[Ruwan wijerathne]
District Secretariats in Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Ampaarai Thursday began accepting deposits from prospective independent groups and nomination lists from recognized political parties which are to contest the forthcoming Eastern Provincial Council. Three independent groups paid their deposits for Trincomalee district and three in Ampaarai district on the first day, media sources said.

Each candidate contesting in the independent group is required to pay a deposit of Rs.2000. Independent groups are allowed to pay their deposits till April 2, a day before the final nomination day. Registered political parties are exempted from paying deposits.

Submission of nomination lists by the independent groups and registered political parties close on April 3 at 12 noon, election department officials said.

In the 37 member- Eastern Provincial Council, 35 members would be elected on district basis- Trincomalee district 10, Batticaloa 11 and Ampaarai 14. Two bonus seats would be offered to the party or independent group that captures largest number of seats in the council.

However, each party and independent group submitting nominations for Trincomalee district should have thirteen names in their lists, Batticaloa district 14 names and 17 names in Ampaarai district, according to election department.

The number of eligible voters in the eastern province is 9,82,721.

The breakdown of voters by district follows:

Trincomalee district – 2,42,463 (Trincomalee- 91,598, Moothoor- 84,175 and Seruvila- 66,690)

Batticaloa district- 3.30,250 (Kalkudah- 94,359, Batticaloa- 154,761 and Paddiruppu- 81,830).

Ampaarai district: 4,09,308 (Kalmunai- 64,316, Sammanthurai- 69,057, Pottuvil- 133 765, Ampaarai- 142,170).

Counting of votes would take place in each district.

[Ruwan Wijerathne]
Two Sri Lanka Police constables were injured when unidentified armed persons opened fire at a police party conducting night patrol at Thampalakaamam located in Kanthalaai police division in Trincomalee district Saturday night. The injured policemen were admitted at the Kanthalaai government hospital, and later one was transferred to Anuradhapura general hospital as his condition deteriorated and became life-threatening, media sources said.

Thampalakamam is located along Trincomalee-Kandy, about 24 km off northwest of east port town.

[Ruwan  Wijerathne.news Daily]
The UN is to charge 114 Sri Lankan soldiers who were on peace-keeping missions with sexual exploitation and abuse against children, the Sunday Times reported this week. The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) says it is assisting in the pending legal proceedings initiated by the Sri Lankan Government, to ensure that all military members found guilty, according to Sri Lankan law, ‘are held accountable for their actions.’ The UN says charges should include rape – because it involves children under 18 years of age – which constitutes a ‘war crime’ in the context of military conflicts.

After an investigation into pending charges against Sri Lankan troops in Haiti, the OIOS has concluded that “acts of sexual exploitation and abuse (against children) were frequent and occurred usually at night, and at virtually every location where the contingent personnel were deployed,” the paper said.

“In exchange for sex, the children received small amounts of money, food, and sometimes mobile phones,” says the OIOS, the UN’s investigative arm.

The charges of sexual exploitation have been made against 114 members of the Sri Lankan armed forces who were serving as peacekeepers in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

They were part of a larger 950-member Sri Lankan contingent in the politically-troubled Caribbean nation.

Virtually all of the 114 troops were repatriated last November on ‘disciplinary grounds’.

The repatriation, described as one of the biggest single withdrawals of soldiers from a UN peacekeeping mission, was done in close cooperation with the Sri Lankan Government.

Three officers, a Lt. Colonel and two Majors who were Company Commanders, were withdrawn for failure to exercise command responsibilities in accordance with military norms and standards.

Sri Lankan military Spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said “Investigations are still going on. Our team is also looking into it. If they are found guilty they will be punished accordingly,”

Prapa Thambithurai, a 45-year-old satellite dish installer who emigrated from Sri Lanka two decades ago and now living in a suburban duplex north of Toronto, is alleged to be a bagman for the Tigers.

