Warne forms great partnership with teenage refugee
Christine Sams
Sun-Herald July 15, 2012
HE WAS an asylum seeker on a leaking boat intercepted near Christmas Island. But now 17-year-old Jaffar Ali counts Shane Warne among his high-profile supporters, after three years living in Australia.
Warne has entered the refugee debate by voicing his support for the teenage boy whose story of survival has inspired an episode of the ABC1 series, Australian Story.
It comes after a heated debate between major political parties ended in parliamentary deadlock over how to process asylum seekers arriving on boats.
Warne agreed to record a televised introduction for the story of Jaffar because he compared the boy's harrowing experiences with the privileged life of his teenage son, Jackson. Jaffar's older brother and sister were killed by Taliban in Afghanistan before his family fled to Pakistan.
‘Meeting Jaffar Ali, who was 14 when his family sent him off alone [from Afghanistan] to try and find a safer place to live, I couldn't help but think of my own son, who had celebrated his 13th birthday just the day before,’ Warne said.
‘The contrast in those two boys' lives is huge and what Jaffar has experienced in his 17 years is very sad. But the Jaffar that stood before me was a very bright teenager who loved school and loved his cricket. We made a pact to hit a few balls together this Australian summer.’
Warne's meeting with Jaffar signifies a humanitarian touch from the famed cricketer who did not hesitate to show his support for the teenager.
Jaffar's story involves a chance meeting in an Indonesian detention centre with Melbourne barrister Jessie Taylor. She gave him her mobile phone number in case he made it to Australia.
The teenager was later picked up by authorities on a boat near Christmas Island but he never let go of the phone number. He lodged a formal application for refugee status and when he was granted permanent protection, Ms Taylor was appointed as his full-time carer and foster mother.
The episode featuring Warne airs tomorrow night on ABC1.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Best lessons come from life itself
Best lessons come from life itself
Hugh Mackay.
Sydney Morning Herald May 19, 2012
The only way to change someone's mind is to let them draw their own conclusions from personal experience, writes Hugh Mackay.
If you read this essay backwards, starting at the end, you'll unlock the secret code that reveals how Malcolm Turnbull will replace Tony Abbott as Liberal leader and how Julia Gillard will claw back popular support.
Sceptical? Of course you are. (Well, most of you.) We tend to be sceptical in the face of propositions that seem ludicrous, or that come from someone we have learnt not to trust, or that simply do not accord with our experience of how the world works.
Back in the late 1960s, many thousands of people fell for a worldwide rumour that Paul McCartney was dead and that the words ‘turn me on, dead man’ were embedded in the words of the Beatles song Revolution No.9 when played backwards. (Not sure how we were supposed play a record backwards, but never mind. Conspiracy theories do not always come with the details fully worked out.)
Most of us assumed the rumour was nuts and got on with enjoying the song, right way around. If only it were always so easy to dismiss things that sound crazy, but just might not be. Heavier-than-air flying machines, for instance.
Gullibility is an ever-present danger for us. We are obliged to take so much information on trust that we regularly have to place our faith in experts - doctors, airline pilots, nuclear physicists, plumbers, auto electricians, economists and climate scientists.
A recent ABC television program, I Can Change Your Mind About … Climate, pitted former senator and climate-change sceptic Nick Minchin against Anna Rose, co-founder and chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. They were carted around the world to meet a variety of people with a variety of barrows to push on the subject of climate change.
The protagonists set out with such strong views that anyone who knew anything about the process of attitude change naturally assumed the program would end as it began, with Nick and Anna as confident as ever of their own positions. They would not budge an inch, we thought, because all they were being subjected to was verbal attacks on their existing beliefs.
The program was brilliantly produced and directed. The location shots were magnificent. The experts wheeled up to confront our heroes were unfailingly interesting - eccentric, charming, deeply wise or patently mad, depending on your point of view.
Nothing happened, of course. Nick was Nick - urbane, avuncular, charming, plausible and utterly unflinching in his commitment to the proposition that all this so-called ''science'' was unproven and that, in any case, politics and economics would determine the ultimate outcome. Anna - passionate, earnest and offended by any signs of scepticism on this topic - was equally impressive in her immovability.
Desperate to show this had not all been a waste of everybody's time and money, the producers finally got Nick and Anna together on a deserted beach back home in Australia to determine whether either might have shifted one iota in any direction. Could there perhaps be some chink of compromise, some glimmer of possible agreement on anything?
Well, now … let's see. Of course there could! They were perfectly happy to agree on the proposition that clean and renewable energy is conceptually preferable to the burning of dirty fossil fuels that will eventually run out. They had both clearly thought this all along; it's just that no one had raised it until the end, when the camera could fade on a romanticised picture of smiling agreement.
The program was immediately followed by an episode of Q&A, with Nick and Anna both on the panel. All Nick's hardline positions were intact, as were Anna's. When someone in the audience claimed to have been impressed by the protagonists' willingness to compromise, their own looks of astonishment were eloquent.
Neither had budged at all, and each was clearly puzzled by the suggestion that they might have. Their point of agreement was just that - a point of agreement, not a matter of compromise. Along the way, each of them had learnt a great deal about the other's position, but that was merely useful intelligence to be filed under ''E'' for enemy, ready for future battles.
In other words, they did what we all do. They used the contest to shore up their defences. Argument almost always does that: if you attack someone's existing attitudes head on, they will not crumple or compromise. They will defend their position and, in the process, reinforce it.
You can see that happening every day in politics, religion, in the culture wars, and even in the petty disputes that create family friction. Argument is not about change, it's about the reinforcement of prejudice. Indeed, if you really want to convince someone to stick to their guns, attack them.
Look what happens when religious or ethnic minorities are persecuted. Do they shrug and say: ‘We're annoying people with these beliefs and practices - let's give the whole thing up.’ No, the history of persecution says that minorities thrive on it. Their religious faith or sense of ethnicity is strongly reinforced by having to be defended against persecution.
So how do people ever change their minds?
Argument is not about change, it’s about the reinforcement of prejudice.
Strangely enough, we have another TV documentary to thank for a demonstration of how you do actually change someone's mind - not by aggressive or even seductive words designed to persuade them, but by exposure to new experiences from which they can draw their own conclusions.
SBS's Go Back To Where You Came From took a group of people with openly declared hostility towards asylum seekers and subjected them to experiences (not arguments) that showed them, first hand, what it must be like to be a refugee so desperate for asylum that you would cross an ocean in a small boat, only to be imprisoned like a criminal, dehumanised and offered no prospect of early relief.
Not surprisingly, the participants were deeply moved by the experience. Their attitudes were softened and their compassion aroused. The things that had actually happened to them - not simply what someone had said to them - became part of them. And, yes, their attitudes were changed as a result.
That's the way it works for most of us, most of the time. Experience is the great mind changer, the great teacher. Our most significant attitudes and beliefs - as opposed to the top-of-the-head opinions we spout daily - are based on lessons from life itself.
That's why attitudes are so resistant to change. We know this stuff from our own experience: why should we change our minds just because someone asks us to? Another person's experience might have taught them something different from mine, but so what?
Smart advertisers know this. There's no point trying to change someone's purchasing behaviour by simply trying to change their attitudes and dispositions via advertising. You need to work directly on their experience - offer them a free sample, drop the price, change the way you distribute or display the product, run a promotion with inbuilt inducements to buy.
Advertising is still powerful, of course, or so many billions would not have been spent on it. But its power lies mainly in preaching to the converted, reinforcing the favourable attitudes of loyal customers and supporting all the marketplace measures being taken to win new customers.
So what might Julia Gillard do about the negative attitudes towards her and her government that have now taken root in the community? One thing is certain, it's a not an attitude-change challenge. Gillard herself knows, from her bruising ‘no carbon tax’ experience, how circumstances change our declared attitudes.
No doubt she meant it when she declared there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. That was her attitude. It wasn't a lie, any more than ‘I will love you forever’ is a lie when it is said by people who subsequently fall out of love.
