May 19 marked the first anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s long civil war. In the past year, there has been frenzied activity to rebuild the country’s tourist industry. Astonishingly, the New York Times has made Sri Lanka its number one holiday destination for 2010. The travel brochures rhapsodise about the country’s natural splendours, stunning beaches and cultural heritage. Holidaymakers are once again pouring into this south Asian island, off the coast of India.
After almost three decades of conflict with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (popularly known as the Tamil Tigers), the Sri Lankan government declared military victory last May.
But many tourists do not know that Sri Lanka is now rated the fourth most dangerous place in the world for journalists, higher even than Afghanistan. The new peace in Sri Lanka has come at a high cost to freedom of expression and the human rights of its citizens.
More than 15 journalists are believed to have been killed since 2006. These include Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, who was murdered on January 8 2009 as he drove to work. Wickramatunga was widely known for his criticism of corruption, government policies and the civil war, and he had received several threats to his life. Just days before his death, chillingly he penned an article predicting his murder. It serves to summarise the threat facing all dissident writers in Sri Lanka:
“I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course, I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.”
No one has been brought to justice for his murder.
According to Amnesty, despite the official end to the civil war, just for attempting to report the truth, journalists continue to be killed, physically assaulted, abducted, and harassed by both government personnel and members of paramilitary groups aligned with the state.
Newspapers have been seized and burned, newspaper offices have been vandalised and printing equipment destroyed.
On August 31 last year, a Sri Lankan court sentenced Tamil journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam (JS) Tissainayagam to 20 years hard labour for causing “communal disharmony”. Human rights groups believe that he was targeted for his earlier reporting on the conflict between government forces and the Tamil Tigers. After an international outcry, which included President Barack Obama expressing concern during an address to mark 2009 World Press Freedom Day, Tissa received a presidential pardon exactly a year later on May 3 2010. His release proves that external pressure can make a difference in Sri Lanka and the international community can play a part in this.
Emergency regulations, issued by the President, involve far-reaching and vaguely defined “terrorism” offences that have been used to silence critical voices. The authorities frequently misuse the Prevention of Terrorism Act and emergency regulations to prosecute journalists like Tissa in violation of their right to freedom of opinion and expression.
According to Amnesty, there has been a further clampdown on dissent since the presidential election concluded on January 26 2010. This has included arrests, death threats against several prominent newspaper editors, harassment of trade unionists and state employees who supported the opposition, and the intimidation of independent internet-based media.
On the day of the elections, a political cartoonist and opposition journalist, Prageeth Eknaligoda, disappeared. According to Reporters sans Frontiéres (RSF), he was abducted as he left the office of the Lanka-e-News website, his place of work, and has been missing since then. The police investigation has yielded nothing.
Many journalists and NGOs have wanted to report on the internment camps in Sri Lanka. There are almost 100,000 civilians still detained in these camps. But only pro-government NGOs have been allowed to work in many of the smaller camps. As a consequence, the outside world remains largely ignorant of the real conditions for the detainees.
In the rush to smooth the way for tourism, the government has started to bulldoze various Tamil Tiger landmark sites, including cemeteries and the homes of Velupillai Prabhakaran and other Tamil Tigers leaders. The Thileepan memorial near the Nallur temple was also defaced, apparently with the collusion of the Sri Lankan army. In a move sure to enflame local tensions, the authorities propose replacing the homes of Tamil Tigers leaders with hotels and resorts.
Many tourists never leave their hotel and most Sri Lankans are too frightened to speak about what is going on in their country. So visitors are unaware of the very different world outside the resorts where ordinary Sri Lankan citizens continue to have their basic human rights trampled on, sometimes involving violence and torture. If civil unrest erupts again, another humanitarian crisis is just waiting to happen.
What you can do
To find out more about Sri Lanka and how you can help visit www.srilankacampaign.org.
Urge the United Nations Secretary General to push for an independent inquiry into war crimes on both sides and appoint a special envoy for Sri Lanka; to ensure that all those held in camps are treated in line with international standards; and to press the government to protect human rights and promote peace and reconciliation.
Amnesty (www.amnesty.org) publishes regular reports on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.
RSF (www.rsf.org) is monitoring the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda and reports on attacks against the media.
About The Author
Lucy Popescu is the author of The Good Tourist, published by Arcadia Books
Thank you,Lucy Popescu
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzGj2hYoymo&feature=youtube_gdata
Excerpt from CNN video on ‘Witness to Survival” by Ms. Sara Sidner on her visit soon after the Presidential election: the journalist challenges the President’s lies
2. http://www.france24.com/en/20100204-reporters-sri-lanka-tamil-tigers-civil-war-refugees-civilians-return-army-probation
The journalist is prevented from going to the North at the army checkpoint, police and army in plain clothes to monitor the journalists, IDPs can be interviewed only in the presence of the Army and Tamil fishermen are moved inland to let Sinhalese fishermen take their place with army camp for protection.
