Sri Lanka: EU calls for LLRC full implementation; Welcomes appoinment of experts to UN probe

The European Union (EU) today called for the full implementation of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and advancing a sustainable political solution saying they are essential for peaceful growth and stability in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka: Journalists were labeled as LTTE agents because they are Tamils and since they work in the Tamil language

Arbitrary Disruption of TISL’s Investigative Journalism Workshop
(TI SL release) 
The Transparency International of Sri Lanka (TISL) vehemently condemns the disruption of a workshop they had organized on investigative journalism for the second time and urges the government to take stern action against those who were responsible. TISL has been conducting training programmes for journalists on the subject of investigative reporting against bribery and corruption and good governance for many years.

Sri Lanka: Now President Rajapaksha says only 30% of LLRC recs implemented

Picking numbers from thin air: The government’s lies around reconciliation by Groundviews 

A tweet from the government’s official Twitter account around the LLRC National Action Plan noted the following on 22nd ,

LLRC Action @LLRCAction

Follow

#SriLanka has implemented 30% of #LLRC recommendations, @PresRajapaksa tells UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon. @UN_Spokesperson #LKA

11:29 AM - 22 May 2014

HRC of Sri Lanka develops its own Programme of Work on Reconciliation working with international experts

Lawrence Mushwana, Chair of the
South African HRC

The working session held in Colombo on 22 – 23 May, brought together the Chairman, Justice Priyantha R.P. Perera, Commissioners Dr. Mahanamahewa, Mr. Anandarajah, and Ms. Ismail and the staff of the Commission, with 14 of the 44 HRCSL participants traveling from the regional offices outside of Colombo.

Over the course of two days the HRCSL drafted an Action Plan on Reconciliation, outlining concrete action points; partnership opportunities; timelines and outcomes for the HRCSL to undertake to contribute to on-going national reconciliation processes.

Australia will push Sri Lanka on LLRC

Brett Mason

The Australian Government has said it will push Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and to engage with domestic and international stakeholders to advance an effective and transparent reconciliation agenda.
Mason was responding to queries raised by the Australian Tamil Congress on Australia’s policy on engagement with Sri Lanka.

Colombo ‘failing to engage’ with Tamil minority; After five years, the situation has become much worse – Rajiva Wijesinha

Rajiva: I can't help

Five years after the end of Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war, there are few signs of a government-led reconciliation, MP Rajiva Wjesinha tells Deutsche Welle, arguing that mistrust and suspicion have only grown stronger. In a Deutsche Welle interview, Rajiva Wijesinha, a member of the Sri Lankan parliament for the ruling coalition, says the government is not paying enough attention to the needs of people in the former war zones and welcomes advice from countries “which have not been unfairly critical” of the Sri Lankan government’s reconciliation approach.

‘Gotabhaya preventing president from going ahead on LLRC recommendations ’ -Vasudeva

Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is preventing president Mahinda Rajapaksa from implementing the recomendations of the LLRC, government minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara has said in an interview.

The government had ignored a list of proposals put forward by a group of ministers, including himself, to implement the LLRC recommendations, introduce a political solution and to cooperate with the northern provincial council, he has said.

Banning Tamil Diaspora will be disastrous;targeting NGOs too is wrong - Rajiva Wijesinghe

We Fell Into The American Trap – Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe 

Reputed for his outspoken nature Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe feels that the government has been too hasty in proscribing the Diaspora groups, and the Foreign Ministry has done nothing about the LLRC recommendation to build up positive relations with the Diaspora. Instead, Professor Wijesinghe said, in an interview with The Sunday Leader, “as happened with Dayan Jayatilleka, they engaged in adverse propaganda about those who talked to the moderate Tamils.

​India refuses to rock Sri Lanka’s boat on human rights issues, but for how long? - Russian state TV

HRC 25th session in progress ( US mission GVA prhto)

India has managed to negotiate a dangerous curve in its relations with Sri Lanka, a crucial Indian backyard where China and Pakistan have steadily enlarged their strategic footprints in recent years.

As the closest neighbor, with thousands of years of relations with Sri Lanka, India cannot remain untouched by developments in that country.  India abstained from voting at the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) on March 27 on a resolution to promote reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. The resolution essentially sought to put Sri Lanka under a highly intrusive external investigative mechanism, with an open-ended mandate to monitor national processes for protection of human rights in the country.

Sri Lanka hits out at HC Navi Pillay and SG Ban ki-Moon and rejects the draft resolution

Excerpts form the speech of Minister G.L. Peiris at UNHRC on 5th March 2014

The High Commissioner’s Report has exceeded its mandate by making reference to and recommendations on numerous issues extraneous to the resolution. Additionally, the recommendations contained in the Report are arbitrary, intrusive and of a political nature, and are not placed within the ambit of the LLRC, as demonstrated by the call to establish an international inquiry mechanism. Further, this recommendation is in contravention of her mandate granted by GA Resolution 48/141, particularly Articles 3(a) and 4(g).

Sri Lanka: Only a very limited progress related to a few LLRC recommendations in 2013 - TSA

Tamils in North: Still waiting for the justice

''TSA’s survey findings suggest that – while some very limited progress related to a few LLRC recommendations has been made over the past twelve months – there are still concerns about matters such as political rights, language rights, inclusive development and compensation, among other areas. The country’s continued militarization, the concomitant culture of fear which pervades the North and East, and the asymmetrical implementation of the LLRC recommendations are also concerns. TSA will delve more deeply into all of these topics in its next report.''

