“80% says Mahinda is corrupt and 85% says his family is
corrupt”
- WikiLeaks Cables serve as authentication and verification of things that were suspected
Re-reading Presidential Election Results Together With WikiLeaks’ Revelations
By Uvindu Kurukulasuriya
Mahinda Rajapaksa and Dr. Sunimal Fernando
We all know the level at which Sri Lankan politics stand. So what do we learn from WikiLeaks? The question, as with virtually everything else to do with the leaks, was polarising. There was, from the start, a metropolitan yawn from bien pensants who felt they knew it all.Arabs do not like Iran? The Russian government is corrupt? Some African countries are kleptocracies? Go on, astonish us. You will be telling us next that the Pope is Catholic. According to this critique the disclosure stated the obvious and amounted to no more than “humdrum diplomatic pillow talk”. (This was from the London Review of Books. Academic Glen Newey said he was unimpressed by the revelation that French leader Nicolas Sarkozy “is a short man with a Napoleon complex”.) This served as fuel for the argument that there was no public interest in leaked cables
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Raj’s lawyers assert he was never a terrorist funder
October 8, 2011, 8:32 pm
Lawyers for Mr. Raj Rajaratnam, now awaiting sentencing in an insider trading case where he was found guilty, have written to the publishers of Vanity Fair magazine and Mr. David Rose, author of the article "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Raj" published on the magazine’s website of September 30 alleging that the article contained "numerous false and defamatory statements" about Rajaratnam.Attorneys John N. Dowd and Terrance J. Lynan belonging to a prestigious New York law firm had demanded the issue of a public and prominent retraction on the article and had also demanded that it be removed from further publication on the internet and any hard copies.
They have also called for the issue of an immediate and substantive apology to Rajaratnam "for falsely associating him with a terrorist organization."
The last issue of the Sunday Island carried excerpts of the Vanity Fair article.
The letter to Vanity Fair highlighted several matters raised in the article including that Rajaratnam was a major Tiger funder who directed money "criminally acquired to funding Tiger terrorism."
The letter said that as a result of the publication Rajaratnam has and continues to suffer damage to his reputation and character.
``The truth is that Mr. Rajaratnam has never been a sponsor or supporter of any terrorist group, nor has he ever knowingly given any financial support to any terrorist organization. Specifically he never made the statements attributed to him in your article. He was never a LTTE fund raiser. Your attribution to the contrary is utterly false," the letter said.
It further said that Rajaratnam had completely cooperated with FBI agents from the Terrorism Task Force when they contacted him and asked if he would speak to them about their investigation about Tamil Tigers. No allegation has ever been made by the FBI regarding his conduct.
"Your implication that the insider trading prosecution against Mr. Rajaratnam was in any way tied to the government’s investigation of terrorism is as outrageous as it was false and it too defames Mr. Rajaratnam who has never been accused by any law enforcement agency of supporting terrorism," the letter said.
It further said that Rajaratnam had donated over US$ 45 million to charitable causes around the world benefiting many different countries. He has done considerable charitable work in Sri Lanka to benefit all economic groups, including donating millions of dollars to build up houses throughout the country after the devastation caused by the tsunami.
