URU, Alm.del - 2016-17 - Bilag 288: Henvendelse af 26. september 2017 fra Women for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka

Udenrigsudvalget 2016-17
URU Alm.del Bilag 288
Offentligt

Fra:

Justice Peace [mailto:[email protected]]

Sendt:

26. september 2017 15:39

Til:

URU | Udenrigsudvalget <[email protected]>

Emne:

Sri Lanka: new government has been failing to keep its election promises

Chairman

Foreign Affairs Committee

Folketinget

Denmark

Dear Chairman

Sri Lanka: new government has been failing to keep its election promises

Please share the following with all members of the Committee and Folketinget:

1. Respected Sinhalese academics and journalists on the failure of new government to kee its

election promises:

https://www.scribd.com/document/339506415/Sri-Lanka-Failure-of-New-Government-to-Keep-

Election-Promise-to-Adopt-Good-Governance

2. Horrendous periodic attacks on Muslim businesses and mosques go on in the South

3. Occupying military in the North have political, economic, social, cultural and environmental

decisions overpowering local government bodies like the five district secretariats and their

numerous divisional secretariats (the regional government departments oblige them

unquestioningly) and even the Northern Provincial Council:

''................................................

Ultimately, permitting the military’s control over war-affected

Tamil

populations in the North will only further the cycle of conflict and will destroy any hopes of building a

truly participatory democracy and sustainable peace.''

- Civil Security Department: The Deep Militarisation of the Vanni (Report released at

UNHRC36), Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, September

2017,

http://www.adayaalam.org/2017/09/20/report-civil-security-department-the-deep-militarisation-of-

the-vanni/

4. The plan for deep militarisation was laid on 7 May 2009 even before the war ended on 18 May 2009:

Presidential Task Force(PTF) for Northern Development(read Degradation) did not have a single Tamil or

anyone from the North and the only Muslim was only one of many Ministerial Secretaries from the central

government - all the armed forces and the Police were amply represented among the 19 members of PTF:

http://www.mfa.gov.lk/index.php/en/media/news-archive/1730-presidential-task-force-on-northern-

development-

URU, Alm.del - 2016-17 - Bilag 288: Henvendelse af 26. september 2017 fra Women for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka

5. The following has been reiterated, not improved, in all what many Sinhala parliamentarians have been

SAYING in and out of parliament and what the new government has been DOING:

“Representations before

the Commission were equally loud and clear that the people of all communities are ready and willing, as

they have always been, to use this opportunity to promote reconciliation, amity and cooperation if the

political leadership from all parties on all sides of the ethnic divide, are willing and able to lead the way.

The Commission was further informed that it is possible to do this if the political leaders of all successive

Governments, including the present Government, can summon the political will and the courage to

introspect and reflect on the past failures and agree to nurture consensual decision making on issues of

national importance and do not resort to the adversarial politics of the past, that sought short term electoral

gain as against the long term national interest”.

(LLRC Report, 8.143)

............................................. By redefining the conditions of the ethno-political conflict in a no-war context,

the military defeat of the LTTE has opened a new historical space to find a durable solution to the ethno-

political conflict. Simultaneously, it has created many constraints due to 'triumphalism' and the majoritarian

mindset of the regime and its ethno-political clientele. ......................................'' - Post-war Sri Lanka: Is

Peace a Hostage of the Military Victory? Dilemmas of Reconciliation, Ethnic Cohesion and Peace-

Building

http://ices.lk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Gamini-Keerawella-book.pdf

6.The plan for

deep

militarisation was laid bare on 7 May 2009 even before the war ended on 18

May 2009 - Presidential Task Force(PTF) for Northern Develoment(read Degradation) had not a

single Tamil and the only Muslim was one of several Ministerial Secretaries and all armed forces

and Police were represented amply in the 19-member

PTF:

http://www.mfa.gov.lk/index.php/en/media/news-archive/1730-presidential-task-force-on-

northern-development-

We had been writing to the Senate Committee how PTF ad been preventing aid agents from

helping the war-ravaged - we'll remind in the next letter.

7. Sri Lanka continues to create ethnic enmity and eternal conflict through textbooks over several

decades:

https://www.scribd.com/document/333264605/UNESCO-Must-Urgently-Revise-School-

Textbooks-in-Sri-Lanka-to-Stop-Hate-mongering-and-to-Start-Peace-building

We have received no responses from Ministry of Education or from Office of National Unity and

Reconciliation for our repeated letters on the issue of hatemongering textbooks.

8. The President addressed the UNGA last week in the same way SriLanka has been addressing it

for decades: lying through their teeth.

Please help the oppressed to gain justice.

Yours sincerely

P.Selvaratnam

Women for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka

14, Tamarind Yard

London E1W 2JT