Thank You Sir, May We Have Another?

  Wednesday, August 31, 2011 

The government has not renewed Emergency Regulations, which is right and good. The draconian Prevention Of Terrorism Act, however, preserves much of the same powers, including search without warrants and detention without charge.
Since the government so boldly defeated terrorism years ago, it is only fitting that the PTA, too, be repealed.
Emergency Regulations gave the President special powers to call out the armed forces, order curfews and gave the central government power to detain people without charge. It seems that he still has the former powers and the latter is a right given to the Minister of Defence under the PTA. That Minister can detain people for three months at a time without charge, up to a maximum of eighteen months. Who is that Minister? Mahinda Rajapaksa, and his brother is the Secretary.            Read More »
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TNA submits memo to Manmohan

WEDNESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2011
By Kelum Bandara 

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has with the help of some Lok Sabha members had submitted a memorandum to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh requesting him to prevail upon the Sri Lankan government to remove the military camps in the North, TNA parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran said today.

He said the TNA delegation, which participated at the Delhi summit organized by the Indian Congress Party of India had highlighted various other issues confronting the Tamil-speaking people in the North and the East.

“We interacted with a number of Lok Sabha MPs from the ruling party and the opposition and submitted this memorandum to Dr. Singh through them,” he said and added that the dismantling of High Security Zones was another key demand highlighted in the memorandum.

“There are restricted areas in the North and the East. People should be allowed to resettle in these areas in a normal atmosphere,” he said.

“We have not heard anything from them so far,” Mr. Premachandran said when asked whether there was any response.

The TNA held eight rounds of talks with the Sri Lankan government to evolve a political solution but the talks are now at a stalemate over some demands by the TNA.

“We are awaiting the government’s response to our demands,” he said.

Modern Dictatorships through the Mirror: Time for us to be Conscious

Tuesday 30 of August 2011

 By JC Weliamuna (Eisenhower Fellow, Senior Ashoka Fellow & Constitutional Lawyer) (Lanka-e-News -29.Aug.2011, 11.45P.M.) In legal and political literature, the term ‘dictatorship’ includes authoritarianism and is synonymous with traditional terms such as absolutism, absolute governments, despotism and tyranny. In political and constitutional legal theory, a dictatorship is a political regime under which the power of government is not limited by any law. Perhaps the main feature in all types of dictatorships is that there is a concentration of political power in one power center and generally in one person occupying a single high government, party, religious office or it may be located in a small and cohesive elite group. The world has now seen such concentration of dictatorial power be in the hands of a single leader, a popular majority or in its democratically elected executive or legislature. The common feature of all these systems, whether it is a rule of one person or a group of persons, is that it dominates the government while dictating to the entire society its rules without any checks and balances. Full story »    ========================================================

Why Sri Lanka matters

 New World  Edward Mortimer“More than 300,000 people became the victims of the reckless disregard for international norms by the warring parties. Indeed, the conduct of the war by them represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity.” In April 2011, a panel of experts convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon published this damning indictment of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).The report, which focussed on events leading up to the end of the country’s long-running civil war in May 2009, accused both parties of committing human rights violations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. It called for an international investigation, noting that as many as 40,000 civilians could have been killed in the final weeks of fighting, and that the majority of them died at the hands of the Sri Lankan army.   Full Story»>

Modern Dictatorships through the Mirror: Time for us to be Conscious

*groundviews journalism For citizens 

25 Aug, 2011
In legal and political literature, the term ‘dictatorship’ includes authoritarianism and is synonymous with traditional terms such as absolutism, absolute governments, despotism and tyranny. In political and constitutional legal theory, a dictatorship is a political regime under which the power of government is not limited by any law.  Perhaps the main feature in all types of dictatorships is that there is a concentration of political power in one power center and generally in one person occupying a single high government, party, religious office or it may be located in a small and cohesive elite group. The world has now seen such concentration of dictatorial power be in the hands of a single leader, a  popular majority or in its democratically elected executive or legislature. The common feature of all these systems, whether it is a rule of one person or a group of persons, is that it dominates the government while dictating to the entire society its rules without any checks and balances.
As Justice Douglas said in a celebrating US case: 
Continue reading »
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Wikileaks: Captive Tamil doctors "coached" to recant casualty figures

Wikileaks: Captive Tamil doctors "coached" to recant casualty figures

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 August 2011, 03:41 GMT]
Two WikiLeaks cables from U.S. Embassy in Colombo, released to the public last week said that four Tamil doctors who worked with the injured civilians during the last months of the war, and who recanted the casualty figures at a Sri Lanka Government organized press conference, had told the US Embassy officials that "they were heavily coached for the press conference [by Colombo], given specific lines to say, and even practiced with several members of the local media beforehand. They said they had not lied when giving their original statements during the war."

