Sri Lankan government officials are running a prostitution racket using Tamil women interned in at least one of the militarised camps for displaced people, The Australian newspaper reported Thursday. "It's been brought to the attention of senior government officials but no one seems to be doing anything about it," an aid worker, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, told the paper. In response to the accusations, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Palitha Kohona told the paper: "These (the military) are the guys who were winning the war - they could have raped every single woman on the way if they wanted to. Not one single woman was raped." [ full story | comments ]

When President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka declared victory over the Tamil Tigers in May, he reached out to the Tamil minority that the defeated rebels had claimed to represent over 26 years of civil war. Speaking in Tamil, as well as his native Sinhalese, he told Parliament in Colombo that the war against the Tigers was not a war against the Tamil people, and declared that everyone in Sri Lanka should live with equal rights. Since then, however, he has done little to convince Sri Lanka’s three million Tamils — let alone the 74 million-strong diaspora — of either of those points, and has, in fact, tolerated or condoned much to persuade them that the opposite is true. [ full story | comments ]

“To say that Tamil tradition has always been all-inclusive of religions is modern Tamil national ideology projected into an invented past. It is not history of the Tamils”, writes Professor Peter Schalk, challenging the perspectives of looking at Tamil identity from the point of the use of Tamil language that simultaneously accommodated various religions in its history, despite of them contradicting one another or coming and going. Responding to an article on Buddhism appeared in TamilNet, Tuesday, Prof. Schalk said that Buddhism among Tamils he objectifies is different from what the Sinhala-Buddhists are envisaging. [ full story | comments ]

All major opposition parties in Sri Lanka have heeded a government call to join its development and reconciliation effort in view of the end of the island's long drawn-out civil war, government and party officials said Thursday. "Although we have not been told of any objectives of the meeting we will attend it because it deals with the development of the country," said Tissa Attanayake, the general secretary of the main opposition United National Party (UNP). "We were given less than 24 hours notice. But it is a national issue," said Tilwin Silva, the general secretary of the third largest party JVP or the People's Liberation Front. The main Tamil party the Tamil National Alliance and the main Muslim party the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress also attended Thursday's meeting. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka's foreign currency reserves have risen by over 23 percent in two months as funds flowed into the country after the end of its long war against the Tamil Tigers, the central bank governor said on Thursday. Sri Lanka in March sought a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to avert a balance of payments crisis, after spending half its reserves defending the rupee and paying foreign investors who sold off treasury securities after the global downturn. [ full story | comments ]

The visiting Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said on Thursday that China has always been a friend to Sri Lanka and he is seeking closer bilateral ties during his five-day official visit. "China has remained a friend of Sri Lanka at times of difficulty. A friend in need is a friend indeed," said Bogollagama in an exclusive interview with Xinhua. This is Bogollagama's first visit to China as Sri Lankan foreign minister since he took office in January 2007. "The relationship (between Sri Lanka and China) has stood test of time...We value the relationship," said Bogollagama, stressing that one-China policy is always maintained by the Sri Lankan government. [ full story | comments ]

A Coalition of six US-based Human Rights Organizations in a letter to U.S. President Obama wrote: "[t]o address abuses associated with the recent fighting [in Sri Lanka's north], there is an urgent need for an independent, international commission of inquiry into many credible allegations of laws of war violations, including possible war crimes, by both sides, as well as illegitimate detentions. Mr. President, we urge you to publicly call for an international commission of inquiry and to take necessary steps to achieve it. We also urge you to take steps for the full protection of internally displaced persons, including independent access to camps, former areas of conflict and to conflict-affected civilians by humanitarian and human rights organizations and the media." [ full story | comments ]

After more than a week of silence by the UN about two of its staff members grabbed up by Sri Lanka's government, on July 1 Inner City Press again asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas about their fate. This time, Ms. Montas had an answer. The UN has "hired a lawyer who has visited" the UN staff, who are "still detained in Colombo." Video here, from Minute 21:15. The head of the UN Refugee Agency in Sri Lanka Amin Awad issued a strange statement saying in essence that the government is free to detain staff as long as procedures are followed. But despite top UN humanitarian John Holmes' statement that unlike international staff, national staff members of the UN are not immune, the Staff Union disagrees. [ full story | comments ]

Advocating a fresh approach to the Tamil national question in Sri Lanka in the post-LTTE era, DMK president and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi on Wednesday declared in the assembly that achieving ‘Tamil Eelam’ was no more a realistic possibility. He said Tamils should henceforth work for their livelihood rights in the island nation and struggle for equal rights, equal status for the language and devolution of powers at the regional level. [ full story | comments ]