3.http://www.thesamosa.co.uk/index.php/sri-lanka-special-report/49-news-and-features/358-sri-lanka-fear-and-trauma-one-year-on.html
Sri Lanka – fear and trauma, one year on, Nina de la Preugne, 19 May 2010:
”….
Despite the end of the war a year ago and the dismantling of the separatist LTTE, the ratio of soldiers to citizens in the area is overwhelming. Driving through the Vanni, one loses count of the number of checkpoints along the route to the Jaffna peninsula at the northernmost tip of the island. There, the impression of being on a military base is reinforced by the soldiers, bunkers and signs welcoming you to regiments’ buildings at every street corner. ….
Ministry of Defence officials told the reporter that clearance is required in order to prevent journalists from “reporting bad things on what is happening in Jaffna and Vanni”. As a result, the author decided not to pursue the MoD clearance, and did not ask MoD officials for their response to comments in the article.”
4http://transcurrents.com/tc/2010/05/feeling_of_deterioration_in_ja.html
Feeling of Deterioration in Jaffna Must Be Reversed Without Delay, Jehan Perera, Chairman, National Peace Council, 10 May 2010:
”After a period of improvement in the ground situation after the end of the war in May last year, there have been reports of a deterioration of conditions in the Jaffna peninsula, including threats, extortions, kidnappings and killings. The government needs to take responsibility for any concerns about crime since the Police is presently a central government function.”
All international media houses should spread the word world around that tourist should not choose Sri Lanka as a tourist spot or destination supported with leaflets and flyers. There are many more interesting destination spots the tourist can go to which are peaceful and very civil to their own citizens. As long as this killer regime is in place which is a threat to Tamils and Sinhala reporters and journalist and the war criminals are brought to justice and the tamils and sinhalese can live as equals in every aspect. This action has to be done immediately.
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/05/07/jaffna-after-the-war-observations-by-a-visitor/
Jaffna after the war: Observations by a visitor, Leela Issac, 7 May 2010:
”… A lot of building material (from China) has been unloaded on either side of the road between Murugandy and Mankulam. We stopped to ask one of the soldiers, whether there was a plan to build houses for the displaced. ‘No’ he said, it was China’s donation towards an army cantonment. The government plans to put up an army camp just like the one at Panagoda. But the question is why are they being kept there after the war is over? There is no fear or danger of LTTE attacks now. So what is the need for this heavy military presence in the North? On the A9 road every hundred meters there is a bunker and every mile or so a major military base. It certainly does not promote peace and reconciliation. …”
The fact is there is peace in Sri Lanka. After 25 years of bitter warfare the terrorists were beaten, and there is some semblance of peace, not perfect, but peace of sorts. They said it couldn’t be done. But it has been achieved. Perhaps theres a lesson there for those fighting terrorism across the world, in Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan. It can be done. But peace always comes at a price.
Yes, another humanitarian crisis is just waiting to happen.The failure to act so far has left victims of human rights violations with no access to justice, truth or reparations. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans displaced at the end of decades-long conflict languish in camps or struggle to rebuild their shattered communities.
One year on, the situation for civilian communities caught up in the conflict shows no sign of improving:
· 80,000 people remain in camps with little access to water, decent sanitation and medical supplies;
· 300,000 displaced civilians who have tried to resettle remain vulnerable and struggle to survive in communities where homes and infrastructure were destroyed;
· Thousands of people detained for suspected links to the Tamil Tigers remain in detention without access to the courts;
· The government continues to extend the state of emergency restricting many basic human rights and freedom of speech;
· And no meaningful action has been taken to investigate reports of war crimes.
Then what next??? another humanitarian crisis is just waiting to happen?????
I think the Tamil Tigers share the greater part of the blame for the appalling aftermath of their futile struggle for a separate homeland. The Govt is by no means perfect but needs the assitance of all Sri Lankans to get the country back on its feet. In this atmosphere of organised chaos HR are on the back burner for the time being.
Please urge the government of Sri Lanka to put an end to these violations by signing this petition that will be delivered to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon.
Sign the Petition by Amnesty International: Call on the UN to Investigate War Crimes in Sri Lanka
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx
According to Emerson, Tennent J (1859) Ceylon, Volume 2 (London: Longman Press Indigenous Tamil people have lived for more than 2,500 years in the northern and eastern parts of present-day Sri Lanka (north-east), known as the Tamil hereditary area. In pre-colonial days there was the Tamil Kingdom in the north-east (Jaffna) and two Sinhalese kingdoms in the south, called Kotte and Kandy. Drawings and maps from the time of the Greek explorer Ptolemy, and later from the period when the British came to the island, show how the areas of the Tamils and the Sinhalese were recorded separately from antiquity.
