{"id":90095,"date":"2019-06-09T23:24:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T05:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=90095"},"modified":"2019-06-09T16:23:40","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T23:23:40","slug":"non-governmental-organisations-and-sri-lanka-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/09\/non-governmental-organisations-and-sri-lanka-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS AND SRI LANKA Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The local NGOs active in Sri Lanka politics are\nimplanted organizations, not home grown. They are financed by western countries\nand managed by paid local agents. The term \u2018civil society\u2019 was used to bring\nthese NGOs into political life of Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012,\nthere were approximately 1300 NGOs in Sri Lanka.  The  \nlocal NGOs are funded by foreign organizations. One NGO admitted that if\nthe foreign funding dried up all activities would stop. Most NGOs are small\nwith less than 10 full time staff. Most NGOs are located in posh offices in\nurban areas, do not have a membership base, and are run by a self appoint core\nmanagement team with permanent tenure and absolute control while drawing\nlucrative salaries,  and enjoying perks,\nobserved  Kamal Wickremesinghe.  The\nNGOs have interlocking directorates and the heads of important NGOs are\ninvited to the \u2018diplomatic cocktail circuit\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NGOs can be\nregistered in Sri Lanka as a company, society, charity or trust. There are\n10   routes to choose from.  They\ncan register under Act no 31\nof 1980 as a voluntary service organizations, Companies Act 17 of 1982, Societies\nAct of 1972, Agrarian development Act no 46 of 2000, Protection of the rights\nof elders Act no 9 of 2000, Rural development Act, Consumer affairs authority Act,\nTrust Ordinance or get itself directly established by its own Act of\nParliament.  The Parliament Select committee of 2008\ndid not approve to this. It recommended that all NGOs should be registered\nunder one authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are hundreds of NGOs in Sri Lanka .Here is a description of\none NGO. The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) (est. 1997) is an\nassociation of agencies working in, and supporting work in, Sri Lanka for peace\nbuilding and humanitarian work. A network of humanitarian agencies and has\ndeveloped a fully-fledged secretariat with its own specific capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 it is an excellent tool to\ndisseminate information, bring weight in discussions related to the conflict\nsituation of the country and lobbying through a large membership, maintaining\nlinks bottom-up and across tires, providing convenient access to information on\nneeds of specific conflict-affected communities, government policies regarding\npertinent issues, and international agencies working in the country.CHA\nbelieves in respecting diversity and the promotion and achievement of\nfundamental rights and freedom, which provides equal opportunities for\ndevelopment for all Sri Lankans. Areas of operation:<\/strong> Vavuniya, Trincomalee,\nPuttalam, Matara, Mannar, Kalutara Jaffna, Hambantota, Galle, Badulla and\nAmpara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Select Committee of Parliament\ninvestigating NGOs found that a large number of NGOs violated state policy,\ncontravened laws, and engaged in activities that directly threatened Sri\nLanka defence and sovereignty.  Unlike other countries, there is no\nmechanism in Sri Lanka to regulate and monitor them.  The existing laws   are unable to control their anti-Sri Lanka\nactivities either.   Government should start to control these\nNGOs,   prevent them disseminating misinformation and keep a close\neye on their propaganda campaigns, critics said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there is no mechanism to regulate\nNGOs in Sri Lanka. We have no way of tracking such funding, no way of checking\non the project for which it is given, or that they pay tax and supply accounts,\nsaid Rajiva Wijesinha. There are no curbs on the foreign contribution or\nforeign donors. In most countries NGOs activities are monitored but not here in\nSri Lanka, said Chandraprema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\norganizations are dangerous and should be kept under surveillance. The government must look into the extent of\nNGO penetration.  The government should\nflush out these NGOs said a Daily News<\/em>\neditorial in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a deep rooted mistrust of NGOs in Sri\nLanka.  These NGOs are up to no good, they are promoting foreign agendas\nand engaging in various anti national activities quite openly, said critics.\nThey have been set up to destabilize and divide the country. Critics observed\nthat the NGOs appearing against Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council, Geneva,\nas \u2018voluntary\u2019 organizations, were NGOs that had been funded by the very\nsame   western governments that had sponsored the action against Sri\nLanka.  