The United Nations has failed miserably

As is the case always, the United Nations Organisation has failed miserably in its duties to protect civilians in a conflict.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Thursday she was deeply concerned by reports of the rapidly deteriorating conditions facing a quarter of a million civilians trapped in the conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka, and of alleged human rights abuses and a significant number of civilian casualties, as well as the huge displacement.

Pillay also expressed concern at the highly restricted access to the Vanni region for aid agencies and impartial outside observers, including journalists and human rights monitors.

“The perilous situation of civilians after many months of fighting, multiple displacements and heavy rains and flooding is extremely worrying,” Pillay said. “The lack of access for independent monitors, humanitarian workers and the media only adds to concerns that the situation may be even worse than we realize,” she added.

The war in Sri Lanka is unlike any other conflict. It a war that is waged by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with absolutely no regard for international humanitarian law or the civilian casualties that have reached more than 2000 dead and 5000 injured since the beginning of 2009, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. (Read this BBC article titled civilian slaughter in Sri Lanka.) That the government has absolutely no concern for the civilians that it claims as its citizens should be clear from the fact that reporters are not allowed anywhere near the war zone. Journalists who dare to question the barbaric conduct of the government are either brutally murdered or assaulted severely by government sponsored thugs. Sri Lanka is the second most dangerous place in the world for journalists and several have been killed or injured at the hands of government sponsored death squads. The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the killings of journalists as a war crime.

All international agencies, including the Red Cross, have been ordered out of the zone in order to cover the fact that hundreds of civilians are being killed everday in indescriminate aerial bombardment and the use of cluster munitions and lethal fire bombs on civilians and even hospitals. For the GoSL anything in the war zone is a legitimate target, including hospitals. The notorious Defence Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapaksa has shamelessly stated the same.

It’s not as if the injured and the dying are taken care of in well equipped hospitals. Far from that. The hospitals are merely first aid stations that are functioning in temporary structures without any equipment or adequate supplies. They are overwhelmed by hundreds of injured patients, most of them women, children and the elderly. Only a handful of doctors and paramedical staff are available and they are doing a heroic job of helping the injured under continuous threat to their own lives because of artillery shelling and aerial bombardment. Medicines, food and relief supplies are deliberately blocked from reaching the affected civilians by the Sri Lankan forces.

International governments do not care about the fate of civilians because the Sri Lankan government is conducting this barbaric war with their full assistance and knowledge so they would are either busy supporting the atrocities of the GoSL or are maintaining a deafening silence. The few who dare to speak out against the rising civilian casualties or about human rights violations, like the German and Swiss Ambassadors and a few international journalists and NGOs and relief agencies are threatened with “dire consequences” by the government.

The United Nations and its affiliates have disgraced themselves by watching this carnage without doing anything to help civilians or prevent the gross abuse of human rights violations, like the regime detaining displaced civilians forcibly in Nazi-style concentration camps, fenced by barbed wire without access to humanitarian workers or independent monitors.

Mere “statements of deep concern” are of no use! What are these organisations for? Just to “express concern” and then compile a horrendous death toll after the killings are over? That’s precisely what they did during the genocide in Rwanda. While there can be absolutely no doubt that the UN as an institution is a miserable failure as far as maintaining world peace is concerned, just like its defunct predecessor, the League of Nations, different UN agencies have had some success on the field, especially in terms of humanitarian work and the care of refugees. Sadly, even that is not applicable in this case. Ban Ki-Moon and his gang are merely the world’s best known bureaucrats who receive the highest pay among bureaucrats in the world just to make a few meaningless statements since they are not backed by action. Shame on them all!

LTTE intensifies forcible child recruitment: UNICEF

  This is a news dated on 17th February, 2009.

The UN Tuesday expressed its ‘gravest concern’ for Sri Lankan children, saying a growing number of them were being recruited by the Tamil Tigers while scores were being killed or injured in fighting.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it has “clear indications” that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had stepped up forcible recruitment of children and “as young as 14″.

“These children are facing immediate danger and their lives are at great risk. Their recruitment is intolerable,” Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF’s representative in Sri Lanka , said in a statement.

Claiming it had recorded over 6,000 cases of child recruitment by the LTTE between 2003 and 2008, the UNICEF said that it was “extremely alarmed at the high number of children being injured in the fighting” in Sri Lanka’s Wanni region.

“Children are victims of this conflict by being killed, injured, recruited, displaced, separated and denied their every day needs due to the fighting,” Duamelle said, adding that the main injuries to children have been burns, fractures, shrapnel injuries and bullet wounds.

