Govt. not showing interest in implementation of 13th Amendment: UNP

23.01.2012
The main opposition UNP today said there is no point in discussing devolving land and police powers to the provinces as the government had not shown an interest in the full implementation of the 13th Amendment.

UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake who expressed these sentiments at a news conference said it would be more appropriate to go for a new system of devolution in such a situation.  

He said the government should however come up with a clear stand and present a solution to Parliament.  

Mr. Attanayake said his party is willing to play a role in the process as well by coming up with its suggestions and working jointly on a political solution.  

However Mr. Attanayake explained that there is a provision for devolving land and police powers to the provincial councils in the Constitution. He said it is something which can be implemented easily if the government is interested. “The issue is that there is no interest on the part of the government in finding a political solution,” he said.  

The UNP General Secretary therefore questioned the purpose of the ongoing talks with the TNA and appointing a Parliamentary select committee. He charged that the select committee if appointed would suffer the same fate of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) given the government’s attitude. Mr. Attanayake recalled that the proposals made by the APRC had been thrown to the dustbin by the government.  (Yohan Perera)

Sri Lanka union blames Chinese firm for power plant failure

Jan 24 (Reuters) - A 300-megawatt Chinese-built power plant in Sri Lanka failed for a fourth time since its commissioning in March, in what a trade union on Tuesday said was either sabotage or continuing negligence by the operator.

The failure at the Norocholai coal power plant will force a two-week shutdown that will cost the state-run electricity board at least 168 million rupees ($1.47 million) to meet the lost supply.

"All these breakdowns are happening either due to the negligence or intentionally by the Chinese just to extend their maintenance contract," CEB's Technological Engineers Union Joint Secretary U.R.K Senaratne told Reuters.

China Machinery and Enginering Corporation (CMEC) built the plant, the first phase of which joined the grid in March. It is also constructing a second phase to bring the plant's production capacity up to 900 MW, at a total cost of $1.3 billion funded by China's Exim Bank.

The CMEC's project director, Lnong Ludong, was on leave and could not be reached for comment by Reuters.

Power and Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said he was investigating.

"I was not informed of any such sabotage. But I have called for reports from two parties including the project manager and am now studying what measures to take to prevent frequent breakdowns," Ranawaka told Reuters. ($1 = 113.9300 Sri Lanka rupees) (Reporting by Ranga Sirilaland Shihar Aneez Editing by Bryson Hull and Ed Lane)

Sri Lanka jail riot 'injures 28' in Colombo

24 January 2012

Continue reading the main story

Continue reading the main storyPrisoners set fire to a kitchen and an administrative building

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At least 28 people have been injured in clashes between guards and rioting inmates at a prison in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, police say.

Reports say guards opened fire to restore order and most of the injured are prisoners with bullet wounds.

A local man told the Associated Press there had been disturbances at Welikada (Magazine) jail for several days.

Reports say prisoners want better food and conditions. Police say inmates are angry at moves to curb drug smuggling.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said 24 prisoners and four guards had been hurt in Tuesday's violence.

Several guards were also hurt in the clashes

AP quoted a doctor at Colombo National Hospital saying most of the prisoners had gunshot wounds. Three guards had been hit by stones and another had a fractured leg.

None of the injuries was life threatening, Dr Prasad Ariyawansa said.

Pictures from the scene showed soldiers deployed outside the jail as black smoke billowed into the air from inside the complex.

Prisoners are reported to have set fire to a kitchen and an administrative building.

A number of inmates have been demonstrating on rooftops with a banner calling for the prison chief to be removed.

Welikada is a maximum security jail described as Sri Lanka's largest.

India seeks to build up ties with Sri Lanka after reluctance during Tamil insurgency

Eric Randolph

Jan 24, 2012 nextprevious

CHENNAI, INDIA // With the dream of Tamil nationalism all but crushed, the Indian government finds increased freedom to compete against China’s growing influence in Sri Lanka.

For years, India was torn between its desire to engage with Sri Lanka and the need to appease strong Tamil sentiment among its own citizens in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Last week’s visit by the External Affairs Minister S M Krishna to Sri Lanka was an attempt to tread this fine line – combining talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse on increased economic cooperation with a trip to the war-ravaged areas in the north, where he assured the Tamil population of India’s continued support.