Gillard's attitude was changed by the change in her experience: being the leader of a minority government in a hung parliament forced her (as it would have forced any leader) to modify some positions so as to achieve a workable compromise with the Greens.
It's the classic pattern: changed circumstances produce changed behaviour, and changed behaviour produces changed attitudes.
What about dramatic religious conversions that look like the product of pure persuasion? In most cases, they turn out to be the result of significant, even traumatic, changes in people's lives that have led them to seek comfort, relief or resolution. Religion's offer of salvation came at just the right time.
So back to Gillard's problem. What she must be hoping - and perhaps it's her only hope - is that, come July 1, we will respond more warmly to the government because of the change in our circumstances, courtesy of tax cuts, pension increases and other measures designed to compensate us for carbon tax-related price rises.
Whether that will be enough to shift such deeply entrenched attitudes remains to be seen, but it could happen. At the very least, our experience of the new carbon-price regime might convince us that our fears (if any) were unfounded and that the dire predictions of harsh economic consequences were mere hysteria.
And perhaps, like Nick Minchin, we'll be encouraged in our belief that, all other considerations aside, clean and renewable energy is a good idea. Higher energy prices might also lead us to the conclusion that, regardless of compensation measures on offer, we could actually reduce our energy bills if we used less energy.
‘Turn the light off when you leave the room,’ my abstemious mother used to say, but there was no behavioural incentive to back up her message so, like most kids, I regarded it as irrelevant nagging. As the price of electricity rises, perhaps turning unused lights off will seem a good idea. If we start behaving differently to save money, even our attitudes will change.
We didn't take drink-driving messages seriously until random breath testing made a direct impact on our behaviour. Then our behaviour changed and, in turn, our attitudes. It's not ‘all in the mind’, after all.
(gnihtyna eveileb ll'uoy edoc terces a si siht eveileb uoy fI)
Hugh Mackay.
Sydney Morning Herald May 19, 2012
The only way to change someone's mind is to let them draw their own conclusions from personal experience, writes Hugh Mackay.
If you read this essay backwards, starting at the end, you'll unlock the secret code that reveals how Malcolm Turnbull will replace Tony Abbott as Liberal leader and how Julia Gillard will claw back popular support.
Sceptical? Of course you are. (Well, most of you.) We tend to be sceptical in the face of propositions that seem ludicrous, or that come from someone we have learnt not to trust, or that simply do not accord with our experience of how the world works.
Back in the late 1960s, many thousands of people fell for a worldwide rumour that Paul McCartney was dead and that the words ‘turn me on, dead man’ were embedded in the words of the Beatles song Revolution No.9 when played backwards. (Not sure how we were supposed play a record backwards, but never mind. Conspiracy theories do not always come with the details fully worked out.)
Most of us assumed the rumour was nuts and got on with enjoying the song, right way around. If only it were always so easy to dismiss things that sound crazy, but just might not be. Heavier-than-air flying machines, for instance.
Gullibility is an ever-present danger for us. We are obliged to take so much information on trust that we regularly have to place our faith in experts - doctors, airline pilots, nuclear physicists, plumbers, auto electricians, economists and climate scientists.
A recent ABC television program, I Can Change Your Mind About … Climate, pitted former senator and climate-change sceptic Nick Minchin against Anna Rose, co-founder and chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. They were carted around the world to meet a variety of people with a variety of barrows to push on the subject of climate change.
The protagonists set out with such strong views that anyone who knew anything about the process of attitude change naturally assumed the program would end as it began, with Nick and Anna as confident as ever of their own positions. They would not budge an inch, we thought, because all they were being subjected to was verbal attacks on their existing beliefs.
The program was brilliantly produced and directed. The location shots were magnificent. The experts wheeled up to confront our heroes were unfailingly interesting - eccentric, charming, deeply wise or patently mad, depending on your point of view.
Nothing happened, of course. Nick was Nick - urbane, avuncular, charming, plausible and utterly unflinching in his commitment to the proposition that all this so-called ''science'' was unproven and that, in any case, politics and economics would determine the ultimate outcome. Anna - passionate, earnest and offended by any signs of scepticism on this topic - was equally impressive in her immovability.
Desperate to show this had not all been a waste of everybody's time and money, the producers finally got Nick and Anna together on a deserted beach back home in Australia to determine whether either might have shifted one iota in any direction. Could there perhaps be some chink of compromise, some glimmer of possible agreement on anything?
Well, now … let's see. Of course there could! They were perfectly happy to agree on the proposition that clean and renewable energy is conceptually preferable to the burning of dirty fossil fuels that will eventually run out. They had both clearly thought this all along; it's just that no one had raised it until the end, when the camera could fade on a romanticised picture of smiling agreement.
The program was immediately followed by an episode of Q&A, with Nick and Anna both on the panel. All Nick's hardline positions were intact, as were Anna's. When someone in the audience claimed to have been impressed by the protagonists' willingness to compromise, their own looks of astonishment were eloquent.
Neither had budged at all, and each was clearly puzzled by the suggestion that they might have. Their point of agreement was just that - a point of agreement, not a matter of compromise. Along the way, each of them had learnt a great deal about the other's position, but that was merely useful intelligence to be filed under ''E'' for enemy, ready for future battles.
In other words, they did what we all do. They used the contest to shore up their defences. Argument almost always does that: if you attack someone's existing attitudes head on, they will not crumple or compromise. They will defend their position and, in the process, reinforce it.
You can see that happening every day in politics, religion, in the culture wars, and even in the petty disputes that create family friction. Argument is not about change, it's about the reinforcement of prejudice. Indeed, if you really want to convince someone to stick to their guns, attack them.
Look what happens when religious or ethnic minorities are persecuted. Do they shrug and say: ‘We're annoying people with these beliefs and practices - let's give the whole thing up.’ No, the history of persecution says that minorities thrive on it. Their religious faith or sense of ethnicity is strongly reinforced by having to be defended against persecution.
So how do people ever change their minds?
Argument is not about change, it’s about the reinforcement of prejudice.
Strangely enough, we have another TV documentary to thank for a demonstration of how you do actually change someone's mind - not by aggressive or even seductive words designed to persuade them, but by exposure to new experiences from which they can draw their own conclusions.
SBS's Go Back To Where You Came From took a group of people with openly declared hostility towards asylum seekers and subjected them to experiences (not arguments) that showed them, first hand, what it must be like to be a refugee so desperate for asylum that you would cross an ocean in a small boat, only to be imprisoned like a criminal, dehumanised and offered no prospect of early relief.
Not surprisingly, the participants were deeply moved by the experience. Their attitudes were softened and their compassion aroused. The things that had actually happened to them - not simply what someone had said to them - became part of them. And, yes, their attitudes were changed as a result.
That's the way it works for most of us, most of the time. Experience is the great mind changer, the great teacher. Our most significant attitudes and beliefs - as opposed to the top-of-the-head opinions we spout daily - are based on lessons from life itself.
That's why attitudes are so resistant to change. We know this stuff from our own experience: why should we change our minds just because someone asks us to? Another person's experience might have taught them something different from mine, but so what?
Smart advertisers know this. There's no point trying to change someone's purchasing behaviour by simply trying to change their attitudes and dispositions via advertising. You need to work directly on their experience - offer them a free sample, drop the price, change the way you distribute or display the product, run a promotion with inbuilt inducements to buy.
Advertising is still powerful, of course, or so many billions would not have been spent on it. But its power lies mainly in preaching to the converted, reinforcing the favourable attitudes of loyal customers and supporting all the marketplace measures being taken to win new customers.
So what might Julia Gillard do about the negative attitudes towards her and her government that have now taken root in the community? One thing is certain, it's a not an attitude-change challenge. Gillard herself knows, from her bruising ‘no carbon tax’ experience, how circumstances change our declared attitudes.
No doubt she meant it when she declared there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. That was her attitude. It wasn't a lie, any more than ‘I will love you forever’ is a lie when it is said by people who subsequently fall out of love.
