Damayanthi sacrifices a goat to the Kali kovil on behalf of Mervyn

Monday, 30 January 2012

UPFA candidate who contested for the Kelaniya Pradeshiya Sabha, Damayanthi Perera and a group of people had arrived in a vehicle and presented a goat to the Kali kovil in Munneswaram seeking divine intervention to protect Public Affairs and Public Relations Minister Mervyn Silva, Lanka News Web learns.

Reliable sources say that the Minister has also attended the ceremony and had handed over the goat by giving the rope tied around the animal’s neck to the priest.

Damayanthi it is learnt has promised to sacrifice another animal if their request receives a positive response from the gods. She has made this pledge to the chief priest at the kovil, Kali Muttu Shiva Pakya Sundaram.

Since it was believed that the Minister’s bad period could be overcome by using people’s contributions for the religious observances, Damayanthi had collected monies from several people to purchase the goat to be handed over to the kovil.

The chief priest of the Munneswaram kovil recently said that Mevryn’s actions to release the animals that were brought to be sacrificed at the kovil has angered the gods.

However, the chief priest has told the media that although the Minister has got several people to visit the kovil and sacrifice an animal on his behalf seeking forgivenss from the gods, the Minister would soon make a visit to the kovil to personally seek forgiveness.

White Van abduction false drama enacted by Parliament translator is to cover up his illicit affair

(Lanka-e-News -30.Jan.2012, 7.30AM) The police had arrested Sathyaseelan Sathyaraj the Parliamentary translator when he was hiding in a house at Atchuevely, Jaffna, although it was reported earlier that he was abducted on the 22 nd early morning by the white Van at Trincomalee supposedly based on a Parliament contract.

Though he has given a wrong impression that he has been abducted by the white Van , it was while he was staying with another lady with whom he had an illicit affair , he had been arrested by the police .

Police say that action is being filed against him to mete out punishment for misleading the defense division and the media and for staging a false drama that he had been abducted by the white Van.

In any event , it must be pinpointed that the true perpetrators of the numerous abductions using this mysterious white Van merit greater punishment for heinous crimes committed by them with impunity ; yet so far ,no one had been arrested by the police , whereas the only ‘crime’ Sathyaseelan has committed is staging a false drama using this white Van syndrome, and not abduction or murder using it. Indeed , if the authorities had taken due action to stop the criminal white Van abductions nad lawlessness in the country , and a white Van ceased to exist, perhaps , Sathyaseelan would have not had an opportunity to quote the white Van as he did now.

Boyle: US should publicly accuse Colombo of committing war crimes

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 January 2012, 00:40 GMT]
Pointing to the recent investigative reports in media outlets noting US may possess crucial supporting material to incriminating evidence from senior military commanders of Colombo committing war-crimes, to exposures on Wikileaks of Colombo-based US Ambassadors’ reported knowledge of high level Sri Lanka officials’ complicity to war crimes, and to incriminating reports from the UN and NGOs on alleged war-crimes, Professor Boyle of University of Illinois, College of Law, said, in similar circumstances Secretary of State Eagleburger accused Radovan Karadzic of committing war-crimes during the Bosnian genocide, and the Obama administration can, and should, do the same thing to political and military leaders in Colombo. 

Acting U.S. Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger publicly condemns Karadzic

In a note sent to TamilNet, Professor Boyle said, “Under similar circumstances during the Bosnian genocide, U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger under President Bush Sr. publicly accused Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, on the basis of evidence compiled by the US Government, though he did not go so far as to accuse Karadzic of genocide because of the political implications.

“But it seems to me that Secretary of State Clinton or at least Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Mike Posner can and should do the same here. If the Bush Sr. administration did the right thing for the Bosnians, then certainly and a fortiori the Obama administration can and should do the right thing for the Tamils.”

In addition to the evidence that has been emerging recently, Prof. Boyle said earlier, “United States Defense Department will have all the evidence necessary to indict Sri Lanka officials who were responsible for the 2009 May massacre. Expatriate Tamils have to keep working until they find a way to have this information accessible to UN prosecutors.”

