‘Boycott Sri Lanka’ campaign continues in UK

A public awareness campaign asking shoppers in Britain to boycott products made in Sri Lanka and sold in popular stores like Marks & Spencer continued last week with several members of the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) handing out leaflets and talking to shoppers on Oxford Street Saturday. Similar TYO events took place over the Christmas period in shopping centres in London’s suburbs, mirroring Tamil activists’ campaigns in other parts of the world, and those of other UK-based organisations like ‘Act Now’. In the midst of the January sales, central London retailers are in their busiest times of the year.

Despite the cold weather Saturday, groups of activists at different locations on UK’s premier shopping street spent several hours handing out leaflets, distributing thousands of leaflets and talking to shoppers, some of whom returned bought items.

“Our goal, like other campaigners, is to continue to raise awareness of Sri Lanka’s treatment of the Tamil people, and [Saturday’s] was very successful in that regard,” a TYO official told TamilNet.

“We were pleasantly surprised to find, in comparison to our past campaigns, greater awareness of Sri Lanka amongst shoppers. Many people pledged in future to check products’ made-in labels and also to spread the word!”

“Some people also took leaflets to distribute in support and occasionally a few joined us for a short while,” TYO activists said

Some shoppers also took back their recently bought products made in Sri Lanka.

In Harrow, alarmed M&S shop staff came out to meet the campaigners.

“They calmed down when we explained the boycott was aimed at Sri Lankan products, not their company, though of course they still weren’t happy,” an activist said.

Textiles and Garments is Sri Lanka’s biggest export earner with $3.2 billion in 2009 - but garment production has a large imported component, reducing the value-added.

The UK is said to be second largest market (after the United States) for Sri Lanka garments, accounting for 27% of garment exports.

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British Tamils seek boycott of defiant Sri Lanka

British Prime Minister David Cameron will Monday be handed a memorandum on behalf of UK’s Tamil community urging his government to support an international probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka, and to pressure the Colombo government to resettle in their homes tens of thousands of Tamils still languishing in refugee camps, and allow international access to thousands held in its prisoner-of-war camps. The UK is also being urged to boycott Sri Lanka till Colombo complies with international law. The handover follows a march and ‘midnight vigil’ outside 10 Downing Street staged Friday night by thousands of supporters of the campaign who marked the anniversary of the 1983 ‘Black July’ anti-Tamil pogrom.

Vigil outside 10 Downing Street

The vigil also inaugurated a “Walk for Justice” by a British Tamil youth, from the site of British Parliament, through France and Switzerland to the UN offices in Geneva to raise awareness and support for these goals.

Thousands of Tamils and non-Tamils gathered Friday night carrying candles, placards, banners and hoisting flags appealing to the UK establishment and the UN to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka. They walked in procession from opposite Westminster to Downing Street.

The rally and vigil marked the anniversary of the ‘Black July’ state-sponsored massacres of 1983, in which three thousand Tamils were slaughtered and the homes and businesses torched.

“The [event] also served as springboard to gather support for international action on Sri Lanka’s defiance of international norms,” said an official of the British Tamil Forum, which organized the event.

“To this end, we are calling for an international boycott of the Colombo government until it respects international laws,” she said.

“The Sri Lankan government has shown clear opposition to any prospect of independent monitors investigating war crimes in Sri Lanka,” the BTF said. “The walk for justice to the UN coincides with the recent appointment of a UN advisory panel by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.”

An international day of boycott is taking place on Saturday 31st July 2010 across US, UK, Canada, Australia and Europe to take forward this campaign.

“[Friday night’s] event, like others, in intended to send a message of hope to our Tamil brothers and sisters that we will not rest until they are free from the oppressive State,” the BTF said.

“Westminster Council, the Mayor’s Office and the Metropolitan Police offered tremendous support to enable this momentous vigil to take place,” the statement added.

The midnight vigil also inaugurated a “Walk for Justice” from the heart of British Parliament, through France and Switzerland to the UN Human Rights Council offices in Geneva.

