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Sri Lanka to cut petrol price ahead of January poll
Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:03pm IST


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COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka will slash the price of petrol by 11.5 percent with effect from Tuesday midnight, the government said, ahead of a presidential election scheduled on January 26.

"The price of a litre of petrol will be reduced by 15 rupees effective midnight today," the government's official website www.news.lk said quoting the state oil firm.

"This reduction will greatly benefit the transport sector."

Accordingly, the price of a litre of petrol will be 115 rupees ($1.01), while diesel will be maintained at 73 rupees ($0.638) from Tuesday midnight.

Soon after the government announcement, the only private oil firm, Lanka IOC, a 75 percent subsidiary of the Indian Oil Corporation, said it will also reduce in par with the revised state petrol price.

"We have also decided to reduce the price to the same level," K.R. Suresh Kumar, the managing director of the company, told Reuters.

However, he declined to comment on whether reduced prices will have an impact on the company's profitability as in the past he had complained of high taxes by the government.

Economists and analysts have said the Sri Lankan government maintained high petrol prices to increase state revenue since September 2008, despite world oil prices falling sharply after hitting a record high of over $147 a barrel mid last year.

The cost of living is one of the main issues targeted by an opposition coalition against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his January re-election bid for a second six-year term.

(Reporting by Shihar Aneez; editing by James Jukwey)




http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=30901



Around 800 persons including 50 women held in Boosa detention centre
[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 December 2009, 03:14 GMT]
Nearly 800 youths including 50 women who had been either abducted in white vans or arrested by the armed forces in Vanni detention centres from January to September 2009 are being held in Boosa camp, according to a list sent to Human Rights Commission (HRC) Jaffna officials by HRC office in Colombo. Most of the families of the above detainees, being still held in Vanni detention centres, have no way of learning the fate of those abducted and arrested, the HRC Jaffna officials said.



Meanwhile, resettled Vanni IDPs in Jaffna continue to visit Jaffna HRC to find whether their sons or daughters are among the list of 800 youths in Boosa camp.

Less than 50 persons had been able to find their near and dear ones being held in Boosa camp.





http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=72114


No deadline for resettlement of IDPs says Government



By Olindhi Jayasundere
The Government despite having given a pledge to resettle all the displaced people by the end of January 2010 said yesterday that there was no deadline for the resettlement of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) who were in the camps in Vavuniya.

Disaster Management and Resettlement Minister Samarasinghe told Daily Mirror Online that no such assurances were given earlier.

“We did not promise to complete the resettling process on a particular date. However, the Government is working hard towards completing the process as soon as possible,” he said.

He said around 100,000 IDPs still remain in the camps whilst 20,000 have been granted freedom of movement from the camps. The Minister said the Government had organized ‘go and see visits’ for the IDPs to enable them to visit their homes and allow them to decide if they wished to remain in their home towns or otherwise.

“If they want to return to their homes, then they may. However, if they wish otherwise we will make other arrangement for them,” he said.

Minister Samarasinghe said that he could not comment on what would happen to the camps once all the IDPs were resettled, but said that the permanent structures once vacant would most likely be utilised.

A Sri Lankan delegation visiting India earlier this month assured the neighbouring country that it would resettle all the IDPs by the end of January.

The three-member delegation consisted of Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa and Presidential Secretary, Lalith Weeratunga.




http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=71991


Local election monitors divided on bringing in foreign counterparts



Say foreigners don’t know local conditions

By Olindhi Jayasundere

Major election monitoring groups in the country have shown conflicting opinions on the election process and the choosing of foreign election monitors for the upcoming Presidential election.

CAFFE (Campaign for Free and Fair Elections) said yesterday that the country was seriously in need of foreign election monitors and that the backing out of UN and EU monitors from the election monitoring process was a loss to the country in terms of carrying out a free and fair election.

CAFFE Director, Keerthi Tennakoon said that apart from the recent impasse that has risen between the Sri Lankan Government and the EU with regard to the GSP+, the more obvious reason for not sending an elections monitoring team is because the recommendations that they propose are never implemented. “When the EU sent a monitoring team to Sri Lanka at the last Presidential Election in 2005 EU officials warned that if the Government and the Elections Commissioner’s Department did not implement their proposals they would not participate in any more elections in the future,” Tennakoon said.