Two weeks ago, Thambithurai became the first person charged under Canada’s terrorism financing law, which makes it a crime to collect money knowing it “will be used by or will benefit a terrorist group.”

Part of the Anti-Terrorism Act brought in after 9/11, the law has been on the books for more than six years, but nobody had ever been charged until Thambithurai’s car was pulled over in New Westminster, B.C. on March 14 night.

Police seized more than $1,000 in cash as well as pledge forms, Thambithurai told the National Post in his first public comments since his arrest.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleges he was soliciting for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, (LTTE), which is on Canada’s list of outlawed terrorist groups.

Thambithurai was active in the Vancouver chapter of the World Tamil Movement (WTM), which came under police investigation in 2003 as an alleged Tiger front organisation.

RCMP Corporal Paul Huston visited the WTM office in Vancouver in 2004 and described what he saw in a search warrant application: “Inside the office, behind the counter was a large picture of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE, with the logo of the WTM on the picture, a large flag of the LTTE was positioned by the front door beside the flag of British Columbia; inside a glass cabinet were LTTE compact discs and flags for sale; on a bookshelf beside the glass cabinet were videos and books for sale or rent; behind the front counter were WTM newspapers for sale.”

Since moving to Ontario four years ago, Thambithurai has kept a low profile. He runs a company called Solar Satellite Service and has three children. He said he was not active in the Ontario branch of the WTM, which is also under police investigation.

But when he returned to B.C. earlier this month and began collecting money, police moved quickly. The RCMP said in a press release he was “targeting residents of the Lower Mainland of Tamil heritage to make cash donations to support the LTTE.”

The case is a first for Canada but it follows a series of similar arrests in Europe and the United States that have taken down key figures in what is sometimes called Tigers Inc., the global financial network that sends money and arms to the Tigers.

“It is estimated that 95 per cent of the LTTE’s operational revenue is generated outside Sri Lanka,” says a declassified report by Canada’s Integrated Threat Assessment Centre.

The World Tamil Movement is an important part of that financial pipeline, the RCMP says. Members of the group collect “war taxes” from ethnic Tamils in Canada and send the money to the Tigers, police said.

While some give voluntarily, others feel pressured to donate. Tigers, supporters will visit a family up to three times a week seeking cash.

“Fundraisers may refuse to leave the house without a pledge of money, and have told individuals who claim not to have funds available to borrow the money, to place contributions on their credit cards, or even to re-mortgage their homes,” Human Rights Watch wrote in a 2006 report.

The cash seized from Thambithurai’s car is but a fraction of the $209-million that Canada’s anti-money laundering agency, FINTRAC, says passed through Canadian financial institutions last year despite suspected links to terrorist activity and other security threats.

Given the amount of terrorist-related money said to be moving through Canada to support violent causes from Lebanon to Afghanistan, to some of the most surprising part about the arrest is why it took so long.

The RCMP first raided the WTM’s Canadian headquarters in Scarborough, Ont., in 2006. Police have been pouring over the seized evidence for almost two years now.

A judge has given police until the middle of next month to either return the materials or press charges.

Thambithuri faces a possible 10-year jail term if convicted but insisted the money he collected was “100 per cent” for humanitarian relief and had nothing to do with terrorism.

Tigers in Canada

October 18, 1995: Manickavasagam Suresh, then the co-ordinator of the World Tamil Movement, is arrested for allegedly raising money for the Tigers. Immigration officials have been trying to deport him ever since but he has remained in Canada by launching repeated court appeals.

September. 16, 1998 RCMP officers arrest Muralitharan Nadarajah, alleging he is a former leader of the Swiss branch of the Tigers and had entered Canada on a false passport.

November 24, 2005 RCMP search the Vancouver office of the World Tamil Movement (WTM).

March 15, 2006 Human Rights Watch reports the Tigers are using extortion tactics to raise money in Toronto.