Mr. Sivanthan, a British Tamil youth, will be joined by supporters and well-wishers on a two-week walk to raise awareness and amalgamate support for the campaign, which has amongst its goals, “an independent international probe into war crimes committed in Sri Lanka, … access to prisoners of war, for all internally displaced persons to be resettled into their own homes, and a boycott of Sri Lanka until it respects international laws.”

“The two-week walk to the UN aims to unite Tamils across Europe and the wider community to join calls to highlight the need for UN to uphold international laws to ensure that justice is universal and to set precedents for other rogue states,” the BTF said.

A memorandum is also to be handed to the UN in Geneva on 6th August 2010.

NEXT quits Sri Lanka, exports to EU fall - report

The British clothing retailer, NEXT, has stopped sourcing its garments from Sri Lanka because of the uncertainty of the continuance of the GSP+ duty concession from the European Union, The Sunday Leader reported this week. The company has moved production to Bangladesh, an industry source told the paper. Meanwhile, exports to the EU fell 13% in the first quarter of 2010, a decline the Sri Lankan garment industry attributes to falling demand due to the economic conditions there. Garments are Sri Lanka’s largest foreign exchange earner.

The GSP+ facility helps Sri Lanka to export garments and several other products to the EU on a duty free basis. The advantage o exporters is 9%.

The EU last month again threatened to stop this concession by August 15 if Sri Lanka doesn’t give a written guarantee by July 1 to some 15 conditions governing human rights, the deadline of which is now past.

Sri Lanka rejected the conditions out of hand and dismissed the GSP+ concession as not worth surrendering the country’s sovereignty.

Nonetheless, the EU Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Bernard Savage, told the Sunday Leader on Thursday that the EU exercises a degree of flexibility in their timeframe given to Sri Lanka and would wait for a couple of days for a reply.

However, in the meantime, the Sri Lankan Central Bank has issued a statement warning the garments industry to prepare to make do without the GSP+ concession.

According to the Central Bank, garments exports to EU countries constituted about 50 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total apparel exports in 2009. Of these, about 60 per cent benefited from the GSP+ scheme, while the balance was exported to the EU without the GSP+ concession.

NEXT plc (LSE: NXT) is a British retailer, with its headquarters in Enderby, Leicestershire, England. It is one of the United Kingdom's largest clothing retailers, number three behind Marks & Spencer and Philip Green's retail empire of Bhs and Arcadia Group. The company, which has employed some of the biggest names in the fashion world including Alessandra Ambrosio, Noémie Lenoir, Yasmin Le Bon, Gabriel Aubry and Paul Sculfor, has over 400 stores throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and 50 franchise branches in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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Next plc

California street fair embraces Sri Lanka boycott message

Members of the US-based Tamil political action group, USTPAC Boycott Campaign, joined the madness at the 11th annual How Weird Street Faire in San Francisco on Sunday, May 9th 2010 to publicize the group's mission to the attendees to event, organizers of the Tamil group said. Twenty-foot tall banners advertising the “No Blood for Panties” video series on boycotting apparel made in Sri Lanka adorned the backdrop of the catwalk, according to activists participating in the street fair.

Slide show of street fair

The annual event, inspired in 2000 by a small group promoting world peace through technology, brought nearly 12,000 fans in a global celebration of art, music and international culture from vendors and non-profit organizations across the world.

This year’s theme was “Bollyweird: The cosmic Dance” and included ten music stages, a mock Hindu temple, fantastic costumes, food and other festivities spread across ten city blocks.

New this year was Fashion Alley that included a fashion runway featuring top local designers and models who introduced the concept of “conscious consumerism” and “designer activism”.

Models in lingerie and USTPAC's boycott message of “check the label“ were cheered on by an appreciative crowd and captured on numerous cameras, organizers said.

Protesters explained that textiles were the biggest export earner bringing foreign revenue to Sri Lanka and how that foreign exchange was being used by the government to maintain its military whose sole purpose is to oppress the Tamil people.

