writer.

However, I do not want to see Sri Lankans falling into the trap of 1983 again by generalizing things. This apparent mistake done by the US State Department is an isolated event. It could have been a carefully orchestrated trap of the LTTE like the one in 1983. This time to damage the close ties between Sri Lanka and the United States. In 1983, few ignorant people who generalized hatred across all Tamils made a lot of suicide cadres for LTTE and made a case for asylum seekers to pump money back to LTTE. Those perpetrators must feel sorry for what they did in 1983 by helping the LTTE in the best way imaginable. United States is a great country who has been one of our best friends. I can write this letter while working in the Harvard University because this country is a land of freedom. I know for sure that nobody is going to harass me for writing against the US State Department. We Sri Lankans should share such great democratic values. Harvard University supports my research program not because they have landmines or a natural disaster inside the University, but because they want to support an attempt to help a large number of civilians affected across the Globe.

Democracy evolves when people talk. However, I wish to urge the US State Department to be more careful in assessing a country’s democratic values and mechanisms. It should be an assessment relative to the backdrop of economic, social, and technological reality of the concerned Nation. For instance, the technology available to Sri Lankan Government to isolate true terrorists from a group of civilians is no way comparable to that of the US. Therefore, the rate of mistakes done by the Sri Lankan Government can not be compared to that of the US Government forces in Iraq, especially when LTTE abuses all our social loop holes such as less checking done on pregnant mothers and ladies. When a suicide bomber blew up inside the Fort Railway station killing a school baseball team, the Government had to take immediate measures to track down the remaining barbarians of the attack hiding in the lodges of Colombo. Otherwise, who would give a guarantee that Sri Lanka will not fall into the same 1983 trap of LTTE through a social outburst? However, when the Sri Lankan Government rounds up the lodges, the practical implementation may differ from the approach that would have taken by the US forces with better technology and money to invest in intelligence gathering. Therefore, the correct thing to do is to empower the Sri Lankan Government with technological know-how and modern strategies to minimize human rights violations in such mopping operations. I am sure this will be a reality soon, given my knowledge about the very positive and constructive approach taken by the State Department to address the humanitarian demining problem.

Our two nations has a long journey to go together to cure this world from the cancer of terrorism and to create a world where people will have the maturity to unite to tolerate diversity rather than killing to make mono ethnic states. In that journey, there is a lot we can learn together. We can march together towards achieving our common dream only if we care to understand each other better. That involves assessing things in the true social, economic, and technological reality, and making collective efforts to improve the underpinning drawbacks. And, it is very important to be cautious about the pitfalls devised by our common enemies.

via defence

Soldier saves life of Tamil mother in Jaffna

Staff Sergeant R.W. Dharmasena of Sri Lanka Sinha Regiment recently volunteered to save a life of a pregnant mother by donating his blood to Point Pedro hospital, Jaffna. Responding to a SOS message published on the Tamil daily “Udyan” on 10th March , requesting to donate rare O negative blood , Sergeant Dharmasena attached to 51 division has volunteered to save the life of the mother and the unborn child.

Defence.lk special correspondent reporting from Jaffna said that the family of the pregnant mother have expressed their heart felt gratitude to the soldier as no other donator had responded to their request. Reporter further said that this is an excellent example for the cordial relationship that exists between security forces and civilians in Jaffna peninsula. Despite the LTTE propaganda campaigns to show the world that there exists an ethnic rift in the country, increasing civilian support for the security forces shows nothing other than their want uproot terrorism from their homeland, he added.

Two families consisting of eight Tamil civilians had escaped from the terror grips in the un-cleared areas in Mannar and entered into the security forces controlling area last morning, March 14.

These Tamil civilians from Wallaipadau, Wirawila reported to the Sri Lanka Navy detachment at Narapadu in Mannar, sources said.

One of the escapees stated that underage children who have been forcibly taken away from their families are being sent to bunker duties in LTTE defence lines in Mannar. Civilians in the LTTE controlling areas are waiting for the security forces arrival by defeating the terrorists, as they have to face to severe harassments under LTTE controlling, the escapee further stated.

Five adults, three males and two females, and three children were among the escapees, sources said. A five years-old boy and two girls aged 13 and 15 were among the children, sources further added.