DOHA - Sri Lanka has urged Qatar to ban the LTTE, Sri Lanka's Deputy Foreign Minister, who is on a tour of the region, told the media yesterday.
Hussein A Bhaila said after a meeting with Qatar's Assistant Foreign Minister, H E Muqaddam Al Bonain, that one of the issues discussed was to ban the LTTE.
Asked what impact he thought the move would have on the LTTE, Bhaila said if nothing else, it would put moral pressure on the terrorist organisation.
His comments came in response to a question from The Peninsula about reports that some LTTE operators were extorting money from low-income Sri Lankan workers here to remit funds home.
Since Qatar has a very effective remittance monitoring system, such transfers can be tracked. "One area the Qatari government should look at is banning the LTTE," Bhaila said firmly.
He said the Qatari side had told him that if Colombo had any specific information about extortion or fund transfers to the LTTE, then it should provide details for immediate action here.
Talking of labor issues, he said there were an estimated 70,000 Sri Lankan workers in Qatar and they included professionals and semi-skilled hands. "At least 95 per cent of quantity surveyors here are from Sri Lanka," the minister said.
Minimum wages for Sri Lankan workers, many of whom are employed in the unorganised contracting and construction sectors, was one of the key issues taken up during discussions with the undersecretary at the Ministry of Civil Service Affairs and Housing under which the Department of Labour falls.
To ensure that, a protocol needed to be added to the labour agreement inked between Doha and Colombo. Qatar has said it would shortly forward a draft of the proposal, Bhaila pointed out.
It was also agreed that the job contracts signed by some Sri Lankan workers back home should be accepted by the authorities concerned in Qatar, he said. This could be the key to preventing workers from escaping their original employers and working elsewhere in violation of the law.
Bhaila said that yet another important issue which was discussed with the authorities was that in the case of death or arrest of a Sri Lankan, the country's embassy was not informed.
In many a case, the relatives of a deceased or arrested Sri Lankan back home came to know of it before the embassy.
The Qatari authorities have said that they are framing a policy in that regard since such complaints had been received from other diplomatic missions as well, said Bhaila. With him at the news briefing was C F Chinniah, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka.
© The Peninsula 2007