"Many at the Faire were shocked to hear about the human rights abuses, tens of thousands of internally displaced persons who still remain in internment camps even after the civil war ended a year ago and the war crimes that remain uninvestigated despite efforts by human rights organizations, the United Nations and the US State Department," spokesperson for the protesters said.

"Those who heard our story were sympathetic to our cause and extremely supportive of our campaign. They were willing to sign petitions and promised to boycott clothes made in Sri Lanka. Several models and colorfully attired attendees at the Faire asked to hold our boycott banners. Some even danced with them, adding to the attention they drew from the crowds," the spokesperson further said.

The open-minded ambiance of the Fair turned out to be an appropriate setting for the boycott campaign message, and the protesters were able to pass a serious message of boycotting clothes made in Sri Lanka to the attendees, USTPAC's spokespersons said.

Sri Lanka Boycott campaign buoyed by British MP's endorsement

The Sri Lanka boycott campaigners staged co-ordinated rallies in US and UK cities Saturday and were enthused by the endorsement to their campaign by the British Member of Parliament, Siobhain McDonagh, who in her publicized video and urged consumers to step up pressure on the Sri Lanka Government by sustained economic boycott, US organizer of the boycott, Dr Ellyn Shander said. Boycott rallies were held in several cities in the U.S. and in U.K. "The campaigns in the future are likely to take the form of globally co-ordinated events to increase the effectiveness and to elicit wider publicity," Shander said.

Siobhain McDonagh, a Member of Parliament, from UK

"Act Now" Director Graham Williamson said, "we are pleased to join our American friends in a Global boycott of Sri Lankan products sold by GAP. We hope the campaign expands throughout the world in the weeks and months to come. If GAP suffers financially due to their 'un-ethical' trade with Sri Lanka it will only have itself to blame," Williamson said. Ms.McDonagh took time off her General Election campaign to join the Oxford Street boycotters outside the GAP flagship store.

Protest Campaign in London

Protesters in Boston

In the US, protest rallies were held in New York, Boston , Washington D.C., Raleigh NC, Sawgrass Mall, Florida, San Francisco and Chicago.

"This boycott is about asking people to buy with a conscience. Why buy clothing from a government who ridicules human rights and arrogantly committed war crimes? Whenever there is injustice we have an obligation to step up and try and fight for the affected people. We want companies like Victoria secret and the Gap to divest from Sri Lanka and do business ethically as an obligation to their customers and a moral obligation to humanity," Dr Ellyn Shander told TamilNet.

With the global downturn in consumer spending clothing industry has been badly affected. "This is the right time to for the expatriate Tamils to join in force to bring economic pressure on Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Government is unlikely to heed the call of Tamils for political accommodation unless severe economic pressure is hoisted on Colombo," an activist attending the New York protest said.

Protesters in Boston

Protesters in New York

Protesters in New York

Protesters in New York

Protesters in Maryland

Protesters in Maryland

Protesters in Boston

Protesters in San Francisco

boycott srilanka and blood garments

"Boycott Sri Lanka goods" campaign spreads to more US cities

While a few U.S. cities, including Washington postponed the planned Sri Lanka Boycott rallies due to the record-breaking snow storm, in most of the 15 cities Tamil activists held protests urging ethical-minded consumers to boycott Sri Lanka products, especially textiles, as the protesters allege that the profits fund State violence against Tamil civilians, organizers of the protest said. Meanwhile, the organizers of the boycott campaign released a third-video in a planned series of video releases highlighting the need to black-label Sri Lanka products across the world, sources close to the boycott campaign said.

The protest ralllies across the U.S. cities Saturday were very successful in spreading the message, and the experience in the past weeks is helping the activists improve the effectiveness of the rallies, the organizers said.