Gillard's attitude was changed by the change in her experience: being the leader of a minority government in a hung parliament forced her (as it would have forced any leader) to modify some positions so as to achieve a workable compromise with the Greens.
It's the classic pattern: changed circumstances produce changed behaviour, and changed behaviour produces changed attitudes.
What about dramatic religious conversions that look like the product of pure persuasion? In most cases, they turn out to be the result of significant, even traumatic, changes in people's lives that have led them to seek comfort, relief or resolution. Religion's offer of salvation came at just the right time.
So back to Gillard's problem. What she must be hoping - and perhaps it's her only hope - is that, come July 1, we will respond more warmly to the government because of the change in our circumstances, courtesy of tax cuts, pension increases and other measures designed to compensate us for carbon tax-related price rises.
Whether that will be enough to shift such deeply entrenched attitudes remains to be seen, but it could happen. At the very least, our experience of the new carbon-price regime might convince us that our fears (if any) were unfounded and that the dire predictions of harsh economic consequences were mere hysteria.
And perhaps, like Nick Minchin, we'll be encouraged in our belief that, all other considerations aside, clean and renewable energy is a good idea. Higher energy prices might also lead us to the conclusion that, regardless of compensation measures on offer, we could actually reduce our energy bills if we used less energy.
‘Turn the light off when you leave the room,’ my abstemious mother used to say, but there was no behavioural incentive to back up her message so, like most kids, I regarded it as irrelevant nagging. As the price of electricity rises, perhaps turning unused lights off will seem a good idea. If we start behaving differently to save money, even our attitudes will change.
We didn't take drink-driving messages seriously until random breath testing made a direct impact on our behaviour. Then our behaviour changed and, in turn, our attitudes. It's not ‘all in the mind’, after all.
(gnihtyna eveileb ll'uoy edoc terces a si siht eveileb uoy fI)
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Militarising Cocos Islands will be betrayal
Militarising Cocos Islands will be betrayal, says former ambassador
Hamish McDonald
Sydney Morning Herald, May 17, 2012
DEFENCE'S plans to develop the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean as a base for Australian and US spy drones and aircraft run counter to assurances Canberra has given the United Nations, one of Australia's most senior foreign policy figures has warned.
Australia promised it would not ‘militarise’ the islands when persuading key nations at the world body not to oppose the transfer of the former British possession to Australian sovereignty, the former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Richard Woolcott, said.
The recent Defence Force Posture Review suggested Defence consider upgrading the Cocos Islands airfield to support the new P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft likely to be acquired by the Royal Australian Air Force to replace its P-3C Orions.
In March, The Washington Post reported the US was looking at the islands, in the north-east quadrant of the Indian Ocean, as a base to watch over a vast sweep of Asia.
The Cocos Islands were considered an ‘ideal site’ to base not only manned US surveillance planes but also the Global Hawk, an unarmed high-altitude surveillance drone, the newspaper said. Spy flights could be launched over the South China Sea, scene of growing disputes between China and other countries with overlapping claims to marine and seabed resources.
The Australian posture review said Global Hawks could already operate from the Cocos Islands airfield, though the condition of the airfield and its limited infrastructure imposed constraints.
But Mr Woolcott recalls that when he was Australian ambassador to the UN in 1984, he gave Australia's assurances that the islands would not be converted to military purposes. ‘There was nothing from us in writing, but verbal undertakings were given,’ he said yesterday.
The former chief diplomat writes in the Herald today of his feelings of ‘guilt’ at the way two ‘crumbs from the British Empire's table’ that fell to Australia during his career were now being ‘misused’ in ways that damaged Australia's standing in Asia.
The other crumb is Christmas Island, transferred to Australia by Britain from Singapore in 1959 just before it became fully independent. Mr Woolcott says it is now the focus of invidious exaggeration by Australian leaders of the boat people problem with ‘undertones of racism and religious intolerance’.
Mr Woolcott said he gave the promises of non-militarisation to Third World countries, China and the then Soviet Union to avert an insistence on independence.
More Related Coverage
Island undertakings drown in an ocean of diplomacy
Both the Cocos Islands and Christmas Island were crumbs from the British Empire's table, fed to us when the age of colonialism was drawing to a close. These islands are geographically much closer to Indonesia and Malaysia than they are to Australia and our use of them has the capacity to undermine our international standing and regional aspirations.
Hamish McDonald
Sydney Morning Herald, May 17, 2012
DEFENCE'S plans to develop the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean as a base for Australian and US spy drones and aircraft run counter to assurances Canberra has given the United Nations, one of Australia's most senior foreign policy figures has warned.
Australia promised it would not ‘militarise’ the islands when persuading key nations at the world body not to oppose the transfer of the former British possession to Australian sovereignty, the former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Richard Woolcott, said.
The recent Defence Force Posture Review suggested Defence consider upgrading the Cocos Islands airfield to support the new P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft likely to be acquired by the Royal Australian Air Force to replace its P-3C Orions.
In March, The Washington Post reported the US was looking at the islands, in the north-east quadrant of the Indian Ocean, as a base to watch over a vast sweep of Asia.
The Cocos Islands were considered an ‘ideal site’ to base not only manned US surveillance planes but also the Global Hawk, an unarmed high-altitude surveillance drone, the newspaper said. Spy flights could be launched over the South China Sea, scene of growing disputes between China and other countries with overlapping claims to marine and seabed resources.
The Australian posture review said Global Hawks could already operate from the Cocos Islands airfield, though the condition of the airfield and its limited infrastructure imposed constraints.
But Mr Woolcott recalls that when he was Australian ambassador to the UN in 1984, he gave Australia's assurances that the islands would not be converted to military purposes. ‘There was nothing from us in writing, but verbal undertakings were given,’ he said yesterday.
The former chief diplomat writes in the Herald today of his feelings of ‘guilt’ at the way two ‘crumbs from the British Empire's table’ that fell to Australia during his career were now being ‘misused’ in ways that damaged Australia's standing in Asia.
The other crumb is Christmas Island, transferred to Australia by Britain from Singapore in 1959 just before it became fully independent. Mr Woolcott says it is now the focus of invidious exaggeration by Australian leaders of the boat people problem with ‘undertones of racism and religious intolerance’.
Mr Woolcott said he gave the promises of non-militarisation to Third World countries, China and the then Soviet Union to avert an insistence on independence.
More Related Coverage
Island undertakings drown in an ocean of diplomacy
Both the Cocos Islands and Christmas Island were crumbs from the British Empire's table, fed to us when the age of colonialism was drawing to a close. These islands are geographically much closer to Indonesia and Malaysia than they are to Australia and our use of them has the capacity to undermine our international standing and regional aspirations.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Research in Afghanistan uncovers horrors faced by Australia’s deportees
MEDIA RELEASE
Sydney, Wednesday, 4th April 2012
As death risks rise, humanitarian appeal launched - to other nations!
Deportations research just conducted in Afghanistan by the respected Australian social justice organisation, Edmund Rice Centre, has revealed further horrors confronted by asylum seekers who have been returned there by the Australian Government.
“In this visit to Kabul, further to our previous visits, we met and interviewed another 31 returned asylum seekers. Sadly, 29 of these 31 are living in extreme danger,” affirmed ERC Director, Phil Glendenning. “We confirmed the deaths of another two returnees and the kidnapping of one other who is now presumed dead.”
“The majority of these men are unable to live with their wives and children because of the risk their simple presence would pose to the safety of their family,” he said. “We were able to find a 17 year old boy who was sent back from Australia last year and has ended up living on the street.”
“One man I interviewed had recently survived a rocket being fired through his house. His wife and his father were killed instantly. He lives now in hiding in Kabul - along with his six children – all under the age of nine.”
“The returnees are being actively targeted for having left the country, because they are seen as being favourable to the West, and many are falsely held to have converted to Christianity. According to the Independent Human Rights Commission the situation is deteriorating rapidly and security just fifteen minutes on the road to Ghazni cannot be guaranteed,” Mr Glendenning continued.
