The TNA Has To Tread With Caution And So Should The Central Government

By R.M.B Senanayake -October 8, 2013 

R.M.B. Senanayake

The Government must recognize that the 13th amendment has come to say. It must realize that there are States where devolution of power has not led to separate states but instead provided a modus Vivendi for a minority to live in peace with a majority giving up the claim to be a separate state.

The people at large do not understand what is involved in the nature of the State and have not learn’t political science. The problems of majority -minority are projected to the people by the politicians and the political leadership. The political leadership wants to exercise a monopoly of political power for themselves and this they do by ensuring that all elected representatives belong to the ruling political party. So in the past the ruling political parties sought to govern the Tamils through co-opting Tamils who were willing to join them for perks like Ministerial posts. But the recent Provincial Election shows that that era is over as at least as far as the North is concerned. So the Government must change its mindset and realize that the way to win the hearts and minds of the people of the North is to resolve their problems particularly the problems of the IDPs which they are legally obliged to do under International Law.. Freedom is what all people desire and it would seem that the civilian population resents the presence of the Army. Surely the Army could like any Secret Service monitor the behavior of suspect individuals un-obtrusively.

The ruling party politicians are averse to devolution of power because it dilutes their power. They oppose devolution of power to the people. The most they are willing to concede devolution of power is to the MPs in the electorates who have been exercising power without responsibility and that too only for members of their own party.                                                    Read More

New Northern CM reiterates need for self-determination

 Tuesday, 08 October 2013 

Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran soon after taking oaths has reiterated the need for self determination for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Issuing a statement, the Chief Minister has said that the Tamil people in the North have mandated him to perform his duties on a long term and a short term perspective.

He has reportedly stated that the long term goal is for the Tamils to confirm their individuality and to do so they have to learn lessons from the struggles of the past, previous political perspectives and past experiences and then forge ahead.
“It is the need of the hour that we remove the misunderstandings and doubts that have crept into the minds of various communities. It is as a part of such an exercise that we decided that I take oaths before the President of this Country. We believe our decision would convey to our brethren our desire to settle our differences within a united Sri Lanka. Our action today buttresses our close-up perspectives too, in that we expect to bring immediate relief to our war affected people. I hope the Sinhala people would endeavour to prod on their political representatives in every manner whatsoever to bring sunshine into the lives of our disturbed and affected Tamil speaking people,” he has said.

“I expect my Sinhala brothers and sisters to impress upon their political representatives that internal self determination does not divide the country but facilitate a journey on the path of unity. I sincerely ask the Sinhala people to realize that to the same extent the Sinhala people cherish and respect their language and culture so do the Tamil speaking people cherish and respect their own language and their traditions. There is no place for violence in this realization. None could force such realization. It is such sincere realization that would take us all on the path of peace and brotherhood. Therefore let my simple symbolic act today pave the way for the unity of the people of the two communities in our Island. May Divine blessings be with all of us,” he has added.

India seeks devolution of powers in Sri 

Lanka's Tamil areas

By PTI | 7 Oct, 2013,

COLOMBO: India today sought meaningful devolution of powers by Sri Lanka and the early resumption of dialogue to facilitate "genuine reconciliation" in Tamil-inhabited areas of the country.

On his first visit here, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid raised the issue of reconciliation during his meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart G L Peiris at theMinistry of External Affairs.

During a joint news conference with Peiris, he called for "meaningful devolution" of powers to provinces, including Tamil-inhabited areas in the north.

"India has been consistent in calling for an early political settlement and national reconciliation through meaningful devolution of powers, so to ensure that all citizens of Sri Lanka, including the Sri Lankan Tamil community, would lead a life marked by equality, justice, dignity and self-respect," Khurshid said.

India hopes that the "vision and leadership that resulted in an end to armed conflict and holding of elections to the Northern Province will now be employed to work for genuine reconciliation", he added.

Noting that Sri Lanka had conveyed to the world community its commitment to move towards a political settlement based on the full implementation of the 13th Amendment on devolution of powers, Khurshid said: "We look forward to an early resumption of the dialogue process in order to address this issue in a timely manner."

"We hope that successful culmination of elections to the Northern Province will usher in a new beginning towards a better future for the people in the north," he said.

The Tamil National Alliance swept recent polls in the Northern Province, winning 30 of the 36 seats in the local council.

