tw news-features

People struggling to survive violence, forced displacement, and disease in the Central African Republic (CAR), Somalia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere often went underreported in the news this year and much of the past decade, according to the 10th annual list of the “Top Ten” Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories, released today by the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

The 2007 list also highlights the plight of people living through other forgotten crises, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and Chechnya, where the displacement by war of millions continues. It also focuses on the ongoing toll of medical catastrophes like tuberculosis (TB) and childhood malnutrition.

“Certainly, many members of the press go to great lengths to report on what is taking place in conflict zones around the world,” said Nicolas de Torrenté, executive director of MSF-USA. “But millions of people trapped in war, forced from their homes, and lacking the most basic medical care, do not receive attention commensurate with their plight.”

MSF began producing the “Top Ten” list in 1998 when a devastating famine in southern Sudan went largely unreported in the U.S. media. Drawing on MSF’s emergency medical work, the list seeks to generate greater awareness of the magnitude and severity of crises that are not always reflected in media accounts. Often, media attention is critical for generating and improving responses.

Childhood malnutrition is an example. Increasing coverage of effective methods to treat malnourished children with nutrient rich ready-to-use foods is generating a growing awareness of the need for changes in international food aid policies.

The DRC and Colombia, both wracked by ongoing civil conflict and massive internal displacement of civilians, have dominated the list over the past decade, each appearing a total of nine times. The humanitarian consequence of war in Chechnya has appeared eight times. Somalia has appeared seven times, most recently because renewed fighting centered in Mogadishu in 2007 has killed thousands of people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, only to endure disease and extremely precarious living conditions.

According to Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the online media-tracking journal, The Tyndall Report, the countries and contexts highlighted by MSF on this year’s list accounted for just 18 minutes of coverage on the three major U.S. television networks’ nightly newscasts from January through November 2007.

This figure does not include coverage of Myanmar or tuberculosis; both generated significant media attention, but very little of it focused on the medical humanitarian aspects of either context. Chechnya, Sri Lanka and CAR — where many villages were burned to the ground in fighting between government forces and rebels and tens of thousands of people fled into inhospitable forests seeking safety—were never mentioned.

Coverage of TB was somewhat of an exception in 2007, when an Atlanta man was diagnosed with a multidrug-resistant (MDR) strain of the disease. However, increasing levels of MDR-TB globally, including extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB, and alarming rates of people with HIV/AIDS co-infected with TB, received little attention.

“Local angles of international stories can often drive coverage,” said de Torrenté. “Unfortunately, the result is that the focus is not necessarily on the most vulnerable and desperate — precisely the people whose stories deserve to be told.”

[Press Release by msf.org]

-Top ten most underreported humanitarian stories of 2007

PERELIYA, 19 December 2007 (IRIN) - The giant Buddha statue at Pereliya gazes out to sea. The noise of the waves slapping the shoreline is broken only occasionally by the sound of passing vehicles on the nearby highway.

The village, 90km south of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, has returned to its former anonymity after the 26 December 2004 tsunami when giant waves crashed ashore and the international media flowed in right behind.

A south-bound train, filled with passengers from Colombo - and scores of others who climbed aboard in a panic seeking refuge from the first huge waves - was quickly derailed, just near the Buddha. The train was flipped over repeatedly by the waves at around 9am.

The exact casualty figures from the train wreck have never been confirmed, but at least 1,500 died when the eight carriages and locomotive were tossed around like matchboxes.

The painful images of the train and the grief-stricken community were beamed repeatedly around the world. However, Pereliya’s 15 minutes of media attention has long since past.
“There is no point in talking about what happened, the waves came and went back,” R. K. Malith, who works in a coir pit making twine from coconut hemp opposite the giant Buddha, told IRIN. “We got something, others got more, now it is the past,” he said, and quickly waded away into the foetid water to collect coconut husks.

The building where the coir mill now operates was a house constructed after the tsunami with funds from two Sri Lankan expatriates, Mangala and Ruwani Rathnasinghe from Pupakara, New Zealand. No one lives in the building with its windows nailed shut and the toilet pit overflowing. Malith told IRIN the house construction was of such poor quality and the toilet pit so inadequate that the structure was never used as a home.

Disillusionment

As the massive post-tsunami reconstruction effort gradually winds down , a general sense of apathy and disillusionment pervades the aid beneficiaries along the southern coast , according to multiple interviews in the region.

