The ‘Young Leaders International Peace Day Programme 2008’ organized by the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) in collaboration with Sri Lanka National Commission for UNESCO and the Business for Peace Alliance (BPA) on 22nd September saw a group of diverse enterprising school children interacting and working together in a bid to exchange ideas on peace. Seven Colombo Schools including the five host schools for the ‘Learn and Lead’ scholarship recipients namely  St Thomas College Mt Lavinia , Ladies College, Holy Family Bambalapitiya, Methodist college and St Benedicts Kotahena as well as Bishop’s College and St. Bridget’s College participated in the program.

Today, as fighting rages in the North and terror is visited upon the South, it isn’t easy for us to reflect on the future of our country.  Horrors that we all so dearly wish to avoid literally surround us.  Politicians are targeted in suicide attacks, while ordinary people are conscripted to defend those responsible for the bombings who care nothing about the deaths of others as they reject the idea of compromise in favour of prolonging the doomed struggle for Eelam.  Nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that there will ultimately be peace, and every step we take in that direction must be valued.

Galle played host to a team of young cricketers from the East recently. The Peace Secretariat organised a friendly match between the visitors and their Southern counterparts to mark the International Day of Peace on September 21st. It was a symbolic event, but the experiences related here demonstrate its worth both in and of itself and as a model for peace-building activities with youth in the future. Sport really does bring people together.

An unholy trinity of international NGOs saw fit to dish out yet another helping of their standard but totally unnecessary advice the other day. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group issued a joint statement urging the leaders of various other countries and the heads of multilateral institutions to press the Government to take account of some potential dangers ahead in the Vanni. As is becoming the norm for that clique of international NGOs, it presented a rather inaccurate assessment of the current situation and a completely exaggerated vision of what is likely to happen in the future.

Jaffna Hindu College was established in 1890 when the Hindu revival movement was being led by Srila Shri Arumuga Navalar in the North and East. The Hindu Colleges all over the North and East as well as in the Hill Country were coordinated by Hindu Boards of Management with the financial assistance of well wishers from the community such as Pasupathy Chettiyar, Sitharampillai, Nagalingam, Chellappapillai, Casipillai, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan and the like.

a) As noted later in the article, the manner in which the TNA got so many seats in the North and East was explained to Isolda Agazzi during the telephone interview, and that monitors, including the European Union ones, had pointed out how flawed the election in those areas was. The manner in which Eastern representation was particularly flawed was also pointed out, and how the citizens of the East had to some extent compensated for that in electing as Mayoress of Batticaloa the daughter of an Eastern Province politician killed by the LTTE, though he had been on the TNA slate, to be replaced by someone they could control.

A visit by young cricketers from the East to the South is the main item in the Peace Secretariat celebration of International Peace Day on September 21st 2008.

Following the liberation of the East last year, much effort has gone into political and economic development. The election of a Provincial Council in which both the government and the opposition are mult-ethnic, unlike in the past, and the new investment that has flowed into the area are a harbinger of the pluralistic prosperity the East can soon enjoy.

Statement made on behalf of Sri Lanka by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, during the Interactive Dialogue on the Report of the High-Level Fact Finding Mission to Beit Hanoun

Sri Lanka welcomes the report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Beit Hanoun and the presentation of Archbishop Tutu. The Mission appreciated the need for thorough investigation before pronouncing on so worrying a situation, and we are sorry that Israel did not feel itself able to cooperate with the Mission. The terrible suffering of the Palestinian people over so many decades is an issue that has worried the world, and we believe Israel, set up through the United Nations, and legitimately concerned about terrorist threats to its existence, should make it clear through cooperation with the United Nations that it subscribes to international norms and law, in its efforts at self defence.

In the plethora of allegations being flung against the Sri Lankan government with regard to what is claimed to be a humanitarian crisis in the Wanni, Jehan Perera’s most recent essay may serve as an object lesson as to how the discussion has been so sadly affected by prejudice. I have long believed that, unlike many who assume the government is necessarily bad, Jehan tries to be balanced. Unfortunately he fails because he begins with preconceptions without considering the facts.

Sri Lanka is deeply touched by the concern expressed by countries of the European Union for the human rights situation in some countries in Asia and Africa. We hope that, with advances in globalization, such concern will soon be universal. As others here have pointed out, the moral stature this Council should command requires consistency. Though we know this is not easy, we hope all of us will strive to achieve it in time.

It took no great foresight to anticipate that, when the Sri Lankan forces began operations to liberate the North of Sri Lanka from the LTTE, as they had done the East in late 2006 and 2007, their opponents would launch an avalanche of complaints. Over the last month they have claimed that there is a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of displaced persons suffering without food or shelter or medicine. The fact that all the evidence they cited, from officials on the ground, Sri Lankan or UN, referred only to future problems, whilst saying that the existing situation was under control, was ignored, with headlines often totally contradicting the substance of the report.

The Peace Secretariat welcomes the statement by the Defence Minister of India regarding concerns about civilians in the North. Recently, in an interview with the BBC, the question was put as to whether the comments of NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with the position of the Indian government, suggested that the Sri Lankan government was being isolated.

Over the last month Amnesty International has issued a number of statements about Sri Lanka. Its latest is entitled ‘Blocking Aid Workers Endangers Trapped Civilians’, and is replete with quotes from a gentleman named Sam Zarifi, who has taken the place of the previously ubiquitous Yolanda Foster.

Sri Lanka is grateful to the experts who have presented the three reports under discussion which deal with important aspects of human rights. Sri Lanka had not initially intended to intervene, but the request of the independent expert on human rights and international solidarity for suggestions as to areas of concern coincided with a recent initiative of the Secretary General in New York, which perhaps needs further elaboration.