He said that as with the UN, the organization usually sends an expert team to the country, but this time had backed out of the election monitoring process altogether. “Their reasons for not participating have not been made very clear to us,” he said. He said that of the four multi-national organizations that were invited to participate as foreign monitors, the Commonwealth and the Asian Union are the only two that have accepted the invitation of the Elections Commissioner’s Department. He said that Commonwealth Elections Monitors carry out their jobs to high standards whereas the monitoring standards of the Asian Union could be suspect.

“The last elections in Sri Lanka monitored by the Asian Union were the Eastern province elections which the Union said was carried out in a free and fair manner. However, the other monitoring groups felt otherwise. That was the popular opinion over all as well. This is a clear indication that they lack the knowledge or the expertise to say the least,” he said. He said that at the last Presidential Election the Commonwealth made eight recommendations of which none were implemented.

Tennakoon said that of the 14 million persons who have the right to vote some 1.5 million people have been deprived of their voting rights.

PAFFREL Director Rohana Hettiarachchi said that they were bringing down 40 officials from the foreign monitoring group ANFREL (Asian Network for Free and Fair Elections) for the upcoming presidential election. He added that some 6000 observers would also be on duty on the day of the elections of which 4000 officers will be stationery whilst another 1500 officers will be on mobile duty.

Hettiarachchi’s view on the participation of foreign monitors was different. “I don’t think it is ideal to have foreign monitoring teams usually because they are not often aware of the ground situation and do not know the people in the election monitoring areas as well as locals do. However, in the North and East it would be more ideal to have foreign election monitors this time around since there has been talk of terrorist threats in the area,” he said.

TISL to report weekly on abuse of state resources

By Sumaiya Rizvi

Transparency International of Sri Lanka (TISL) said it would launch a weekly report on the abuse of State funds and resources in the upcoming presidential elections.

“This report will provide evidence into the abuse of State funds and resources belonging to the public institutions, provincial authorities and central government,” Executive Director of TISL J.C. Weliamuna said yesterday.

According to him the report is the summary of 80 conclusive investigations carried out by the TISL investigation team headed by a former senior DIG Upali Seneviratne. Mr. Weliamuna said that the report would shed light on the extent of abuse giving examples and evidential proof to support their findings. Central, provincial and local government buildings, property, vehicles, man power and money used by the ruling party for its Presidential election campaign, Weliamuna said.

TISL would issue its first report-a three page summary-this week on their findings, Weliamuna said.

TISL would continue to issue its weekly report until a week after the Presidential election,

The final report would contain the final figures or the total amount of money and resources that were proven to be abused, he said.However Mr. Weliamuna said that the TISL would not press for legal action and that their intention was to mobilize public opinion, although they welcomed anyone looking to use their report to file legal action.




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S.Lanka takes more time to study war crime charges
(AFP) – 1 day ago

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka's president has given legal experts four more months to study a US State Department report cataloging alleged war crimes on the island, the presidency said in a statement Monday.

President Mahinda Rajapakse extended the December 31 deadline of the panel he appointed in November to formulate a response to the US report, which accused Sri Lankan forces of war crimes while battling Tamil separatists.

"The president has... extended by four months the period given to the committee to study and report on the US State Department Report," the president's office said in a statement.

A recent query by the United Nations over remarks by the country's former army chief Sarath Fonseka that some surrendering rebels were killed in cold blood was also being referred to the panel for study, the statement said.

Sri Lanka's foreign ministry has already dismissed the US report as "unsubstantiated and devoid of corroborative evidence."

Sri Lanka has been under international pressure to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and war crimes during the final stages of its battle against the Tamil Tiger rebels, who were defeated in May.

Among claims detailed in the US report was the accusation that Tiger leaders were executed after reaching a surrender agreement with government forces.

Fonseka, who is challenging Rajapakse in a January 26 election, has said he was given information about the alleged killing of the surrendering rebels by an unnamed state media reporter embedded with troops.

Fonseka said he himself was away in China at the time of the incident.

Sri Lanka's then foreign secretary Palitha Kohona had earlier said the rebel leaders were killed by their own men while they tried to surrender during the final days of fighting.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »




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‘Unpredictable LTTE landmine pattern baffles mine experts’



PERIYATHAMPANAI (PTI) - Demining experts in Sri Lanka are struggling over the unpredictable pattern of LTTE landmines that are obstructing the resettlement of displaced Tamils by January 5 deadline here.

"There is no set pattern laid by the LTTE landmines and we confront with various challenges," Major K. Raju, who was also in Indian army told reporters. Raju and his team of mining experts from Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) commenced work in north-western Mannar district and have now cleared their way towards Periyathampanai and Pannivirichchan in Vavuniya district.

