tw news-features

Monsoon flooding subsides, needs under review

Eastern Sri Lanka is beginning to dry out from heavy flooding brought on by monsoon rain during much of December which at its height caused the displacement of 250,000 people, according to government officials.

Farms, infrastructure and houses have been damaged, and public health and other concerns remain, but the majority of people displaced by the floods have returned home.

“We will need assistance for the reconstruction of houses,” N. D. Hettiarachchi, director at the National Disaster Relief Services Centre, told IRIN. “At the moment we are assessing the damage. And so far there have been no reports of epidemics or threats of them breaking out, but we are keeping a close look.”

Hettiarachchi said US$350,000 was available from the government to provide immediate assistance, including the provision to the affected communities of hot meals for several days and dry rations thereafter.

The flood-hit districts include Ampara, Trincomalee Badulla, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Polonnaruwa, Ratnapura and Anuradhapura.

Longer-term concerns

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) conducted an assessment mission on 27 December and cautioned that even though the water was subsiding there were longer-term concerns. They include contaminated wells, loss of household goods and health concerns associated with water-borne diseases and snakes.

The government agent in Batticaloa indicated that the government would cover the district’s main food needs but requested support from Batticaloa-based agencies to address urgent non-food relief items, according to an OCHA situation report released on 27 December.

Batticaloa District dealt with a massive influx of internally displaced persons between March and June 2007, and some of these still in camps were displaced once again by the floods, according to Batticaloa District officials.

Most families have returned home

A break in the rains after 24 December resulted in the return of the majority of families, with only 252 individuals remaining displaced by 27 December, according to OCHA.

According to some relief agencies parts of the main access roads to Batticaloa have been damaged and so have hundreds of houses in Batticaloa and adjoining districts.

“Farms, roads, and other infrastructure have been heavily damaged, and there have been reports of one death and 3,924 fully and partially collapsed homes,” the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) said. JICA sent relief material worth 14 million yen ($120,000) to Sri Lanka last week.

Hettiarachchi said reconstruction work would only begin after damage assessments had been completed. “The water has subsided and now we are assessing the damage,” he said. [irinnews.org]

by K.Thirukumaran

In publishing the annual best ‘Photos of 2007’ of The Christian Science Monitor, the revered International Newspaper says the editors reviewed their image archives for the following, among other factors:

- Composition or content?
- Art or urgency?
- Does the image speak to the human heart?

Above all the Monitor has another important measure; does the image live up to the Monitor’s mission,

“To injure no man, but to bless all mankind”?

TamilWeek and TW News Features regularly carry photo features. Readers may find the following and the other photos of 2007 on Humanityashore.org-a pictorial portal, in similar limelight:

Pictures by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

March: Sunrise in Madampe

March: Firewood Seller in Aandaanveli, Valaichchenai

May: Kids play in the muddy water

June: “I want to become a teacher, but unable to continue my education due to displacement” said Ishwarya Yogarasa (12) of Karadiyannaru.

June: The eductaion of the children is continuously disrupted

June: Most of them say that they have lost their identity due to displacement

July: Male devotees carry the Gods on the shoulders: Udappu Festival

August: They grieved together and comforted each other

September: Bicycle stand at St. Sebastians Cathedral in Mannar

October: Sunrise, Batticaloa Lagoon

November: Sri Lanka Public Service Journalism Awards 2007

November: Police officers were kept on alert, during the protest by the journalists

December: Newspaper advertisements which appeared in the Colombo based newspapers during the season were displayed to compare the contrast in Colombo and Jaffna: Christmas hopes from Jaffna

[Courtesy: HumanityAshore.org]-[E Mail: dushi.pillai@gmail.com]

Over US$500 million in tsunami aid given to Sri Lanka has gone “missing”, an anti-corruption organisation has charged.

Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) said its investigations had revealed a gap between the amounts disbursed by foreign aid agencies and what has been spent on relief and recovery projects since the 2004 tsunami.

“The difference between the disbursed and the expended (amounts) has been a controversial issue that does not have a credible explanation,” said TISL in a statement released to mark the third anniversary of the disaster. “There is no precise evidence to explain the missing sum of Rs 53,597,253,625 [about US$535 million].”

The government, however, has consistently said its recovery programme has been a notable success. Government spokesman and Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said last week that Sri Lanka had performed better than other tsunami-stricken nations, and that there had been “an overall 80 percent success” rate.

