Sri Lanka’s human rights situation is deteriorating and its time is running out.

CHOGM – The morning after  by M.A. Sumanthiran

In the heady days leading up to Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) 2013 a government minister stated that 'The CHOGM will …bring more fame to our country and provide a great opportunity to showcase Sri Lanka's post war developments….this conference…will provide a great opportunity for them (the Commonwealth Heads of State) to witness the development activities in the country….’

Sri Lanka: AFP journalists prevented in covering former war zone by the military

Sri Lanka military to probe blocking of foreign media - AFP

Sri Lanka's military promised on Friday to investigate why AFP journalists were prevented from working in the country's former war zone this week by soldiers who said they were under orders to restrict the media.

David Cameron challenged to justify arms sale to Sri Lanka

Sir John Stanley

Chairman of arms control committee said it was 'not credible' to claim weapons exported were all used to combat piracy

David Cameron must explain why the government has allowed machine guns and assault rifles to be exported to Sri Lanka despite his recent highlighting of the country's human rights abuses, the head of the Commons weapons watchdog has said.

Sri Lanka: After the circus; A summit is not the public-relations success the president hoped for

“HAS the circus left town? Can I please return to Colombo now?” asked a Twitter user on the morning after leaders of the Commonwealth left the Sri Lankan capital after their summit ended on November 17th. With the circus gone, the police chief gave hundreds of policemen three days off to recuperate. Television advertisements touting the summit as a “victory”—hosted despite calls for the venue to be changed because of Sri Lanka’s dismal human-rights record—will soon cease.

Sri Lanka – post-CHOGM: President now has to walk the talk

Ranga Jayasuriya  

On Sunday evening, sharp at seven, just three hours after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) wound up in Colombo, the media handlers of the Commonwealth shut down the CHOGM media centre at the BMICH. They were obviously in a hurry to call it a day, after a week of round-the-clock tiring work – and not to mention occasional guard dogs of the government who had been unleashed on Richard Uku, the Commonwealth Spokesman.

Govt's CHOGM bill at Rs 15.8 B

VVIP vehicles line up awaiting the foreign dignitaries
at the Nelum Pokuna theatre. Pic by Hasitha Kulasekera (ST)

The government has spent a whopping Rs 15.8 billion on the recently concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), opposition charged in Parliament yesterday. Spending money of this magnitude for a meeting of this nature should have some sense of proportion where 54 Mercedes Benzes were imported for the 54 Heads of
Governments, but only 21 arrived, Colombo District United National Party (UNP) MP, Ravi Karunanayake, speaking during the budget debate said.

Outwardly, the Sri Lankan Government is all bluster and bravado; but behind closed doors, the panic is setting in

Hail, the emperor! by Dharisha Bastians

There’s a new emperor  in town
The posters and hoardings to celebrate President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ascension to the Chair of the Commonwealth, a grouping mostly made up of territories of the former British Empire, must have been ready weeks in advance. By happy coincidence, the President was also celebrating his 68th birthday and his eighth year in office this week.

Sri Lanka: Govt ordered hotels to charge more than 3 times of standard rate from CHOGM delegates

Hotels: Great rates but where’s the traffic?

Five-star hotels in Colombo charged over US$500 per night net for delegates attending this week’s Commonwealth Summit in Sri Lanka, more than three times the standard room rate, but still ended on the losing side.

CHOGM 2013: The war crimes can-of-worms was opened at an international conference is of significance

Failed!

Sri Lanka: Beware the Ides of March by Dr Kumar David

“Do not dictate to me, I’m not ready to take orders from others. We have a tradition and culture of over 2500 years and a time tested legal system together with a law enforcement process to address any issue”.

"I very much hope that Rajapksha seizes that opportunity'' - Cameron

Cameron urges President to work with Wigneswaran

British Prime Minister, David Cameron said, he made it clear to President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he now has a real opportunity, through 'magnanimity and reform,' to build a successful, inclusive and prosperous future for Sri Lanka by working in partnership with the newly elected Chief Minister of the Northern Province.  Cameron on Monday (18) said in the House of Commons...

The Commonwealth Summit: the aftermath

Photo: Earanga Jayawardena/AP

The Sri Lanka Campaign

 The Commonwealth Summit has now ended. It was broadly seen as a complete disaster for both the Commonwealth and Sri Lanka.
Only 27 of the 53 invited Heads of Government attended. 23 nations sent lesser representation (Antigua, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Canada, Mauritius, St Lucia, Malawi, Belize, Dominica, Jamaica, Cameroon, Kenya, Barbados, Mozambique, Trinidad and Tobago, St Vincent, Tuvalu, Uganda, India, Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, and Papua New Guinea) and three didn't attend at all (Grenada, Kiribati, and the Maldives - which is in the middle of its own constitutional crisis).