Aid workers understand the frustrations. “There has been a disconnect between intended efforts and what has actually materialised,” Maria Kristensen, Donor Participation team leader for ActionAid in Sri Lanka, told IRIN. “Costs have gone up, there have been other bottlenecks, adding to difficulties in project completion,” she said.

Sri Lanka’s annual inflation rate of 17.7 percent has aggravated the situation, creating budgetary shortfalls on projects, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a report released on 10 December.

At beneficiary level, questions remain as to what happened to the massive amounts pledged. “There was so much money, but where did it go?” 17-year-old Ravi Wijesinghe from Hambantota District in the deep south, asked IRIN. “We have a house, but my father still does not have a job. He was promised one.”

No jobs

The Wijesinghes now live in a fairly large two bedroom house in Siribopura, Hamabantota District. It was donated by CARE International.

“We have a house, but my father has no job. How is he going to feed us and pay for care and repairs of our home? We have no money for such things,” he said.

Some beneficiaries just receiving relief are disappointed that it has taken so long and is insufficient. A. G. Priyarathana of Wakwella, in Galle District, told IRIN he was pleased to have received seeds, fertilizer and barbed wire from Caritas, a Catholic charity, but worried that it was not enough to cover his losses. “Even though we have recovered now,” he said, “we already lost at least one year of farming, if not more.”

Damian Arasakularatne, the head of Caritas in southern Sri Lanka, told IRIN the agency had been providing assistance to the village since the tsunami, but this was now winding down. “There are other problems that we need to look at and others who need our help.”

ActionAid’s Kristensen believes that some of the criticism is due to assistance not meeting beneficiary needs. “There have been instances where it is a supply-led operation rather than a demand led one,” she said.

Some success claimed

For its part, the Reconstruction and Development Agency (RADA), the main body that oversaw the reconstruction effort on behalf of the government, claims some success in tsunami reconstruction. RADA has now wound down most of its operations and in March 2007 released, jointly with the International Labour Organization (ILO), a survey stating that over 80 percent of the over 100,000 new houses were on track to be completed by the end of 2007 and 90 percent of the affected families had returned to earning an income two years after the tsunami.

Sugala Kumarie, coordinator of the Peoples’ Planning Commission, a Sri Lankan non-governmental body funded by ActionAid, told IRIN: “Sometimes all we hear are the frustrations of the people,” and she fears that numbers alone will not be enough to convince the angry coastal inhabitants.

“The third anniversary of the tsunami is getting closer and they feel the attention of the world is not here any more. The problem is that no one is looking at these frustrations and they are very real.”

Spare the messenger! Hands off the humanitarian worker!

During the tsunami tragedy three years ago, Sooriyakanthy Thavarajah (40), a Red Cross worker put in long hours to alleviate the suffering of those affected. He wiped the tears of many a bereaved and offered a helping hand in the hour of gloom.

For his immense contribution during this tragedy– that was marked by loss of life, limb and belongings-Thavarajah was selected as the “Best Volunteer.”

But, little did Thavarajah realise that three years later, trauma would strike his own family, as coward assassins would snuff out his very own life. Armed to the teeth, they came and abducted Thavarajah in the presence of the family, shocked to the foundations, unable to come to grips with the loss.

Not just the family, the entire civilised world is shocked that even before the Commission of Inquiry completes its probe on extrajudicial killings, including that of two Batticaloa-based Red Cross workers, another humanitarian worker is beheaded.

The two Batticaloa Red Cross workers were abducted on June 1 in broad day light at the busy Fort Railway station in the Capital Colombo, dotted by sentries.

Thavarajah’s decapitated body was later found in Kaithady, in the Jaffna peninsula, home to 40,000 government troops.

In both instances, paramilitaries are strongly suspected of doing the despicable with the security forces turning a blind eye.
This is impunity at its height.

The many and varied government spokespersons must hang their collective heads in shame. The greater the cover they proffer, the greater the summary justice executed. They may shout themselves hoarse, but the reality betrays their defence.

We are not for a moment trying to whitewash any of the victims. What we would like to say unequivocally is: Provide the evidence and try them in a court of law; punish them if they are found guilty of any law. But the principle of Innocent until Proved Guilty must be upheld. This is no banana republic the Rule of Law must be upheld.

The French journalist, Gwenlaoen Le Gouil, who won the Albert Londres award for a video report on the assassination of 17 humanitarian workers in Sri Lanka, was abducted in Somalia and a ransom of US$ 70,000 demanded for his release.

Sri Lanka earned a lot of bad press internationally for a spate of abductions for money carried out in high security zones in Colombo. Newspapers dared to expose the alleged involvement of senior security force personnel that evoked revulsions.