Pointing out that child soldiers suffer physical abuse, traumatic events and face death, Duamelle said that scores of injured children had been evacuated in the past week from the war zone.

“UNICEF reiterates the call it has made time and again to the government and the LTTE that civilians, especially children, must be given every protection from the fighting,” the statement said.

News Source: New Kerala

Sri Lanka bans Makkal TV

This is a news dated on 18th February, 2008

The Sri Lankan government has banned Makkal TV in the country, according to A Sivakumar, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the channel.

In a statement here, he said the state-inflicted ban on the TV channel was nothing but a dictatorial attempt to curb the freedom of expression and a black mark in the history of Press freedom.

The ban has been imposed in all the regions under the Sri Lankan army’s control and the cable operators have been ordered to stop telecasting the TV channel with immediate effect, he said.

”This is yet another strongest evidence of the autocratic, tyrannic attitude of those who run the Sri Lankan government and its defence forces in particular,” he said.

It has been a saddening fact that those journalists, who brought into light the army-sponsored atrocities inflicted on the ethnic Tamils of the Island, were brutally murdered.

”Moreover, media like the BBC and a handful of other international media have also been banned. All these, coupled with the myopic decision to ban our TV channel, only make it more evident that the Sri Lankan government is going off the track from the paths of democracy, peace and humanity,” he added.

”We appeal to all the general public, media fraternity and leaders of political parties to condemn this ban and more importantly the ruthless genocide that is happening in Sri Lanka,” he said.

News Source: New Kerala

BBC suspends Sri Lanka FM reports

This is news dated on 9 February 2009.

The BBC World Service is to stop providing radio news to Sri Lanka’s state broadcaster because of what it calls “deliberate interference”.

A statement said FM broadcasts to the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation would be suspended from Tuesday.

The BBC said many of its news reports in Sinhala, Tamil and English had been blocked or only partially broadcast.

The SLBC chairman admitted censoring BBC programming, saying he had a duty to do so at a time of war.

The BBC says it will maintain its services in Sinhala, Tamil and English on short wave radio and online. BBC news reports in English are to continue on the Sri Lankan commercial radio broadcaster, MBC.

The BBC move follows allegations that press freedoms are being eroded in Sri Lanka as fighting intensifies between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Media rights groups accuse the Sri Lankan authorities of cracking down on dissent. The government denies the charge.

‘Fabricated news items’

The BBC said it had expressed its concern directly to SLBC Chairman Hudson Samarasinghe in a series of letters and meetings in December and January.

We have no choice but to suspend broadcasts until such time as SLBC can guarantee our programming is transmitted without interference Nigel Chapman, BBC World Service director

“The BBC noted 17 instances of interference to BBC Tamil and eight similar instances to BBC Sinhala broadcasts between November 27 and early January. Sometimes whole current affairs segments of BBC programming were not broadcast on SLBC,” the statement said.

“The BBC made it clear to SLBC that such interference and blocking meant that BBC programming was being editorially compromised by SLBC’s actions and this was contrary to the BBC’s contractual agreement with SLBC.

“Despite the warnings, last week there were several further instances of interference to BBC programming in all three languages being broadcast on SLBC.”

BBC World Service director Nigel Chapman expressed dismay, but said he was prepared to have further discussions to resolve the issue.

Prabhakaran’s voice should not be heard in Sri Lanka, the SLBC says

He promised to “investigate any specific detailed complaint SLBC may have about BBC output”.

“So far, no specific complaint has been raised,” he said.

Mr Samarasinghe told the BBC News website that Sri Lanka faced “terrorist attacks” and the media had a role to try to “restore peace and harmony”.

“Some foreign news centres created fabricated news items about Sri Lanka,” he said.

Asked if that included the BBC, he said: “Definitely.”

He said the SLBC was not allowed to broadcast the voice of rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran – something the BBC had tried to do on rebel “heroes day” on 27 November.

“The SLBC is the national broadcasting corporation, the voice of Sri Lanka. When they broadcast Prabhakaran’s voice – at that time I cut off the programme.”

Source: BBC News

Voice of Lasantha Wickrematunge

   One of the slain Lasantha Wickrematunge’s fearless editorials:

         “ Winning the war? Then there must be elections around the corner. It is no secret that the war has become Mahinda Rajapakse’s recipe for electoral success; but what surprises many is that he is able, time and time again, to persuade the Sri Lankan people – or at least his Sinhala-Buddhist constituency – that victory is but a gunshot away.

