[IPS]

Far from heeding charges of human rights abuses and stifling dissent, the government has, this week, added blatant disregard for judicial fiat to its list of sins. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court (SC) terminated proceedings in a controversial oil hedging case, saying the government was no longer implementing court orders on the issue. Sources said the court of Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva backed off from taking on the executive after a series of high-profile judgments it passed against President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration were simply ignored.

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[IPS]

In Sri Lanka, strict compliance with international humanitarian law was all the more critical with the intensification of fighting in the Vanni region and reports of intermittent artillery fire in civilian populated areas in recent weeks. He said the scale of humanitarian needs was difficult to gauge, given restricted humanitarian access due to the intensified fighting and the relocation of United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations from rebel-held areas in mid-September. He was, however, concerned that some 350,000 civilians were trapped in an increasingly confined space and effectively prevented from leaving by Tamil Tiger rebels. That raised serious concerns about the use of civilians to render areas immune from military operations, he added.

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[IPS]

One of the worst legacies of the decades-old civil war in this island country is the culture of violence and impunity that many fear has become ingrained in Sri Lankan society — once known for ‘serendipity’ and respect for Buddhist virtues. While some believe that the country is currently going through yet another periodic cycle of violence and uncertainty, others think that the situation has reached a nadir. ‘’This is the worst period I have known in my lifetime,’’ contends A.T. Ariyaratne, one of Sri Lanka’s best-known thinkers. ‘’Earlier there were directions we could turn to. Now we have no direction,’’”the veteran social rights campaigner and founder of the 50-year-old village awakening movement called ‘Sarvodaya’ told IPS.

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[IPS]

The eight rows of pews at St. Fatima’s church in Colombo were mostly empty despite the festive look from Christmas decorations. Beside the altar a young man with a receding hairline was setting up a slideshow on the plight of the tens of thousands displaced in war-torn northern Sri Lanka, run to the accompaniment of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s 1984 number, ‘Do they Know It’s Christmas?’. This was a special, pre-Christmas prayer service for civilians trapped in the Vanni or areas still under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[ IPS ]

Incessant rains and flooding in the Vanni, the Tamil rebel stronghold in northern Sri Lanka, are adding to the woes of at least 200,000 people stranded in intensified fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan army since mid-September. On Tuesday, the pro-LTTE website, TamilNet.com, reported that floods were “flowing over most of the roads and civilians who had sought refuge in open lands and in temporary huts in low-lying areas were forced to seek shelter in schools, temples, churches and public buildings in Vanni.”

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[IPS]

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s estimates for 2008, travel and tourism together were expected to contribute 2.9 billion dollars to the economy and account for one in every 15 jobs (or 567,000 jobs). This is considered vital at a time when the country is diverting a major chunk of its resources to the civil war in the north. “The global financial crisis is taking a toll on the balance of payments of Sri Lanka,” economist Muttukrishna Sarvananthan at the E. Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University told IPS.

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[ IPS ]

The only good thing about tropical storm “Nisha”, that lashed northern Sri Lanka in the last week of November, was that it brought a lull to the fierce fighting between Tamil separatist rebels and the Sri Lankan army. During the week that followed little fighting was reported and Nisha seemed to have achieved what the international community failed to do — bring about a break in the bloody hostilities. But the respite in the fighting was all too brief. As Nisha waned the bullets and the artillery shells resumed and the ministry indicated that troops were gathering around Kilinochchi.

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