Media personnel who dared expose the military, paramilitaries and the terror-instilling killing Tigers of the Vanni have paid with their lives.
According to the latest report by the internationally accepted Press Emblem Campaign monitoring system, in terms of most dangerous place for journalists, Sri Lanka takes the Bronze for the third highest killings (7) and ranks next to Somalia (8). In Iraq 50 media personnel were killed this year making it the most dangerous place in the world for scribes.

The counter separatist war in the north and east has been prosecuted fiercely for decades, but never has it got so dirty where humanitarian workers and media personnel have been deliberately targeted. Fight the war, but spare the messenger and hands off the humanitarian worker!

[Editorial from theBottom Line.lk, Dec 18, 2007]

A media watchdog group said Monday that 64 journalists in 17 countries have died while covering the news in 2007 — the deadliest year in more than a decade.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in an annual report that Iraq led the list for the fifth year in a row, with 31 dead — one fewer than a year ago. Somalia was second with seven dead in 2007, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka each recorded five deaths.

Details of Sri Lankan Journalists, reported by CPJ:

SRI LANKA: 5

Subash Chandraboas, Nilam, April 16, 2007, near Vavuniya

Chandraboas, 32, editor of a small Tamil-language monthly magazine, Nilam (The Ground), was shot to death at around 7:30 p.m. near his home in the government-controlled town of Thoanikkal, near Vavuniya in ethnically Tamil Sri Lanka. His 8-year old-daughter told CPJ that the assassins spoke in Tamil and Sinhala.

“His only work was journalism,” said Sunanda Deshapriya of the Sri Lankan media rights group Free Media Movement. “There was no other reason to kill him.”

A strong individualist who owned his own printing press, Chandraboas produced Nilam almost single-handedly and was recognized for his passion for literature as well as journalism. He had also contributed to the London-based magazine Tamil World and the Colombo-based magazine Aravali on a freelance basis.

Selvarajah Rajeewarnam, Uthayan, April 29, 2007, Jaffna

Rajeewarnam, a reporter for the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, was aboard a bicycle on assignment in Jaffna when he was shot by unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen about 600 feet (180 meters) from a military checkpoint, according to Uthayan staffers.

Rajeewarnam, a Tamil, had worked for another Tamil paper, Namadu Eelanadu, which closed soon after its managing editor, Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, was killed outside his home in Jaffna in August 2006. Rajeewarnam had worked at Uthayan for about four months.

Uthayan has often been under attack. In September 2006, CPJ called on Sri Lankan authorities to fulfill their duty to protect Uthayan’s staff after receiving a telephone plea from E. Saravanapavan, the paper’s managing director, to publicize the numerous threats against his staff.

Isaivizhi Chempiyan, Voice of Tigers, November 27, 2007
Suresh Linbiyo, Voice of Tigers, November 27, 2007
T. Tharmalingam, Voice of Tigers, November 27, 2007

Three journalists for the Voice of Tigers radio station in Kilinochchi—announcer Chempiyan and technicians Linbiyo and Tharmalingam—were killed in a Sri Lankan Air Force air strike.

Fighter jets dropped a dozen bombs on the station shortly before Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was due to broadcast a statement. At least five other people were killed in the strike against the LTTE-run station, according to local media reports.

Sri Lanka: Human Rights Commission Downgraded

(New York, December 18, 2007) – The recent downgrading of Sri Lanka’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) by an international committee highlights the need for independent international monitoring of the human rights situation in the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

Recently the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights – the international body that regulates national human rights institutions – reduced Sri Lanka’s NHRC to the status of an “observer” because of government encroachment on its independence. As a result, the commission no longer has the right to vote in international meetings and is not eligible to stand for election to the international coordinating committee.

“Sri Lankan government claims that its Human Rights Commission is a strong and independent institution ring hollow,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Unfortunately, Sri Lanka lacks credible domestic institutions to address human rights violations.”

The international coordinating committee downgraded the Sri Lankan NHRC on two grounds: first, because of concerns that the appointment of its commissioners was not in compliance with Sri Lankan law, which meets international standards; and second, because of doubts that the commission’s practice was not “balanced, objective and non-political, particularly with regard to the discontinuation of follow-up to 2,000 cases of disappearances in July 2006.”

In May 2006, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa personally appointed five commissioners in violation of the Sri Lankan constitution. Article 41B of the constitution specifies that appointments to the NHRC can be made only after a recommendation from the Constitutional Council, a multi-party body established by the constitution.