A 30-year war waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the majority Sinhalese population came to a brutal end in May 2009 when the military crushed the last of the insurgent forces and killed its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Mr Krishna was the first Indian minister since the end of the war to visit Killinochi, once the headquarters of the Tamil Tigers, where he called for a “meaningful devolution package” that “would create the necessary conditions for a lasting political settlement.”

The Tamils want increased control over their affairs and an end to government policies that favour the Sinhalese, who are the majority population on the island.

While the war raged, the Indian government was reluctant to do anything that might be construed as support for Mr Rajapakse’s ruthless counterinsurgency. So, India turned down offers from the Sri Lankan government to sell it arms and invest in major economic projects.

That left the door open to China, which snapped up investment opportunities, exemplified by the US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) port it helped to build at Hambantota on the southern tip of the island.

In interviews last year, Mr Rajapakse said the Hambantota project was only given to the Chinese after India failed to take them up on the offer.

The Indian foreign ministry denies claims that its famously sluggish bureaucracy was responsible for India missing out on the opportunity, which gave China a vital foothold along one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

“The technical requirements were such that Indian companies did not consider the project feasible,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, and added that the port would still benefit India, which accounts for two-thirds of Sri Lanka’s trade.

India has preferred smaller projects. During his visit to the war-ravaged district of Jaffna last week, Mr Krishna cut the ribbon on India-built housing projects and schools, handed out bicycles and announced plans to renovate a stadium, cultural centre and industrial zone.

Its investments are not focused purely on the Tamil regions. India is paying for a new railway line from Galle to Induruwa in the south, and announced 2.5 billion rupees (Dh183 million) in educational scholarships for all Sri Lankans.

Across the short stretch of water that divides Sri Lanka from Tamil Nadu, these limited initiatives are seen as a betrayal.

“It is a great injustice to the Tamil people,” said Nanjil Sanbath, spokesman for the MDMK, a vehemently pro-Tamil party based in Chennai. “The Indian government and the rest of the world are lining up to support Rajapakse, while the Tamils are made to suffer like animals.”

After the war, more than 300,000 Tamils were herded into internment camps while the government tried to identify former rebel fighters. Most have now been released, and the government said this weekend that only 550 people remain in detention.

Tamil activists are still seeking Mr Rajapakse’s prosecution for war crimes. More than 7,000 people are thought to have died in the final months of the conflict in 2009.

But while the battle for accountability continues, hopes for a separate Tamil homeland are dim.

“The situation is very gloomy,” said Father Gaspar Raj, a Catholic priest whose radio station in the Philippines became the voice of Tamil nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s. “There is no hope of the rebellion restarting. The military capability of the LTTE to wage another war has been crushed.”

Rumours still abound in Tamil Nadu that Prabhakaran, who had built an almost mythical aura around himself, is still alive somewhere, hiding out and waiting for the right moment to restart his campaign.

“The radical elements of the movement had crystallised in one man,” said K Venkataraman, the deputy editor at The Hindu newspaper in Chennai, who closely documented the insurgency for many years.

“Tamil nationalism became synonymous with Prabhakaran to the extent that when he died, the movement died.”

But the staunchest supporters of the Tamils still see hope for the movement, which remains strong among the Tamil diaspora in Australia, Europe and North America.

“People see May 2009 as the end of Tamil nationalism,” said Father Gaspar. “I see it as a rebirth. There was always too much militarism in the LTTE. Now we will fight without violence. The sense of defeat and loss will give a new impetus for Tamil identity to blossom.”

JHU insists govt. has no mandate to go beyond 13-A

January 23, 2012,

By Sirimantha Ratnasekera

The government had no mandate to talk of a political solution beyond the 13th amendment to the Constitution, Jathika Hela Urumaya insisted yesterday.

JHU media spokesman Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe told The Island that the people had voted for the Mahinda Chinthanaya manifesto which did not promise a solution beyond the 13th amendement to the Constitution.

Warnasinghe said the JHU as a member party of the ruling alliance was totally in the dark about as to the posed Senate, its content and composition. None in the government had talked with us such issues. The government had not informed the JHU of such an introduction as a solution, he said.