April 10, 2006 The Canadian government announces the Tamil Tigers have been placed on Ottawa’s list of designated terrorist entities. April 12, 2006 RCMP search the WTM’s Montreal office.

April 22, 2006 RCMP search the Toronto WTM office and seize a moving truck full of materials. Police later claim they found manuals on missile guidance systems, books encouraging suicide bombings, an Elections Canada voter list and evidence of terrorist fundraising. No charges have been laid.

August 21, 2006 Following a joint FBI-RCMP investigation, Project O-Needle, seven Canadians are charged for allegedly trying to buy weapons for the LTTE.

November 15, 2007 The US Treasury freezes the assets of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization office in Toronto, alleging it is part of a worldwide network that covertly supports the Tigers.

March 14, 2008 Prapa Thambithurai is arrested in New Westminster, B.C., and becomes the first person charged under Canada’s terrorist financing law. National Post, Canada)

The Law on Financing Terrorism

Providing, making available, etc., property or services for terrorist purposes.

Criminal Code SECTION 83.03

Everyone who, directly or indirectly, collects property, provides or invites a person to provide, or makes available property or financial or other related services:

(a) intending that they be used, or knowing that they will be used, in whole or in part, for the purpose of facilitating or carrying out any terrorist activity, or for the purpose of benefiting any person who is facilitating or carrying out such an activity, or

(b) knowing that, in whole or part, they will be used by or will benefit a terrorist group, is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 10 years.

Courtesy : Daily News

450 Trincomalee IDPs to be resettled Tuesday

[ Tuesday, 25 March 2008, ]
A group of civilians from Trincomalee district, internally displaced due to military offensives, and residing in welfare centres in various parts of Batticaloa district, are being taken to their original places of residence Tuesday in 15 buses, Batticaloa kachcheri officials said.

459 members of 132 families from Pa’l'likkudiyiruppu area in Moothor District Secretary’s administrative area are being transported back to their own areas for resettlement Tuesday morning.

These internally displaced people (IDPs) are presently residing in welfare centres located within the administrative areas of the District Secretaries of Sengkaladi, Vaazhaicheanai and Ka’luvaangchchikkudi in Batticaloa district.

The IDPs faced severe hardships due to the torrential rain that fell last week. Authorities had announced two weeks earlier on their plans to resettle some refugees.

A large number of IDPs from Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts have been residing in 19 welfare centres and also in the homes of their friend and relations in 14 District secretaries area in Batticaloa district.

Meanwhile, residents from Champoor and Moothor areas of Trincomalle district have already told the authorities that they will return to their residences only if their safety is assured.

Many of these IDPs forcibly resettled earlier have returned back to Batticaloa.

By: ruwan wijerathne
- March 24, 2008

What brought down Louise Arbour?

Published By: ruwan wijerathne

Last week Louise Arbour, the international jurist, decided against a second four-year term as the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.

In that Arbour is Canada’s highest-ranking civil servant on the world stage, the loss is ours. But it also diminishes the UN and it will undoubtedly prove a blow to the world’s community of democrats who were encouraged in their fight against repressive societies by the support of this high-profile battler for human rights.

Indeed, the diminutive but courageous ex-prosecutor of mass murderers in Rwanda and war criminals in the Balkans is almost uniquely qualified for this post. The question is, what brought her down in the midst of her stride?

For her part, Arbour, 61, says she just wants to return home to Canada and to family. But clearly, she had reached a point over what she was going to put up with in the way of criticism and obstruction.

When Ireland’s Mary Robinson left the high commissioner post in 2002, she said the U.S. — meaning the Bush administration — had prevented her doing her job.

Louise Arbour will not say that. She was not brought down by the opposition of any one country. But she was clearly worn down by the UN’s general culture of protecting national sovereignty at all costs.

It is a theme repressive regimes cling to in order to put off scrutiny of their dealings at home, but it is also favoured by the great powers when it suits them and when they do not want their hands tied.