The two sides further said they had made "forward" movement on resolving the "very sensitive" issue of fishermen.

Two agreements were signed in the presence of Peiris and Khurshid at the Presidential Secretariat - one on the 500-MW Sampur Thermal Power Project and an MoU for technical assistance for a 10-year national plan for a trilingual Sri Lanka.

The Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015: What next?

 October 8, 2013 

^[1]The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by which the world community set out to achieve by 2015 certain targets aimed at reducing social deprivation, were adopted in 2000 at the United Nations Millennium Summit at Copenhagen.
The eight goals were: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality rates, improving maternal health, combating HIV Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.

The Millennium Development Goals Expire in 2015 What Next by nelvely

Sri Lanka will find difficult to borrow overseas in future: Economist

TUESDAY, 08 OCTOBER 2013 

Sri Lanka will find it very difficult to borrow from abroad in the future due to the Fed’s stimulus tapering that is likely to happen sooner or later, which will pull back the excess liquidity in the global economy, according to a senior economist in the country.

The situation will further be apparent given Sri Lanka’s Central Bank’s less accommodative monitory policy, which will have to be adopted going forward. “This means the terms which we can borrow abroad will get tightened. So, the terms on which we borrowed over the last two, three years will not be available,” Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy told a recent forum.

 Post-conflict Sri Lanka has been borrowing heavily from overseas capital markets to fund the domestic growth activities and the most recent being the US $ 750 million debt issue by National Savings Bank at 8.875 percent, a relatively high interest rate for a dollar bond.

Sri Lanka is likely to issue its sixth sovereign bond next year.

Speaking at the recent LBR LBO Summit Coomaraswamy said in this backdrop, Sri Lanka would be more vulnerable as the current account deficit in the balance of payments (BoP) remains very high.

“On top of that, the countries which will be more vulnerable are the countries whose current account deficits of the BoPs are relatively weak. And there Sri Lanka does have an issue,” he cautioned.

Despite Sri Lankan authorities are cherishing the 79 percent debt to gross domestic product (GDP) (which came down from 102 percent a decade ago), Coomaraswamy said the debt burden of 79 percent is much higher than when the levels were at 102 percent.

“The composition of debt has significantly changed. Therefore, the burden of servicing 79 percent of the GDP is higher than the burden of servicing the 102 percent debt,” he said.

Coomaraswamy, who is also the former Director of t he Commonwealth Secretariat Economic Division, illustrated that the medium level of debt of peer countries, which has the same credit rating level, is only 45 percent.

Meanwhile, IMF Resident Representative in Colombo Dr. Koshy Mathai joining in the panel discussion said, while debt is useful in directing resources from less productive opportunities to more productive opportunities, it has to be watched very carefully.

“And there is no doubt that Sri Lanka’s debt is high. Compared to other emerging markets, we have a very high debt ratio. That’s indisputable,” said Mathai, while affirming that Sri Lanka is not in a debt crisis.

Rajapaksa In New York

Such an interview could have been performed only by a Rajapaksa. The Al Jazeera interviewer must be congratulated for his professionalism and his patience. 

( October 8, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In regard to Mahinda Rajapaksa making formal addresses at international forums, we strongly suggest he has a word to his speech writer. We are concerned that he should not fall into the predicament of a Head of a government who was allotted an hour to address a formal international gathering but he actually took two hours to complete his speech. 

Rajapaksa in New York by nelvely

Sajith Employs Delaying Tactics

October 8, 2013 

UNP MP Sajith Premadasa who is challenging UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe for the party leadership is refusing to meet this week to finalise details of the new leadership proposal, party sources told Colombo Telegraph.

Sajith Premadasa

The UNP working committee decreed after a marathon four hour meeting yesterday that Wickremesinghe, Premadasa and Karu Jayasuriya meet to work out details about how the proposed leadership council will function.

When Thursday was proposed for the crucial meeting at the party’s parliamentary group meeting today Premadasa said he was unavailable. He said he would not be able to meet with Wickremesinghe and Jayasuriya till next week UNP sources who were at the meeting said.

Until the three leaders meet the working committee cannot go forward the sources said.

Colombo Telegraph learns that Premadasa is being advised by his backers, specifically the Sirasa media network owner Kili Rajamahendran and businessman Tiran Alles to employ delaying tactics against the setting up of the council because once it is formed Karu Jayasuriya will assume prominence. The working committee has proposed Jayasuriya be appointed chairman of the leadership council.