These NGOs are \u2018are funded by countries that are against us. Then\nthey use the findings of these NGOs to support their position\u2019, critics\nexclaimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main focus of\nthese \u2018political\u2019 NGOs is the Tamil separatist cause. There was an unusual concentration of NGOs in\nthe north and east. 50% of the NGOs were est. in Colombo, the North central\nprovince had 8%, central province 5%, southern province 3% north and east had\n20%,   said Chandraprema.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NGOs sided with the LTTE in the Eelam war\nand supported the Ceasefire agreement of 2002. NGOs in the north-east assisted\nthe LTTE. They gained access to sensitive areas on the pretext of providing\nhumanitarian aid to these areas. One NGO allowed LTTE to use their heavy\nequipment for building barricades.  The Kilinochchi project manager\nof   ZOA had joined the LTTE. Heads of NGOs travelled abroad\nrepeatedly to lobby against the government. They said Sri Lanka was a failed\nstate, the government could not win the Eelam war, and it should go for a\n\u2018political solution\u2019. In 2004 National Bhikku Front marched from Pettah to\nPresident\u2019s house to hand over a petition demanding an immediate ban on\npro-LTTE anti \u2013Buddhist NGOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than 11 years, from 1994\nonwards, these NGOs had the ear of the highest in the land and were highly\nvisible in all media, private and state owned. They spouted Eelam mythology as\nfact, stuffed tons of devolution down the public throat and worked tirelessly\nto give a terrorist organization parity of status with a democratically elected\ngovernment, said Malinda Seneviratne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These NGOs show a callous disregard for the general\nwelfare of the country. Centre for Policy Alternatives declared, incorrectly,  \nthat Sri Lanka did not qualify for an extension of the European Union Generalized\nScheme of Preferences\u201d (GSP) concession as it had not fully incorporated\nthe ICCPR provisions into their local legislation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasons offered would not stand up\nto scrutiny in a court of law, they were in the realms of\nconjecture and hypothetical. Also, they were not issues that should be\nconsidered where vital trade concessions are concerned.CPA  has not cared about the consequences of the withdrawal\nof GSP+  on the country\u2019s economy.\nThe GSP concession allowed developing countries to pay less or no duties on\ntheir exports to the EU. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Eelam\nwar ended, the NGOs turned on the armed forces, alleging human rights\nviolations.  They wanted a war crimes probe at UN level. This was clearly\na fallback position planned well ahead in the west.   NGO\nrepresentatives from Sri Lanka  re-started  lobbying against Sri\nLanka in the UN. NGO\nrepresentatives from Sri Lanka \nre-started  lobbying against Sri\nLanka in the UN. They also complained about militarization of civilian areas,\nSinhalisation of Tamil road names in north and east and  destruction of Hindu shrines and replacing\nthem with Buddha statues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three months after the Eelam war ended, the\u201d\nSri Lanka campaign for Peace and Justice\u201d  was created, which targeted the government  on humanitarian and HR  fronts. This Campaign declared its affiliation\nwith Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, and\nReporters sans frontiers.  They wanted\nthe UN to   hold Sri Lanka accountable\nfor war crimes. This was of course, a fall back position, planned well before\nhand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in 2010,\nand  after that  in 2015, NGOs were\nentrusted with regime change. In 2012  a panel of university teachers\nwarned the public   that NGOs were working to destabilize the\ngovernment, as was done in Egypt. They named Transparency International, a\nuniversity trade union and 12 NGOs (Daily News 30.11.12 p 1). In the same year,\nNGOs had funded trade union leaders and farmers to organize protests against\nthe government. NGOs   also worked on changing public\nattitudes.  They have been thanked for influencing the Presidential\nelection of 2015 and securing a win for President Sirisena.  NGOs are now\nworking to create public support for \u2018devolution\u2019 and \u2018federalism\u2019 at local\nlevel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nInternational Centre for Ethnic studies went further. It was suggested in 2000,\nthat the international community had a right to protect\u201d citizens of any\ncountry from crimes against humanity. This   was termed\nResponsibility to Protect\u201d (R2P).\nCritics\nsaid that R2P was concocted to justify foreign intervention in domestic affairs\nof countries.  