The former Indian army men has been engaged in this task for the last seven years and said the families after moving in will have to follow a route map while getting in and out of their houses to avoid any mines outside the cleared area.

He added that the landmines had been planted in clusters in some areas that lead to multiple explosions.

Over 1000 mines have been recovered from the area since the end of last month.

The total number of mines in northern Sri Lanka over the years is estimated at 1.5 million and the officials from FSD said since starting operations in 2002, the organisation had so far cleared 2 lakh sq. metres of land mine, over 4589 anti-personnel mines besides anti-tank mines.

The cost of clearing land mines is around USD 3 per sq metre, Raju said, adding the peculiarity of LTTE was that it planted mines as deep as 13 cms as against the usual norm of around 10 cms.

While it is possible only to clear about 15 to 20 sq metres of landmines area a day through the manual system, the flailing machines imported from Croatia and Slovakia could clear mines ranging from 5000-7000 sq metres a day.

The Sri Lankan government has said it was making every effort to resettle over one lakh remaining Tamil IDPs back to their homes in Wanni by January 31.

The main impediment has been the landmines which is now being cleared by six demining teams operating with the Sri Lankan army in the areas where the IDPs have to be resettled.




http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49840


SRI LANKA: A Nation Struggles to Forget a Tragedy
By Amantha Perera

Mekala de Silva still grieves the loss of a loved one at a mass grave site for some 1,500 tsunami victims in Peraliya.

Credit:Amantha Perera/IPS

PERALIYA, Sri Lanka, Dec 29 (IPS) - Waves hitting a train and carriages half submerged in water. Scores of men, women and children leaping above the water, hands outstretched, bodies strewn all over.

These images were captured on a mural that became a crucial part of the memorial at Peraliya, a village 90 kilometres south of Colombo, right next to the coast. Yet, images of post-tsunami impacts that are not depicted on the mural run the gamut of emotions.

On Dec. 26, 2004, at 9:25 a.m., a south-bound train was hit by gigantic waves here, killing over 1,500.

Little Lahiru Mihiram has no clear memory of this father, just a thought that he must be one of those many scared faces on the mural. He was less than four months old when his father ran to the train after hearing the screams of panic-stricken passengers as the first waves came flooding inland. He was never found thereafter.

On Dec. 26 this year Lahiru was one of the dozens of mourners, relatives and just plain curious visitors who turned up at the memorial for the five-year anniversary of the tragedy.

While Lahiru’s memory was vague, that was not case for Dayawathie Perera, who survived the train tragedy but lost her daughter-in-law of one month and the girl’s mother. "It was terrible, terrible," she recalled of the horror. She was travelling with her son, his new wife and her mother when the first wave came. "He (her son) kept calling everyone and telling them of the waves, and then the big one came."

Perera was saved by a monk from a nearby temple, who found her stuck under four other bodies. "He had seen my fingers move," she recounts to IPS. Her son, who finally discovered his young wife’s body, put it in the mass grave with his own hands. "He refuses to come here; he says it is too hard." There was no massive crowd at the memorial. The country did observe two minutes of silence at precisely the same time the tragedy ravaged this coastal village.

Along the coast, there were small ceremonies. Mourners in small groups gathered at the grave sites or where they last saw their loved ones and held prayers. White flags dotted small graves as candles flickered against the wind. Those travelling along the southern coast stopped at the giant Buddha statue – a replica of the one destroyed in Bamiyan, Afghanistan – and paid homage to it before continuing their journey.

In the east, in Kalmunai, which suffered the worst damage, small commemoration events were held on the beach. As a whole, the commemoration of the worst natural tragedy to hit the island since known records were kept was a private affair.

"People have forgotten about what happened, people have moved on," says Ajantha Samarwickrema, who shot footage of the waves crashing into Galle town, just south of Peraliya.

The Asian tsunami that affected the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean left a terrible imprint on the country, already battered by a long-running civil war then. Over 35,000 were killed, at least 100,000 houses left in need of repair or reconstruction, a million displaced and a reconstruction bill of 3.2 billion U.S. dollars.

Vimasa Madumali was five when the tsunami hit her village Thudawa, in Matara about 150 km south of Colombo. Her family has got a new house and her father has returned to fishing, with help from donors and governments that provided fishing gear to replace those washed away by the waves.

"We are happy here, we got help and we can live in peace," she tells IPS. The family has moved inland from the coast.

