RACISM & NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS | NEWS/COMMENTARY

Lasantha Wickrematunge lies in state during his funeral ceremony in Colombo

* * * * *

12 July 2010

Source: Guardian | Comment Is Free

Local journalists who speak out against human rights abuses fear for their lives and the world press turns a blind eye

It is now over a year since the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, claimed victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But war is still being waged on the “paradise island” – by the government, against the country’s journalists.

Last week alone saw one media outlet receive a threatening letter and the head of another charged with fraud by the supreme court after publishing stories critical of the government. And two international NGO workers involved in protecting journalists had their visas revoked.

The situation has been deteriorating for some time. According to Amnesty International at least 14 media workers have been killed in the country since 2006 and more than 20 are thought to have fled – more per capita than have left Iran. Arbitrary arrests, abductions and assassinations have been documented for over three decades. No one has ever been prosecuted for these attacks on the media.

In January last year, as the Sri Lankan army closed in on the last remaining pockets of resistance held by the LTTE, the government imposed a media blackout on the war zone. (It also denied humanitarian access to civilians trapped by the fighting and, like the rebels, displayed callous contempt for civilian life.)

Away from the killing fields, the local media suffered a sharp spike in attacks. Just days after independent broadcaster MTV was raided by gunmen, Lasantha Wickrematunge – editor of the Sunday Leader and prominent government critic – was assassinated in broad daylight in a high-security zone regularly patrolled by the army.

The end of the war has changed nothing. Phones are tapped. Emails hacked. Media outlets harassed and journalists threatened. One – Prageeth Eknaligoda – has been (more…)

Security personnel with the body of a suspected female Maoist after the June 16 encounter in the Ranjha forests near Lalgarh

* * * * *

Source: Outlook Magazine

5 July 2010

If the security forces can treat dead women like hunting trophies, not only trussing their bodies to poles, but taking pride in displaying their kill, is it surprising that their behaviour towards the living is so atrocious? After every deadly attack by the Maoists, ‘civil society actors’ are summoned by TV channels to condemn the incident, substituting moral indignation for news analysis. And yet, the same media is strangely silent on police or paramilitary atrocities against civilians. On June 9, The Hindu published stories of rapes in and around Chintalnar in Dantewada by special police officers (SPOs) of the Chhattisgarh government. To my knowledge, no one’s asked P. Chidambaram, Raman Singh or the Chhattisgarh DGP to condemn these incidents or even asked what they are going to do about it. These are people in positions of power, who are elected or paid to uphold the Constitution, and the ‘buck stops with them’, not with ordinary citizens.

If channels can run all-day programmes on justice for Ruchika Girhotra, why not for the adivasi girls who were raped and assaulted in and around Chintalnar between May 26-28? Is it because they are not middle class and their plight will not raise TRP ratings? Or because they are considered ‘collateral damage’ in the war between “India” and the “Maoists”—who, not being part of “India”, are presumably from outer space—that TV commentators advocate?

While rape is often described as a weapon of war, it is not uniformly practised, and indeed nothing distinguishes the two parties in a guerrilla war more than their attitude to rape. In her careful analysis of sexual violence during civil war, the political scientist Elizabeth Woods points out that while it was common in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, sexual assault was less frequent in El Salvador, Sri Lanka and Peru. In the latter cases, the vast majority of rapes were committed by the government or paramilitaries, this also being a primary reason why women were motivated to join the insurgents. The rebel armies (more…)

June 2010

Source: Liberation (CPI-ML)

India is still a predominantly rural and agrarian society. Apart from feeding the entire country, agriculture also remains the main source of livelihood for the majority of Indian population. Yet agriculture continues to suffer the most from all that is backward and unjust in our country, be it the prevalence of ugly remnants of feudalism or lack of access to modern means of production or the shallowness of democracy and justice in our political system. Every government in India is elected primarily on the basis of rural votes, especially votes cast by poor and middle peasants, yet agriculture remains the most neglected sector of the national economy, and the poor and middle peasants remain effectively excluded from all official policies and priorities.

Thanks to systematic neglect and adverse policies, today Indian agriculture is trapped in a deep and protracted crisis. For the overwhelming majority of poor and small peasants, it is a question of survival, and for imperialist global capital and big corporations, it is an opportunity to appropriate and exploit India’s rich natural and human resources – fertile land, abundant water, resource-rich forests, productive yet cheap labour and a potentially huge rural market. Saving Indian agriculture and the laboring peasantry from this crisis and imperialist offensive is the need of the hour.

The key to any real democratization and modernization of India lies in a thoroughgoing democratization and modernization of all that is associated with Indian agriculture. This calls for a veritable agrarian revolution, which alone can lead us to a prosperous and progressive people’s India. The All India Kisan Mahasabha, being formed through a national peasant conference in Patna on May 10, 2010, will contribute all it can in every possible way to reach this goal for which thousands of peasant fighters have laid down their lives in the course of a whole series of glorious peasant revolts and militant peasant movements since colonial times.