R2p\nis just another pretext to justify neo colonial intervention in the domestic\naffairs of developing nations, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was an attempt to make the International\ncentre for Ethnic studies, ICES into a regional\ncentre for R2P. Global\nR2P Centre\u201d was advertising ICES Colombo as a regional office in 2008. This was speedily squashed by the government. The visa of ICES\ndirector Rama Mani was revoked and she was asked to leave the country immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Protect Sri Lanka\u2019\u2018 stated  at the time, that 6 international  organization s  operating in Colombo are compiling reports of\nalleged human rights violations in a sinister move to justifying R2P They cited\nHuman Rights Watch, International Panel of Jurists, Amnesty International,\nIIGEP, UN Human rights commission, and International Crisis Group. These organizations\nare on a mission to destabilize the country when it was on the verge of\ndefeating the LTTE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\ninterested people most in the NGOs was its finances. How much was coming in to\nthese NGOs and what was happening to the money. International donors and the UN agencies were\nnot channeling their aid through local NGOs, such as  Sewa Lanka, which have been operating in Sri\nLanka for several\ndecades. Instead they were giving their money to   INGOs  and foreign funded local NGOs.  UK confirmed that their funds all went to NGOs\nsuch as CPA, FCE and\nFLICT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These NGOs receive massive funds. One NGO got\nRs 272 million, another got Rs 174 million and a third got Rs 171 million\nbetween 2001 and 2004 from Norway alone. For the Presidential election of 2010,\nan NGO got around 51 million.  It was alleged that NED, was funding\nseveral Sri Lanka NGOs too. Before 1977 funds for NGOs were channeled through\nthe Foreign Ministry and the government had a very good control over all NGOs.\nBut after 1977 this changed. Today there is no scrutiny of the funds received\nby these NGOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centre for Policy alternatives, Transparency\nInternational Sri Lanka, and National Peace Council received Rs. 71.99 million\nfrom 8 US NGOs between 2008-2010. These three NGOs also receive funds to the tune of 618 million\nEuros from 26 foreign\nsources and an undisclosed number of unidentified sources. The list of\nidentified sources includes embassies of Canada, Sweden,\nNetherland, Norway, European Commission, as well as Berghof, Goldman Sachs and\nFord Foundation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main financial beneficiary of Norway\naid   1997-2009 is a group of Colombo\nbased NGOs and their Norwegian partners, said the media. \nGermany, Japan, US UK and Scandinavian countries also provided sizeable financial support\nto local NGOs over the years. NORAD\nallocated NO Kroner 100 million for Sri Lanka. Among the recipients of this\nmoney was Centre for Policy alternatives, and National Peace Council .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lists of\nthese funding organizations running to over twenty names per NGO are given\nrepeatedly by journalists writing on the subject. For a list of the\nforeign funders of the Centre for Policy Alternatives see Sunday Island 9.8.09\np 9    and for the\ndonors of International Crisis Group see Sunday Island 2.1.11. p 1.  In addition, Shamindra Ferdinando gives the long list of agencies which funded ICG in 2010-2011 in Island 20.6.2011 p 4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NGOs take a very lofty position, talking of\nrights, wrongs, truth, justice, governance but they themselves were not very\nstraight when it came to money, possibly because those working in the NGOs were\nnot rich. Accepted standards of auditing and accounting were not followed and\nthere was little transparency in their finances, said investigators. NGOs said\ntheir accountability was only to their financiers abroad.  Local critics\nsaid they would also like to know.  However, information on how NGO monies\nare spent was not readily available and one journalist concluded \u2018This NGO\nbusiness is one colossal scam. Another said \u2018We need a class of respectable\npeople who live off their own private businesses or earnings while playing a\nrole in society as community figures.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the war ended, it was shown that though\nthe NGOs were supposed to have spent billions helping the war affected d\npopulation; there was not even a toilet that had been built of the civilian\npopulation. The NGOs were there simply to provide cover to the LTTE in building\ncamouflaged bunkers. \u2018<\/strong>Save the\nchildren, Sri Lanka\u2019 had given financial aid amounting to Rs 50 million to TRO\nfor 12 projects. Only one Pre School has been constructed and the TRO had\nstated that the remaining money could not be returned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NGOs are now called to be accountable for the\nmonies received and provide the public with audited accounts of the millions\nthey have supposedly spent on the enlistment, development and other meritorious\nactions they are claiming to use the money for. It is no secret that those who\nrun these NGOs allocate to themselves the millions