Amantha Perera - "All parties to the conflict in Sri Lanka are breaking international law by killing civilians, destroying homes and schools, or forcibly disappearing people," said Tim Parritt, Amnesty’s deputy director for Asia Pacific, in a statement at the launch of the campaign on Tuesday, April 3, in the Caribbean and in Britain and Australia.
Amnesty’s message on white foam balls, designed to get an international intervention into Sri Lanka to referee the conflict, has not gone down well with the government whose armed forces, according to reports, have gained the upper hand in the recent weeks’ fighting.
On Tuesday the Sri Lankan army claimed to have killed 23 fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a concerted drive to capture more rebel bases in the eastern part of the island.
More than 50 people are known to have died in clashes between the LTTE and the armed forces, escalated since last week when the rebels used light airplanes to bomb an airbase close to the international airport in Colombo.
Since December 2005, when a nationalist coalition led by President Mahinda Rajapakse took over power in Colombo, the country has seen a spiral in violence that has led to at least 4,000 deaths with civilians accounting for a third of that number.
Since the ethnic conflict on the island first broke out in 1983, following an anti-Tamil pogrom in Colombo, close to 70,000 people have died and caused immense hardship to the civilian population, particularly in the east and north of the island where the Tamils are concentrated and where the LTTE has sworn to create a separate state.
About the only relief from a daily fare of clashes and killings for residents of the capital is watching the country’s cricket side score on TV sets at home or giant screens set up in the pubs through the night — ignoring warnings from the electricity board to go slow on power consumption.
"This time we have a chance, our boys are good," Samptah Perera, who has not missed a single Sri Lankan match at the tournament, told IPS. The mood at the pubs is boisterous. Comments, expert and otherwise, frequently lead to heated arguments.
"It is the atmosphere, every one wants the team to do well. It is the one time that the country is united," Luky Fernando, a company executive, who travelled 20 km to catch the action in a Colombo pub, said.
Fans agree that cricket has given citizens a welcome diversion from the bloodshed. "It is a chance for the whole nation to forget the current problems, that we are a country at war, that there is killing all over the place — cricket is like temporary mass amnesia," Perera said.
The national team has not let the fans down. It has progressed to the second round at the expense of regional power house India and commentators say the Sri Lankan eleven have a chance to make it to the semi-final and even the final. "We can win, it is just a matter of concentration," Fernando said.
But concentration is just what the government accuses Amnesty of interfering with by getting its officials to pass round the white foam balls each time the Sri Lanka team gets on the pitch.
"Though they (Amnesty) show that they are protecting human rights, it is the very same organisation that has violated the human rights of Sri Lanka cricketers and its supporters. Sri Lanka cricketers have a right to concentrate on their crucial games, rather than being disturbed by malicious campaigns of this nature," the defence ministry said on its website.
"We will hold Amnesty International responsible if any abuse or pressure is brought upon any members or support staff of the cricket team by the public in the Caribbean due to your callous action. Your action has the capacity to undermine the Sri Lankan team’s morale," Dr Dasarath Jayasuriya, president of the Australia-based Society for Peace and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka, said in a letter to Amnesty.
But Amnesty officials are undeterred. "Just as a cricket match needs an independent referee or umpire to make objective decisions and interpret the rules, the Sri Lankan government, the Tigers and other armed groups must commit to allowing independent human rights monitors into the country," Amnesty said.
"The campaign is a clear sign that the world is aware of the human rights situation in the country, of the abductions, the extra judicial murders and other abuses. It will show that a lot of people care about this," Amnesty’s regional campaign coordinator Rob Godden told IPS. The latest campaign comes after Colombo rejected a call for human rights monitors at last month’s sessions of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
According to the government the newly appointed Special Presidential Commission was well equipped to deal with rights abuses. "No monitors will be allowed without a formal invitation by the government," official spokesman and minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.
For cricket fans in Sri Lanka though there are far more pressing concerns than pesky foam balls. "All this will mean nothing if we lose. The team must win... that is our only saving grace," Fernando said. (END/2007)