UNP opposes any international investigation; says CHOGM agreement suspicious

The United National Party (UNP) today raised suspicion on the agreement signed by Sri Lanka together with other Commonwealth leaders at the end of the Commonwealth summit.
UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said that the agreement would see Sri Lanka agree to a possible international investigation on human rights.He said that the agreement involves 98 points most of which refers to economic and development issues.

After the shambles of Sri Lanka, the Commonwealth needs a relaunch

First, the good news: David Cameron kept his promise to “shine a light” on Sri Lanka’s human rights record when he visited the country for the Commonwealth summit. If President Mahinda Rajapaksa thought this occasion was going to be a chance to showcase his regime, then he will have been sorely disappointed. In particular, Cameron’s tumultuous visit to Jaffna did a great deal of good. The world’s media took the opportunity to bring to the fore the plight of Sri Lanka’s disappeared – with 5,676 “outstanding cases” according to the United Nations – and the unresolved question of the atrocities carried out during the final battle of the civil war in 2009.

CHOGM 2013: A lie well told

Deborah Philip   
I imagine that beneath the cordial smiles and exchange of pleasantries there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth taking place at Temple Trees these days. The façade that was CHOGM 2013 seems to have crumbled, at least in the eyes of the world, although certainly not in most parts of Sri Lanka’s mainstream media. Images of women and relatives of the disappeared throwing themselves on David Cameron’s convoy in Jaffna dominate world headlines, overwhelming the photographs of Commonwealth leaders at CHOGM.

Chogm: Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa hits out at critics

"If there are any violations,
we will take actions against anybody"

Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has hit out at critics amid heightened scrutiny of his government's human rights record on the eve of a Commonwealth summit hosted in Colombo.

The president said his government ended killings in the country by defeating Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.
Several leaders are boycotting the event and British PM David Cameron has said he will raise "tough questions".
The summit has been overshadowed by the row over its host, Sri Lanka.

CHOGM 2013 / Sri Lanka: Sinhala only to welcome delegates?

CHOGM 2013  speakers stand: Tamil writing says Ayubowan, the singhalese word for Welcome, instead of the Tamil word for welcome Vanakkam ;In Tamil there is noword called Ayubowan.  And in English too it says Ayubowan not welcome.  Sinhala and Tamil are offcial languages while the English is link language. But this is how two language policy is rejected at highest levels.

This is a clear example of language discrimination in Sri Lanka.
 

Unreformed, the Commonwealth deserves to die. Improved, it could be rather useful - The Economist

THE biggest achievement of the Commonwealth, its admirers say, is the fact of its unlikely existence. That so many former British colonies and dominions should be content to co-exist in a club which has the queen as its head is remarkable. However this is a low bar to set for the success of an organisation nominally committed to promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Quite how nominally will be evident in Colombo this weekend—at a gathering of Commonwealth leaders hosted by a nasty and abusive regime.

CHOGM 2013: Cameron’s visit boosts morale of displaced Tamils

Meera Srinivasan

 British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the Sabapathipillai Welfare Centre at Chunnakam, about 10 km from Jaffna town, on Friday. He walked into the narrow lanes with tiny homes adjacent to each other and talked to some residents. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP M.A. Sumanthiran helped with translation.

The welfare centre is essentially a camp for internally displaced persons – with very basic facilities – where nearly 300 families that were forced to leave their homes during the war live.

CHOGM 2013: Sri Lanka: Cameron in 'robust' talks over human rights

The BBC's Nick Robinson was with the
prime minister as his convoy was mobbed

David Cameron has clashed with the president of Sri Lanka as he pushed for action to protect the rights of its minority Tamil community.

Downing Street said the PM "pressed his points very directly

and robustly" in an hour-long meeting with Mahinda Rajapaksa at a Commonwealth summit. Mr Cameron's convoy was earlier mobbed by demonstrators on a visit to the north of the country.

British PM upstages Commonwealth summit with Jaffna trip

AFP

Colombo (AFP) - Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron made an historic visit Friday to Sri Lanka's former war-zone, stealing the spotlight from a Commonwealth summit after the host, President Mahinda Rajapakse, warned against passing judgement on his country's past.

Only hours after the summit opened in Colombo, Cameron flew into the northern Jaffna region where some 100,000 people lost their lives in fighting between Tamil rebels and troops from the majority Sinhalese government.