TamilNet received a brief summary of the rallies held Saturday:

Protesters in New York

North Carolina protest

North Carolina protest

San Francisco protest

Florida protest

Florida protest

Fort Lauderdale, FL: The small but energetic Florida group gathered for the fourth time near the Sawgrass Mills mall Saturday. Shoppers curiosity in knowing what is going on in Sri Lanka, is making the boycott meaningful for the Florida Tamils, an organizer of the protest said.

Raleigh, NC: Nearly two dozen people showed up for a "freezing boycott" at the front of a mall entrance. Later this was moved to a intersection of two main roads for better visibility and exposure. Lots of people slowed their vehicles to read. The organizers at the end of the rally dropped brochures on the cars in the parking lot.

San Francisco, CA: An enthusiastic group of over 20 activists including many woman and children at the rally. Almost every person carrying a placard in front of Gap was kept busy by shoppers approaching them to ask for more information and get better informed. The city was bustling with shoppers and tourists, and a couple from Switzerland decided to donate some money after talking to the activists about the human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

Many provided their contact information and wanted to be informed on the subject. The street musician across from Gap store was playing his drums while singing "Say No to Sri Lanka" and "No to War Crimes" helping us get attention to the protest.

Some of the protesters walked over to Victoria's Secret, engaging with shoppers along the way. Victoria's Secret called the police to try and intimidate us. Police were told that we were harassing their customers and preventing them from going into the store. Two of the three police officers who arrived at the scene were friendly faces who had seen our protests in the past. Seeing that we were a peaceful bunch, the officers talked to us about the protests while the third officer went into the store to educate them about the rights of citizens to protest. The policemen lefter after engaging in friendly conversations as they had better things to do.

A couple of activists went to meet with the store managers at Victoria's Secret and Gap. The store managers found it hard to be friendly this time around. The corporate HQ and their PR are in touch with the local management, keeping them informed as well as collecting information.

Overall we had another successful protest in San Francisco, handing out hundreds of brochures, fliers and coupons, and more importantly talking to customers and getting public support.

Los Angeles, CA: About 10 activists gathered at the South Coast Plaza mall, Coasta mesa, CA at 11:00 a.m. Two activists each stood at doors of Baby GaP, GAP, Victoria secret and Banana Republic to distribute fliers We delivered about 400 flyers.

The Banana Republic manager and GAP managers inquired if we had permission, and turned back after we said we had permission. We distributed fliers asking shoppers to boycott Sri Lanka products. The protest was peaceful.

Atlanta, GA: Nearly ten of us turned out for the protest in the freezing temperature (for Atlanta, 30 degF). We stood at the mall entrance for more than an hour. After that we all went inside the mall and had an informal discussion on followup actions, and how we could make the effort more effective.

Raleigh, NC: We in Raleigh had a freezing boycott too. We were really numb after a while. Total 17 people showed up with a few children. Originally we started in front of a mall entrance then walked to a main intersection for better visibility and exposure. Lots of people slowed their vehicles to read. Then we dropped brochures on the cars in the parking lot.

Detroit, Michigan: Boycott protest was held in the metro Detroit at Great Lakes Crossing Mall for the first time. We had about 25 participants including children from Metro Detroit as well as from Windsor Ontario. We distributed about 200 flyers. We planned it for 4:00-6:30 but had to stop at 5:30 on the direction of Mall security.

Dallas, Texas: A small team of activists protested close GAP and Victoria Secret which were right next door to each other. Plans are afoot to expand the number of protesters in the area where President Bush lives.

Chicago, Illinois: The determined group in Chicago continued with the protest despite the freezing weather. We gathered in front of Gap and Victoria Secret at Michigan ave downtown Chicago from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and handed out around 600 fliers.

Boston, MA: Boycott Team covered 4 locations in Boston, The weather wasn’t cooperative with the wind-chill at 14° F, but the activists continued their protests. The shopping traffic was light due to the weather, the participants observed.

New York, NY: A small number of activists stood in freezing temperatures, carrying placards urging shoppers to boycott Sri Lanka products, at 34th and broadway 12:30 to 3:30pm Saturday.

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Boycott Sri Lanka Campaign