The previous time about 10 days ago when a compromise was nearly reached premadasa’s backers insisted he openly demand the UNP leadership and presidential nomination. Premadasa’s handlers do not want a compromise reached in the UNP that would enable the party leader Wickremesinghe to remain in the position.

Premadasa has said he will be available to meet next week.

Dullas severely reprimands councilors who captured Herman  

 Tuesday, 08 October 2013

Minister Dullas Alahapperuma severely reprimanded and threatened Matara Municipal Council’s UPFA councilors Raj Chandralal, Chaminda Silva and K.Y. Ruwan for having overpowered Malinga Herman Gunaratne and handed him over to the police during the clash between UNP activists at Dodampola in Matara last Saturday (5), Matara MC sources say.

At the time of the clash, all these councilors had been waiting inside the municipal council premises near the main entrance, watching the protestors. When a shot fired by Herman Gunaratne hit an overseer of the municipal health division, Dilum Prasanna, the councilors had surrounded the shooter, overpowered him and handed him over to police.

Had Herman Gunaratne not been captured then and there, the government had made allowances for him to flee the scene under police protection. Unfortunately for him, the three councilors had captured him in front of a huge crowd of onlookers and handed him over to police.

As the clash was taking place, minister Dullas Alahapperuma had been in the company of Matara mayor S. Handunge inside the municipal council premises, according to unconfirmed reports. Soon after the incident, the minister was ordered by the top to get police to rescue Herman Gunaratne and send him to Colombo. Minister Alahapperuma’s plan could not be implemented as his disciples had handed Herman Gunaratne over to police by then.

The minister has said, “You all have botched the job. Had Herman Aiya been brought inside the municipal council premises, the matter could have been sorted out. We should protect persons like him. You have botched the job. Now, it is me who will have to face the music from the bosses.”

Very much agitated by the arrest of Malinga Herman Gunaratne, top persons in the government have ordered the IGP to immediately find out as to whether the police had aided supporters of Mangala Samaraweera during the clash. Accordingly, DIG (administration) Gamini Nawaratne went to Matara yesterday (7) and launched an investigation.

SSP Deshabandu Tennakoon had personally asked the Defence Secretary as to whether MP Mangala Samaraweera should be arrested and remanded in connection with the incident. Coming back to him after speaking to the president, the Defence Secretary has answered in the negative, saying it would be bad to arrest an opposition MP minus charges with just weeks go for the CHOGM. However, the Defence Secretary has told a leading newspaper to publish an article to the effect that police had been biased towards Mangala Samaraweera during the incident.

Soon after the clash, southern provincial councilor Maithree Gunaratne told the media that he would accept responsibility for the entire episode and resign from his position. But, by yesterday, he had changed his position and said that he would resign if it was proved that his father, Herman Malinga Gunaratne, is a presidential advisor as claimed.

Commenting on this change of stance of Maithree Gunaratne, a young MP of the UNP told us, “After saying that he would resign if it was proved that Herman Malinga Gunaratne is a presidential advisor, Maithree Gunaratne will next ask to prove that Herman Malinga Gunaratne is his father. Maithree Gunaratne such a person engaged in petty, lowly politics,” said the young MP.

VIDEO: WE ARE THE OPPOSITION NOW – JHU

October 8, 2013 

The Jathika Hela Urumaya today stated that the present situation is such that there is no opposition to talk about certain issues affecting the country and that an opposition has formed within the ruling government itself. 

President of JHU, Ven Athuraliye Rathana thero stated that his party has no need to join the opposition as they are the opposition now. 

No matter which government is engaged in wrongdoings the JHU is in the opposition, he said, adding, “We don’t need to sit behind Ranil Wickramasinghe’s opposition”.  

He also launched a scathing attack on the government, referring to a recent statement by Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr. Sarath Amunugama, published in a newspaper, that the illicit liquor (Kasippu) producing trades within the country should registered so that they can be taxed. 

The JHU MP pointed out that Dr. Sarath Amunugama is considered by many in parliament as a respectable and intelligent person and that the problem was that a person like him had made these comments. 

“We have no problems with him making this statement as the Deputy Finance Minister. Because the entire country knows that his post as Deputy Finance Minister is only a cardboard post,” he said. 