“We hold deep concern as to both the accuracy and independence of the information about the security situation for civilians in Afghanistan that was provided to asylum seekers whilst held in Australia’s detention centres. The evidence provided by the returnees in our interviews indicates the systemic use of deceptive practices as part of a strategy to coerce the signing of forms accepting voluntary repatriation or to encourage acceptance of forcible removal from Australia.”
“These asylum seekers and their families should never have been returned to Afghanistan. They must not now continue to be forgotten,” he said.
“The Edmund Rice Centre is recommitting to doing three things: firstly, publishing the results of our research of the deportees’ cases for the UN and the Australian Government; secondly, with this research lobbying in Australia and internationally for changes and increased safeguards and oversight; thirdly, rebuilding public awareness to highlight the appalling mistakes made and the need for Australia to take responsibility for what we have done, and to work to get these poor people finally to safety.”
“In the past the Edmund Rice Centre has had some success in advocating through the UN for the asylum seekers deported from Australia to achieve resettlement in the US, UK, Canada, NZ and Sweden. This year we will be taking this humanitarian appeal to these same nations again,” Mr Glendenning said.
“It is hard to believe we share the same planet. At some stage our nation has got to recover its humanity. I think that doing whatever we can to help those thrown away by us is a step in that direction.”
Over the past ten years the Edmund Rice Centre has conducted research into what happens to Australia's rejected asylum seekers. Two major reports have been published Deported to Danger and Deported to Danger II – leading to the making of the television documentary, A Well Founded Fear, which screened nationally in 2008.
For interview or comment contact:-
Phil Glendenning: 0419 013 758 or Sean Cleary: 0403 434 512
Sydney, Wednesday, 4th April 2012
As death risks rise, humanitarian appeal launched - to other nations!
Deportations research just conducted in Afghanistan by the respected Australian social justice organisation, Edmund Rice Centre, has revealed further horrors confronted by asylum seekers who have been returned there by the Australian Government.
“In this visit to Kabul, further to our previous visits, we met and interviewed another 31 returned asylum seekers. Sadly, 29 of these 31 are living in extreme danger,” affirmed ERC Director, Phil Glendenning. “We confirmed the deaths of another two returnees and the kidnapping of one other who is now presumed dead.”
“The majority of these men are unable to live with their wives and children because of the risk their simple presence would pose to the safety of their family,” he said. “We were able to find a 17 year old boy who was sent back from Australia last year and has ended up living on the street.”
“One man I interviewed had recently survived a rocket being fired through his house. His wife and his father were killed instantly. He lives now in hiding in Kabul - along with his six children – all under the age of nine.”
“The returnees are being actively targeted for having left the country, because they are seen as being favourable to the West, and many are falsely held to have converted to Christianity. According to the Independent Human Rights Commission the situation is deteriorating rapidly and security just fifteen minutes on the road to Ghazni cannot be guaranteed,” Mr Glendenning continued.
“We hold deep concern as to both the accuracy and independence of the information about the security situation for civilians in Afghanistan that was provided to asylum seekers whilst held in Australia’s detention centres. The evidence provided by the returnees in our interviews indicates the systemic use of deceptive practices as part of a strategy to coerce the signing of forms accepting voluntary repatriation or to encourage acceptance of forcible removal from Australia.”
“These asylum seekers and their families should never have been returned to Afghanistan. They must not now continue to be forgotten,” he said.
“The Edmund Rice Centre is recommitting to doing three things: firstly, publishing the results of our research of the deportees’ cases for the UN and the Australian Government; secondly, with this research lobbying in Australia and internationally for changes and increased safeguards and oversight; thirdly, rebuilding public awareness to highlight the appalling mistakes made and the need for Australia to take responsibility for what we have done, and to work to get these poor people finally to safety.”
“In the past the Edmund Rice Centre has had some success in advocating through the UN for the asylum seekers deported from Australia to achieve resettlement in the US, UK, Canada, NZ and Sweden. This year we will be taking this humanitarian appeal to these same nations again,” Mr Glendenning said.
“It is hard to believe we share the same planet. At some stage our nation has got to recover its humanity. I think that doing whatever we can to help those thrown away by us is a step in that direction.”
Over the past ten years the Edmund Rice Centre has conducted research into what happens to Australia's rejected asylum seekers. Two major reports have been published Deported to Danger and Deported to Danger II – leading to the making of the television documentary, A Well Founded Fear, which screened nationally in 2008.
For interview or comment contact:-
Phil Glendenning: 0419 013 758 or Sean Cleary: 0403 434 512
Friday, March 23, 2012
SRI LANKA: Extrajudicial Killings: The miserable breakdown of the rule of law
An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Our lives are spinning out
from world to world;
the shapes of things
are shifting in the wind.
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?- Stanley Kunitz*
“They finished off my husband after two days of torture, and then took me to Hambantota where a number of women were held on suspicion. To my knowledge, most of them were innocent like me. There too they tortured me and urged me to reveal the names of the people who had connections with the JVP, but I did not know anyone who had JVP connections and I didn’t have any link with them either.” - Mrs. Premasili**
Every national and international observer agrees that Sri Lanka today is a state facing tremendous upheaval and chaotic social disorder, even after the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on May 19, 2012 (when the Government of Sri Lanka officially declared the longest civil war in Asia over1). The national and international civil society organizations have documented that violations of fundamental human rights are occurring every day2. The tabling of the drafted resolution on human rights in Sri Lanka by the United State of America, to the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, has questioned an old phenomenon in a new framework, though it continues, as previous resolutions have, to open widespread discussion on human rights violations by the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as by non-state actors in recent times in the island nation. There is no doubt that the Government of Sri Lanka needs tremendous pressure from the international community, not only to take responsibility for its conduct during the war, but also to address the many constitutional shortcomings that resulted from the introduction of the 1978 Constitution3 and most of its amendments, where the principles of common law were manipulated by the executive branch to place itself above the law.
In regard to the threat to human lives, there is no significant difference between open warfare and political competition between the powerful political parties of Sri Lanka. Since 1971 when the UF Government4 introduced the practice of extrajudicial killing for the first time against the JVP insurrection, many dissidents, both rebel and civilian, have been killed in cold blood. Extrajudicial killings have become a norm of daily life in Sri Lanka. Even though the present regime has made some symbolic developments on extrajudicial killings, they remain part of daily life. Sri Lankans, rightly, remain fearful of abduction and the white van syndrome has become a powerful symbol of extra judicial killings in recent years. However, the Government of Sri Lanka remains unwilling to conduct genuine investigation on “White Van” abductions and it is commonly believed that the Government is the one of the main perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
The worst development of this practice was reported on the second week of February this year, when an armed gang entered the premises of a courthouse and abducted an individual who was being escorted by security officials from the courthouse to prison, after hearing a case against him. The following morning, Tuesday 14th February, 2012, a body of a male was dumped and burnt near Sri Lankan President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s private residence in Boteju Mawatha, in Colombo. Around 9.30 am on 14th February, unidentified persons arrived in a white van, dumped a male body, and burnt it in front of Mr. Rajapaksa’s private residence.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has documented a case of a man who was tortured and illegally detained for 28 months and was abducted before the Supreme Court could hear his Fundamental Rights application. On 11 February, 2012, Mr. Ramasamy Prabakaran was forcibly abducted in the presence of his wife, Shiromi, and their daughter, near their home in Canal Bank Road, Wellawatte. Prabakaran, who owns Panama Traders, an electronic shop in Majestic City Shopping Complex, is a Tamil of Indian origin.5 It has been reported by the media, that there have been 32 unexplained abductions documented between last October and this February, mostly in Colombo and suburb or northern Sri Lanka; the victims being a mix of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim6.
