Civil society activists slam MR regime

August 13, 2014

Civil society recalls Presidents days as disappearances campaigner
Activists reject monks version of events at Centre for Society and

Religion

Nimalka wants President to stop sending proxies, talk to civil society one-

to-one
Something missing in regimes DNA to deliver reconciliation: Paikiasothy

By Dharisha Bastians
Leading civil society activists yesterday slammed the Governments use of
monk-led mobs to disrupt their lawful meetings and accused President
Mahinda Rajapaksa of having forgotten his own civil society roots and
heady days as a disappearances campaigner in 1989.
Addressing a press briefing at the Centre for Society and Religion, the
activists charged that their constitutional right to freedom of expression and
peaceful assembly was being violated by unruly mobs that were storming
civil society events.
The CSR, which is housed within the premises of the Fatima Church grounds
in Maradana, was stormed by a monk-led group that later called itself the
Dead and Missing Peoples Parents Front on 4 August, during a private
meeting between families of the disappeared, civil society representatives

and members of the diplomatic community based in Colombo.

The intruding group later claimed to be representing families of the
disappeared from the islands south on 4 August. They charged that the
rights activists were being funded by the US Embassy to provide evidence
to the UN inquiry against the Government, using Mahaveer or Great Hero
families that had given fighting cadre to the LTTE during the war.
Disappearances campaigner and Activist Dr. Nimalka Fernando told the
press briefing that unruly mobs were reigning with impunity because of the
way the country was ruled. Rejecting the allegations of the DMPPF that civil
society activists were traitors, Dr. Fernando said their struggle was not
against Sri Lanka. Our struggle is against an abusive, repressive regime,
she charged, adding that a Government did not equal the people.
These were the life stories of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim mothers searching
for their children that were interrupted and disrupted by crazed mobs. This
is not humane rule, Dr. Fernando charged.
She said President Rajapaksa was hiding behind monk-led mobs to attack
civil society.
He came to this very hall and spoke on behalf of the disappeared, Dr.
Fernando said, referring to the CSR. In his days as a SLFP Parliamentarian in
the early nineties, she said Rajapaksa had appeared on behalf of missing
peoples families as a lawyer and a politician.
So come to us, talk to us one-on-one, stop hiding behind proxies and
mobs, she added.
The incident at the CSR on 4 August was a full frontal assault on the
freedom of expression and the freedom of peaceful assembly, observed
Centre for Policy Alternatives Executive Director Dr. Paikiasothy
Saravanamuttu.
In post-war Sri Lanka, five years after the war ended, fellow citizens are
being made to fear because of their ethnicity and now because of their
religion. This is no basis to build reconciliation, this is no basis to build
prosperity, Dr. Saravanamuttu asserted.
He said that although the intruding mobs were claiming that their concern
was that information was being relayed to Geneva and other foreign
capitals, what truly concerned them was the circulation of information
within Sri Lanka.
What they fear is the dissemination of information within the country so

that the people will know the extent of the repression, the CPA Executive
Director noted. The Government was far more fearful of its own citizens
than the international community, Dr. Saravanamuttu added.
They fear their own citizens who will dare to defy, dare to keep telling the
truth, he said. There is a missing gene, something missing in the very
DNA of this regime that means it cannot deliver reconciliation, Dr.
Saravanamuttu charged.
The President of the grouping Families of the Disappeared, Brito Fernando,
whose organisation convened the meeting with family members of the
missing from five districts of the Northern Province on 4 August, said the
meeting was merely a sharing of experiences about the past five years,
including the complaints process.
The monks of the DMPPF are lying about the fact that the group paid
families to give evidence via Skype to the UN, Fernando said.
In 1989, we walked the streets campaigning to find those who had been
disappeared during the crackdown on the insurgency. Today we continue
that work. It is Mahinda Rajapaksa who has changed, he has forgotten his
own history and how he used the power of NGOs, said Fernando, a veteran
disappearances campaigner.
Addressing President Rajapaksa directly, Fernando said the former SLFP
Parliamentarian may have abandoned the cause, but civil society activists
will not do so.
He urged the DMPFF that was concerned about disappearances in the south
to pressurise the Government to inquire into the Matale mass grave, where
157 skeletons have been unearthed, presumed to be dating back to the
1989-90 era.
As activists we speak of those atrocities, we demand investigations and we
speak for the missing there too. There is no north-south, Sinhala-Tamil
divide, Fernando said.



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