by Melani Manel Perera

For months, he has avoided meeting with the families of detainees. When we met them he made fun of the women, making it clear he does not want to be involved and refuses to talk with national leaders of fishermen's organizations.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - "Irresponsible", "superficial", "playful" with women, but above all oblivious to the plight of fishermen who are prisoners in the Indian jails of Andaman for over 7 months: these are some of the allegations that fishermen in Sri Lanka , their families and the organization World Forum for Fisher People (WFFP, World Forum of Fishermen) addressed to the Minister Felix Perera for the many broken promises and his obstruction of the Secretary General of WFFP, Herman Kumara.

Since 8th February 2009, 51 fishermen from the west coast of Sri Lanka have been in prison on the Andaman Islands (India) for having encroached with their fishing nets in Indian waters. The families of the fishermen and industry organizations have been appealing all these months to Minister Perera who promised that within a few weeks the situation would be rectified; then made clear that he did not want to be involved, then avoided key appointments with the prisoners' families and finally agreed to talk with the fishermen, but demanded the campaigner Herman Kumara be excluded.

Herman Kumara (see photo) is also among the organizers of the campaign to free the fishermen, along with the Nafs (National Fisheries Solidariety), which encompasses many members among the more than 700 thousand fishermen in Sri Lanka.

Commenting on his meeting with the Minister on 9 October, Kanthi, a fisherwoman, said: "I can not understand how some people become a minister. During the meeting he joked, making fun of the fisherwomen. To say nothing of his bad behaviour towards our leader Kumara”.

For his part, the minister said that it will take another month to free the imprisoned fishermen.

 

• sri
• lanka
• fishermen
• andaman
• islands
• prison
• fisheries
• minister
• release