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 ‘civil society’ was used to bring these NGOs into political life of Sri Lanka.

In 2012, there were approximately 1300 NGOs in Sri Lanka.  The   local NGOs are funded by foreign organizations. One NGO admitted that if the foreign funding dried up all activities would stop. Most NGOs are small with less than 10 full time staff. Most NGOs are located in posh offices in urban areas, do not have a membership base, and are run by a self appoint core management team with permanent tenure and absolute control while drawing lucrative salaries,  and enjoying perks, observed  Kamal Wickremesinghe.  The NGOs have interlocking directorates and the heads of important NGOs are invited to the ‘diplomatic cocktail circuit’.

NGOs can be registered in Sri Lanka as a company, society, charity or trust. There are 10   routes to choose from.  They can register under Act no 31 of 1980 as a voluntary service organizations, Companies Act 17 of 1982, Societies Act of 1972, Agrarian development Act no 46 of 2000, Protection of the rights of elders Act no 9 of 2000, Rural development Act, Consumer affairs authority Act, Trust Ordinance or get itself directly established by its own Act of Parliament.  The Parliament Select committee of 2008 did not approve to this. It recommended that all NGOs should be registered under one authority.

There are hundreds of NGOs in Sri Lanka .Here is a description of one NGO. The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) (est. 1997) is an association of agencies working in, and supporting work in, Sri Lanka for peace building and humanitarian work. A network of humanitarian agencies and has developed a fully-fledged secretariat with its own specific capabilities.

 it is an excellent tool to disseminate information, bring weight in discussions related to the conflict situation of the country and lobbying through a large membership, maintaining links bottom-up and across tires, providing convenient access to information on needs of specific conflict-affected communities, government policies regarding pertinent issues, and international agencies working in the country.CHA believes in respecting diversity and the promotion and achievement of fundamental rights and freedom, which provides equal opportunities for development for all Sri Lankans. Areas of operation: Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Puttalam, Matara, Mannar, Kalutara Jaffna, Hambantota, Galle, Badulla and Ampara.

The Select Committee of Parliament investigating NGOs found that a large number of NGOs violated state policy, contravened laws, and engaged in activities that directly threatened Sri Lanka defence and sovereignty.  Unlike other countries, there is no mechanism in Sri Lanka to regulate and monitor them.  The existing laws   are unable to control their anti-Sri Lanka activities either.   Government should start to control these NGOs,   prevent them disseminating misinformation and keep a close eye on their propaganda campaigns, critics said.

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

These organizations are dangerous and should be kept under surveillance. The government must look into the extent of NGO penetration.  The government should flush out these NGOs said a Daily News editorial in 2010.

There is a deep rooted mistrust of NGOs in Sri Lanka.  These NGOs are up to no good, they are promoting foreign agendas and engaging in various anti national activities quite openly, said critics. They have been set up to destabilize and divide the country. Critics observed that the NGOs appearing against Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council, Geneva, as ‘voluntary’ organizations, were NGOs that had been funded by the very same   western governments that had sponsored the action against Sri Lanka.  These NGOs are ‘are funded by countries that are against us. Then they use the findings of these NGOs to support their position’, critics exclaimed.

The main focus of these ‘political’ NGOs is the Tamil separatist cause. There was an unusual concentration of NGOs in the north and east. 50% of the NGOs were est. in Colombo, the North central province had 8%, central province 5%, southern province 3% north and east had 20%,   said Chandraprema. 

The NGOs sided with the LTTE in the Eelam war and supported the Ceasefire agreement of 2002. NGOs in the north-east assisted the LTTE. They gained access to sensitive areas on the pretext of providing humanitarian aid to these areas. One NGO allowed LTTE to use their heavy equipment for building barricades.  The Kilinochchi project manager of   ZOA had joined the LTTE. Heads of NGOs travelled abroad repeatedly to lobby against the government. They said Sri Lanka was a failed state, the government could not win the Eelam war, and it should go for a ‘political solution’. In 2004 National Bhikku Front marched from Pettah to President’s house to hand over a petition demanding an immediate ban on pro-LTTE anti –Buddhist NGOs.

For more than 11 years, from 1994 onwards, these NGOs had the ear of the highest in the land and were highly visible in all media, private and state owned. They spouted Eelam mythology as fact, stuffed tons of devolution down the public throat and worked tirelessly to give a terrorist organization parity of status with a democratically elected government, said Malinda Seneviratne.