May 10, 1857 marked the beginning of India’s first great war of independence, in which millions of small peasants and artisans had joined hands with Indian soldiers of predominantly peasant origin. To cherish this great heritage, the AIKM resolves to observe May 10 every year as the Indian Peasants’ Day.

Cardinal Principles of the AIKM

The AIKM will fight relentlessly for complete elimination of every aspect of landlordism and freeing Indian agriculture from all kinds of feudal vestiges. Simultaneously, the AIKM will also resist every form of (more…)

* * * * *

Citizens for Peace
in collaboration with
Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
Gateway House and Tata Institute of Social Sciences
organized a discussion on

INSURGENCY AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY : CHALLENGES OF BUILDING A SHARED PROSPERITY

12 November 2009

* * * * *

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 June 2010, 00:02 GMT]
Professor Francis A. Boyle, an expert in international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, said that an independent state of Tamil eelam south of the Indian border will add to India’s security, and therefore, India should actively intervene in the Tamil struggle and facilitate the formation of Tamil eelam. Boyle was talking to the popular Tamil Nadu Tamil biweekly magazine Junior Vikatan in an exclusive interview given to the magazine’s US correspondent Prakash M Swamy early part of May.

Text of the translation of the interview published in Vikatan follows (Note: original interview to Vikatan was in English):

Vikatan: One year has passed since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Do you think birth of Tamil Eelam is still a possibility?

Boyle: Faith propels life; in recent times, terrorism label was stamped on those who led and supported Tamil eelam struggle. Now, since Tiger leadership has disappeared, Rajapakse is on his mission to destroy the Tamil people. Sri Lanka has no respect for any international law. India [as a regional super-power] has (more…)

* * * * *

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 June 2010, 05:11 GMT]

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are hastily destroying hundreds of human skeletal remains that lies in the weed overgrown bunkers where the Vanni civilians had crept into to save their lives when SLA moved into Vanni in its final offensives on Vanni, a representative of an International NGO who recently visited places not permitted for resettlement in Vanni told TamilNet. Meanwhile, a priest, an eyewitness to the massacre, recalled how the advancing SLA soldiers had thrown grenades into the bunkers and how SLA tanks had dumped them with earth even with people alive in them.

The NGO official who recently visited areas from Puthukkudiyiruppu to Puthu Maaththa’lan where the people of Vanni were driven into during the last phase of the war added that human skeletal remains are visible in the former bunkers as torrential rain had washed away the upper layers of earth.

He added that he saw SLA soldiers hastily trying to obliterate all such evidence of the thousands of Vanni civilians killed indiscriminately in the very bunkers they had sought safety to their lives.

The priest recalled how the advancing SLA troops into Mu’l’livaaikkaal on 18 and 19 May 2009 had fired rocket launchers and lobbed grenades into the bunkers where thousands of civilians with their families had desperately tried to stay alive.

The SLA soldiers, on orders from their superiors, are actively destroying whatever evidence of the massacre of Vanni that remains in the places where resettlement is yet to be permitted.

A current Vice Premier and prominent leader of the Peoples Republic of China, Zhang Dejiang, arrived in Sri Lanka Thursday night on an official three-day visit from 10-12 June 2010.

* * * * *

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 June 2010, 19:32 GMT]
The governments of Sri Lanka and China Friday signed six agreements to enhance the co-operation in the spheres of technology, industry, information technology and construction, according to the officials of Mahinda Rajapaksa government in Colombo. Acting Ports and Aviation Minister Rohitha Abeygunawardena and Chinese Transport Minister Lin Shenjin signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development of maritime ports. The second phase of the Hambantota Port will commence under this agreement and the Chinese Government will provide a loan of US $600m which is payable within 20 years, the sources further said.

A certificate of donation by ZTE Corporation of China was also presented to Hambantota District Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa by ZTE Corporation Chairman Hou Weei. This grant of US $500,000 would be utilized for the (more…)

* * * * *

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 June 2010, 04:30 GMT]
Disappearances, sexual abuse and extortion by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Vanni where people have been allowed to resettle have increased and the victims are helpless as there are no authorities to complain against the violence except to the SLA in Vanni, a government officer in Vanni said. Meanwhile, SLA earmarks properties with ‘Reserved for SLA’ notice boards and the owners of the marked properties have to pay large sums of money to claim their properties back, a worker of an NGO in Vanni said.

Payments to the bank accounts of the resettled people have to go through SLA authorities in Vanni and the money extorted from people whose properties had been reserved for SLA passes easily into the hands of SLA men and it is said that millions of rupees had been paid in this manner in the last two weeks alone.

Buildings and houses earlier used or owned by Liberation Tigers are particularly targeted in this widespread (more…)