As a part of the militarization of the country, not only of the North and East, but of the entire country, the rule of law has come under threat while the military controls whole sectors of the country and has been given enormous power to undermine the peoples’ basic rights, rights that have been confirmed in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, international treaties which have been signed by the Government of Sri Lanka, and even in election manifestos issues by each of the political parties, including the present ruling alliance. Former high court judge, Mr. W.T.M.P.B. Warawewa, at a felicitation organized in his honor by the Young Lawyers Association, has claimed that the current breakdown of the rule of law is the result of certain judges failing to maintain the dignity of their profession and having no self-strength. Some judges would fall to any lowly depth for personal gains and this corruption has allowed human rights violations to flourish. Honesty and courage are essential for a judge, and that is why the people respected the judiciary. Very soon, it would not be surprising if the Army’s major generals are appointed to the Supreme Court, as the judiciary has recognized a court martial as a legitimate court of law for accused civilians, as well as military personnel.
The victims of forceful abduction and extrajudicial killings are not only ordinary people, but it has been widespread among all level of the society and some of members of the Government itself are in fear of abduction and execution. In an interview with this writer7 the President of the Urban Council, Kolonnawa, Colombo suburb, Mr. Ravindu Udaya Shantha revealed that the Government was responsible for the extrajudicial killing of his own brother, who was abducted on February 21, 2012, in a white van, as well as an endeavor to abduct him by an armed group attached to the Sri Lankan Army on 11th March 2012, in Umagiliya, Kolonnawa. There is no investigation regarding his brother’s abduction, while the Minister of Economic Development Affairs, who is the brother of the President as well as an adviser, Mr. Basil Rajapakse, unofficially informed Mr. Ravindu that his brother had been killed. There has been no investigation into the abduction of Mr. Ravindu, even after four people who were involved in the attempt were handed over to the police station in Wellampitiya. They were released on special order from the Defence Authority that same day.
Forceful abduction and extrajudicial killing have been constantly growing after the killing of former parliamentarian and an advisor to the President, Mr. Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, as a result of internal power struggles within the ruling alliance, in Mulleriyawa, Colombo on October 08th 2011. As the Asian Human Rights Commission disclosed, all business transactions and even human transactions will suffer from the unscrupulous actions of persons who will refuse to respect the law. Already this situation exists to a large degree. Guns, goons, and the police and politicians acting illegally have a great influence on business activities both big and small. Those who have influence with the criminal elements and the politicians that support such elements will ensure that the 'cake' only belongs to them. Of course these persons will fall out with each other and resort to the same tactics against their former friends.8 Most of abductions and extrajudicial killings that have occurred recently, not only in Colombo but everywhere in the country, targeted businesses, both lawful and unlawful.
There is also the case of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas, also known as “Loku Seeya”, who was abducted in a Colombo suburb by an armed gang in a white van, and then taken to an unknown location in the Eastern province where it is believed that he was tortured, killed, and his body then dumped at sea. It is questionable how such abductions can occur, taking a victim hundred kilometers away from the place where he was abducted when the abducting gang has to go through at least five major security points. The statement of the wife of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas a.k.a. Loku Seeya, Mrs. K.G.C Ruika Niyas, shows the kind of gruesome murders taking place in the country. According to the post-mortem, he was strangled and his throat slit. He had also been pounded in the head and stabbed a number of times. He was also administered 3 injections of unknown chemicals. I am still unable to imagine how brutal that must have been. The body had over 100 kgs of weight strapped on to it which was wrapped with barb wire. The body was then covered with polythene and secured further with chicken fencing ( same as barbed wire) . It also had something like an anchor attached to the body. In spite of all that it washed ashore at Akkarai Paththu. The body was flown back home and the funeral proceedings were conducted.9
Meanwhile, there is no justice for the abduction and murder of the human rights activist Mr. Pattani Razeek. He disappeared on 11 February 2010. After much delay in the police investigation, his dead body was found on 28 July 2011 by the police in Kavathamunai, Oddamavadi, Valaichenai, Eastern province. It has been reported that the family and lawyer of Mr. Razeek has yet to receive the post-mortem report and the deoxyribo nucleic acid test (DNA) report that may reveal the truth behind the murder of Razeek.
It has been widely reported that the party of the ruling alliance was directly involved in an abduction and extrajudicial killing in Northern district, in the Jaffna peninsula. On the first week of March 2012, a thirteen-year –old school girl, Jesudasan Lakshmi, was abducted, raped and killed by breaking her skull using a stone, when she was on her way to the school on Delft Island, by a man who is a member of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), led by Douglas Devananda, who is a minister of the Government. In the beginning of the year, on January 28, 2012, there was another extrajudicial killing in Jaffna where sixteen-year-old school student Miss. Iridiyanar Sineshika, of Alwari North, Point Pedro, Jaffna was murdered. Also, on November 10, 2011, Mr. Subramanium Dayabaran (45) who was the Principal of the Karanakuri School, Kodikamam, Jaffna, was murdered. Like other parts of the country, the Jaffna peninsula remains a dangerous place, even after the elimination of the LTTE. There is still no news of Mr. Lalith Kumar and Mr. Kugan Muruganathan who were abducted at the end of last year by an armed group.
Corruption within law enforcement and police brutality towards civilians has resulted in the killing of unarmed civilians who were engaged in peaceful demonstration, due to the loss of their essential rights. The AHRC, over the past few decades, has highlighted the loss of independence of the police, and their shift by government elements towards the unlawful practice of social control and now the police have become another tool to secure the absolute power of politicians. Through the killing of a torture victim, Mr. Sugath Nishantha Fernando, who was pursuing a fundamental rights application against Negambo police, and the killing of Mr. Gerald Perera, who was a torture victim pursuing a case against several police officers at Wattala Police station, the AHRC has examined the country’s policing system and the decline of genuine investigations. Recently, the killing of Mr. Roshan Chanaka Rathnasekara, a worker at the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Katunayake, Colombo and the assassination of Mr. Anthony Fernando of Chilaw, who was shot dead while engaged in a peaceful demonstration against the rise in the prices of oil, reveals the changes of law and order, policy, and attitudes relating to murder and its these developments destroy faith in the country's legal system.
Nationally and internationally pressuring the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations given in the Report by the Commission of inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) is essential to stop the abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings that have become part of daily life in the island nation. The government has denied human rights to the people and identified opposition to this policy as a threat to national security and part of an international conspiracy against the country. Meanwhile, the government claims that their action plan for the protection and promotion human rights is the result of a government and people deciding to take concrete action to bring about positive change. “In developing the Action Plan, the Government assessed the measures in place to protect and promote human rights, identified areas that need improvement and have committed ourselves to improving the protection and promotion of human rights.”10 However the LLRC report highlights some important aspects of social developments in the country. Acknowledging the losses and suffering of the past and providing mechanisms for recompense, social justice and for restoration of normalcy and expressions of empathy and solidarity, are steps aimed at redress. Relationship building following violent conflict, addressing issues of lack of trust, prejudice, and intolerance whilst accepting commonalities and differences, is the essence of reconciliation.11 The culture of suspicion, fear, mistrust and violence needs to be removed and opportunities and space opened up in which people can hear each other and be heard.12
While we welcomed the draft resolution by the US on Sri Lanka, which urges the implementation of recommendations given by the LLRC, the AHRC believes that there will be little hope for the reconciliation of disordered social institutions unless the Government takes action to change the present constitution to limit the powers of the executive and respect basic law in order to restore social order. The people of Sri Lanka expect that the government of Sri Lanka will be encouraged in the Universal Periodic Review to take gradual action, not only at the legislative level, but beyond that to implement basic principles of rule of law, where complaints will be systematically investigated, and where crimes will be properly prosecuted, regardless of whether they were committed by state agencies or non-state actors.
_______________________________________________
*Stanley JassponKunitz( 1905-2005) was an American poet
** Mrs. Premasili,a Sinhalese widow. Her husband was killed in cool blood by the Sri Lanka Army, while interrogating in detention camp in 1988.
1.Address by the President MahindaRajapaksa at the ceremonial opening of Parliament, Sri Jayawardhanapura - Kotte, May 19, 2009. (http://www.president.gov.lk/speech_New.php?Id=74 )
2. The Phantom Limb: Failing Judicial Systems, Torture and Human Rights Work in Sri Lanka , Chapter 01- What is and What is Not of Human Rights in Sri Lanka , Asian Human Rights Commission (http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/books/the-phantom-limb )
3. 1978 Constitution original promulgation by the National State Assembly on 7 September 1978, by Prime Minister J. R. Jayewardene then he became first executive president of Sri Lanka. It is Sri Lanka's second republican constitution and its third constitution since the country's independence (as Ceylon) in 1948; perhaps it has been formally amended 18 times up to 2010 September.