According to figures TISL said it obtained earlier this year from the Development Assistance Database (DAD) - an official website which tracks tsunami aid inflows - donor agencies gave about $1.2 billion (having initially pledged about twice as much).

Of this approximately $1.2 billion, the amount spent on tsunami projects is Rs. 68,533,124,662 (about US$685 million), according to the DAD.

TISL said it had reason to believe that some of the funds “have been utilised by the government for other purposes”, but did not elaborate on to what these “other purposes” might have been.

Government dismisses allegations

A government official overseeing tsunami recovery dismissed the allegations: She said the figures were misleading because they were entered into the database by bilateral and multilateral agencies themselves.

“The government has no check on what figures have been entered into the database because the donors enter the figures themselves,” Shanthi Fernando, a presidential adviser on post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation affairs, told IRIN. “This is not money that the government has received directly.”

No government audit of tsunami aid

TISL said there had been no government audit of tsunami aid since an interim report issued in 2005. “Thus, the overall picture on finances is ambiguous and left for speculation,” its statement said.

However, presidential adviser Fernando said individual ministries which had undertaken tsunami projects had conducted their own financial reviews and, as such, there was no need for the government to conduct an additional review.

Among the other issues raised by TISL were political interference in the allotting of housing and allegations of corruption against village level officials which have yet to be investigated. “Large-scale reconstruction processes… need a system to receive complaints relating to corruption,” TISL said, recommending that the government establish a formal complaints procedure. [irinnews.org]

Memorials were held throughout the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held North-East areas marking the 2004 tsunami on December 26, 2007.

The following are pictures of a few of the events observing the enormous natural disaster, that was reported by Tamil news portal Puthinam.com yesterday:

These pictures are from memorials held in Vanni-Katsilai Madu, Uduththurai, Kallaru & Puthukkudiyiruppu

Many independent reports of non governmental organizations and news reports of the past few days indicated that Sri Lanka’s recovery from the devastating tsunami of December 2004 has been uneven. Rehabilitation work has been carried out and still on going in Sinhalese-dominated south, but it has suffered greatly in the war-torn North-East. Yet the deep impact of the tsumani was felt in the North-East parts of Sri Lanka.

As the military operations by Sri Lankan security forces escalated in the recent months, restrictions on physical movement of men and material is also coming along. The Government of Sri Lanka has imposed restrictions on the movement of strategic goods like fuel and building material to the areas in the North-East.

“Access to some construction sites is restricted and transportation of material difficult or impossible,” said a two-year assessment report of the International Federation of the Red Cross. World Vision had to abandon a plan to build 200 houses in Ichchilampattu in Trincomalee district because of military operations, according to news reports.

A report by news agency IANS said: “Not even 12 per cent of fully damaged houses in the north have been rebuilt, and only 26 percent in the east,” says NGO Action Aid in its report titled ‘Voice from the Field’. This is so even though 60 per cent of the damage wrought by the tsunami was in the east, especially Amparai district in the southeast.

“Racial profiling and callous treatment of a section of society is not the answer”, said The Bottom Line, in its editorial on December 26th.

Published every Wednesday in Colombo Sri Lanka, The Bottom Line in its final edition for 2007 is calling the year that ends as the “year of pain and shame” and wants to look “forward in hope that the New Year will bring glad tidings of peace and prosperity”.

Lamenting on the prevailing holiday blues due to the militaristic situation in the country, the newspaper is blaming both the LTTE and the Sri Lanka government security forces for worsening fears and security risks faced by the civilians. “The security forces have been no better in their treatment of the minority Tamils, in particular. No doubt precautionary security measures have to be taken. It is the responsibility of the state to protect all its citizens from wanton acts of destruction.”

Amidst daily reports of several rights violations of Tamils in several parts of Sri Lanka, details of ‘profiling’ related harassment and discrimination faced by Tamils in the daily walks of life in the capital Colombo and elsewhere is also emerging.

The Bottom Line in the editorial, has also pointed out that the people of North and East are constantly living in fear due to the aerial bombing missions of the Sri Lankan Air Force.

Full text of the Bottom Line Editorial:

Dismay as ethnic war ushers in 2008

The year 2007 was by far a rough one for one and all, in Sri Lanka. After four years of relative peace, the undeclared Eelam War IV, that began in 2006, intensified this year. The economy is in doldrums not just on account of the war, but also the steadily rising price of oil in the world market.