When torture is torture

As high commissioner, Arbour had rebuked the Bush administration over its so-called war on terror, arguing that this had “inflicted a very serious setback for the international human rights agenda.”

She called for an absolute international ban on the transfer of prisoners who could be tortured. And she brooked no nonsense from White House spin doctors who classified water-boarding as “enhanced” interrogation: Arbour came to her office with a professional penchant for the truth and called the practice torture.

The sour remarks from official Washington this week when Arbour announced she was stepping down were depressing in their pointed lack of regret at her leaving. They stressed instead the competitive view that she should have kept her focus on rights-denying totalitarian regimes instead of coming out against a democracy fighting terrorists.

Speaking truth to power is the hallmark of a vibrant democracy, as is strenuous debate. If there is one international post in which candour ought to be a prerequisite, it is the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.

As a moral leader with no armies, nor even much of a budget, all this person can do is deploy his or her voice in the fight against repression, wherever it is found.

Israel and Hezbollah

In Canada, the only time Arbour was criticized strongly was when she spoke out against what she called the excessive force used by Israel against Lebanese civilians and infrastructure in the war with Hezbollah in July 2006.

Louise Arbour is not ignorant of the irresponsibility of the Hezbollah rocket attacks on civilian settlements in northern Israel. And she knows that in Israel’s family-centred democracy, one death is too many.

But she judged the response of the Ehud Olmert government to have been disproportionate, a charge which stung some at the time but which has been subsequently confirmed by independent commissions in Israel itself.

In any fray involving Israel, emotions can run high. But was it necessary to accuse her of bias and anti-Semitism, as several commentators did in the National Post, calling for her resignation?

Arbour herself accepted “criticisms that have a certain validity to them.” But she set out her limits that allegations of “bias, hypocrisy, and dereliction of duty were outside the acceptable range” of debate.

A prosecutor after all

In her turn on the world stage — she started in the mid-1990s as an international war crimes prosecutor — she had plenty of other adversaries: Sudan, for example. Arbour had urged the International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes in Darfur.

Or Sri Lanka, which she blasted last October for “the prevalence of impunity” in the suppression of the Tamil minority. For her pains, there would be the typical op-ed article in a pro-government daily, like this one that sums up nicely the high commissioner’s dilemma: “Those U.N. knights in shining armour tilting at windmills in small countries should be told that the protection of human rights is next to impossible during a fiercely-fought war.”

Those were no doubt welcome words to several delegations in Geneva, including China, Libya and Cuba, who have been trying to sabotage civil liberties around the world. At the Human Rights Council, they have systematically blocked critical scrutiny of any behaviour but Israel’s. Additionally, they were increasingly trying to control the high commissioner’s own office, its staffing and its agenda.

If there was one tipping point, an attack that Arbour judged intolerable, the perversion of the UN’s Human Rights Council was probably it.

Her biggest disappointment has been that it is so hard to get countries to prosecute violators of human rights in their midst. As a prosecutor, she wants bad guys held accountable.

She expressed disappointment, for example, when accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic died in a Hague Tribunal cell in 2006 because he escaped the verdict of justice. The role of the Human Rights Council was to see that justice triumphs, but it had been corrupted by non-democracies fearful of the light.

Naming and shaming

Because she was also under fire from Washington, Arbour was getting it from both sides. It would have been so much more effective if the U.S. had respectfully disagreed with Arbour on its issues but had supported her vigorously with respect to her mandate. Instead, they opposed her almost ideologically.

Is there anything to the accusation that she practised double standards? Was she indeed more prone to letting Arabs, Iranians, the Russians and the Chinese off the hook while slamming the U.S. and Israel?

She says she preferred a private approach with Russia and China. She played for results on the ground, using the techniques she thought were the best in each circumstance.