Unfortunately Sinhalese are averse to tolerating truth. They wrongly propagate lies and distort history. But some do speak the truth however unpalatable it may seem. Sinhalese ethnologist Paul Peiris describes the five Saivaite shrines on the four cardinal points of the compass, located on the shoreline of Ceylon and predating the birth of Buddha, as evidence of the ancient Tamil habitation of the island. Tamil Nation(1995). Salient facts of the history of the Tamils and of the Sinhalese. The exercising the legitimate rights of the Tamils have nothing to do with the LTTE. It so happens that their ideology and that of the ordinary Tamils naturally resonate with each other. The Tamils are only politely asking to restore to them the Tamil Nation that was forcibly usurped by colonial adventure. The first aliens to capture a sovereign state of Sinhala nation in 1505 was the Portuguese. When they walked forcibly into the Tamil sovereign state in 1601 ie after about 96 years, they highhandedly took their King Sangili to Goa, India and hanged him.
In 1972 the Sinhalese lawfully abolished the Soulbury Constitution (under which Ceylon was granted independence in 1948). But they failed to legitimise the new draft constitutions (in 1972 and 1977) by referendums. These drafts were produced by Singhala MPs but they were not approved by Tamil MPs, so they are not even approved drafts. So the island of Ceylon has had no constitution since 1972 and the Sinhalese have been working to documents which have no legal status.
Whilst the island of Ceylon was under no constitution, the Tamils, in 1977, voted for separation and independence. The Sri Lankan National Assembly has no power to override this decision because it is not a sovereign body.
The next logical step for the Tamils should have been a referendum, restricted to the Tamils, on independence. This was not in fact necessary because of 1 above, ie Tamil Eelam was never a constituent part of Singhala Sri Lanka. Besides, in the 1977 general election ALL 18 Tamil constituencies voted for independence, which was effectively a referendum giving the consent of the Tamils authorising separation and independence.
Power and Authority
Authority is power exercised with general approval of the people, say, following a general election. Power is getting things done by people even if they do not wish to obey. People submit to authority because they accept its legitimacy, to power out of fear for the consequences of not so doing. A government needs both authority and power. The invading forces in Eelam have power but no authority. A government in exile may have the authority but no power. In diplomacy a legitimate government which has authority is called ‘de jure’ government. A government that does not have authority but is nonetheless effectively in control is called a ‘de facto’ government.
North-East Merger
In the joint Northern-Eastern provincial council election held in November 1988, in the Eastern province the Tamils won 17 seats and the Tamil Muslims won 17 seats. The Sinhalese won just one seat. The provincial council election was for the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces. The merger was to be confirmed by a referendum but it was never held as it was not considered necessary due to the overwhelming Tamil victory. The people in the Eastern province exercised their sovereign authority and voted for the merger. The Colombo government has no authority to de-merge east from the north, neither does the unelected judiciary from Singhala Sri-Lanka.
Eelam may be recognised once the Tamils agree on a democratic constitution.
1.War Crimes in Sri Lanka, International Crisis Group, 17 May 2010:
”… UN-mandated international inquiry should be the priority, ….”
2.Sri Lanka: Government Proposal Won’t Address War Crimes, Human Rights Watch, 7 May 2010
3.Call on UN to investigate Sri Lanka rights violations, Amnesty International, 17 May 2010
PLEASE TAKE ACTION:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/call-un-investigate-sri-lanka-rights-violations
Thank you, Lucy for writing this.
Srilanka is killer country.srilanka is no suitable place for human live.then how can its a tousrist place.
SRILANKA IS WAR CRIMES COUNTRY
pls change IIFA award form srilanka
Srilankan war criminals have to be punished. Indian govt which was behind this deadly genocide also should be punished. The whole world which was a silent witness to this genocide have to answernnow. This is the worst ever man made disaster of the century. Tamils have to get their due justice and freedom from this ruthless Srilankan govt criminals. These SLA criminals will wipe out entire Tamils from the island. Before that this world should punish Srilanka.
Nonsense. The Tamil Tigers had no right to ceceed; they brought the misery and destruction on themselves by starting this war in the first place. The Tigers were a vicious bunch of criminals and thugs and oppressed their own peoples. It was the Tigers that assassinated Rajiv Gandhi and introduced suicide bombing into the world. The Tamils have only themselves to blame. Now its time to use the political process to claim their rights in a one Sri Lanka. By signing the petition you only prolong the misery of the people.