It is the same with Rasheena Umma a young woman, now living at the French Friendship village in Kalmunai, on the eastern coast, 300 km from Colombo. Her former house was located right next to the coast and not a single wall was left standing. "It is a miracle we are alive," she says.

The new house built, with funds from France, is about 2 km from the coast, and Umma is relieved. "We got something; it may be not a lot, but we can go on living. That is better than getting killed."

There is some discontent on the beach, particularly among over 1,300 families in Kalmunai that are still waiting for houses. Others grumble over the quality of the assistance they got.

Transparency International stated over the weekend that at least 470 million dollars out of a total of one billion dollars disbursed for reconstruction efforts by March 2007 had gone unaccounted for.

"There is no precise evidence to explain the missing sum of 471 million dollars. Some government officials rejected the fact of such a missing amount, though they have failed to give any explanation about the figures produced," added the Berlin-based anti-corruption body.

One such alleged mismanagement involved Hungama, a tsunami housing project in the Hambantota District, 300 km south of Colombo, built with public donations from Hungary. Here the houses were so badly constructed that they started to lose rafters, beams and windows even before the first occupants walked in in late 2005. Now the houses have been assigned to civil servants, whose official quarters were lost in the tsunami. Others have settled in after carrying out extensive repairs on their own.

"The houses were not liveable; we had to do a lot of repairs," says Charles Rathnayake. But even he is happy now. My wife was saved at the last moment. If I had not grabbed her, she would not be here. It is much more than getting a house," Rathnayake says.

The destruction left by the waves was so massive and omnipresent that many people find it hard to forget. Along the beach there are still hulls of boats, buildings washed apart by the gushing waters, which stand like silent reminders.

For those like Perera, forgetting the dead will never be easy. Hers is a gnawing pain that has endured for five years and will endure even longer.

"She (her daughter-in-law) was on the phone with my daughter when the waves came. My daughter heard her scream. That was the last anyone heard from her," she says. "How can you forget that?"

Still others try to forget to tragedy that befell them five years ago. "We have to move on. We can’t linger in the past," says Rathnanayke. "I think it is high time that we spoke of the living rather than the dead."

(END/2009)





http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49804


SRI LANKA: Five Years after Tsunami, Many Still without Shelter
By Amantha Perera

Children of families displaced by the 2004 Asian tsunami stand inside their tin-roofed shelter in the coastal town of Kalmunai.

Credit:Amantha Perera/IPS

KALMUNAI, Sri Lanka, Dec 23 (IPS) - "We have been here for almost five years. So many promises have been made, but very few have been kept," complains Mohideen Nafia, 22, one of the survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami still living in a temporary facility in the coastal town of Kalmunai, located 300 kilometres east of the capital, Colombo.

Newly married Nafia would have preferred a house of her own with her husband. But at the moment she has to make do with what amounts to a shelter, a one-room unit in a government-provided disaster camp, which the couple shares with Nafia’s family of five and is located about a one kilometre from the beach.

Nafia hails from the Sainathimaruthu village in Kalmunai, a major domestic fishing hub that bore the brunt of what has been touted as one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Three of its villages facing the sea – Maradamunai, Sainathimaruthu and Karathivu – suffered the heaviest damage at the time of the tsunami.

When the Asian tsunami, triggered by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake, hit the coasts of countries bordering the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26, 2004, hundreds of thousands of people across Asia were washed away at sea.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross some 226,000 people in 13 countries were killed in the aftermath of the tsunami. One of the hardest hit was Sri Lanka, along with India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

In the South Asian island state more than 35,000 people died, over one million were displaced, and some 100,000 houses were either damaged or destroyed by the tsunami.

At least one-third of the deaths, or some 10,000, were reported from the Ampara district that comprises Kalmunai, according to official government data. In the same district, approximately 27,000 houses were destroyed by the tsunami, the bulk of which was in Kalmunai. Villagers estimate that some 8,500 lives were lost in the densely packed beach at the height of the disaster.

Overall, the unprecedented disaster left a reconstruction bill of 330 billion rupees (3.2 billion U.S. dollars). The reconstruction effort was spearheaded by a government agency set up soon after the tsunami and which received the support of dozens of United Nations and other international agencies.

Sri Lanka’s Reconstruction and Development Agency has since wound down as has the massive reconstruction effort. Still many are without homes they could call their own.

"Getting land for the new houses has been a big problem; we have to first locate the land. If it is privately owned, (we) buy it," says Ismail Thawfiek, the additional government agent for Sainathimaruthu village in Kalmunai, where Nafia hails from.