The Sri Lankan government has revived legislation that vests the Sri Lanka Press Council, a statutory body, with broad powers to restrict the media and punish offending journalists and publishers with fines and imprisonment. The law was first enacted in 1973 by the coalition government of Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike amid a deep economic crisis and widespread social discontent. The government had just suppressed an armed uprising of rural Sinhala youth and was facing growing industrial action by the working class, including an all-island bank workers strike. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), which broke from Trotskyism in 1964, played a key role in the ruling coalition. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lankan authorities appear to be building permanent camps to house many of the 300,000 refugees from the last phase of the war with the Tamil Tiger rebels, despite promising to resettle 80 per cent of them by the end of the year. Aid workers have told The Times that permanent buildings are being erected at the Manik Farm site where the UN says that 230,000 of the refugees are being held after the Tigers’ defeat in May. The aid workers said that they were able to do humanitarian work in four of six zones at Manik Farm but were barred from two others, including the mysteriously named Zone Zero. [ full story | comments ]

A new group of eminent Tamil people in Sri Lanka has made a plea for those held in government camps to be given a timetable for their release. The group said people were yearning to be released from their confinement. The camps still house nearly 300,000 Tamils displaced in the final stages of the war which ended in May. The Group of Concerned Tamils in Sri Lanka says Tamil voices are being stilled and members of the minority were nervous of speaking out. In this, its third statement, the group says it is disturbed over persistent reports of poor living conditions and even political disappearances in the camps. [ full story | comments ]

The Sri Lankan government and its legal profession must do more to strengthen the rule of law, according to a panel of international lawyers. After a fact finding mission earlier this year, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) expressed serious concern over the threats to the justice system, legal profession and the state of media in Sri Lanka. It concluded that "attacks against human rights lawyers form part of a pattern of intimidation routinely directed against members of civil society, NGOs and journalists who are perceived to be critical of the government or its policies". [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka's stock market edged down for a fourth straight session on Thursday on worries over an IMF loan delay amid lack of foreign interest in the post-war bourse with retail profit-taking. "All investors are waiting for a clear direction on the IMF loan," said Hussain Gani, associate director at Asia Securities. "There has been a lot of speculations on the loan, but IMF has not issued any concrete statement." Sri Lanka's central bank governor, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, on Tuesday told Reuters that foreign currency reserves had risen by more than 23 percent in the last two months, and were sufficient to cover two months of imports. [ full story | comments ]

Medical college students and doctors here organised a human chain on Gandhiji Road on Wednesday appealing to the Central Government to urge Sri Lankan Government to release four Tamil doctors arrested by the Lankan police “just because they gave treatment to wounded Sri Lankan Tamils during the recent war.” The doctors in custody are Thambimuthu Sathyamurthy, Durairaja Vasantha Raja, Veerakathi Shanmugha Raja and Ilanchezhiya Pallavan. [ full story | comments ]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa told the Cabinet meeting last evening that he would not mind Canada and the European countries giving asylum to the internally displaced persons. However, the President said that he could not send IDPs to India anymore because that country was not willing to accommodate them. “Canada has pledged to accept any number of IDPs. I do not mind these countries putting up visa offices in the welfare camps to facilitate people willing to leave the country,” he said. [ full story | comments ]

In the early hours of this morning, Maria occupied the Churchill statue in Parliament Square. Surrounded by barbed wire as a symbol of the concentration camps in the Tamil area of Sri Lanka, she is highlighting the plight of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Tamil civilians who are being held in atrocious conditions in military camps. The camps break many international conventions, and there are many reports of disappearances,rapes and torture. Also, medical personnel are denied access, and international NGOs and medical organisations cannot get into the area with any aid. The Sri Lankan Government has imposed draconian restrictions on journalism, so the only news and monitoring is at grassroots level. [ full story | comments ]

Sri Lanka will recruit 50,000 personnel to increase security forces in areas captured when Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels were defeated last month, the military said. The Tamil Tigers held more than 600 square kilometers (232 square miles) of territory as well as two-thirds of the coast in the north before their last forces were routed in May, Keheliya Rambukwella, the defense spokesman, said on the Defense Ministry Web site. “Now these areas have to be maintained and administered by troops,” Rambukwella said. “We need the security forces and police to be in action to safeguard our country.” [ full story | comments ]

The Inter-Parliamentary Union is calling on the government of Sri Lanka to mount a thorough investigation of the murders of three Members of Parliament, two of them Tamils. The IPU's Human Rights Committee, which has wrapped up its latest session, has examined cases of abuse of some 300 MPs in 29 countries. The Inter-Parliamentary Union says the Sri Lankan government no longer has any reason for not investigating the murders of the Parliamentarians now that its long-running civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels is over. [ full story | comments ]

CONDITIONS for about 300,000 refugees forcibly detained in camps across Sri Lanka remain dire, with reports of a prostitution racket run by officials in a remote camp. Aid workers told The Australian yesterday officials at the internally displaced people's camp in Pulmoddai, a remote northeast region, are running the prostitution ring using women kept in the camp. The Australian understands the allegations are the subject of a joint investigation between the Sri Lankan government and an aid organisation. "It's been brought to the attention of senior government officials but no one seems to be doing anything about it," said an aid worker, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. [ full story | comments ]