The venerable thero alleged that the real Deputy Minister of the country’s Finance Ministry is P.B. Jayasundara, who he claims has  the power to change ministers and take decisions and that the rest are only members of the audience.  

He stated that the country’s Finance Ministry is completely controlled by P.B. Jayasundara and few other individuals.  
  
Rathana thero inquired whether Dr. Amunugama’s opinion reflects the Finance Minister President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s stance, Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapksa’s intention and “Finance Minister” P.B. Jayasundara’s intention. 

He stated that the country’s expectation from President Rajapaksa, of electing a national leader who respects the country’s virtue, ethics and national policy, has now become an “illusion” or a “dream.” 

He stated that a policy to earn money though issuing licenses to illicit liquor brewers in the villages and legalizing the trade is an act against Buddhism, which has been given the foremost place in the constitution. 

Government Strategy To Sneak In Casino Gazette In Parliament Ends Up In Disaster

October 8, 2013 

A sinister attempt by Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena to blind side the opposition by sneaking in the gazette that is to give unprecedented tax concessions to Australian casino tycoon James Packer and his local partner Ravi Wijeratne under the Strategic Development Projects Act for their Crown Casino has crashed due to the vigilance of the opposition.

James Packer

This week’s agreed upon Parliament business had not included a debate on the casino gazette. But early this afternoon Abeywardena had attempted to insert this debate for tomorrow the 9th by calling for a special meeting of representatives of party leaders who decide parliamentary business later in the afternoon.  The plan had been to ram it through even if the opposition objected due to lack of preparation time.  However, the problem had been that the gazette had to be Tabled prior to business proper began in the Chamber.  Employing a high risk maneuver Abeywardena had quickly read out the procedural statement in the Chamber that the gazette was ‘Tabled’ (meaning distributed to all 225 members by physically keeping a copy on each members table) assuming that he would be able to move on to the next item in the agenda before anyone noticed that the gazette had actually not been kept on the tables of the opposition members.

But MP Harsha de Silva who was recently referred to in the Australian press as the ‘fiercest critic of James Packer’ immediately raised a point of order that Abeywardena was misleading the House and was in violation of Parliamentary procedure.  Even though Abeywardena had tried to wiggle his way out by saying that the gazette was Tabled and that Harsha de Silva was also given one was met by stiff resistance by a number of MPs including the Leader of the Opposition and Anura Kumara Dissanayake who challenged the Speaker to physically verify the documents at their tables so that he could see for himself that Abeywardena’s position was not correct.  Many other opposition members then stood up and protested that none of them had received a copy of the said gazette.

The strategy failed and the Speaker has called for an investigation on how the gazette was only Tabled for some members and not others.  He had also ruled that under the circumstances the debate would not be allowed for the 9th.

Move Over Skype. For a More Secure Chat, There’s OStel.

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SBOVE:sparktography/flickr

BY REBECCA CHAO | Monday, October 7 2013

As Edward Snowden’s leaks have revealed, none of our digital devices are truly safe from prying eyes, including Skype. As of February 2011, the U.S. government has had the capacity to monitor Skype calls and in July of this year, several newspapers exposed the level of cooperation Skype has had with the government in monitoring calls; the NSA apparently tripled its level of monitoring since July of last year, nine months after Microsoft bought the application.

There is now a Skype alternative called OStel, or Open Secure Telephony, offered by the Guardian Project, an organization that creates secure, open-source communications software that often assists those living under censorship. The site offers a very simple set-up on its website, including a simple registration, download and test call.

A screenshot of the OStel mobile app (image: Ostel.co)

Nathan Freitas, who works at the Guardian Project, explains that OStel is not an app, per say, but a secure voice and video communication service that works on desktops and mobile devices alike. “We run the servers, but we do not ship any end-user software, in this case,” wrote Freitas in an e-mail. “The best way to think of [OStel] is as like running an IMAP/POP email service, where the user can use Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Outlook, etc, except instead of email, OStel provides real-time communications.”

The Guardian Project created OStel two years ago but only launched it last year as an open beta on Ostel.co but its popularity has apparently grown recently.

Freitas told TechPresident, “In general, we have seen major growth in recent days of server load, which could both be more people calling or people calling longer. Most likely we have a few hundred calls a day, and probably [are] nearing 100,000 registered users (not necessarily all active).”