The usual hectic shopping spree in the run up to Christmas and the festive season were not observed. Instead, low key celebrations took place.

Perhaps, even the efficient preferred this kind of approach, given the country’s economic plight and the general suffering of people. Or perhaps, the security risks, given the bomb blasts ahead of the season, may have been the cause for the damper.

Bus bombs and bombs in other public places drive fear into the masses. The fear-psychosis was aggravated by the recent bomb blast in a clothe store in Nugegoda. That the LTTE had begun to resort to soft targets was easily fathomed by civilians. Unable to contain the marauding security forces, the LTTE resorted to wanton acts of mass destruction. The LTTE lived up to its terrorist epithet as the organisation that terrified the masses, not just in the capital Colombo and the South, but also in the North and East, the flash point of the war. And mind you the very masses, that LTTE claims to represent, have been subjected to duress and bondage.

The security forces have been no better in their treatment of the minority Tamils, in particular. No doubt precautionary security measures have to be taken. It is the responsibility of the state to protect all its citizens from wanton acts of destruction.

But, racial profiling and callous treatment of a section of society is not the answer. In some instances, these hapless people have escaped the terror of the LTTE, only to be enveloped in the terror of the state.

It certainly was a year of terror that instilled a fear psychosis in the masses. In the first half of the year, the LTTE deployed its light aircraft to drop bombs on important installations in the capital Colombo. Even though the people eventually overcame this fear, civilians in the North and East constantly live in trepidation when fighter bombers carry out missions, not withstanding the accuracy of the Sri Lankan Air Force.

The fierce fighting has rendered thousands homeless and the authorities, must do all they can, to speedily resettle the displaced.

As the country wrings out this year of pain and shame, deprivation and trepidation, we can only look forward in hope that the New Year will bring glad tidings of peace and prosperity.

French TV crew arrested for videoing a roadblock and detained over Christmas night

Two French journalists, Capucine Henri and cameraman C. Siomon of France 24 news channel, were detained by the Sri Lankan police Christmas night for videoing a Tamil family that was being questioned by the Sri Lankan military at a road block near Boosa detention camp in Rathgama in Galle district. Expressing serious concern on the conduct of the Sri Lankan security establishment, the Free Media Movement (FMM), a Colombo based media rights group, Tuesday said videoing a road block was not a national security issue. The FMM urged the police authorities to speed up the investigation and release the journalists in detention without further delay.

Full Text of Press Release by Free Media Movement (FMM), Colombo:

Two French journalists detained by the military over a videoing a road block was kept in police custody over Christmas night in Southern Sri Lanka. A Tamil family of 11 whom they were filming also detained by the military and kept in the police over night. The driver and the conductor of the mini bus too were detained.

This is another instance of authorities over reacting on a right to know issue, ignoring that media has right to report in a creative way on matters concerning arrested and detention. FMM does not consider videoing a road block as a national security issue and express its series concern of detaining TV crew and a whole family on a minor incident.

TV crew of female journalist Capucine Henri and cameraman C. Siomon of France 24 news channel was filming a Tamil family visiting their detained relatives on Christmas eve. They were travelling in a mini bus and on the way filmed a road block for 5 seconds and topped it military objected to filming.

The TV crew was not allowed to enter the detention centre with the family. While two of them waiting in a near by restaurant for the family to come out of the camp after visiting their relatives the crew was arrested by the military and handed them over to Rathgama police at 7.00 pm 24th December 2007.

Police officer who had watched video tape told FMM there is a scene of a road block in the video and they are being investigated by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID).

Videoing a road block is not a crime to keep whole family and two journalists over night in a police station. There are so many instances that road blocks are filmed for various purposes including news reporting. Making a film on a family is not a crime either. FMM views this as another attempt to intimidate foreign media covering conflict related issues in Sri Lanka.

FMM deplores that peoples rights including right to know are being trampled without any consideration of rule of law under the emergency regulations in Sri Lanka today. At 9.30 am 25th December the police had not yet decided whether to produce them in a court of law or not. Any person can be kept 48 hours in police detention in Sri Lanka. FMM urge police authorities to speed up the investigation and release the journalists in detention without further delay.