Marks & Spencer to Make Clothes to Cover Sri Lanka’s Skeletons

Marks & Spencer to Make Clothes to Cover Sri Lanka’s Skeletons

Marks & Spencer, England’s premier retailer has opened its doors in Sri Lanka. It was reported in the Sri Lankan daily, “dailymirror.lk” that the “The new green model manufacturing garment factory in Sri Lanka that will be opened by Marks & Spencer tomorrow will become a benchmark for its factories globally, the company said.”

The move by Marks & Spencer comes at a time when Sri Lanka is facing an uphill challenge in retaining the duty free status. It was recently reported by Feizal Samath for the IPS ”duty free access it enjoys to European markets will soon be cut as a result of alleged human rights violations related to the government’s pursuit of a military solution to a long-standing ethnic conflict”

Recently a British Tamil-spearheaded coalition had gone public and had requested to place an economic embargo until the Government of Sri Lanka starts to respect human rights and freedom. It is to be noted that the conditions in Sri Lanka have since then deteriorated significantly. Last week, a much respected Human Rights activist and a catholic priest, Rev. Fr. X. Karunaratnam was assassinated by the Sri Lanka’s Armed soldiers as he was making his way to his home from the Church, after a mass.

The opening of the factory at this time comes as a slap in the face of Human Rights activists from arround the world who have been campaigning for the improvement of Human Rights. It is feared such actions will continue to contribute only towards Sri Lanka’s war chest and will not have much impact on its economic upliftment. Commentators have also warned that Marks & Spencer may be trying to play the dirty game of fishing in the troubled waters. This may turn out to be a financial and public relations horror for the board at Marks & Spencer, warned an analyst.

Sri Lanka is waging a thirty year war on the Tamil minority. The Government of Sri Lanka under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapakse has been criticised for the horrendous human rights record. Over the past thirty years, more than 85,000 Tamil civilians have been killed by Government forces of Sri Lanka. 

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