Sri Lanka: No Justice in Massacre of Aid Workers

Five Years On, Government Unwilling to Prosecute Soldiers, Police

August 3, 2011

• A member of the French aid group Action Contre La Faim places a wreath in front of the photographs of his 17 slain colleagues at their memorial in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka on August 11, 2006
  © 2006 Reuters

On the fifth anniversary of the murder of 17 aid workers, the Sri Lankan government is no closer to prosecuting those responsible. The Rajapaksa government is not just unwilling to uncover the truth, it appears afraid of the truth.

James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch 

(New York) – The Sri Lankan government’s failure to bring to justice those responsible for the execution-style slaying of 17 aid workers five years ago highlights a broader lack of will to prosecute soldiers and police for rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Despite strong evidence of involvement by the security forces in the killings, government inquiries have languished and no one has been arrested for the crime.

On August 4, 2006, gunmen murdered the 17 Sri Lankan aid workers – 16 ethnic Tamils and one Muslim – with the Paris-based international humanitarian agency Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger, ACF) in their office compound in the town of Mutur, Trincomalee district. The killings followed a battle between Sri Lankan government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for control of the town.                                More    
================================

Sri Lanka and peace

 2011-08-01 

Can Rajapaksa take lesson from Emperor Ashoka?

PROF. BIRENDRA P MISHRA
The local elections in Sri Lanka have proved to be the litmus test for President Mahinda Rajapaksa with a clear message to him that military action can give him some relief, but cannot provide lasting solution to the political demands made by the Tamil community since several decades.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which represents the ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka, was previously controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an outfit demanding a separate Eelam (state) for the Tamils, has succeeded in winning 15 out of 20 local Councils in the previous northern war zone and three out of six in the east. The territory was under the control of LTTE, till the end of Elam war IV led by General Sarath Fonseka in May 2009.

For the people of North Sri Lanka, this is their first election in over two and a half decades since the LTTE took control of that part of the country. With regard to the elections, it is said that had the army not interfered, the percentage of voting could have been much higher as the TNA could have captured more councils. While raising the issue of free and fair election, the leader of the Opposition in Parliament Ranil Wickresinghe, who belong to the United National Party Alliance (UNP), said in Parliament, “the events of the last few weeks have shown the inability of the police to enquire into the complains of elections. The election laws are in the breach. There are daily complaints regarding intimidations and abuse of government machinery. 

Full Story>>>