USA pressurises civil society to accept genocide and to live with it

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 January 2012, 11:37 GMT]
Two officials from the US State Department who met civil society of Jaffna last week categorically told them that the US would not take up war crimes/ human rights issues against Sri Lanka in the March HRC session, as there is no sufficient pressure or request from the affected people. Ruling out any outside intervention for political solution, the officials said that the US would only support the implementation of the LLRC report, which means annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils and completion of structural genocide by 2020, as fixed by the report. The officials didn’t listen to the civil group, but insisted only on passing the message. As genocidal Sri Lanka is going to be emboldened further by the stand of the USA and similar stand of India, what responses are going to come from Tamil Nadu and from those who pawned politics to the USA and India, ask the civil groups.

US State Department officials, Thomas O. Melia of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, and Lesley Taylor of the desk for South and Central Asia met the Senior Citizens Group of Jaffna on 22, Sunday.

Accept the genocidal SL state and its government, work with it and reconcile is the message from the USA in simple terms, the civil groups said.

Two other delegations coming from the US Defence and Commerce would also keep the State Department position as the basic policy and would ask the Eezham Tamils to live with the current situation, the civil groups further said.

What went wrong; Who is doing what; Is anybody really understood the gravity; Is re-articulation process inevitable; How long will it take; Is campaign of the GOSL extra ordinarily superior; Can people survive through a long-term strategy; If March 2012 missed, will it end everything – these are some of the questions the civil group participants in Jaffna want to share with the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island and in the diaspora, with Tamils of Tamil Nadu and with the larger civil society of the world.

The policy of the USA was consistent ever since it designed the war without witnesses, asked the liberation fighters of Eezham Tamils to surrender, and asked the Tamil civilians survived the genocide to get into Colombo’s barbed-wire camps.

It is the sections of Eezham Tamils who misled the struggle, groomed by ‘foundations’ during the war and hijacked the Tamil polity to the backyard of the USA, who are disillusioned. If we think that the world ends with the Establishment of the USA or with that of India then we betray our living planet and its civilisation, commented a diaspora Tamil politician.

Meanwhile, Norway, the ‘peace-facilitating’ face of the USA is shortly convening a ‘Natchiappan Meeting’ for a selected group of 25 Eezham Tamils in Norway.

Deceptive peace facilitator Mr. Erik Solheim is expected to address the meeting and the participants need not have any illusions over the message being different from that of the US State Department, the civil groups of Jaffna cautioned. A follow-up meeting is planned with representatives from Tamil civil groups in the island, they said.

* * *

The minutes taken in the Jaffna citizens group’s meeting with the US officials, sent by a participant, follow:

Position of the US state Department on the possibilities of passing resolution against Sri Lanka during March, 2012 at UN Human Rights Council was categorically clarified by officials of the US States Department in Jaffna on 22.01.2012.View points and the advise given by them follow:

1. There is no possibility of a resolution against Sri Lanka at the next HRC meeting in March 2012
2. There is no sufficient pressure or request from the affected people for resolutions on war crime investigation.
3. No reference will be made to UN Panel report, War Crime or International Inquiry at any discussion at this session.
4. There may be only a small step on SL conflict at the next meeting.
5. At the maximum, they may refer to the positive side of the LLRC report and request Sri Lanka to take measures to implement the recommendations therein.
6. There is a big gap in the required pressure given to State Dept. to push for any resolution.
7. The position of the State Department is that the LLRC report is fine, except for the war crime aspects.
8. State Dept. will be satisfied if GOSL initiate action to implement the recommendations in the LLRC report.
9. In any case, finally, the solution has to be an internal one. Categorically there will not be any outside intervention of any sort.
10. If at all any external intervention, it will be only in the form of any support to the internal mechanism to implement the recommendations.
11. State Dept. is not interested in instituting accountability mechanism.
12. State Dept. feels and advises that why can’t the Tamil community forge partnership with southern progressive elements and pressurize the government?
13. They also feel and advise that why can’t the TNA reach out to the South and initiate a process which will pave for the majority to present the case of the minority to the Govt.
14. Last time even the 17 countries that had signed the petition for a resolution withdrew at the final stage.
15. The New Democracies are not in favor of such resolutions and forget about Russia and China.
16. US States Dept. will approach slowly, only step by step, and it will be of long term in nature.
17. Officials of the State Department are advised to not to antagonize the GOSL
18. Officials of the State Dept. were not interested in listening about War Crime and International inquiry.

