Sri Lanka 'Needs Space' to Heal War Wounds

Wow, I just can't believe the rubbish here. I grew up in Sri Lanka between 1971 and 1985..was there during black July 83, teenager at the time. Have lived my whole life with this conflict and followed it closely. The truth is that any reconciliation will take a lot longer than 18 months - 10 years at least. All the attached articles here are written by the Tamil Tiger bloggers who spread total fabrications about what has been going on in Sri Lanka. They have no clue about what is currently happening at ground level. Obviously, I can understand that the losing side in any battle is going to be sour in defeat, but now the intensity of the Tamil assault via electronic media is becoming overbearing to any onlooker. The claims by Tamilnet, Transcurrents and all those others posted here in this forum - sighting some experts nobody has ever heard of (bah!), are all to be taken only with a pinch of salt. Most of the stuff about government atrocities, about resettlement, about this and about that, is all far fetched fabrications by the Tiger aliments in the Tamil Diasporas, sour and depressed at their loss – their Trans-national Bloggers Legion is highly busy. There are other dangerous enemies lurking about too. The kind the Singhalese would call anti- nationalistic. Traitors corrupted by a foreign hand. Yes, there is a whole industry of foreign Non Government Organisations (NGO) that were mostly set up 20 years ago under the past UNP government who are agitating for regime change in Sri Lanka, because they don’t want to spend millions on relocation and leave their cushy lives of 20 years in the Sri Lankan sunshine behind. Now that the war is over, most of these NGOs should be leaving the country. Also, huge economic development means Sri Lanka won’t need anymore hand outs in foreign aid, and the current progress in the country has scared the NGO brigade with the hyper development now predicted by all world economists, soon there will be no reason for them to be in Sri Lanka spending their un-audited charity funds donated from their own citizens tax monies. They are using their dollars to buy everyone they can corrupt and turn in to a device of their hoped regime change, not least the UNP members they themselves have corrupted over their 20 odd year tenures in Sri Lanka. They all profess reconciliation and show a humanitarian facade, but these Very Good Samaritans secretly agitate for the war to begin anew. It is said that “Satan always arrives disguised in a garb of truth”. The Tamil Diasporas and their Tiger elements within it were the main financiers of the Tamil Tiger war machine for over 25 years. They have been living in the west being spurred on by a dream of Eelam, a mythical country in the Northern and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka - where they were promised lands and status (very important in Tamil society) upon their return, but only if they showed their generosity towards the Tiger separatist war chest. The Diasporas want their promised never-land, so they want and hope and keep donating in the hope they can rekindle the lost war. They also know that they will never be able to start, let alone win, a war in Sri Lanka as long as the Rajapakse government is in power. Before any reconciliation with the Tamil diasporas is ever possible, the diasporas need to realize their delusions and understand that they were not funding any attainable cause, but a pipedream of a megalomaniac called Prabakaren. Eelam? Such a country has never existed and will never exist. At the end of a 30 year war it could be considered normal to have such unprincipled elements wanting to reignite the conflict, but as long as the current government of President Mahinda Rajapakse is in power there will be no way anybody will be able to reignite anything. People say Rajapakse is appointing his siblings to positions of power within the government, actually they contested and won their seats, and also, wouldn’t you appoint your brothers to the most key portfolios in government if you knew that all others just simply could not be trusted.

http://www.icj.org/dwn/database/BeyondLawfulConstraints-SLreport-Sept2010.pdf Beyond Lawful Constraints: Sri Lanka’s Mass Detention of LTTE Suspects, International Commission of Jurists, September 2010: ''This report addresses human rights concerns arising from what may be the largest mass administrative detention anywhere in the world. ….''

Preventing aid agents(including the UN) from helping the Tamils devastated by years of aerial bombing and intense shelling followed by plundering by the army when journalists and foreigners have been banned from the region: http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/03/no_funds_to_meet_needs_of_near.html/ No funds to meet needs of nearly 200,000 Northern IDPs due to govt refusal to endorse 2010 action plan, 13 March 2010: ''The funding crisis follows the government’s refusal to endorse the 2010 Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP), authoritative sources said. …. The UN and other humanitarian agencies are running out of resources to meet the urgent needs of internally displaced persons in the North. ...'' http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2010.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/SVAN-843LTD-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf Banking on Solutions, A real-time evaluation of UNHCR’s shelter grant programme for returning displaced people in Northern Sri Lanka, March 2010: ''....The extent of shelter destruction appears to have been underestimated .... government restrictions on NGO access limited programming options, .... Movement along the A9 is also still restricted for international NGOs and UN agencies. ...since July 2009 they(ICRC) have not had access to the 11,000 people suspected of LTTE links held in rehabilitation centres. ....’’

The Minister is lying about 'healing': Last week Chandra Jeyaratne has told the Commission what's happening to the detainees in camps and returnees in villages: http://www.groundviews.org/2010/09/23/submissions-before-lessons-learnt-reconciliation-committee-llrc-by-chandra-jayaratne/ Submission before Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) by Chandra Jayaratne, 23 September 2010: • IDP’s being denied access to their former places of residence • Challenging the right to title of the properties traditionally owned and /or occupied persons living in conflict affected areas • Large tracts of previously occupied lands being demarcated as high security zones • Unjustified land acquisitions on security considerations but allocated for non security related purposes • The publicly announced resettlement benefits to internally displaced persons not being distributed equitably and in line with the announced scheme • Lack of basic amenities like water, sanitation, power and proper housing for the newly resettled families • Resource allocation not determined on community priorities and allocated without consultation and outside the need base and at times missing the most vulnerable and in need, possibly due to identity based biases • Some areas like Jaffna receiving more than necessary resource allocations and peripheral areas lacking in even basic allocations • Preventing willing and capable NGO’s/INGO’s, international community and Diaspora from helping people in need at their most vulnerable moment of need • Building of new permanent military cantonments with residential facilities for military personnel and their families • Plans to settle majority community families in order to change the traditional area demography otherwise than by natural development oriented migration • Arbitrary arrests and detention in the post war period as well • Continuing active engagement of unauthorized armed groups • Continuing disappearances of civilians • List of persons in custody, camps and detention centres not being made public • Failure to assist families in tracing missing persons • Negative impact on civilians during the conflict due military excesses • Unease of single women headed families fearing for their safety in the presence of large number of armed personnel of the forces • Removal of burial sites of persons affected by the conflict • Some important cultural, religious and remembrance sites being damaged and destroyed • Disrespect shown by visitors to holy sites and sites held in high esteem by resident communities • Free availability of liquor, cigarettes and narcotics • Emerging consumerism promoted by business houses who fail to participate in adding value to the civilian communities • Savings of the region being channelled to other areas whilst unmet needs of area community remain • Decision making in the hands of the military or officials from the Central Government

GL Peiris is a great orator and his natural ability of speaking was very useful at sidestepping some pertinent issues last evening at the Asia Society. I appreciate the moderator (Dr Metzl) respectful perseverance in asking poignant questions and pursuing certain topics which were never suitably answered by the foreign minister. Why not have an independent panel of experts with stellar credentials appointed by the U.N. be allowed to weigh in separately (or join) the Sri Lankan Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission? Political dynasties might be acceptable in Sri Lanka and abroad but why abolish term limits in Sri Lanka for the executive office. Minister Peiris refers to having an open dialogue and transparency with the citizens of Sri Lanka - well it is difficult for minorities scarred by the ravages of war to come forward if the government does not offer assurances of safety and security of those that step up to bat.