           No one doubts that with an investment of nearly Rs. 200 billion per year, and the willingness to expend a few thousand lives and limbs, the government can in the course of 2009 credibly claim to have won not just Killinochchi, but all of the north. The Rs. 200 billion we plan to spend on bombing the life out of the LTTE’s remaining 4,000 cadres, after all, should do the job. As for the lives, there’s still plenty of space left on those stone tablets on the doormat of parliament for them. And as for limbs, where would Jaipur be if not for the steady stream of feet shipped to help keep the armed forces on the hop?

              Granted that after ‘winning’ the war, just as is the case in the east, the north too, will be converted into an occupied territory. A matrix of army camps will dot the landscape, helping to keep errant Tamils from getting any funny ideas, and the Lion Ensign will flutter briskly in the katchan winds of the Wanni. It will not be the meek, but Douglas Devananda, who will inherit the earth. The meek, after all, will be arranged in neat little rows in their respective refugee camps, eating their lunch from the tinsel packs dispensed by the World Food Programme.

            What is perhaps most offensive about Rajapakse’s attempts to manipulate the electorate in the face of an election is how much he takes for granted the fickleness of his Sinhala-Buddhist following. Nothing could better personify the “Sinhalaya modaya” stereotype than the President’s disdain for his own people (‘Modaya’ is the Sinhalese for ‘Fool”). And they love him for it. So long as a steady stream of Tamils are exterminated, there is little to impede Rajapakse’s cruise to yet another victory.

           Granted, the problem stems in large measure from the ineptitude and apathy of an opposition that has grown fat and lazy. ……Sadly for both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Karu Jayasuriya, they have failed to convey effectively to the country their concerns about the issues of our time. As a party, the UNP (United national Party – the main Sinhalese party opposing Rajapakse’s Sinhalese SLFP- Sri Lanka Freedom Party), is yet to decide whether or not it supports the war and if so, whether it subscribes, for example, to the present practice of aerially bombarding Tamil villages labelled as LTTE hideouts in the north.

                To say it opposes the war but nevertheless congratulate the army on capturing Paranthan or Killinochchi, however, is morally and intellectually dishonest. After all, the government would not dare bombing LTTE hideouts in the south – let us say in Wellawatte – for fear of collateral damage. Yet, in the remote townships of the Wanni, such bombardment has now become routine, with enormous cost to the civilian population.

              While the UNP has cleverly promised to support any political solution mutually acceptable to the government and the Tamil parties, it does not seem any longer to entertain a vision of its own. As provocative as it may seem, the Greens (UNP) would do well to articulate what they feel is a fair solution, if for no other reason, to check on public opinion. Even if the Rajapakses, swollen as they are with the pride of bloodthirsty euphoria, are unable to think beyond the destruction of the LTTE and its leadership, it behoves us to think of the day after tomorrow now. Should we fail meaningfully to address the aspirations of the Tamil people that survive this holocaust, we can be sure as night follows day that history will repeat itself, even though it may take a generation from now. All the bloodshed and all the sacrifice made to bring the war to a conclusion will have been in vain.

           Who then survives to provide the public with a contrarian view? Much of the media has been bought, or cajoled and bullied into silence. Dozens of journalists are dead and others have been incarcerated without trial for months. The electronic media operate under the continuing threat of having their licenses revoked unless they toe the government’s line. After all, it has happened that they have been summarily shut down. New licenses, in turn, are issued only to that section of the business community subscribing to the government’s communal thinking…

        For its part, the Rajapakse administration lies content in the knowledge that the Sinhalaya is indeed a modaya – so long as people vote like idiots, they have to live with the government they elect. There is no gainsaying that despite all the hardships the people face as a result of the maladministration and corruption the Rajapakse regime has ushered into government, so long as the bombardment of the north continues, the Sinhala-Buddhist majority will readily provide the President with the mandate he needs.

           If further evidence were needed for the President’s contempt for the mindset of his people, it is that under much public pressure he reduced the Rs 100,000 housing allowance given to his hundred-odd ministers to Rs 50,000. What might have been meaningful is the reduction of the number of ministers, most of whom are simply bloodsucking parasites on the public purse. Rajapakse went so far as to cut a measly 15% off his own Rs. 7 billion allocation, without mentioning for a moment that he at the outset voted himself a 500% increase on where Chandrika Kumaratunga left off in 2005. His extravagant globetrotting with entourages numbering in the hundreds has contributed in no small measure to this excess of Presidential ego, and it shows no sign of diminishing.

      Thus it is that a President who has got his finger on the pulse of his people like none of his predecessors ever did has hit upon the one ingredient that wins to victory: the fact that his people are, apparently in his opinion, a bunch of dimwits. Truth be told, we sometimes wonder that out ourselves”.