ICES imbroglio before NGO Committee
Chamikara Weerasinghe
The Parliamentary Select Committee on NGOs will summon the
representatives of several NGOs and an official of UNDP Colombo who had
reportedly sided with the sacked and reinstated Executive Director of
the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Dr. Rama Mani, whose
visa was cancelled recently by the Government.
Dr. Mani's moves in her capacity as the ICES executive director to
align the ICES with the International Crisis Group (ICG) to put into
practice the latter's R2P agenda (Responsibility to Protect), which
could involve external interference in the affairs of a sovereign State,
has raised concerns.
Parliamentary sources said yesterday that the Committee is due to
summon the NGOs to question their connections with Dr. Mani. The Select
Committee is yet to determine whether the NGOs had protested against
Mani's removal from her position as the ICES Executive Director on the
basis of an underlying agreement to support R2P, the sources said.
Forty persons have signed a petition demanding reinstatement of Dr.
Mani following her removal on January 14 by the ICES chairman Kingsley
De Silva. De Silva reinstated Mani on February 1.
A UNDP official in Colombo is the second signatory to the petition.
Several NGOs, Young Asia Television, the Neelan Tiruchelvan Trust, the
National Peace Council, the Social Scientists Association, Women and
Media Collective, Foundation for Co-existence and National Anti-war
Front have signed the petition.
NGO sources said that the reversal of the decision was made on the
influence of a Western mission. Several donor organisations including
the Ford Foundation is said to have funded the ICES. The NGOs have
reportedly received Rs.200 million from Facilitating Local Initiatives
for Conflict Resolutions (FLICR).
Meanwhile, the UNDP official had said that he had been tricked into
signing the petition concerning Dr. Mani.
Dr. Mani had left the country with her 12 year old son in spite of
her reinstatement as ICES Executive Director with her visa being
cancelled by the Emigration and Immigration Controller.
ICES sources said that the issue would not have come out into the
open had there been no power struggle within the ICES.
The R2P doctrine was outlined last year during a lecture given in
Colombo by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans of the ICG.
|