The JHU hoped to take up this solution being talked about in media once it got an opportunity to participate in the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee to evolve a

political solution to the national problem.

The JHU believed that whatever decision taken at the PSC had to be presented to public to obtain their consent, Waranasinghe said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa never had any discussions with the JHU over the issue of a senate but he had proposed a provincial council system without police and land powers to the North and East, he added.

Shoichi Yokoi, the Japanese soldier who held out in Guam

By Mike Lanchin   23 January 2012

It's exactly 40 years since a Japanese soldier was found in the jungles of Guam, having survived there for nearly three decades after the end of World War II. He was given a hero's welcome on his return to Japan - but never quite felt at home in modern society.

For most of the 28 years that Shoichi Yokoi, a lance corporal in the Japanese Army of world War II, was hiding in the jungles of Guam, he firmly believed his former comrades would one day return for him.

And even when he was eventually discovered by local hunters on the Pacific island, on 24 January 1972, the 57-year-old former soldier still clung to the notion that his life was in danger.

"He really panicked," says Omi Hatashin, Yokoi's nephew.

Startled by the sight of other humans after so many years on his own, Yokoi tried to grab one of the hunter's rifles, but weakened by years of poor diet, he was no match for the local men.

Continue reading the main story

Shoichi's story

• Born in 1915 and conscripted in 1941 to serve in Manchuria, before being sent to Guam in 1944
• On his return to Japan he expressed embarrassment at having returned alive, rather than dying in the service of the emperor
• Japan had changed utterly during his three-decade absence - some found his stoicism and loyalty inspiring, others found it absurd
• He married in 1972, within months of his return and died in 1997, aged 82
• He longed to meet Emperor Hirohito - in the end he was granted an audience with Emperor Akihito in 1991

"He feared they would take him as a prisoner of war - that would have been the greatest shame for a Japanese soldier and for his family back home," Hatashin says.

As they led him away through the jungle's tall foxtail grass, Yokoi cried for them to kill him there and then.

Using Yokoi's own memoirs, published in Japanese two years after his discovery, as well as the testimony of those who found him that day, Hatashin spent years piecing together his uncle's dramatic story.

His book, Private Yokoi's War and Life on Guam, 1944-1972, was published in English in 2009.

"I am very proud of him. He was a shy and quiet person, but with a great presence," he says.FullStory>>>

In Sri Lanka, Eknelygoda asks that humanity trump cruelty

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator

Press Freedom News and Views

Sandhya Eknelygoda and sons Sanjay and Harith. (CPJ)

A couple of weeks ago, I described the terrible incidence of anti-press abuse that has come each recent January in Sri Lanka. Media activists have come to call the month "Black January" for good reason, as this email message details: 

The Alliance of Media Organizations, spearheaded by the Free Media Movement, has earmarked January 25, as Black January Day on account of the numerous attacks against the media unleashed by the government in the past three years, especially in the month of January. These include the murder of Sunday Leader editor [Lasantha Wickramatunga], the fire bomb attack on Sirasa/MTV studios and the attack on Riviraeditor Upali Tennakoon in 2009, [see CPJ's Special Report: Failure to Investigate], the disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, the sealing of Lanka newspapers and thedetention of its editor in 2010, and the arson attack on Lanka eNews office in 2011.

January 24 marks the second anniversary of the disappearance of Prageeth Eknelygoda, a cartoonist and columnist for the pro-opposition Lanka eNews website. The case is among several anti-press attacks that are tied up in court hearings without substantive law enforcement action. Eknelygoda's wife, Sandhya, and two sons have gotten no word from any official body of the Sri Lankan government, from the lowest police desk to the highest levels of the ministry of justice, about what happened to the journalist.

On Tuesday, as she did last year, Sandhya Eknelygoda will take another step in pressing the government to conduct an investigation into her husband's disappearance. Here is the plan, according to an email message sent over the weekend:

Women have taken the initiative to commemorate the second year of the disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda and of all the other disappeared persons on the 24th January 2012, in front of the Fort Railway Station at 4.30 p.m.

They will sit down in deep silence to make their protest to the murderers and the destroyers of these valuable lives, with the firm determination to eradicate this inhuman and barbarous culture of revenge and criminality against humanity.