The Guardian Project also recently conducted an OStel summer training for 10-15 people, three of which were Chinese speakers who brought up the issue of WeChat, whose safety is under suspicion, particularly by Tibetan activists. TechPresident previously wrote about Tibetans getting arrested after speaking on WeChat or Chinese activists surprised to see officials with knowledge of what they thought were private WeChat discussions.

However, the Guardian Projectis not keeping exact statistics on who uses OStel or where users are from and so is unsure as who is using the tool.

“Our aim is to be the first Telco service that knows nothing about our customers, except for whether or not the service is working as expected, and they are happy,” explained Freitas. “Based on the CPU and bandwidth load on our servers, I can say that all is well!”

Personal Democracy Media is grateful to the Omidyar Network and the UN Foundation for their generous support of techPresident's WeGov section.

Ethiopia’s 10 Million Human Tsunami

By Thomas C. Mountain

07 October, 2013
Countercurrents.org

Every year for a decade or more a million Ethiopians, 10 million and counting, have left, or fled, their homeland. While the television screens of the world have been flooded with images of North African migrants drowning off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the bones of tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees lay in unmarked graves along Yemeni shores or at the bottom of the Indian Ocean or Red Sea.

Ethiopia’s 10 Million Human Tsunami by nelvely

Former CIA Whistle-blower Targeted by Govt. for Facebook Posts

Oct-08-2013
Salem-News.com writer/photojournalist Tosh Plumlee stirs the hornet's nest by revealing truthful information about US govt. weapon running...

Robert 'Tosh' Plumlee is a former CIA contract pilot who was instrumental in shedding light on what came to be known as Iran-Contra.

(AUSTIN) - William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot who flew arms and ammunition for the agency during the Cuban Project of the 1950s, has been targeted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for directing hard-hitting questions toward the Senate, Congress and the president on his Facebook page.

Plumlee has appeared as a guest on the Alex Jones Show several times and is highly respected for his whistle-blowing efforts, particularly in exposing a coverup in which the CIA was facilitating transactions of weapons in exchange for drugs and in support of the Iran-Contra effort in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

“Numerous field reports have stated Plumlee flew arms to Nicaragua during the Iran-Contra Scandal,” conspiracy researcher and author Jim Marrs wrote last month.

Plumlee testified to the US Senate that “he had returned to the US with loads of cocaine during the Reagan years,” and has since blown the whistle on the clandestine operations and also on similar operations being conducted presently in the Middle East.

“He reported to federal officials large shipments of ‘High Impact’ weapons as well as small arms and ammunition being funneled through a network of clandestine CIA safe houses in Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Pakistan and other Middle Eastern locations by hired civilians and mercenaries financed by private US corporations and the CIA’s ‘Black Budget,’” wrote Marrs.

Plumlee affirms that for several years the US government has aided in the sale of arms to the Syrian rebels with American intelligence agents operating from safe houses inside the Middle Eastern country.

The former CIA contract pilot, along with other researchers, allege that the CIA was smuggling arms seized from Libyan warehouses and shipping them to the Syrian rebels even before the 2012 Benghazi attack.

Plumlee says his trouble with the DOJ and DHS began when an agent from one of the investigative committees in D.C. requested he meet with them at the Peterson Air Force Base to discuss the information he received from his sources in the Middle East.

Apparently, the representatives from the D.C. investigative committee wanted Plumlee’s information regarding the arms smuggling taking place in the Middle East, but canceled their meeting after Plumlee released what he knew to media outlets (including Infowars, see below for his two full interviews with Alex).

The representatives told him they canceled the meeting due to pending government cuts and layoffs, but that the limited information he provided to them was being turned over to the DOJ and DHS for their own independent investigation concerning the leaking of ‘National Security Matters’ to the media.

On Oct. 3, Plumlee posted 14 questions directed to the government in which a simple “yes” or “no” would have sufficed. Plumlee received no response to his questions, but did, however, receive a threat from the DOJ demanding to know where he got his information. When he replied that he was a journalist and refused to divulge his sources, he was threatened with “We’ll see about that.”

Following the threat, Plumlee went to Infowars to expose what he knew. Below are his two full interviews.

Also, make sure you tune in to Thursday’s Nightly News for another mind-blowing interview with Tosh Plumlee.