Human Rights Remain a U.S. Priority in Central Asia

By Stephen Kaufman | Staff Writer | 27 January 2012

Washington — As the United States engages with the countries of Central Asia, encouraging greater regional economic integration, it is not facing a choice between advancing its security relationships and promoting issues like human rights, says the top U.S. diplomat to the region.

Speaking January 25 at the forum of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake acknowledged that the Obama administration is balancing competing priorities in the region, such as combating drug trafficking and terrorism while also promoting economic integration, human rights and good governance.

“We do not see our engagement with Central Asia as an either-or choice between developing security relationships at the expense of core values like human rights. Progress on one issue can help reinforce, or create incentives for, progress on other issues,” Blake said in his prepared remarks.

The U.S. effort to strengthen its relationships with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan “should not impinge upon our strong support for democratic development and universally recognized human rights,” he said.

In all five nations, the Obama administration’s engagement is consistently focused on “political liberalization, good governance, civil society capacity building and addressing human rights concerns,” as well as other interests such as nuclear nonproliferation, energy, economic development and educational exchanges, he said.

He added that U.S. officials are engaging not only with the governments in the region, but also with civil society groups and the people themselves through such avenues as the annual bilateral consultation process.

“These consultations are a face-to-face, structured dialogue based on a jointly developed agenda that promotes candid discussions on the full spectrum of bilateral issues, including human rights, religious freedom, science and technology collaboration, economic development, defense cooperation and other subjects either side would like to discuss,” Blake said.

The Obama administration sees its vision for transition in Afghanistan in 2014, when Afghans will assume full security responsibility for their country, as a working strategy that can be expanded for the broader region, he said. Blake said Central Asian support for Afghanistan’s economic and political development is very much in those countries’ own interests.

“A peaceful, stable, prosperous and democratic future for the Central Asian states is directly linked to the prospects for peace, stability, prosperity and democracy in Afghanistan,” he said.

The United States is promoting greater economic integration in the region and strongly supports the New Silk Road project, a long-term economic vision to transform Afghanistan into a hub of transport and trade, connecting markets in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

“Our hope is to encourage all of the countries of the region and beyond to help build a network of roads, bridges, pipelines and rail lines to facilitate the goal of embedding Afghanistan more firmly into its neighborhood and helping Afghanistan realize its goal of creating an economy based more on trade than aid,” Blake said.

“If Afghanistan is firmly integrated into the economic life of the region, it will be better able to attract private investment, continue to develop and benefit from its vast mineral resources and provide increasing economic opportunity for its people, men and women alike,” he said.

Along with the regional benefits from a stable, secure and prosperous Afghanistan, Blake said, Central Asia’s significant energy resources also offer “a motivating factor for regional economic development and integration.”

However, he said, intraregional trade has been “lagging” due to the need for Central Asian countries to overcome bilateral obstacles such as border crossings and tariffs, as well as internal problems like corruption, contradictory foreign investment rules and “a less-than-transparent and unpredictable regulatory environment.”

Blake said the Asian Development Bank-led Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation program (CAREC) offers an important regional coordination mechanism. The program “envisions a transformation of the region through transport corridors and energy infrastructure in order to sustain economic growth,” he said.

“We hope the Central Asian states will continue to work independently, through CAREC, through other institutional arrangements and with partners like the United States to reduce the barriers to trade and transportation so that greater regional economic integration will become a reality,” Blake said.

Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/01/20120127150739nehpets0.729458.html?CP.rss=true#ixzz1kutsNEUZ

Sri Lankan General Admits War Crimes; US May Hold Crucial Supporting Evidence

Sunday 29 January 2012   by: Emanuel Stoakes, Truthout | Report

The extrajudicial killing of civilians, surrendering soldiers and dissident journalists under the direction of the Sri Lankan government has been alleged by a former general in the Army who was extremely well-placed to comment on military activity during the island nation's bloody civil war.

