Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It could be both. The lists of beneficiaries have to be given by the Government of Sri Lanka. The Government of Sri Lanka in this context involves the military. These were lists that were compiled before there was an elected provincial council. There is certainly a series of al

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to do so.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. Thank you. The results of such a survey do show that the views of people in respect of the institutions and governance are not particularly complimentary, particularly as far as the politicians are concerned. There is also a view that comes out that people feel they're not

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly the land grabs are happening. The most egregious one was the situation in which over 6,300 acres of private land was taken over in April of this year. There's a whole judicial process relating to that. The army is going to be stationed in permanent camps in the north an

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Irrespective of what the government has done and is doing and the issue of self-censorship, I think the media need to look inwards and ask themselves whether they are part of the problem or part of the solution, as it were. The media don't adequately report on the extent of human

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  As an organization, the Centre for Policy Alternatives has faced a number of challenges in the work that it does, but we feel very strongly that we need to continue to do it, to take a public role in respect of the defence of these rights, and hopefully that provides some insuran

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think what that impeachment process did was to create in the minds of the people a sort of completion of state capture. I think it confirmed to people that the judiciary, which they may hitherto have felt was an independent arm of the state and a protector of the rights of citi

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The constitution of Sri Lanka, since 1987, states that there are two official languages in the country, that is, the Sinhala language and the Tamil language. From 1956 to 1987, Sinhala was the only official language of the country. Now, very little had been done, and very little

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the most promising avenue is this. In my meetings and exchanges with people in the north, for example, they make a very simple point. They say the government is saying that we are all one people now, that we should not be talking about being Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim, or

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  At the present moment, the forum in which the international community has been focusing on Sri Lanka has been the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The two resolutions of 2012 and 2013 have taken as their reference point the presidentially appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconcilia

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The focus of the development projects of the government has been on economic infrastructure, a lot of road construction, that kind of thing. The argument has been that, particularly in the north, there has been insufficient or no consultation with the people concerned to ascertai

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the feeling in the country at large is that it has been insufficiently inclusive. Certainly with the emphasis on economic development in the north, I think the verdict of the people was registered in the result of that Northern Provincial Council election in September of

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. I think the figure of 40,000 is with regard to the female-headed households in the northern province. I think the collective figure for both the north and east is about 90...[Technical difficulty—Editor]. In terms of how this affects the women, I think the first poin

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, the high commissioner came in August of this year. She spent a week in Sri Lanka, which apparently was her longest single-country visit in any part of the world. That particular statement comes from the media conference she had at the end of her visit. What she did do, and t