NEWS Sri Lanka

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Daniel Flitton

Senior Correspondent

Concerned ... UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. Photo: Reuters

THE chief rights advocate for the United Nations has expressed alarm at a new push by Australian immigration authorities to immediately reject a number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is in Bali for a democracy summit, also attended by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Ms Pillay said she had heard numerous concerns that asylum seekers could languish indefinitely on Nauru and Manus Island under Labor's revived Pacific Solution and was especially worried over the plight of children.

''I am highly concerned that detention in regional offshore processing centres such as in Nauru could result in indefinite detention and other human rights violations,'' she said.

''All people, including migrants, have the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and this form of detention has been shown at times to violate this right.

''It could well end up as indefinite detention, and people in indefinite detention suffer significant mental health issues - and Australia should be well aware of this.''

The number of people arriving in recent months has already far exceeded the planned capacity for the two centres in the Pacific.

In a bid to toughen the deterrent, Labor plans to remove the Australian mainland from the migration zone.

The Immigration Department has sent home dozens of Sri Lankans - from Christmas and Cocos islands - deemed not to have a refugee claim.

But Ms Pillay said Sri Lanka was still volatile, despite the end of the civil war in 2009.

''Now that was a conflict area, matters have not stabilised as yet.

''All the reports reaching me are that people are concerned over controls being imposed over them,'' she said.

''So I can understand if they'd be leaving out of fear or for their personal security, and it really cries out for all the refugee protections, asylum seeker protections to be made particularly applicable to them.''

Ms Pillay visited Australia last year, meeting with Ms Gillard, and visiting detention centres in the country.

''They were all [in] very good condition, but not the detainees.

''These are, after all, not people who are criminals and so they were handling the detention badly; many attempts at self-harm, and I'm still receiving reports of self-harm, suicide attempts and protests at the off-shore processing facilities. And these are all highly worrying - and unfortunately it was a predictable outcome.''

Ms Pillay said that combating people smugglers was important to protect people's rights and praised regional talks.

''But I must stress that these should be underpinned by strong legal protections in line with the government's human rights obligations.''

India-mediated 13th Amendment on its way out?

COLOMBO, November 9, 2012 | The Hindu

R. K. Radhakrishnan

In the strongest indication yet that Sri Lanka is having a serious rethink on the India-mediated concept of autonomy for provinces in the country, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, announced in parliament on Thursday that “a change in the prevailing Provincial Council system is necessary to make devolution more meaningful” to people.

His announcement comes a few weeks after two coalition partners of the United People’s Freedom Alliance, which rules the country, demanded the scrapping of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution. The 13th Amendment, incorporated into the Sri Lankan constitution following the Indo-Lanka accord of 1987, granted limited powers to Sri Lanka’s nine provinces.

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (led by Buddhist monks) and National Freedom Front (breakaway group of JVP), both partners of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party-led UPFA have demanded that the amendment be nullified. The professedly-left Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna has also made a similar demand. Adding to this chorus was the country’s Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is also a sibling of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He was quoted in the Island newspaper as saying that the 13th Amendment should go – and timed it to coincide with the New Delhi visit of leaders of the Tamil National Alliance in October.

The TNA sees the amendment as a ray of hope for limited autonomy for the Tamil dominated Northern Province. President Rajapaksa had announced through The Hindu that the elections to the Northern Province – the only one without an elected council – will be held by September 2013.

President’s reasoning

“Devolution should not be a political reform that will lead us to separation but instead it should be one that unifies all of us,” in an apparent reference to the events that followed after Varadaraja Perumal was elected Chief Minister. Mr. Perumal declared the creation of Tamil Eelam in the merged North-Eastern province on March 1, 1990. The then President R. Premadasa dissolved the council and imposed direct rule.

“It should not involve high spending and complex governance structures that will impose further burden on people. Everybody who met me from all corners of Sri Lanka whether they were Tamils, Muslims or Sinhalese, asked for greater access to education, health, employment opportunities, better living and equal standards across the nation. The elimination of provincial disparities using national standards is the main weapon through which national reconciliation can be promoted. This Government remains committed to ensure that these aspirations of our people will be fulfilled,” he told the parliament, and invited the Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickramasinghe, the TNA and the JVP to help in “constructively” solving problems confronted by our people.

Change in Indian stand?

There appears to be a shift in the Indian stand towards Sri Lanka, as seen in Geneva early this week. While in its opening remarks during the Universal Periodic Review on Sri Lanka, India highlighted the need to expand on the 13th Amendment, early Northern Provincial council elections, and related issues, none of this figures in the ‘interactive dialogue and responses by the State under review.’ “India looked forward to speedy resolution of the residual issues in resettlement and rehabilitation. It called for credible investigations into allegations in the LLRC report. It noted the action plan for time-bound implementation of LLRC recommendations,” it said.

Indian Prisoners in Welikada safe : Kantha

COLOMBO, November 10, 2012 | The Hindu

R. K. Radhakrishnan

AP Soldiers arrive on motorbikes outside a prison in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Friday, Nov 9, 2012. At least 10 inmates in a Sri Lankan prison were killed in a shootout with security forces and 12 others were wounded on Friday.