necessary to support their\nexpensive life style, said critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Select Committee of Parliament for\ninvestigation of the operations of NGOs,  \n2008 said that most NGOs lacked transparency, funds were being used for\npurpose other than those declared. The Committee also found that accepted\nstandards of auditing and accounting were not followed and there was little\ntransparency in their finances. Before 1977 funds for NGOs were channeled\nthrough the Foreign Ministry and the government had a very good control over\nall NGOs. But after 1977 this changed. Today there is no scrutiny of the funds\nreceived by these NGOs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliamentary select committee on NGOs found\nthat the head of the Foundation for Coexistence was drawing an annual salary of\n1.1 million rupees from a budget of approx 60 million rupees. The\nofficer had been\nquestioned by the committee for nearly  \n41\/2 hours and had said that the NGO was financed by Norway, Berghof\nfoundation, ZOA and other foreign bodies and its budget was financed from\nforeign sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nFoundation had formulated a\nproject to settle land disputes in the eastern province and it had conducted a survey\nof Tamil and Muslims of the province but had not looked at Sinhala land\nownership.  This Foundation has on its\nboard, Bradman Weerakoon, Kumar Rupasinghe, Desmond Fernando Jayadeva Uyangoda among\nothers.  It was active in Batticaloa\n, Ampara, Puttalam and Mannar\ndistricts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transparency international was given a huge\nsum of money, alleged to be around 8 million, to do a study of the police\nservice. The study contained nothing of use and could not have cost much. \nIt was full of trite nonsense of little use to anybody. So where did the money\ngo?  This sort of thing runs through virtually every project that I have\nexamined, said one journalist. (Sunday Island 7.3.2010 p 11)  In another\ncase, it was observed that if the money given for monitoring elections has been\ncorrectly spent, by this time, there should be an entire army of committed\nvolunteers all over the country which could be mobilized each time an election\nis announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.5 million was taken by the Centre for Policy\nalternatives also for a study of the police. The total budge was over 8\nmillion, but the study itself could only have cost about 50,000. the   rates paid to research  organizations for filling in questionnaire is\nwell known and with the traveling expense and give the limited number of\npoliceman surveyed, in a few locations like Colombo Kandy and Kurunegala, the\nsurvey could not have cost even one hundredth of that..  This plague of foreign funding has created\nmouthpiece for foreign governments and organizations. We need a class of\nrespectable people who live off their own private businesses or earning while\nplaying a role in society as community figures, declared the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nThere was also a\nlarge scale fraud in the Free Media Movement. Millions of rupees had been\nmisused. Some of the money had gone unaudited. \nAnd FMM had failed to submit accounts for several years to its\nmembership.   But these are the people\nwho talk of good governance, truth and transparency, exclaimed one critic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siri Hettige winds up the subject. The present\nphase of civil society action is almost perpetual and does not give a respite\nto activist engaged in continuing agitation against multiple stake holders. It\nis often the same people who engage in mass civil society complaisant on many\nfronts on an almost continuing basis to pursue causes that they are committed\nto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Many\nwho began as young adult today find themselves as senior citizens but still\nhave not seen their dreams realized, they a have also in the last several\ndecades lived very stressful  lives[no\nthey got money, the stress was in continuing to get it]  the question is how far are the younger\ngeneration taking over.  They are more\nconcerned with getting a secure job, and h ten on their personal lives. Such\nissues as climate, governance, human rights, are of no major concern to them.\nThe work is largely urban middle class activists. There is now the danger of\nsocial fatigue setting in compelling civil society activists to withdraw from\nsocial network in the public domain making it harder for effective civil\nsociety action to be sustained in the long run unless more and more youthful\nmembers join.  (Concluded) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS The local NGOs active in Sri Lanka politics are implanted organizations, not home grown. They are financed by western countries and managed by paid local agents. The term \u2018civil society\u2019 was used to bring these NGOs into political life of Sri Lanka. In 2012, there were approximately 1300 NGOs in Sri Lanka.  The   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}