Special thanks to Alex Jones, Julie Wilson and Infowars.com

First published here:http://www.infowars.com/former-cia-whistle-blower-targeted-by-govt-for-facebook-posts/

Egypt: '50 dead' in clashes amid rival demonstrations

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville: "Egypt's deep divisions were brutally exposed"(Video:}

6 October 2013

At least 50 people have been killed and scores hurt in Egypt in clashes between police and supporters of the deposed Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Egypt '50 Dead' in Clashes Amid Rival Demonstrations by nelvely

Khurshid in Lanka for bilateral talks, to meet Rajapaksa, Peiris

Oct 7, 2013

Colombo: External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid arrived here today to hold talks with the top Sri Lankan leadership on a host of issues, including that of Indian fishermen languishing in jails and devolution of powers to the provinces.

The External Affairs Minister was received by Minister of Social Services Felix Perera and Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Y K Sinha, at the Bandaranaike International Airport.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. PTI

Khurshid's two-day visit is his first to Sri Lanka as the External Affairs Minister and comes at a critical time following the historic Northern Provincial elections last month in which the country's main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance (TNA) triumphed.

Apart from holding talks with his Sri Lankan counterpart GL Peiris, Khurshid will call on President Mahinda Rajapaksa and meet other senior leaders.

He will visit Jaffna on Tuesday and is expected to meet top leaders there, including Chief Minister-elect of the Northern Province C V Wigneswaran, who will be sworn in here by President Rajapaksa later on Monday.

Expeditious implementation of the 13th amendment on devolution of powers to the provinces, Indian fishermen languishing in Sri Lankan jails, implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and cooperation in commerce are some of the main issues which are expected to be highlighted by the minister during his meetings.

The issue of Sri Lankan forces arresting scores of Indian fishermen has become contentious with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also raising it with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister when he called on him here to invite him for Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo in November.

Last week, a Sri Lankan court had ordered the release of 35 Indian fishermen but did not pass a direction on five seized boats.

Also, 20 fishermen were arrested last week by Lankan Navy in the Palk Strait.

Another issue that is expected to be discussed during the talks is India's continuous demand of full implementation of the 13th amendment, a byproduct of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord.

PTI

Strategic Thinking To Sustain The Devolution Process

By Jehan Perera -October 7, 2013 |

Jehan Perera

One of the first decisions that the TNA had to take after its victory at the Northern Provincial Council elections was before whom to take the oaths of office.  The overwhelming electoral mandate received by the party would have induced them to make the most of the occasion in symbolic and political terms.  The option they were unanimous in rejecting was to have their members take the oath of office before the Governor of the Northern Province.  As former army chief in Jaffna, Governor G A Chandrasiri has had to carry with him the legacy of that war which was very negative to the Tamil population n the North and East.  The civilian casualties during the last phase of the war in the North exceeded any previous period of the three decade long war.  This is a legacy that will take a long time to become erased from the consciousness of the people.  Since the end of the war, and his appointment as Governor of the Northern Province, Governor Chandrasiri has also been working closely with the military that he once commanded in Jaffna.

The preferred option of the TNA was to invite President Mahinda Rajapaksa to Jaffna to administer the oath of office to the Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council.  However, if their refusal to appear before the Governor meant that the President was obliged to go to Jaffna to administer the oath of office to the Chief Minister, there could have been negative interpretations in the rest of the country.  Nationalist critics of the devolution process would have argued that the President’s journey to the North was an ominous sign of the increased power of the Northern Province and diminished power of the central government.  In this context, the willingness of the TNA to have the oath taking ceremony of the Chief Minister in Colombo is another constructive and necessary step in the evolution of a political solution to the long festering ethnic conflict.  This decision has ensured that a possible deadlock that could have eroded popular support for the devolution process was averted.

Both sides have shown flexibility on the issue of the oath taking ceremony.  The government did not insist that the Chief Minister should take his oaths before the Governor in Jaffna.  The TNA showed flexibility by agreeing to come down to Colombo to take the oaths before the President. The swearing in ceremony for the Chief Ministers of the Central and Northwestern provincial councils took place without fanfare at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo last week.  This paved the way for a similar procedure to be followed in the case of the oath taking for the Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council.  The supreme place of the Presidency, the central government and Colombo as the national capital even within the scheme of devolution of power was thereby reaffirmed.  However, this has evoked a negative response by nationalist Tamil groups such as the Sri Lanka Tamil Lawyers Association which has condemned the oath taking before a President they accuse of committing war crimes.

Defying Expectations                              Read More