The 33 Indian convicts and the five remand prisoners in Welikada prison were safe, the Indian High Commission said on Saturday morning. Clashes between security personnel and prisoners inside claimed over 15 lives since last evening.

“The High Commission has been constantly monitoring the situation since the time the clashes broke out. The Sri Lankan authorities have told us that the Indian prisoners are safe,” High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka Ashok K Kantha, told The Hindu.

The Indian High Commission has sought consular access to the prisoners, but this demand has not been acceded to. “We are in touch [with the Sri Lankan officials.] We want to individually ascertain that the prisoners are safe. Hence we have sought access to the prisoners,” Mr.Kantha said.

The High Commission has also deputed a senior diplomat to meet prison officials and ascertain the situation in Welikada. “Our main concern is the welfare of Indian prisoners,” he added.

The prisoners have been without food or water since last afternoon. The Army had managed to take control of the prison in the early hours of Saturday. One source said that the combing operations inside the prison was being conducted in an elaborate manner, and it is only after this is completed will anyone else, including the Indian High Commission and relatives, be granted access to the prisoners.

Many anxious relatives have been crowding in areas close to the prison to get information of their kith and kin. But prison officials have reportedly told them that they will be able to comment on individual cases only later. Some relatives were also at the National Hospital, trying to figure out if their near and dear are among the injured.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/indian-prisoners-in-welikada-safe-kantha/article4084411.ece

Lankan nationals who tried to migrate sent back

November 11, 2012 | The Hindu

Special Correspondent

With the State government deciding to drop action against 65 Sri Lankan nationals against whom a case was registered under the provisions of the Foreigners Act, the office of the Deputy High Commission of Sri Lanka here facilitated their return. The first batch of 56 persons left Chennai on Friday night to Colombo by a Sri Lankan airlines flight, police sources said.

The Sri Lankan nationals, including women and children, were heading to Christmas Islands (Australia) in a boat from Jaffna. Tamil Nadu fishermen sighted the boat stranded in the high seas recently and helped the victims reach Nagapattinam.

A case under the provisions of the Foreigners Act was registered against them by the local police.

“They were lodged in the Mandapam refugees camp in Ramanathapuram district. After the Government took a decision on humanitarian grounds to drop action against the Sri Lankan nationals, steps were taken to send them back,” a senior police official said on Saturday.

Despite a warning by the Australian government that refugees who took boats to reach the country would not be given refugee status, many clandestine boat operators lured innocent people in Sri Lanka and other countries, he said. “The agents who organise the human trafficking are paid in three stages. The first instalment is given before the commencement of the journey. The second and third parts of the payment is made upon reaching Australia and after getting a job there…apparently one boat from Sri Lanka and another from Afghanistan reached Christmas islands recently,” the official said, adding that the racket involved in the human trafficking operated from Australia, Canada and Netherlands.

Sri Lanka troops accused of jail 'massacre'

AFP News – 19 hours ago

Sri Lanka's main opposition party Sunday demanded an independent inquiry into a prison riot that left 27 convicts dead, alleging many were shot by security forces in a cold-blooded "massacre".

The United National Party (UNP) called for a parliamentary investigation into the riot that erupted on Friday evening at the maximum-security Welikada prison in the capital Colombo.

"This is nothing but a massacre," UNP spokesman Mangala Samaraweera told AFP. "Most of the convicts appeared to have been killed in cold blood. We want a parliamentary select committee to go into this."

Troops were deployed to quell the riots and the military retained a heavy presence at the sprawling prison complex Sunday.

During the riot, armed inmates climbed onto the roof and fired at troops and police. A handful escaped and hijacked a three-wheel rickshaw taxi which was stopped by heavy gunfire from security personnel.

Prisons Minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera told parliament Saturday that 27 inmates were killed and 43 others -- including 13 police commandos, four soldiers and two civilians -- were injured.

He said there would be an internal prisons department inquiry into the riot, which was sparked by a police commando raid for contraband inside the prison on Friday.

The violence continued until early Saturday with some prisoners raiding a jail armoury and grabbing about 80 weapons, including automatic rifles.

Prisons chief P.W. Koddippili said guards were searching the site Sunday for a small number of guns which were still missing. Officials declined to say if any prisoners had escaped during the unrest.

Friday's violence was the worst prison riot in Sri Lanka since 1983, when more than 50 ethnic Tamil prisoners were massacred at the same jail by Sinhalese convicts during anti-Tamil riots that gripped the country.

There was similar violence at the same penitentiary in January when 25 inmates and four guards were injured.

The authorities have yet to release autopsy reports on the dead. Colombo police chief Anura Senanayake said most of those killed were hard-core criminals, some of them serving life terms.

The opposition UNP also demanded answers from the government on how the armed forces were deployed at the weekend, when emergency laws were no longer in operation after the end of the country's ethnic war in 2009.

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/sri-lanka-troops-accused-jail-massacre-085738423.html