Early in March of this year the decision was taken to close the project in Sri Lanka. The decision was made following meetings with Ministries of the Sri Lankan Government in which it was made clear that unless certain conditions were met, submitting our reports to Government Ministries prior to publishing and providing names and addresses of all our contacts in Sri Lanka, we would not be issued with the necessary recommendations from the Ministry of Defence for the granting of visas for the team members. These conditions were unacceptable.

Throughout March the team in place ( Joanna Balzano, Steve Pizzano and Aidan Cahill) worked hard at fulfilling the necessary closure activities prior to their departure. This included meeting with Sri Lankan contacts, members of the diplomatic community, International NGO contacts and ensuring all legal and financial matters were managed professionally. The Eight and a half years of PBI's unarmed presence in Sri Lanka came to an end in the first week of April when Steve, Joanna and Aidan flew out.

As part of the closure process it was considered important that the Sri Lanka Project Committee work closely with the International Council and two members were appointed to represent that body,(Quique Eurgen and Liam Mahoney) to help develop a closure strategy. Most of the discussions had have been connected with a publicity and political response strategy.

To date a letter has been sent to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga raising our concern about what we perceive as a deterioration in human rights within Sri Lanka. We have also issued a Press Release centred around the letter to The president.

In addition some informal meetings to explain the situation have been held with NGO's in the United Kingdom. More work is in hand and will be reported on in a future article.

Other activities within the UK have centred around the practical aspects of closing a project: preparing reports for donors, ensuring that all legal and financial liabilities are able to be met and issuing redundancy notices to the staff.

The project office formally closed on 31 May. All enquiries after that date should be via:

International Office:
Development House
56-64 Leonard Street
London EC2A 4JX
U.K.
Tel: (0) 207 065 0775
Contact Us

Finally thank you to all who over the projects eight and a half years have helped to make it the success it has been: all of you who have been team members, worked within your Country Group, the many donors, and those who have made up the project committee, the staff of the project office and our many valued and supportive friends in Sri Lanka itself. Without the contributions of all of these people what has been achieved could not have happened.

There is still work to be done in Sri Lanka. The human rights situation under the current government is a deteriorating one.

The above text may freely be reproduced, copied, or translated, in whole or in part, as long as the source is stated as:
Peace Brigades International.

formatted by pgordon@gn.apc.org