These NGOs show a callous disregard for the general welfare of the country. Centre for Policy Alternatives declared, incorrectly,   that Sri Lanka did not qualify for an extension of the European Union Generalized Scheme of Preferences” (GSP) concession as it had not fully incorporated the ICCPR provisions into their local legislation.

The reasons offered would not stand up to scrutiny in a court of law, they were in the realms of conjecture and hypothetical. Also, they were not issues that should be considered where vital trade concessions are concerned.CPA  has not cared about the consequences of the withdrawal of GSP+  on the country’s economy. The GSP concession allowed developing countries to pay less or no duties on their exports to the EU.

When the Eelam war ended, the NGOs turned on the armed forces, alleging human rights violations.  They wanted a war crimes probe at UN level. This was clearly a fallback position planned well ahead in the west.   NGO representatives from Sri Lanka  re-started  lobbying against Sri Lanka in the UN. NGO representatives from Sri Lanka  re-started  lobbying against Sri Lanka in the UN. They also complained about militarization of civilian areas, Sinhalisation of Tamil road names in north and east and  destruction of Hindu shrines and replacing them with Buddha statues.

Three months after the Eelam war ended, the” Sri Lanka campaign for Peace and Justice”  was created, which targeted the government  on humanitarian and HR  fronts. This Campaign declared its affiliation with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, and Reporters sans frontiers.  They wanted the UN to   hold Sri Lanka accountable for war crimes. This was of course, a fall back position, planned well before hand.

Then, in 2010, and  after that  in 2015, NGOs were entrusted with regime change. In 2012  a panel of university teachers warned the public   that NGOs were working to destabilize the government, as was done in Egypt. They named Transparency International, a university trade union and 12 NGOs (Daily News 30.11.12 p 1). In the same year, NGOs had funded trade union leaders and farmers to organize protests against the government. NGOs   also worked on changing public attitudes.  They have been thanked for influencing the Presidential election of 2015 and securing a win for President Sirisena.  NGOs are now working to create public support for ‘devolution’ and ‘federalism’ at local level.

The International Centre for Ethnic studies went further. It was suggested in 2000, that the international community had a right to protect” citizens of any country from crimes against humanity. This   was termed Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). Critics said that R2P was concocted to justify foreign intervention in domestic affairs of countries.  R2p is just another pretext to justify neo colonial intervention in the domestic affairs of developing nations, they said.

There was an attempt to make the International centre for Ethnic studies, ICES into a regional centre for R2P. Global R2P Centre” was advertising ICES Colombo as a regional office in 2008. This was speedily squashed by the government. The visa of ICES director Rama Mani was revoked and she was asked to leave the country immediately.

‘Protect Sri Lanka’‘ stated  at the time, that 6 international  organization s  operating in Colombo are compiling reports of alleged human rights violations in a sinister move to justifying R2P They cited Human Rights Watch, International Panel of Jurists, Amnesty International, IIGEP, UN Human rights commission, and International Crisis Group. These organizations are on a mission to destabilize the country when it was on the verge of defeating the LTTE.

What interested people most in the NGOs was its finances. How much was coming in to these NGOs and what was happening to the money. International donors and the UN agencies were not channeling their aid through local NGOs, such as  Sewa Lanka, which have been operating in Sri Lanka for several decades. Instead they were giving their money to   INGOs  and foreign funded local NGOs.  UK confirmed that their funds all went to NGOs such as CPA, FCE and FLICT.

These NGOs receive massive funds. One NGO got Rs 272 million, another got Rs 174 million and a third got Rs 171 million between 2001 and 2004 from Norway alone. For the Presidential election of 2010, an NGO got around 51 million.  It was alleged that NED, was funding several Sri Lanka NGOs too. Before 1977 funds for NGOs were channeled through the Foreign Ministry and the government had a very good control over all NGOs. But after 1977 this changed. Today there is no scrutiny of the funds received by these NGOs.

Centre for Policy alternatives, Transparency International Sri Lanka, and National Peace Council received Rs. 71.99 million from 8 US NGOs between 2008-2010. These three NGOs also receive funds to the tune of 618 million Euros from 26 foreign sources and an undisclosed number of unidentified sources. The list of identified sources includes embassies of Canada, Sweden, Netherland, Norway, European Commission, as well as Berghof, Goldman Sachs and Ford Foundation.