Reevaluating Sri Lanka’s LLRC Progress: Part One

Map of Survey Implementation
Area by GN Division

The Social Architects

Last March, The Social Architects (TSA) released its third report, “The Numbers Never Lie.”

The report provided extensive information about the Government of Sri Lanka’s (GoSL) progress in implementing the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recommendations. Again, TSA’s partners undertook a similar survey this year. Using the data obtained last year as a baseline, TSA will be releasing two companion reports reevaluating Sri Lanka’s LLRC progress. This is the first.

TRC initiative: Doubts over Sri Lanka's reconciliation efforts

A Sri Lankan mother holds her child in a
village Jaffna peninsula, 22 June 2006.

Amid rising pressure on Sri Lanka to address allegations of war crimes, Colombo has announced it's considering a truth and reconciliation commission but experts are skeptical.  The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly come under fire from critics for failing adequately to investigate war crimes and promote reconciliation with the country's Tamil minority following a decades-long civil war. Last week, it said it was considering a process similar to South-Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Colombo sent a high-level delegation to South Africa to see, according to a spokesman for Nimal Siripala de Silva, Sri Lankan minister for water, who led the five-member team, "what lessons it could learn."

Sri Lanka: Gotabhaya over rule reduction of military presence in the Northern Province

Military in Jaffna ( file photo)

Shamindra Ferdinando

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday said that the government wouldn’t demobilize the Army or reduce military presence in the Northern Province under any circumstances, though a section of the international community was pushing the government on the diplomatic front ahead of the 25th session of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The war veteran was responding to Western calls for a smaller army in the wake of the LTTE’s battlefield defeat in May, 2009. British High Commissioner John Rankin was in New Delhi during the second week of February to urge heads of missions of member states of the UNHRC accredited to Colombo.

Democratisation and Accountability have to go hand in hand in Sri Lanka

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Sri Lanka briefing Note no 08

Addressing the issues of Accountability, Reconciliation and Rule of Law are of pivotal importance to any post-war society. War leaves behind the matters of justice, equality and de-militarisation to be grappled with. Sri Lanka is no exception. This is more so when conflict remains, even after the war comes to an end, as in Sri Lanka today.

Almost five years after the end of a three-decade war, Sri Lanka still has not been able to address these issues. Local and international calls for a credible and independent investigation into allegations of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that took place during the last phase of the war has not seen any positive response.

Sri Lanka; Official Language Policy implementation at snail’s pace; not a single prosecution so far

No Tamil in this military sign board

The pace of implementing the Government’s Official Language Policy has been far from satisfactory, Minister of National Languages and Social Integration Vasudewa Nanayakkara told The Nation. Minister Nanayakkara admitted the Government had not gone speedily enough when it came to ensuring language equality in the country. He also acknowledged that not a single prosecution had so far been conducted with regard to language violations. “This is a matter for the Attorney-General’s Department and they have to advise us. However, nothing has been done for the last two years,” he further stressed.

Sri Lanka: NPC member presents data exposing extent of genocidal land grab in Vanni

Mullaiththeevu district

Colombo has seized at least 30,000 acres of residential and agricultural lands for Sinhala colonization in Mullaiththeevu district alone after 2010, according to the data presented by Northern Provincial Council (NPC) member Thurairasa Raviharan, who moved a resolution condemning the demographic changes at the NPC.   The land grab in Sinhalicised Gajabapura in Oddu-chuddaan is also being expanded to the ancient village of Othiya-malai, Mr Raviharan said adding that the Colombo government was using the Mahaweli ‘Development’ Porgramme’s L Scheme to occupy the lands in Mullaiththeevu district. Othiyamalai is situated 25 km beyond the reach of Mahaweli waters, he said.

Sri Lanka: Defending non-implementation of the LLRC in Geneva

Harim Peiris

The Rajapakse Administration has deployed a key architect of its post war policy towards minorities and war affected communities in Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, through his position as Chair of the Action plan to implement the LLRC, to be the chief defender of the Government’s case to the international community in general and the UNHRC stakeholders in Geneva in particular. Government ministers have also been given their briefs and are traversing the globe to lobby member nations of the UNHRC against a third US sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka. There is little doubt, that like in 2012 and 2013, another resolution on Sri Lanka would be carried by the UNHRC, decrying Sri Lanka’s post war policy trajectory.

Sri Lanka: President extends mandate of Disappearances Commission

Commission sittings in  Jaffna

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has extended the mandate issued to the Presidential Commission to investigate cases of alleged disappearances of persons in the Northern and Eastern Provinces by six months to August 12, 2014, as increased numbers of submissions are received by it. The Commission has, to date, received approximately 16,000 complaints from all parts of the country. The first rounds of public hearings in the Jaffna District concluded Feb. 17, 2014, where it heard submissions from 984 persons in the towns of Chavakachcheri, Kopay and Jaffna. Earlier, hearings were held in Kilinochchi from Jan. 18-21, 2014, where submissions from 440 persons were received.

Implementation Status of the LLRC Recommendations - February 2014

Verite Reserach
Sri Lanka:LLRC!Implementation Monitor- Statistical and Analytical Review No.2

Background
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) published its final report on 16 December 2011. On 26 July 2012, the government released a National Plan of Action to Implement the Recommendations of the LLRC (NPA).  The LLRC originally contained 167 recommendations that required tangible action by the government. Subsequently, 12 further recommendations have become actionable, making the total number of actionable recommendations 179.