The most interesting feature would be the procession of women moving to the church in New Chetty Street, Kochcikade to invoke the blessings of Virgin Mary, Prajapathi Gothami, Goddess Paththini, and Goddess Kali.

All sympathy and support is welcome to share in this symbolic gesture of this heroic effort of these women who are suffering daily with the awful and unbearable loss of their loved ones.

On January 25, 2011, Sandhya Eknelygoda submitted a petition calling on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. officials to encourage the Sri Lankan government to investigate the disappearance of her husband. The request to the U.N. has been unmet.

In March 2011, CPJ and four other groups sent a letter to Ban asking him to direct the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNESCO, which oversees press freedom, to look into the case of Eknelygoda. There has been no meaningful response from the United Nations. Sandhya Eknelygoda's personal appeal to the president's wife, Shiranthi Rajapaksa, has also gone unanswered.

Consider this vast indifference. What can this soft-spoken mother of two teenage boys possibly do? Yet her words this year invoke a faith in humanity that transcends the cruelty she has experienced, as she calls on like-minded women to "sit down in deep silence ... with the firm determination to eradicate this inhuman and barbarous culture of revenge and criminality."

Examining Sri Lanka's Diplomacy Machine

Monday January 23, 2012

Photo courtesy JDS

In theory, Rajapaksa’s administration has plenty to worry about. Lobbying and debate surrounding the next session of the HRC has already begun. 

(COLOMBO) - As promised, the Sri Lankan government made the final report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) public last month. It has alsorecently released its “National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights: 2011-2016.”

The Action Plan was developed in accordance with a commitment the government had made in 2008, the last time Sri Lanka participated in the UN’s Universal Periodic Review.

Both documents are part of the Sri Lankan government’s strategy to placate international observers and convince people that there is no need for any kind of international assistance because the country’s domestic institutions are working just fine. Like the LLRC report, the National Action Plan contains some decent ideas and recommendations, but it is replete with missing and false information. For example, the section on the Prevention of Torture is laughable and worrisome.

The Sri Lankan government claims that it “maintains a zero-tolerance policy on torture.” This sweeping assertion directly contradicts loads of evidence, including the recent findings of the UN’s Committee Against Torture (CAT).

Ministry of Defense has been denoted as the “Key Responsible Agency” for ensuring the prevention of torture is perhaps more disconcerting.

The front-page story in last week’s Sunday Leader, which explains “that that some 500 people have been reported missing in the North and East alone over the past few years” should give people good reason to worry. The rule of law continues to deteriorate under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s watch. The government will present its National Action Plan at the UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) 19th session in March.     Read Full Article

SL Navy militarises Jaffna lagoon

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 January 2012, 21:37 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy and Army have denied resettled fishermen along a major part of Jaffna lagoon from accessing their sea from Sunday, citing training purposes of the military at a major cantonment of the occupying SL military at Allaarai on Chaavakachcheari – Kachchaay Road. The SL military has blocked the fishing boats from Koayilkudiyiruppu on Sunday giving instructions to the fishermen that the entire stretch from Chavakachcheari to Kachchaay will remain blocked until further notice, representatives of fishermen from Koayilkudiyiruppu in Chavakachcheari told TamilNet Monday. The SL military has also said that access to sea will be blocked five to ten days every month in future. 

The Eezham Tamil fishermen, most of them resettled after the war and are dependent on fishing prawns, squid and crabs in the shallow waters of the lagoon, complain that they are again being deprived of their livelihood by the SL military.

During the war, the intense shelling from the Allarai base forced the fishermen to flee from their coastal villages and finally displace from the area as the fighting intensified. The fishing in the shallow waters remained blocked almost for 10 years in the past.

After the war, the SL government announced that it was opening Ki’liaali area, situated south of Kachchaay, for resettlement and more than 150 families resettled in Ki’laali after 16 years.

However, after the families moved in, the SL military started to put up barbed wires along the coastal belt barring the fishermen from entering the sea and depriving them from resuming their livelihood activities. The resettled families in Ki’laali are now considering to move away from Ki’laali, the fishermen representatives further said.

The move is viewed as part of a systematic process of colonisation of Tamil coastal areas in the North.