4. The United Front ( UF) was a political alliance in Sri Lanka, formed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the Lanka SamaSamaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) in 1968. It came to power in the 1970 general election, but broke up in September 1975.
5. SRI LANKA: Abduction of a torture victim seeking judicial remedies from the Supreme Court (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-023-2012 )
6. Sri Lanka's sinister white van abductions (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17356575 )
7. Interview with Mr. RavinduUdayaShantha, Mayor, KolonnawaUC ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxBQH875bVc&feature=youtu.be )
8. Sri Lanka: It is not enough to 'cry for the country' (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-155-2011/?searchterm=Bharatha%20Lakshman%20Premachandra )
9. Sri Lanka: The abduction and the brutal murder of Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas -- the family writes to the human rights organisations (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-202-2011 )
10. Sri Lanka: The National Action plan for protection and promotion of human rights (2011 -2016)
11. The Report by the Commission of inquiry on lessons learnt and reconciliation ( LLRC), Chapter 09-173
12. ibid ( Chapter 09-174)
# # #
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
Visit our new website with more features at www.humanrights.asia.
You can make a difference. Please support our work and make a donation here.
-----------------------------
Asian Human Rights Commission
#701A Westley Square,
48 Hoi Yuen Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon,
Hongkong S.A.R.
Tel: +(852) 2698-6339
Fax: +(852) 2698-6367
Web: humanrights.asia
twitter/youtube/facebook: humanrightsasia
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Our lives are spinning out
from world to world;
the shapes of things
are shifting in the wind.
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?- Stanley Kunitz*
“They finished off my husband after two days of torture, and then took me to Hambantota where a number of women were held on suspicion. To my knowledge, most of them were innocent like me. There too they tortured me and urged me to reveal the names of the people who had connections with the JVP, but I did not know anyone who had JVP connections and I didn’t have any link with them either.” - Mrs. Premasili**
Every national and international observer agrees that Sri Lanka today is a state facing tremendous upheaval and chaotic social disorder, even after the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on May 19, 2012 (when the Government of Sri Lanka officially declared the longest civil war in Asia over1). The national and international civil society organizations have documented that violations of fundamental human rights are occurring every day2. The tabling of the drafted resolution on human rights in Sri Lanka by the United State of America, to the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, has questioned an old phenomenon in a new framework, though it continues, as previous resolutions have, to open widespread discussion on human rights violations by the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as by non-state actors in recent times in the island nation. There is no doubt that the Government of Sri Lanka needs tremendous pressure from the international community, not only to take responsibility for its conduct during the war, but also to address the many constitutional shortcomings that resulted from the introduction of the 1978 Constitution3 and most of its amendments, where the principles of common law were manipulated by the executive branch to place itself above the law.
In regard to the threat to human lives, there is no significant difference between open warfare and political competition between the powerful political parties of Sri Lanka. Since 1971 when the UF Government4 introduced the practice of extrajudicial killing for the first time against the JVP insurrection, many dissidents, both rebel and civilian, have been killed in cold blood. Extrajudicial killings have become a norm of daily life in Sri Lanka. Even though the present regime has made some symbolic developments on extrajudicial killings, they remain part of daily life. Sri Lankans, rightly, remain fearful of abduction and the white van syndrome has become a powerful symbol of extra judicial killings in recent years. However, the Government of Sri Lanka remains unwilling to conduct genuine investigation on “White Van” abductions and it is commonly believed that the Government is the one of the main perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
The worst development of this practice was reported on the second week of February this year, when an armed gang entered the premises of a courthouse and abducted an individual who was being escorted by security officials from the courthouse to prison, after hearing a case against him. The following morning, Tuesday 14th February, 2012, a body of a male was dumped and burnt near Sri Lankan President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s private residence in Boteju Mawatha, in Colombo. Around 9.30 am on 14th February, unidentified persons arrived in a white van, dumped a male body, and burnt it in front of Mr. Rajapaksa’s private residence.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has documented a case of a man who was tortured and illegally detained for 28 months and was abducted before the Supreme Court could hear his Fundamental Rights application. On 11 February, 2012, Mr. Ramasamy Prabakaran was forcibly abducted in the presence of his wife, Shiromi, and their daughter, near their home in Canal Bank Road, Wellawatte. Prabakaran, who owns Panama Traders, an electronic shop in Majestic City Shopping Complex, is a Tamil of Indian origin.5 It has been reported by the media, that there have been 32 unexplained abductions documented between last October and this February, mostly in Colombo and suburb or northern Sri Lanka; the victims being a mix of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim6.
As a part of the militarization of the country, not only of the North and East, but of the entire country, the rule of law has come under threat while the military controls whole sectors of the country and has been given enormous power to undermine the peoples’ basic rights, rights that have been confirmed in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, international treaties which have been signed by the Government of Sri Lanka, and even in election manifestos issues by each of the political parties, including the present ruling alliance. Former high court judge, Mr. W.T.M.P.B. Warawewa, at a felicitation organized in his honor by the Young Lawyers Association, has claimed that the current breakdown of the rule of law is the result of certain judges failing to maintain the dignity of their profession and having no self-strength. Some judges would fall to any lowly depth for personal gains and this corruption has allowed human rights violations to flourish. Honesty and courage are essential for a judge, and that is why the people respected the judiciary. Very soon, it would not be surprising if the Army’s major generals are appointed to the Supreme Court, as the judiciary has recognized a court martial as a legitimate court of law for accused civilians, as well as military personnel.
The victims of forceful abduction and extrajudicial killings are not only ordinary people, but it has been widespread among all level of the society and some of members of the Government itself are in fear of abduction and execution. In an interview with this writer7 the President of the Urban Council, Kolonnawa, Colombo suburb, Mr. Ravindu Udaya Shantha revealed that the Government was responsible for the extrajudicial killing of his own brother, who was abducted on February 21, 2012, in a white van, as well as an endeavor to abduct him by an armed group attached to the Sri Lankan Army on 11th March 2012, in Umagiliya, Kolonnawa. There is no investigation regarding his brother’s abduction, while the Minister of Economic Development Affairs, who is the brother of the President as well as an adviser, Mr. Basil Rajapakse, unofficially informed Mr. Ravindu that his brother had been killed. There has been no investigation into the abduction of Mr. Ravindu, even after four people who were involved in the attempt were handed over to the police station in Wellampitiya. They were released on special order from the Defence Authority that same day.
Forceful abduction and extrajudicial killing have been constantly growing after the killing of former parliamentarian and an advisor to the President, Mr. Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, as a result of internal power struggles within the ruling alliance, in Mulleriyawa, Colombo on October 08th 2011. As the Asian Human Rights Commission disclosed, all business transactions and even human transactions will suffer from the unscrupulous actions of persons who will refuse to respect the law. Already this situation exists to a large degree. Guns, goons, and the police and politicians acting illegally have a great influence on business activities both big and small. Those who have influence with the criminal elements and the politicians that support such elements will ensure that the 'cake' only belongs to them. Of course these persons will fall out with each other and resort to the same tactics against their former friends.8 Most of abductions and extrajudicial killings that have occurred recently, not only in Colombo but everywhere in the country, targeted businesses, both lawful and unlawful.