• WikiLeaks: Doctors coached to recant figures

The memo sent by the US Embassy official in Colombo was dated Monday, 24 August 2009, same day after the doctors were released on conditional bail.

Dr Varatharajah  DrShanmugarajah Dr Sathiyamoorthy

The doctors released were Ki'linochchi Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) Dr. T. Sathiyamoorthy, Mullaiththeevu RDHS Dr.Thurairaja Varatharajan, Dr. Ilancheliyan Pallavan of Puthukudiyiruppu government hospital and Mullaiththeevu Medical Superintendent Dr. Kanapathipillai Shanmugarajah. The fifth doctor, Dr. S.Sivapalan, was still under detention.

"The release of the four doctors is a welcome step by the GSL, but clearly they remain under investigation by the CID and now also are potentially under threat of abduction or extrajudicial killing. Post will continue to monitor the situation very closely, but for now the doctors appear to want to maintain as low a profile as possible, without undue attention brought to them either in Sri Lanka or internationally," the Embassy memo added.

Another US Embassy cable sent on the 25th June 2009, after the doctors reacanted the casualty figures, commented: "The dead and wounded figures given by the doctors at the July 8 press conference would appear to underestimate the true number of casualties during the final months of conflict in the no-fire zone. The GSL appears to be continuing its efforts to downplay the extent of civilian suffering during the last weeks and days of the war."

The memo said that a senior contact in the CID was demoted because he had worked to improve the detention conditions of the doctors and apparently had expressed too strong of a desire to improve their welfare.

The memo mentioned that Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary had indicated to the US Ambassador that it would probably not be safe to free the doctors until "after passions had cooled."

Madras HC stays execution of Rajiv Gandhi assassins for 8 weeks

 Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Madras High Court Tuesday stayed for eight weeks the hanging of Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, the three Rajiv Gandhi assassins. They were scheduled to be executed on September 9 following the rejection of their clemency petition by the President of India.

A bench consisting of Justices C Nagappan and M Sathayanarayanan said there had been a delay of more than 11 years in the disposal of the petitions filed by the convicts to the President seeking clemency. The judges issued notices to the Centre, the state and Tamil Nadu police seeking explanation in the inordinate delay in the disposal of the clemency petition.

Full Story>>>
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FINISHING LINE

 Tuesday , August 30 , 2011
Two years after its decisive victory against the Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka, the Mahinda Rajapaksa government has announced its intention to allow the state of emergency in the country to lapse. The country, which first had emergency declared in 1971 amid fears of a Marxist takeover of government, has been under martial law intermittently for the past three decades and continuously since 2005 after the Tamil rebels carried out a spate of assassinations. The withdrawal of emergency — which gave sweeping powers to the administration to arrest and detain people without trial and deny them basic freedoms — was expected, and fervently hoped for, after the end of the war in 2009, but the Rajapaksa government refused to comply. The extension of the emergency regulations since then, month after month, have kept alive and fed on fears of the “enemy” amid the people. The law has allowed the Rajapaksa government to throttle dissent, mug the media and justify the concentration of power in its hands. It has done nothing to further the cause of peace or the normalization of ethnic ties in post-war Sri Lanka. Hence the repeal is bound to be welcomed by the critics of the government, by the people of the country and by the international community. Read together with the holding of the recent local council polls in the strife-torn north and east of Sri Lanka, the lifting of emergency can even be seen as indication of the government’s determination to allow democracy free play.   Full Story>>>
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Rajiv assassination: TN Assembly calls for clemency for convicts

CHENNAI, August 29, 2011The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution for commuting the death sentence of the three convicts - A.G.Perarivalan alias Arivu, V.Sriharan alias Murugan and T.Suthendraraja alias Santhan - in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case to life sentence. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa moved the resolution in this regard and the House unanimously adopted it. She said the resolution took into consideration the overwhelming sentiment of the people of Tamil Nadu who wanted her government to commute the death sentence. The resolution also requested the President of India to reconsider the mercy petitions filed by the three convicts and to commute the death sentence to life.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said the resolution took into consideration the overwhelming sentiment of the people of Tamil Nadu who wanted her government to commute the death sentence. File photo 

Man sets himself afire condemning death penalty for 3 convicts

Tuesday, Aug 30, 2011 
A 43-year-old man on Monday suffered burns after he set himself ablaze allegedly condemning the death sentence awarded to three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, police said.

Selvam, a resident of West Saidapet here, has been admitted to hospital with 40 per cent burns, police said.

On Sunday, a 22-year-old woman, Sengodi of Kancheepuram, succumbed to her injuries after she set herself on fire condemning the death sentence awarded to Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had said in the state Assembly on Monday that she had no power to alter the Presidential order rejecting the clemency plea of the three convicts and called upon the youth ‘not to act upon impulse’.