In that, she has a backer in George Clooney, the actor and messenger of peace for the UN. In his pursuit of more effective peacekeeping, Clooney, according to the New York Times, “freely admits that he did not hector the Chinese in his meetings” with them on Darfur. “They’re a superpower,” he said. “When you get into a room with these guys, you have to find a way for it to be their idea.”

Arbour says something very similar: “Naming and shaming is a loser’s game.”

Yet she did not hesitate to name the U.S. and Israel when dealing with human rights controversies. Of course, with hundreds of prominent U.S. activists and scholars already deploring the impact of the war on terror on civil liberties, how could she, in conscience, stay mute?

That may have been a wrong call politically. And it may be that Louise Arbour did not have a sufficiently acute political ear to play the UN game, or coddle self-absorbed great powers.

Though she could no doubt see that the new UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is all political ears. He is a man who was favoured by the big players because he will avoid making political waves.

So, a good woman steps down. Not a great day for the UN or for human rights. She will be missed.

 Courtesy: Jeremy Kinsman

Growing Govt.- TMVP relationship jolts UNP

TMVP demand to shift STF out of East before PC poll claim rejected

In the aftermath of the breakaway LTTE faction TMVP sweeping the recent local government elections in the Batticaloa district, the government was planning to enhance its hotly disputed relationship with the group, political sources said.

Government sources said an alliance with the group was on the cards ahead of the forthcoming elections to the Eastern Provincial Council. With the Elections Department declaring that nominations would be accepted from March 27 to April 3, the government and the TMVP were in a hurry to conclude an electoral agreement. A lasting relationship was being sought by both parties, the sources said.

The sources said the UPFA-TMVP alliance had easily secured the Batticaloa Municipal Council, thereby paving the way for a bigger alliance ahead of the PC election.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent meeting with TMVP members who had been elected to the Batticaloa MC and eight Pradeshiya Sabhas emphasised the government’s willingness to work with LTTE

dissidents, an official said. Although their leader Pillaiyan hadn’t turned up at the Presidential Secretariat for the meeting, the government was in the process of working out an agreement.

A highly placed official said the government and the TMVP had no option but to work together in the East to thwart the Vanni Tigers’ efforts to destabilise the region. Otherwise there would be chaos, he said emphasising the importance of joint government-TMVP action to isolate the Vanni Tigers. In fact, this would be a critical part of the government’s overall strategy to defeat the Vanni Tigers, he said. The official expressed belief that the forthcoming PC election in the East, which was being held for the very first time, would deliver a heavy blow to the Vanni Tigers and their supporters, both here and overseas.

Authoritative sources said the UNP would try to cause a rift between the government and the TMVP. Stressing the importance of defeating the UNP conspiracy, the sources said the UNP’s claim that the TMVP wanted the government to withdraw the elite Special Task Force (STF) from the East to facilitate the proposed electoral agreement with it, was a blatant lie.

The UNP, during the presidency of Premadasa gave in to LTTE demand to close down strategic army camps at Point Pedro and Valvettiturai, the sources said. But that wouldn’t be our style, the sources said.

UNP spokesman Lakshman Kiriella yesterday told a press briefing the TMVP had demanded the removal of the STF to make way for an alliance with the government.

The STF plays a critical role in the Ampara-Batticaloa region where commandos are engaged in counter-insurgency operations to neutralise the threat posed by isolated Vanni Tigers. The STF, during the recently concluded local government elections, thwarted LTTE attempts to carry out attacks, the military said, accusing the UNP of resorting to cheap tactics that would be detrimental to national security.

The sources said the Karuna faction played a significant role in the war against the Vanni Tigers in the East. They said the government was determined to maintain a close relationship with them as that would be essential to thwart Vanni Tigers staging a comeback in the East.

Minister Rajitha Senaratne recently told The Island that there was absolutey nothing wrong in the TMVP carrying arms as the UNP had allowed the EPDP, the PLOTE and the EPRLF to retain their arms even after they entered the political mainstream.

-via island-