There is also the case of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas, also known as “Loku Seeya”, who was abducted in a Colombo suburb by an armed gang in a white van, and then taken to an unknown location in the Eastern province where it is believed that he was tortured, killed, and his body then dumped at sea. It is questionable how such abductions can occur, taking a victim hundred kilometers away from the place where he was abducted when the abducting gang has to go through at least five major security points. The statement of the wife of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas a.k.a. Loku Seeya, Mrs. K.G.C Ruika Niyas, shows the kind of gruesome murders taking place in the country. According to the post-mortem, he was strangled and his throat slit. He had also been pounded in the head and stabbed a number of times. He was also administered 3 injections of unknown chemicals. I am still unable to imagine how brutal that must have been. The body had over 100 kgs of weight strapped on to it which was wrapped with barb wire. The body was then covered with polythene and secured further with chicken fencing ( same as barbed wire) . It also had something like an anchor attached to the body. In spite of all that it washed ashore at Akkarai Paththu. The body was flown back home and the funeral proceedings were conducted.9
Meanwhile, there is no justice for the abduction and murder of the human rights activist Mr. Pattani Razeek. He disappeared on 11 February 2010. After much delay in the police investigation, his dead body was found on 28 July 2011 by the police in Kavathamunai, Oddamavadi, Valaichenai, Eastern province. It has been reported that the family and lawyer of Mr. Razeek has yet to receive the post-mortem report and the deoxyribo nucleic acid test (DNA) report that may reveal the truth behind the murder of Razeek.
It has been widely reported that the party of the ruling alliance was directly involved in an abduction and extrajudicial killing in Northern district, in the Jaffna peninsula. On the first week of March 2012, a thirteen-year –old school girl, Jesudasan Lakshmi, was abducted, raped and killed by breaking her skull using a stone, when she was on her way to the school on Delft Island, by a man who is a member of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), led by Douglas Devananda, who is a minister of the Government. In the beginning of the year, on January 28, 2012, there was another extrajudicial killing in Jaffna where sixteen-year-old school student Miss. Iridiyanar Sineshika, of Alwari North, Point Pedro, Jaffna was murdered. Also, on November 10, 2011, Mr. Subramanium Dayabaran (45) who was the Principal of the Karanakuri School, Kodikamam, Jaffna, was murdered. Like other parts of the country, the Jaffna peninsula remains a dangerous place, even after the elimination of the LTTE. There is still no news of Mr. Lalith Kumar and Mr. Kugan Muruganathan who were abducted at the end of last year by an armed group.
Corruption within law enforcement and police brutality towards civilians has resulted in the killing of unarmed civilians who were engaged in peaceful demonstration, due to the loss of their essential rights. The AHRC, over the past few decades, has highlighted the loss of independence of the police, and their shift by government elements towards the unlawful practice of social control and now the police have become another tool to secure the absolute power of politicians. Through the killing of a torture victim, Mr. Sugath Nishantha Fernando, who was pursuing a fundamental rights application against Negambo police, and the killing of Mr. Gerald Perera, who was a torture victim pursuing a case against several police officers at Wattala Police station, the AHRC has examined the country’s policing system and the decline of genuine investigations. Recently, the killing of Mr. Roshan Chanaka Rathnasekara, a worker at the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Katunayake, Colombo and the assassination of Mr. Anthony Fernando of Chilaw, who was shot dead while engaged in a peaceful demonstration against the rise in the prices of oil, reveals the changes of law and order, policy, and attitudes relating to murder and its these developments destroy faith in the country's legal system.
Nationally and internationally pressuring the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations given in the Report by the Commission of inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) is essential to stop the abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings that have become part of daily life in the island nation. The government has denied human rights to the people and identified opposition to this policy as a threat to national security and part of an international conspiracy against the country. Meanwhile, the government claims that their action plan for the protection and promotion human rights is the result of a government and people deciding to take concrete action to bring about positive change. “In developing the Action Plan, the Government assessed the measures in place to protect and promote human rights, identified areas that need improvement and have committed ourselves to improving the protection and promotion of human rights.”10 However the LLRC report highlights some important aspects of social developments in the country. Acknowledging the losses and suffering of the past and providing mechanisms for recompense, social justice and for restoration of normalcy and expressions of empathy and solidarity, are steps aimed at redress. Relationship building following violent conflict, addressing issues of lack of trust, prejudice, and intolerance whilst accepting commonalities and differences, is the essence of reconciliation.11 The culture of suspicion, fear, mistrust and violence needs to be removed and opportunities and space opened up in which people can hear each other and be heard.12
While we welcomed the draft resolution by the US on Sri Lanka, which urges the implementation of recommendations given by the LLRC, the AHRC believes that there will be little hope for the reconciliation of disordered social institutions unless the Government takes action to change the present constitution to limit the powers of the executive and respect basic law in order to restore social order. The people of Sri Lanka expect that the government of Sri Lanka will be encouraged in the Universal Periodic Review to take gradual action, not only at the legislative level, but beyond that to implement basic principles of rule of law, where complaints will be systematically investigated, and where crimes will be properly prosecuted, regardless of whether they were committed by state agencies or non-state actors.
_______________________________________________
*Stanley JassponKunitz( 1905-2005) was an American poet
** Mrs. Premasili,a Sinhalese widow. Her husband was killed in cool blood by the Sri Lanka Army, while interrogating in detention camp in 1988.
1.Address by the President MahindaRajapaksa at the ceremonial opening of Parliament, Sri Jayawardhanapura - Kotte, May 19, 2009. (http://www.president.gov.lk/speech_New.php?Id=74 )
2. The Phantom Limb: Failing Judicial Systems, Torture and Human Rights Work in Sri Lanka , Chapter 01- What is and What is Not of Human Rights in Sri Lanka , Asian Human Rights Commission (http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/books/the-phantom-limb )
3. 1978 Constitution original promulgation by the National State Assembly on 7 September 1978, by Prime Minister J. R. Jayewardene then he became first executive president of Sri Lanka. It is Sri Lanka's second republican constitution and its third constitution since the country's independence (as Ceylon) in 1948; perhaps it has been formally amended 18 times up to 2010 September.
4. The United Front ( UF) was a political alliance in Sri Lanka, formed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the Lanka SamaSamaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) in 1968. It came to power in the 1970 general election, but broke up in September 1975.
5. SRI LANKA: Abduction of a torture victim seeking judicial remedies from the Supreme Court (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-023-2012 )
6. Sri Lanka's sinister white van abductions (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17356575 )
7. Interview with Mr. RavinduUdayaShantha, Mayor, KolonnawaUC ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxBQH875bVc&feature=youtu.be )
8. Sri Lanka: It is not enough to 'cry for the country' (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-155-2011/?searchterm=Bharatha%20Lakshman%20Premachandra )
9. Sri Lanka: The abduction and the brutal murder of Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas -- the family writes to the human rights organisations (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-202-2011 )
10. Sri Lanka: The National Action plan for protection and promotion of human rights (2011 -2016)
11. The Report by the Commission of inquiry on lessons learnt and reconciliation ( LLRC), Chapter 09-173
12. ibid ( Chapter 09-174)
# # #
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
Visit our new website with more features at www.humanrights.asia.
You can make a difference. Please support our work and make a donation here.
-----------------------------
Asian Human Rights Commission
#701A Westley Square,
48 Hoi Yuen Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon,
Hongkong S.A.R.
Tel: +(852) 2698-6339
Fax: +(852) 2698-6367
Web: humanrights.asia
twitter/youtube/facebook: humanrightsasia
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
After Fukushima, Vatican joins growing army of opponents of nuclear power
Irish Times 6/3/2012
SEÁN McDONAGH
RITE AND REASON: I AM certain that the word prayer does not appear in any manual outlining how to deal with a serious accident at a nuclear power station anywhere in the world. Yet, prayer ran like a thread through the hour-long BBC2 programme Japan – Inside the Meltdown on February 23rd.
Key witnesses were interviewed who had been trying to prevent a catastrophe at the plant when a severe earthquake and subsequent tsunami swamped three of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
These included the prime minister Naota Kan, the director of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Masao Yoshida, senior management at Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), army personnel and firefighters.
At some point, each one said that during the crisis, he was praying that a catastrophe could be avoided. One of the workers, dressed in boiler suit and goggles, described a conversation he had with this wife before entering the plant to attempt to open the vents.
He realised he was risking his life by entering into the stricken nuclear plant and exposing himself to deadly levels of radiation. His wife was naturally very worried, but as the conversation ended she said she would be praying for him.