The three are scheduled to be hanged on September 9 at the central prison in Vellore 
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Woman immolates self to protest death penalty for convicts in Rajiv case

CHENNAI, August 29, 2011

Special Arrangement

A 20-year-old woman immolated herself inside the Taluk office in Kancheepuram on Sunday evening, protesting the death sentence awarded to Santhan, Murugan and G. Perarivalan alias Arivu, convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

P. Senkodi died within two hours after she set herself on fire. She emptied two litres of petrol from a bottle before setting herself ablaze.

Police sources said eyewitnesses had noticed a young woman, dressed in a salwar kameez, walking into the office around 5.45 p.m. Minutes later, they heard a woman's cries and rushed to the spot and noticed her engulfed in a ball of fire. Residents and the skeleton staff of government offices, including the police and fire stations, put out the fire. A government ambulance stationed nearby rushed her to the Government General Hospital, where she succumbed to injuries around 7.30 p.m.
A file photo of P. Senkodi who immolated hereself protesting against death sentence to convicts in Rajiv murder case.

Full Story>>>

The mystery of Sri Lanka's 'grease devils'

BBC

News South Asia    28 August 2011   By Charles Haviland BBC News, Puttalam

Mrs Faris imitates the loping gait of the "grease devil" intruder.

 

A few nights ago Tuan Mohamed Saleh Nona Faris heard a rustling outside her house and saw a shadow move.

"He looked like a gorilla, he was completely covered in black from top to toe. I couldn't see his face or hands," the elderly lady in the west coast fishing district of Puttalam said.
She believes the intruder was one of Sri Lanka's notorious "grease devils".
Over the last few weeks large swathes of the country have been gripped by a fear of nocturnal prowlers who have frequented rural areas assaulting women at night.
The media and the public were swift to dub the intruders "grease devils". This is an old caricature referring to malevolent men who smear themselves in grease to avoid being caught.
But this wave of violence has spawned a series of brutal retaliatory vigilante attacks. People have been killed, there have been arrests by the hundred and tanks have been deployed.
Full Story>>>
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1000 children 'still missing' since war

29 August, 2011
By Jeyapragash Nallusamy
BBC Tamil service

	30% of missing children were last seen in Govt controlled areas, say authorities

Nearly 1000 children who went missing during the final phase of the war against the Tamil Tigers are still unaccounted for, authorities say.

Almost 600 children out of 1800 have been reunited with their families by UNICEF with the coordination of several organizations, Vavuniya Government Agent (GA) PSM Charles told BBC Tamil service.

According to UNICEF reports, 30 percent of those disappeared children were last seen in government controlled areas and another 64 percent were recruited by the LTTE. 

Full Story>>>

In Sri Lanka, a 'negative peace' prevails

AlJazeera English   

Kate Mayberry Last Modified: 29 Aug 2011

The civil war is over in Sri Lanka, but many men suspected of being Tamil Tiger fighters continue to be detained.

Sri Lankan soldiers celebrate the anniversary of the end of the civil war - but many suspected Tamil fighters still remain in custody [EPA]

Seriously injured in a shell attack, his Tamil Tiger comrades dead, Mano (pseudonym) tried to end his own life by biting on the cyanide pill that, like all hardened fighters, he wore around his neck. But an elderly woman nearby rushed to give him water and he survived. Alone, he languished on the sand for six days, surrounded by the bodies of his friends and the ruins of war.                Full Story>>>
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Robert Fisk: Prosecuting war crimes? Be sure to read the small print

Rogues' gallery: clockwise from top left, Hosni Mubarak, Slobodan Milosevic, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Joseph Stalin, Emperor Hirohito and Bashar al-Assad

Saturday, 27 August 2011

It's good to see bad guys behind bars.

Especially if they're convicted. Justice is better than revenge. And justice must be done for the relatives of the victims as well as for the dead. Part two of the Mubarak trial this month was a case in point. Egyptians want to know exactly who ordered the killing of innocent demonstrators. Who was to blame? And since the buck stops – or is meant to stop – at the president's desk, how can Mubarak ultimately escape his just deserts? The same will apply to Gaddafi when – if? – we get him.

Full Story>>>
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Middle East crisis: Tea trade in turmoil

Sunday August 28, 2011

Troubles in Libya and Syria send exports plunging

By Bandula Sirimanne

Continuing political turmoil in the Middle East has badly hit Sri Lanka’s tea exports. A whopping 78 per cent of Sri Lanka’s annual tea exports of 300 million kilos are sent to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya both in bulk and value-added form, but only 55 million kilos (or 30 per cent of the total exports) has been sent for the first six months of this year, tea export officials said. Malik Fernando, Director of a leading tea firm in Colombo, said yesterday that shipments had no access to ports in Libya and Syria – countries which were in turmoil. He said economic sanctions on Iran had also added to the crisis. “Exporters receive their payments from Iran through a different channel arranged by a local commercial bank,” he pointed out.

