Cut-out of Rajapaksa burnt in Jaffna
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 23:35 GMT]A large cut-out of SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been burnt down in Jaffna city in the early hours of Wednesday. Coinciding with this incident, the SL military has beefed up the presence of armed soldiers in the streets of Jaffna. The cut-out was put up in connection with Mahinda Rajpaksa’s widespread campaign of the deceptive Vadakkin Vasantham ‘development’ campaign.
The incident has taken place near St. Patrick’s College situated within 1 km of Jaffna city.
Large posters and cut-outs of Mahinda Rajapaksa, have been put up at several locations in Jaffna by the ‘Military’ Governor of Northern Province Maj. Gen. (retd.) G.A. Chandrasiri and SL Minister and EPDP leader Douglas Devananda.
The SL military has been guarding the localities where the cut-outs of their Commander-in-Chief was placed. However, in recent times, some of these cut-outs and posters have been subjected to crude oil attacks and other forms of destruction.
A large poster put up at Stanley Road was also destroyed in recent days, sources in Jaffna said.
The SL military has been engaged in inciting violence by targeted attacks on grassroots activists who were active in mobilising against the mainstream parties from South that campaigned for Tamil votes in the Northern Provincial Council elections. The Eezham Tamils used the NPC election as an opportunity to demonstrate that they rejected not only Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA from the South, but also Ranil Wickramasinghe's UNP and and ex-military commander Sarath Fonseka's ‘Democratic Party’ that took part in the NPC elections.
Five-star hotels in Colombo charged over US$500 per night net for delegates attending this week’s Commonwealth Summit in Sri Lanka, more than three times the standard room rate, but still ended on the losing side.
One hotel lost as much as Rs.100 million due to occupancy being less than 20 per cent compared to 70-80 per cent during this period. Others had lower than that partly due to some delegations arriving with reduced numbers.
Prescribed hotel rates decided by the government for delegates attending the summit were: 5 star – $571 net, 4 star – $431, 3 star – $343, 2 star – $273 net and 1 star – $159 net.
“The rates were based on hotel rates prevalent during the previous Commonwealth summits in Perth and Trinidad, and also to compensate for lost business at the 5-star hotels,” one official involved in the accommodation arrangements for delegates said.
Up to 4,000 rooms in 33 hotels had been booked for the conference but that figure fell to 2,000-2,500 rooms
The 5-star – Hilton Colombo, Cinnamon Grand Colombo, Cinnamon Lakeside, Taj Samudra Colombo, Galadari Hotel and Kingsbury Hotel were open only for conference delegates and were unable to provide food and beverage or open restaurants to non-resident clients, or offer rooms to non-conference delegates.
The 5-star – Hilton Colombo, Cinnamon Grand Colombo, Cinnamon Lakeside, Taj Samudra Colombo, Galadari Hotel and Kingsbury Hotel were open only for conference delegates and were unable to provide food and beverage or open restaurants to non-resident clients, or offer rooms to non-conference delegates.