Even though Catholics are a small minority in Japan, the bishops responded to the Fukushima disaster.
Auxiliary bishop of Osaka Michael Goro Matsuura said: “I believe that this serious incident should be a lesson for Japan and for the entire planet and will be an incentive to abandon these projects. We call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this campaign.”
After Fukushima, statements from bishops’ conferences in Korea and the Philippines called on their governments to abandon nuclear power. This negative critique of nuclear power was not confined to Asia.
On May 26th, 2011, the German government published a document which was prepared by a commission of experts under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, calling for an end to the use of nuclear power.
Writing in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on May 29th, Cardinal Reinhard said he felt “a technology that had incalculable consequences for entire generations could not be trusted”.
It seems very strange that the Vatican, which in other spheres preaches a pro-life ethic, should endorse civilian nuclear power.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency in September 1982, Msgr Mario Peressin, then the Vatican representative at the agency, supported the civilian use of nuclear power.
In an address he stated: “The benefits of peaceful use of nuclear energy should thus be extended to all countries, in particular to developing countries.”
He went on to accuse “certain groups of naïve idealists and even certain personalities from the scientific, political, cultural or religious worlds who condemn the use of nuclear power simply because there are some risks”.
So I was surprised and delighted that the Vatican seemed to do a U-turn on its traditional support for civilian nuclear power.
Msgr Michael Banach, the current Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a conference in Vienna on September 20th last that “this year’s nuclear disaster in Japan has raised new concerns about the safety of nuclear plants around the world”.
He asked whether nuclear power plants should be built and operated in areas prone to earthquakes and whether plants that already exist in such areas should be shut down.
“The long-term effects of the [Fukushima] disaster,” he said, “include economical, medical and rebuilding costs in one of Japan’s richest agricultural areas.”
It seems the Vatican has joined the ranks of “naïve” idealists!
Fr Seán McDonagh is a Columban priest, author and environmental activist. His forthcoming book, Is Fukushima the Death Knell for Nuclear Energy?, will be published shortly.
SEÁN McDONAGH
RITE AND REASON: I AM certain that the word prayer does not appear in any manual outlining how to deal with a serious accident at a nuclear power station anywhere in the world. Yet, prayer ran like a thread through the hour-long BBC2 programme Japan – Inside the Meltdown on February 23rd.
Key witnesses were interviewed who had been trying to prevent a catastrophe at the plant when a severe earthquake and subsequent tsunami swamped three of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
These included the prime minister Naota Kan, the director of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Masao Yoshida, senior management at Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), army personnel and firefighters.
At some point, each one said that during the crisis, he was praying that a catastrophe could be avoided. One of the workers, dressed in boiler suit and goggles, described a conversation he had with this wife before entering the plant to attempt to open the vents.
He realised he was risking his life by entering into the stricken nuclear plant and exposing himself to deadly levels of radiation. His wife was naturally very worried, but as the conversation ended she said she would be praying for him.
Even though Catholics are a small minority in Japan, the bishops responded to the Fukushima disaster.
Auxiliary bishop of Osaka Michael Goro Matsuura said: “I believe that this serious incident should be a lesson for Japan and for the entire planet and will be an incentive to abandon these projects. We call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this campaign.”
After Fukushima, statements from bishops’ conferences in Korea and the Philippines called on their governments to abandon nuclear power. This negative critique of nuclear power was not confined to Asia.
On May 26th, 2011, the German government published a document which was prepared by a commission of experts under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, calling for an end to the use of nuclear power.
Writing in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on May 29th, Cardinal Reinhard said he felt “a technology that had incalculable consequences for entire generations could not be trusted”.
It seems very strange that the Vatican, which in other spheres preaches a pro-life ethic, should endorse civilian nuclear power.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency in September 1982, Msgr Mario Peressin, then the Vatican representative at the agency, supported the civilian use of nuclear power.
In an address he stated: “The benefits of peaceful use of nuclear energy should thus be extended to all countries, in particular to developing countries.”
He went on to accuse “certain groups of naïve idealists and even certain personalities from the scientific, political, cultural or religious worlds who condemn the use of nuclear power simply because there are some risks”.
So I was surprised and delighted that the Vatican seemed to do a U-turn on its traditional support for civilian nuclear power.
Msgr Michael Banach, the current Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a conference in Vienna on September 20th last that “this year’s nuclear disaster in Japan has raised new concerns about the safety of nuclear plants around the world”.
He asked whether nuclear power plants should be built and operated in areas prone to earthquakes and whether plants that already exist in such areas should be shut down.
“The long-term effects of the [Fukushima] disaster,” he said, “include economical, medical and rebuilding costs in one of Japan’s richest agricultural areas.”
It seems the Vatican has joined the ranks of “naïve” idealists!
Fr Seán McDonagh is a Columban priest, author and environmental activist. His forthcoming book, Is Fukushima the Death Knell for Nuclear Energy?, will be published shortly.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
3. Chocolate, agribusiness and the Ivory Coast Crisis
The Roots of the Côte d'Ivoire Crisis
James North
This tropical West African nation, once the most prosperous in the region, is sliding even deeper into civil war. At press time, after a weeklong street battle for Abidjan, the commercial capital of 5 million, there were reports of a fragile settlement. But the vicious violence could break out again at any time. Mainstream Western press accounts included depressingly familiar explanations: the stolen presidential election in November, rising ethnic conflict. The explanations were accurate, as far as they went.
Right now, Côte d’Ivoire’s 21.5 million people are living in a terrible human rights crisis, a catastrophe that is being downplayed partly because the uprisings in the Arab world are distracting attention. But several thousand people have already died here, and up to 1 million are refugees. The small United Nations peacekeeping force should be strengthened, and the world pressure to force the election’s loser, Laurent Gbagbo, to give way to Alassane Ouattara must continue. (Right now Gbagbo is still hanging on to power.) But a change in presidents will not end the danger—and the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is representative of deeply rooted structural problems in many other African nations.
You have to come here, to one of the forest regions where Côte d’Ivoire’s million-plus cocoa farmers live, to find the fundamental reason that fighting is breaking out again: a profoundly unjust international economic order that pays the people who supply our primary products a pittance and leaves their nations chronically ill with unemployment and poverty, and with people who will fight one another over scarce resources. Here, too, you will learn that the giant American agribusiness corporations Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are one part of the problem, even though their names do not appear in the grim dispatches about widespread killings and mass graves.
To read the full article,cut and paste the link below to your browser:
http://www.thenation.com/article/159707/roots-cote-divoire-crisis
James North
This tropical West African nation, once the most prosperous in the region, is sliding even deeper into civil war. At press time, after a weeklong street battle for Abidjan, the commercial capital of 5 million, there were reports of a fragile settlement. But the vicious violence could break out again at any time. Mainstream Western press accounts included depressingly familiar explanations: the stolen presidential election in November, rising ethnic conflict. The explanations were accurate, as far as they went.
Right now, Côte d’Ivoire’s 21.5 million people are living in a terrible human rights crisis, a catastrophe that is being downplayed partly because the uprisings in the Arab world are distracting attention. But several thousand people have already died here, and up to 1 million are refugees. The small United Nations peacekeeping force should be strengthened, and the world pressure to force the election’s loser, Laurent Gbagbo, to give way to Alassane Ouattara must continue. (Right now Gbagbo is still hanging on to power.) But a change in presidents will not end the danger—and the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is representative of deeply rooted structural problems in many other African nations.
You have to come here, to one of the forest regions where Côte d’Ivoire’s million-plus cocoa farmers live, to find the fundamental reason that fighting is breaking out again: a profoundly unjust international economic order that pays the people who supply our primary products a pittance and leaves their nations chronically ill with unemployment and poverty, and with people who will fight one another over scarce resources. Here, too, you will learn that the giant American agribusiness corporations Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are one part of the problem, even though their names do not appear in the grim dispatches about widespread killings and mass graves.
To read the full article,cut and paste the link below to your browser:
http://www.thenation.com/article/159707/roots-cote-divoire-crisis
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