READ MORE...

That Is Why We Need An International Inquiry

  By Uvindu Kurukulasuriya

In a shocking revelation, a former army intelligence officer Kandegedara Priyawansa told the Mount Lavinia Magistrate on May 12, 2011 that he was instructed by the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the Terrorist Investigations Department (TID) to claim that a top army official was involved in the killing of former Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge.

The intelligence officer who is now in remand, told in open Court that he was instructed to say the army official, whose name was not mentioned in Court, was involved in the killing, in return for a chance to go overseas and secure for himself a house in Sri Lanka.

Read More »

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War Crimes Investigations: A Prudent Way Out Of The Mess

Courtesy: militaryphotos.net

By Jude Fernando

“In trying to do good, we have been living beyond our moral resources and have fallen into hypocrisy and self-righteousness” —  William V. Cannon, commenting on the Vietnam War, New York Times, February 6, 1966
“Conquer the angry man by love, Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness. Conquer the miser with generosity. Conquer the liar with truth.” — The Dhammapada p. 223

Despite the best efforts of the Sri Lankan government, the claim that Sri Lanka is a “Killing Field” is fast becoming a social and political rallying point for diverse interest groups.

 Read More »

Wanni Doctors Were “Coached” – Wikileaks

Sunday, August 28, 2011
A US embassy cable released by the Wikileaks website last week quotes a former US official in Colombo as saying that a group of doctors who were in the Wanni during the war, had been “coached” on what to say at a press briefing in Colombo after they were arrested.
Dr T. Sathiyamoorthy, Dr T. Varatharajah and Dr. Shanmugarajah, who while in the Wanni, had made claims of heavy civilian casualties, contradicted their statements at a press briefing organised by the government in July 2009.
A secret cable dispatched in August 2009 by the Charge d’affaires of the US Embassy in Colombo James R. Moore, said that the doctors had not lied when giving their original statements to the media during the war. Read More »
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Grease Yakkas In Puttalam

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Terror spreads like greased lightning

Puttalam August 24, 2011: A soldier stands guard in front of an army tank in a display of force. Photo by Abdul H. Azeez, Sivakumar, a heart patient for five years, leaves a young family behind Photo by Lalith Perera and Picchai sustained heavy injuries and is glad to have walked off alive Photo by Dileesha Abeysundara

By Abdul H. Azeez - in Puttalam and Kalpitiya

When Pakeer Thambi Kalladi Picchai (62) first heard about grease yakkas he thought it was a lie. But on Friday  August 19 he went through an experience that left no doubts in his mind about the reality of their existence.
Picchai lives on a farm spanning five acres. The area of Puttalam he lives in, Karaithivu, Arikkavillu consists of vast stretches of farmland.  Houses are located far apart from each other. At 5 p.m. his neighbours came to his house and asked him to help look for some suspicious people seen wandering about the area.
He took his torch and set off after breaking fast, but could not find anyone. Thus he returned home.

 Read More »

Shame on India, say Tamil legistlators in Rajya Sabha

Sunday 28 August 2011

By Namini Wijedasa

The unresolved problems of Sri Lanka’s Tamils caused tension in the Indian Rajya Sabha or Council of States last week as the subject continues to attract unwelcome attention in the neighbouring country. 
On Wednesday, members of M. Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) and Jayalalitha Jayaram’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) walked out of the Rajya Sabha when a discussion on Sri Lankan Tamils was postponed. There was chaos in the House after it was announced that the issue of corruption would be taken up instead of the listed item which was the problems of Sri Lankan Tamils. The short duration discussion eventually took place on 
Thursday and saw explosive claims being made by Tamil Nadu politicians against the Sri Lankan government. 


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Sri Lanka seeks allies' support ahead of UN rights meet

By Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO | Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:42pm IST

(Reuters) - Sri Lanka's foreign minister left on Sunday on a two-week mission to shore up diplomatic support ahead of a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting, where the Indian Ocean nation is expecting to face a fight over Western-led pressure for a war crimes probe.

External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris is scheduled to meet leaders from Singapore, Jordan, the Non-Aligned Movement and crucially, South Korea, the home country of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, a ministry statement said.  FullgStory>>>
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Crucial weeks ahead for Sri Lanka internationally

Confusion over when the Emergency lapses; PTA or new legislation will be used to maintain strict security India makes strong statements again, vital issues likely to come up during Blake's visit

By Our Political Editor

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had a special message for his cabinet ministers. He told them at the weekly meeting on Wednesday they would all have to be present in Parliament the next day, Thursday. However, he did not tell them why Full Story>>>