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E.U. team cautions Colombo on rights violations

COLOMBO: A visiting delegation of the European Parliament on Friday warned Sri Lanka hat it could loose the GSP+ status (which provides preferential access to the textile sector in the E.U. market) unless it addressed concerns over human rights violations and media freedom.

The GSP is an autonomous trade arrangement through which the E.U. provides non-reciprocal preferential access to the E.U market to 176 developing countries and territories, in the form of reduced tariffs for their goods when entering the E.U. market. It is implemented by a Council Regulation applicable for a period of three years at a time.

The current GSP scheme is valid till end of 2008 and for countries to be eligible for availing the 2009-12 phase they have to effectively implement 27 international conventions related to human rights.

The delegation led by Robert Evans is currently on a week-long visit for a first hand assessment of the ground situation. It said at the end of its mission that more must be done by Colombo to defend human rights and put an end to frightening number of abductions.

Primary objective of the mission was to visit the Eastern Province where elections to the Provincial Council were held on May 10 and a Government led by the rebel LTTE faction was installed after it captured power in coalition with the ruling combine.

At a news conference the head of the delegation lamented that as a result of last minute cancellation and a catalogue of chaos, the members could not visit Trincomalee, headquarters of the Eastern Province.

Despite repeated assurances, endless complications resulted in the party being turned back from Ratmalana Airport, destroying months of preparation, time and expense, the mission said in a statement.

While maintaining that the mission was fully aware of the challenge faced by Sri Lanka in combating terrorism, the delegation said that they were concerned about the lack of a timetable for weapons decommissioning. In addition, the mission said that it was concerned about charges of TMVP still using child soldiers.

The head of the delegation said that in several meetings with the media, journalists spoke of continued harassment and the fear of being critical of the authorities. He said as per various accounts 12 media workers have been killed in the island nation in the last few months.

The delegation was `informally informed that 500 members of the military had been investigated for rights abuses and 100 of them had been prosecuted/convicted. To date, no evidence to substantiate this has been provided, Mr. Evans said.

The mission statement said that the situation in Sri Lanka is extremely tense and stressed the need for implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on devolution of powers and urged the President to immediately re-establish the Constitutional Council and independent commissions to address the general `crisis of governance.

In the light of all these apprehensions, the EU Delegations remains extremely anxious about the impact of a possible loss of GSP+ status would have on economy and employment in Sri Lanka and urges the Government to do everything possible to effectively implement the international conventions that are required to address the human rights concerns, the statement said.

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