The NHRC has failed to adequately address the hundreds of reported cases of new “disappearances” in Sri Lanka over the past two years. In a note dated June 29, 2006, the secretary of the commission said that it had decided to stop inquiring into these complaints “for the time being, unless special directions are received from the government.”

An internal NHRC circular dated June 20, 2007 imposed a maximum time period of three months in which complaints must be filed with the commission, even though no there is no such limitation in existing laws or regulations. More than three months after an incident, the commission will only investigate complaints at its discretion.

The need for independent monitoring of human rights has become more urgent since mid-2006, as human rights abuses against civilians escalated in line with increased fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The NHRC has been absent and inactive rather than taking a proactive role in investigating these abuses and reporting its findings, Human Rights Watch said.

Given the failure of domestic institutions to address continuing human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict in Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch again urged the Sri Lankan government to accept a United Nations field operation with a strong monitoring mandate.

“The commission’s lack of independence has reduced it to a mute witness of rising human rights abuses in Sri Lanka,” said Pearson. “To address the intensifying abuses by all sides in Sri Lanka’s war, the government should welcome a United Nations human rights monitoring mission.”

For more of Human Rights Watch’s work on Sri Lanka, please vist:

· December 2007 letter, “Human Rights Council: Urgent Action Needed to End Abuses in Sri Lanka,” at:

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/07/slanka17509.htm

· August 2007 report, “Return to War: Human Rights under Siege,” at:

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/srilanka0807/

· September 2006 backgrounder, “Improving Civilian Protection in Sri Lanka,” at:

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder /asia/srilanka0906/

Colombo based media watchdog, the Free Media Movement, on Sunday said it was disturbed to learn that officers of Criminal Investigation Division (CID) had entered the house of senior Reuters photojournalist Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi at Sarojinee Watta, Ratmalana at 11am on 11th December and questioned his wife at length about his activities in the manner that they would interrogate a suspect of a serious crime. The episode was aimed at instilling fear and anxiety in the mind of not just Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi but all journalists who investigate and report on the conflict in Sri Lanka, the FMM said. “The intimidation of journalists into silence is the mark of a totalitarian regime, the emergence of which in the South is cause for deep concern.”

Full text of the press release issued by the FMM follows:

In the guise of telephone repairmen, Police enter photojournalist’s residence

16th December 2007, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Free Media Movement (FMM) is disturbed to learn that officers of Criminal Investigation Division (CID) visited the residence of senior Reuters photojournalist Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi at Sarojinee Watta, Ratmalana at 11am on 11th December and questioned his wife. Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi was away covering a cricket match in Colombo. Disguised as telephone repairmen from the State telecoms provider Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), they had questioned his wife at length about his activities in the manner that they would interrogate a suspect of a serious crime.

Saying that they were from SLT, the CID personnel had first inquired Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi’s full name from the gate and then insisted that they check his phone (landline) as they had a list of contacts in the North and East to whom they wished to ascertain whether calls had been made. No ID was shown. When they were informed that Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi worked at Reuters they pretended to not know about it. Probing questions were asked on the details of Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi’s family, his wife’s family and his parent’s family. We are informed that their chief interest was in how often and how recently Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi visited the embattled North and East of Sri Lanka. At the end of this de facto interrogation, one of them had shown their CID ID card and left.

The FMM finds this incredible behaviour of the CID yet another marker of the culture of impunity and lawlessness that State authorities act under to quell media freedom. The CID knew full well that Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi was not at home. Their questioning was meaningless and should they wished to know details of his work and travel, Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi is easily contactable.

We can only interpret this chilling behaviour of the CID to be directly aimed at instilling fear and anxiety in the mind of not just Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi but all journalists who investigate and report on the conflict in Sri Lanka in a manner that does not toe the line of official propaganda. We are also disturbed to note that Mr. Lokuhapuarachchi told the FMM that he feels his telephone conversations are being tapped of late.

Sadly, the intimidation of journalists in wartime is not new in Sri Lanka. What is disturbing today is the degree to which the Government, through its tacit support of these arbitrary actions of State authorities including the Military and Police, very gravely undermines media freedom and the freedom of expression.

The intimidation of journalists into silence is the mark of a totalitarian regime, the emergence of which in the South is cause for deep concern. The FMM deplores this incident and urgently calls upon the Government to respect the right of journalists to independently, accurately and impartially carry out their duties.

We also request the Government to make clear guidelines on questioning journalists in a manner that does not contravene their fundamental rights.