The source, whose name is withheld for reasons of safety, had high-level security clearance and access to the flow of orders during the final days of the conflict. He made the assertions in legally binding testimony to a US lawyer in New York in 2010, recorded in an affidavit seen by Truthout.

His statements hold particular significance because they appear to corroborate claims made in reports by prominent human rights organizations, international media and a report for the United Nations by a panel of experts published in 2011. The allegations also closely corroborate the accounts of other members of the Sri Lankan Army during the civil war.

Full Story>>>

UN Says Ban Will Accept Alleged War Criminal As His Senior Adviser on Peacekeeping

Sunday January 29, 2012
Matthew Russell Lee Special to Salem-News.com

An alleged war criminal appointed without any push back by Ban Ki-moon to Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations: this is Ban's UN.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon'

(UNITED NATIONS) - Sri Lankan alleged war criminal Shavendra Silva will be accepted onto UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operation, as Ban disclaims any responsibility and will do nothing to stop it, Ban spokesperson informed Inner City Press on January 28.

Acts of Shavendra Silva's battalion in 2009 are described in the UN's own Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka, and lawsuits have been filed against Silva for war crimes.

On January 27, Inner City Press asked and wrote that in other circumstances, such as Syria's bid to be its regional group's representative on the UN Human Rights Council, efforts have been made at the UN including by the Secretariat to avoid or reverse nominations like this one which would be an embarrassment and make a mockery of the UN's stated principles.

After Inner City Press asked at the UN noon briefing on January 27 if Ban would say or do anything, spokesman Martin Nesirky said "Matthew, don't press your luck" and that he "might have something a little later."

When nothing came by close of business that day, Inner City Press put the question directly to UN Peacekeeping, including chief Herve Ladsous of France and Susana Malcorra, reportedly slated to be promote by Ban to his Deputy Secretary General,

So far neither UN Peacekeeping official has responded with any comment on how appointing an alleged war criminal to the Senior Advisor Group would impact the credibility of DPKO or DFS.

Back on October 24, Malcorra told the General Assembly's committee on peacekeeping that Ban

“

"had taken steps to fulfil his mandate to create a Senior Advisory Group comprising five eminent persons of relevant experience; five representatives from major troop countries; five representatives from major financial contributors; and one member from each regional group... If the Group was to be appointed, it would be important for Member States to complete their responses to the Secretary-General’s request for nominations."

”

Malcorra asked member states to send Ban "nominations," which to some implies that Ban did not have to accept any and all names submitted, for example that of an alleged war criminal. Would Ban similar put on his Senior Advisory Group the chief of Sudan's military, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court?Read Full Article

The slaughter of the Tamils ​​in Sri Lanka

Diario La Tarde  
Columnist 
Juan Manuel Velazquez (DLT Correspondent. England)
The Daily Special