Main financial beneficiary of Norway aid   1997-2009 is a group of Colombo based NGOs and their Norwegian partners, said the media.  Germany, Japan, US UK and Scandinavian countries also provided sizeable financial support to local NGOs over the years. NORAD allocated NO Kroner 100 million for Sri Lanka. Among the recipients of this money was Centre for Policy alternatives, and National Peace Council .

Lists of these funding organizations running to over twenty names per NGO are given repeatedly by journalists writing on the subject. For a list of the foreign funders of the Centre for Policy Alternatives see Sunday Island 9.8.09 p 9    and for the donors 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.

NGOs take a very lofty position, talking of rights, wrongs, truth, justice, governance but they themselves were not very straight when it came to money, possibly because those working in the NGOs were not rich. Accepted standards of auditing and accounting were not followed and there was little transparency in their finances, said investigators. NGOs said their accountability was only to their financiers abroad.  Local critics said they would also like to know.  However, information on how NGO monies are spent was not readily available and one journalist concluded ‘This NGO business is one colossal scam. Another said ‘We need a class of respectable people who live off their own private businesses or earnings while playing a role in society as community figures.’

When the war ended, it was shown that though the NGOs were supposed to have spent billions helping the war affected d population; there was not even a toilet that had been built of the civilian population. The NGOs were there simply to provide cover to the LTTE in building camouflaged bunkers. ‘Save the children, Sri Lanka’ had given financial aid amounting to Rs 50 million to TRO for 12 projects. Only one Pre School has been constructed and the TRO had stated that the remaining money could not be returned.

NGOs are now called to be accountable for the monies received and provide the public with audited accounts of the millions they have supposedly spent on the enlistment, development and other meritorious actions they are claiming to use the money for. It is no secret that those who run these NGOs allocate to themselves the millions necessary to support their expensive life style, said critics.

The Select Committee of Parliament for investigation of the operations of NGOs,   2008 said that most NGOs lacked transparency, funds were being used for purpose other than those declared. The Committee also found that accepted standards of auditing and accounting were not followed and there was little transparency in their finances. Before 1977 funds for NGOs were channeled through the Foreign Ministry and the government had a very good control over all NGOs. But after 1977 this changed. Today there is no scrutiny of the funds received by these NGOs.

Parliamentary select committee on NGOs found that the head of the Foundation for Coexistence was drawing an annual salary of 1.1 million rupees from a budget of approx 60 million rupees. The officer had been questioned by the committee for nearly   41/2 hours and had said that the NGO was financed by Norway, Berghof foundation, ZOA and other foreign bodies and its budget was financed from foreign sources.

This Foundation had formulated a project to settle land disputes in the eastern province and it had conducted a survey of Tamil and Muslims of the province but had not looked at Sinhala land ownership.  This Foundation has on its board, Bradman Weerakoon, Kumar Rupasinghe, Desmond Fernando Jayadeva Uyangoda among others.  It was active in Batticaloa , Ampara, Puttalam and Mannar districts. 

Transparency international was given a huge sum of money, alleged to be around 8 million, to do a study of the police service. The study contained nothing of use and could not have cost much.  It was full of trite nonsense of little use to anybody. So where did the money go?  This sort of thing runs through virtually every project that I have examined, said one journalist. (Sunday Island 7.3.2010 p 11)  In another case, it was observed that if the money given for monitoring elections has been correctly spent, by this time, there should be an entire army of committed volunteers all over the country which could be mobilized each time an election is announced.

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

  There was also a large scale fraud in the Free Media Movement. Millions of rupees had been misused. Some of the money had gone unaudited.  And FMM had failed to submit accounts for several years to its membership.   But these are the people who talk of good governance, truth and transparency, exclaimed one critic.

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

 Many who began as young adult today find themselves as senior citizens but still have not seen their dreams realized, they a have also in the last several decades lived very stressful  lives[no they got money, the stress was in continuing to get it]  the question is how far are the younger generation taking over.  They are more concerned with getting a secure job, and h ten on their personal lives. Such issues as climate, governance, human rights, are of no major concern to them. The work is largely urban middle class activists. There is now the danger of social fatigue setting in compelling civil society activists to withdraw from social network in the public domain making it harder for effective civil society action to be sustained in the long run unless more and more youthful members join.  (Concluded)