Most of the available lands are paddy or rice fields, which he says puts more pressure on otherwise limited public funds, as they need to be filled. "The biggest delay (in rebuilding the affected houses) has been in finding land and preparing it so that we can build the houses," Thawfiek says.

The lack of land has been exacerbated by the government’s imposition of the no-build buffer zone along the Kalmunai coast. The then Sri Lankan government initially imposed a limit of 200 metres from the sea soon after the tragedy. Owing to pressure from the homeless survivors, it was later reduced to 65 m at Kalmunai and 100 m elsewhere in the tsunami-affected parts of the country, according to government officials

With just three days away from the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Asian tsunami, some 1,300 families, including Nafia’s, are still waiting for their houses to be built, since the government imposed a no-construction buffer zone along the beach soon after the tsunami.

"Even after five years since the tsunami, there are still problems, there are still issues," admits Thawfiek.

Nafia’s grief is understandable. The sense of despair gripping her is matched only by her deplorable living conditions. Tin roofs are rusting, dirty water stagnates near the front door step and large pools of rainwater and garbage rot behind the tents. Chickens raised by families roam the compound, where small children play marbles.

"Look at this," Nafia says, as she points to her squalid surroundings. It is "like living in hell. When it rains, it is all water, if it does not, it is all flies," she says while waving her hands to chase away the flies.

She adds that none of the international relief agencies that poured aid into the tsunami-hit areas like Kalmunai helped her build her house while others are still waiting for government promises to be fulfilled, notably the reconstruction of their tsunami-destroyed homes. "The life we knew before the tsunami is like a dream. I don’t know why this happened to us."

"We will give them houses very soon next year," Thawfiek assures, arguing that the construction of new houses is moving according to plan once land has been located. At least 5,000 houses damaged by the tsunami in Kalmunai have either been reconstructed or repaired.

To date, there are at least 13 disaster camps – with at least 1,000 shelters out of an original 18,000 in the Ampara district – still spread through the coastal town while hundreds more that were displaced by the tsunami are still living with relatives.

Quite apart from Nafia’s complaint, the Kalmunai beach appears to have returned to what it was before the deadly tsunami waves left a path of destruction. It is now is a hive of activity – fishermen tend to their nets on the beach while others attend to the large multi-day trawlers anchored just offshore.

"We have returned to what (our lives were) before the waves struck, maybe even better," says Mohideen Ajimal, one of the first fish wholesalers to return to the beach after the tsunami. Ajimal lost an infant son and a daughter to the disaster.

Pointing to the large boat repair yard that has been erected near his business premises, he says that it would never have been built if there was reconstruction effort after the tsunami. "We lost so much, but life has to go on, and it is better if life goes on better than before," he tells IPS.

Next to the new fishermen’s society building is a tall red tower with loud-hailers pointing in all directions to warn the residents of any tsunami threat. "That helps too," says Ajimal as his eyes darted toward the tower.

Among the houses that have been rebuilt since the 2004 tsunami disaster are swanky new structures, painted in bright colours that stand out amid the dull sun-baked cement facades of others. They have been rebuilt by owners who could afford to finance them. New schools have also been constructed, replacing the damaged ones.

Yet, there are still remnants of the huge Asian tsunami waves’ deadly foray inland in this predominantly Muslim town. In place of wall-to-wall houses that used to stand next to the beach before the tsunami struck are large, empty sandy patches. Wooden poles sticking out of mounds mark off the spots where thousands were buried.

On the side of the road that runs alongside the beach are the occasional houses or fishing huts that have been deserted by owners after the tsunami. They are bereft of roofs and window frames, having been washed away, decayed or carted away by thieves. Here goats seek shelter when the sun is too hot.

"We had a good house near the sea, but I lost two children and I don’t want to go back," says Abdul Mannas, who has since moved to a new housing site about two km from the sea.

But at least the 35-year-old father of three is happy. He now lives in a new housing complex just outside Kalmunai town. "This house is smaller (than I had expected), but we are happier," he says. "We can build two-story houses or extensions if we want to." The houses at the French Friendship Village, where he lives, were built with the support of the French government.

Mannas says the he and others gladly vacated the protective zone. "It is death zone on the coast," he says. "I don’t want to live there."

But for those living in small tin-roofed sheds like Nafia, where three or so families share the dimly lit units in the camp near the Jumma Mosque, the nightmare never ends, not since the tsunami struck the Indian Ocean. "We have waited long enough; five years is a long time," she rues.

(END/2009)