On May 18, 2009 has passed into history and memory of the Tamil population of Sri Lanka Northwest as the date and the day most heinous of 4000 years of existence, both cultural and religious minority erroneously considered this 'ethnic'. Why?Obviously by geopolitics. The history of the Tamils, the Jaffna University and Library dates back to 4,000 years of culture. Cultural repression has labored to sweep the map, as if they had never existed, like the Franco regime in Spain had come to burn the library of Salamanca and the University of Granada, or if the dictatorship of the military regime in Argentina had looted and destroyed historical documents Jesuit Missions of the library of the Archbishop of Cordoba. Put in perspective, that is exactly what has happened to this ancient culture of the Tamils.The tragedy of this minority community has been his own intellectual development, cultural and, above all, the entrepreneurial spirit that made them stand out in a region smaller than the Province of Tucuman in Argentina, surrounded from the north and northeast of the sub Asia and the omnipotent power of India, who made sure geopolitical control of the territories-national Indian Ocean, while the Republic of China, on the other side of the natural barrier of another minority orogenic also repressed, Nepal, followed suit and secured the northern Asia. To all this, the 'Islamic state' of Pakistan plays the role of 'competitor' with India but with one crucial difference, their 'friendship' with the Western powers will geopolitical conditions to support the Islamists in southern Sri Lanka and ignore the second largest minority among northern Tamils, Tamils ​​Muslims. Here in lies the tragedy of these people. Neither the Tamil Christians have been saved from the massacre and extermination by the Sinhalese Buddhists in southern Sri Lanka. One example among hundreds of others, is the Archbishop of Mannar, Rayappu Father, who survived almost a fugitive and has compiled a list of missing and murdered Tamils ​​146,679 between 2008 and 2009, of which 40,000 deaths occurred in the fateful 48 hours final assault on Tamil enclave by the army of Sri Lanka. What puts the final number of missing and murdered around 200 000 in 1983. As a result, about 300,000 Tamils ​​civilians were interned in concentration camps-data confirmed this January 24, 2012 by the official spokesman for the Tamil Forum, and rape and sexual harassment all kinds of women interned in concentration camps, their property and belongings looted. Worse, the territory populated by Singalies re. In other words, the Tamils ​​are now being stripped of the cultural space of an ancient civilization that has had to pay a high price on one side of being multicultural, so very progressive, and yet so vulnerable and exposed to the powerful geopolitical interests in the region and on the other, have resisted oppression by appealing to methods that in many areas gave rise to analytical consideration, quite simply, as terrorists. Which inevitably leads to thoroughly investigate and question the very social fabric of the Tamil community and the army of the Tamil Tigers who resisted to keep the area free from Eelam (Tamil homeland). The LTTE: Tamil Tigers TheLTTE's abbreviated acronym textual translation 'Liberation Tamil Tigers Eelam (Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam). Since its inception recruited youth from middle class and better educated. The idea of liberation war intellectuals who regarded the Tamils