Tarzie Vittachi, Emergency ’58 – The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots(1958)
”The GalOya race-killings of 1956 and the ugly episode of Little Rock in 1957 should have warned us that the Fifth Horseman took no notice of time, place, literacy or standard of living.
But these episodes did not wake us up in time.
It couldn’t happen in Ceylon. That is what we all thought………
It couldn’t happen here. ………
So it couldn’t happen here. But it has happened ……
The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse rode into Ceylon in May 1958, …….
No one recognised the hoof beats on the dusty provincial roads where they were first heard. People knew about War, Pestilence, Famine and Flood – these were disasters they accepted as part of their human heritage…………….
Slight though our acquaintance with these disasters was, it was still acquaintance. But for most people in 1958 the Fifth Horseman – Race-Hate – was hardly even that. We had heard about the attempts of the Australian settlers to decimate the Aborigines ….; … the Red Indians had been corralled into reservations; …..the Nazi gas chambers, Buchenwals and Belsen: and the tribulations of the Jews ……; Hindu-Muslim massacres in the partition of India. ….
What are we left with (in 1958)? A nation in ruins, some grim lessons which we cannot afford to forget and a momentous question: Have the Sinhalese and Tamils reached the parting of ways?”
LTTE wasn’t born then. Prabakran was an infant watching his relatives get off the boats from Colombo ……
Ethnic Conflict and Economic Development- A POLICY ORIENTED ANALYSIS, John Richardson(1996) “Democracy alone cannot ensure ethnic harmony. Instead, it may allow freer expression of ethnic antagonisms and legalised persecution of minorities. In Sri Lanka, both S.W.R.D. and Sirimavo Bandaranaike won democratic elections by appealing to Buddhist-Sinhalese nationalist sentiments and denigrating the ethnic Tamils. Slobodan Milosevic, the former Communist Party Chief of Serbia and General Franjo Tudjman of Croatia won their presidencies by appealing to the most divisive aspects of Serbian and Croatian nationalism”.
There will not be any peace in Sri Lanka, until minority get at least minimum rights. The cost of the war (not peace) is 40 thousands innocent tamils life and still 80,000 people in torture camps. In Sri Lanka, war against TAMILSM not Terrorism.
Many Places in the world than srilanka for peaceful tourism.
why the tourists loose there peace of mind by spending their money.
I dont Know how the tourists get peace or enjoy their travel while armed forces always sorrounding them.
Thanks for this article Lucy.
Ethical tourism is the need of the hour. Sri Lanka is not a getaway nation anymore.
Sri Lanka has killed 50,000+ Tamils, a separate ethinic group living in north and east of Lanka. eventhough they belongs to the country, the Lankan army brutelly murdered them,only bacause they are TAMILS.
so those who are planning to visit Sri lanka, has to take this note. and aware of the Genocide done there last year
also one request to the International community is : Please bring/support in bringing equality in lanka for Tamils, and raise your voice against Govt to stop the on going Genocide
Thanks
It is attrocious war against Tamils. So many people cried cried cried but none from the world responded. There were shellings by Srilankan Army desperately in civilian population. Many children cried for their parents, for food, for water…many people worried for their loved ones, people were abducted, tortured, killed, no hospital to treat the wounded Tamils, make-shift hospitals were demolished by SL govenment..
All the above are cent percent true..but why world is not penalizing SL government?.
Why Tamils were taken for granted?. Where is justice?.
Sri Lanka is graveyard, where thousands were buried alive to death and thousands and thousands were brutally killed.
Are you guys interested in visiting grave yard?
Wanna see the skeletons of innocent Tamilians?
Wanna see the remains of those killed by cluster bombs, phosphorus weapons, then kindly visit Sri Lanka and shake hands with war criminals.
Innocent Tamils blood is freely available throughout Sri Lanka starting from the star hotel to local street shop.
Are you a blood sucking monster kindly visit Sri Lanka
There were atriocities on both sides. Take a leaf out of South Africa Stop this insane fighting and set up a Truth and Reconciliation Council and move Sri Lanka on, and stop inflicting further pain and suffering on the innocent peoples of Sri Lanka. I also urge you to study what happened to the so called liberation movements of Eritrea and East Timor. They managed to become oppressive regimes in their own right. Communities have to work live and grow up together. People are sick and tired of these incessant ‘wars’ which are nothing more than excuses for one set of tyrants to be replaced by another set of tyrants. Stop the assistance in aid and charity because it just prolongs the misery of the people.
After May 18/2009(The genocide against tamils by lankan govt)…….,srilanka is never ever going to be a peaceful country…until Tamils to get their homeland…….
Thats not the spirit of reconciliation. You only prolong the peoples misery.