Civilian victims of the bombing in Sri Lanka in May 2009 Sri Lanka Army as a military oppressor, was born in the cloisters of one of the oldest universities in the world, the Jaffna Library, which dates back to 4,000 years ago and enjoyed among the first civilizations to keep a written record of their culture in 'papyrus' palm leaves.Unfortunately we have to refer to the past because the current military regime's repression proceeded to burn all that much historical material. The question that stands out is 'when he started all this barbarism and the spiral of terrorist violence, according to from which side it looks'.Terrorists subversive or terrorist state? To find the answer, you have to put your finger on the yaga, ask questions that may be uncomfortable, hurtful, controversial.You have to navigate through the interviews with honesty, sincerity and experience of not offending anyone with questions that can cause deep pain to those interviewed. During the first contact, facilitated by former Argentine exile refuge in England, Charlie Moore, led to a meeting of this correspondent with members of the Tamil Party in Exile. This first interview lasted over five hours. After walking around for over an hour and a half around the English countryside, due to a car navigation finally arrived at the site of contact. Sitting in the passenger seat, my 'driver' Tamil, with whom this correspondent made contact, he confided that his brother, a former police officer of the former Tamil Eelam liberated zone was finally identified within one of the many fields concentration of the civil community, currently around 30 to 50 thousand, was arrested and taken to jail to just two months ago, that's almost two years after the war ended, which was assented to and confirmed by another passenger Tamil sitting behind me. But if the conflict has ended since the Tamil Tigers decimated in May 2009, why and what the goal of selective repression so oppressive? The answer seems to lie back in a kind of strategy alignment and extermination of the Tamil minority. To explain this situation requires saturate the most recent historical past and the events that precipitated the violence in a community that has stood for religious tolerance and social-cultural succumbed been completed, but not defeated, by the military regime's oppression para-military today. 1958: ten years after Sri Lanka's independence from the old English colonial rule, ethnic and cultural relations began to crack in the former colony known as Ceylon. Saw the first attacks and acts of violence against Tamils, especially in the south of the island of Sri Lanka and in the capital Colombo. 1977: Tension flared again and the business and properties of Tamils ​​in the south were again looted and burned, especially in the capital. 1980: armed struggle begins with the appearance of the Tigers-LTTE, with the first group of only a handful of fighters. 1983: unbridled violence erupts. Since 1980 the democratic government elected by the majority Sinhalese Buddhists, gradually slipped into the abyss of state terrorism. Note that in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, unlike India and Pakistan, Human Rights were not recognized as so neither the Geneva, 1959 regarding "prisoners of war. ' In July 1983 the LTTE Tigers detonated a mine planted on the path of an army convoy, causing casualties among the thirteen military personnel. What set off the blood orgy of unimaginable proportions. In the days that followed, between 5,000 and 10,000 members of the Tamil civilians were killed by the army, police and paramilitary groups. Known as the 'Black July' most political parties representing the two most important of Tamils ​​were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and in many cases killed, including the general secretary Dr. Velekadai, who according to party sources consulted Tamil here England had never been sympathetic to the armed struggle and the LTTE Tigers.He was also burned by the police the historic Jaffna library. From then on, began the conflict that led to a war 'civil'.1984: after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by the Sikhs of northern India, the Tamils ​​have lost the little support they could enjoy in India and the former Soviet state of the friend turned to the United States and the West. With the succession of Ragiv Gandhi was cut the supply line of weapons to the LTTE Tamils, because government at the highest levels of the political establishment in Delhi (capital of India), considered that the independence of Sri Lanka Tamils ​​could lead to an insurrection Tamil state in South India, a region of at least 150 times larger than the territory of Eelam in Sri Lanka. Again, and for different reasons, the LTTE were rowing against the current. From then on the Tamil Tigers were left to fend for themselves and especially their own limited resources, they would not be able to keep for themselves their fighting force for much longer. In other words, they had their days numbered. It was in this instance when, in a last desperate muffled slap of oxygen to win, the Tigers Eelam Tamils ​​seek a peaceful and offered to demobilize. And here is where, politically and tactically, they made the double mistake of his campaign release, according to self-criticism expressed by members of that organization, in the first instance, instead of seeking a solution to the conflict with the military regime in Sri Lanka should have sought to negotiate with the 'masters' of the puppet capital of Colombo, Sri Lanka in Delhi, India's political establishment. In fact, following the agreement of 'pacification' the military regime took the opportunity to mobilize and deploy to more than 40,000 troops in the Tamil Eelam, according to spokesmen Tiger fighters and verified by sources unsympathetic to the armed organization. From then on began the decline of the Tigers and territorial occupation army the military regime in Sri Lanka, which resulted in the internment camps of the entire population, about 300,000 civilian survivors after 30,000 deaths during the assault Eelam final location and occupation by the army of Sri Lanka's  military regime .  Follow Part II Would you like translate it? Spanish to English

Sri Lanka insists accountability report address final war

2012-01-29
COLOMBO, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government insisted on Sunday that an accountability report on the war between the Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tiger rebels did address the final stages of the conflict.

International human rights groups had alleged that the report by the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) failed to look at some of the human rights violation alleged to have taken place just before the rebels were defeated in 2009.

However the Sri Lankan External Affairs Ministry quoted Ravinatha Aryasinha, Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU as saying that the report offers detailed observations and recommendations on International Humanitarian Law issues relating to the final phase of the conflict.

"The suggestion made in some quarters, that the LLRC Report does not address accountability issues in the last phase of the conflict is without basis," he said.

The commission was appointed by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa following attempts by some countries to push for an international war crimes probe on Sri Lanka.

Following several months of public sittings and deliberations, the LLRC submitted its final report late last year to the president and the report was subsequently made public.

Aryasinha said that the LLRC carried out its duties against the backdrop of much skepticism, with the eminence and independence of its members questioned in some quarters.

He said the LLRC report notes that military operations were conducted professionally, but if there is evidence of transgression by individuals, this should be examined.

"On the basis of evidence placed before them, the commission also points to several specific episodes which, in their view, warrant further investigation. These episodes are referred to in the report, in a variety of settings," he said.

Aryasinha said one month since the report was made public, the government of Sri Lanka is working on its operationalizational aspects in earnest.