Five Years after the end of the war ‘"to have learnt nothing is terrible’’ 

by Gnana Moonesinghe-May 31, 2014

"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

- Plutarch

"It’s no crime to light a lamp in the darkness,

For swallows need the blue sky of March

And bees need a flowering orchard."

- Tsou Ti Fan

Five Years After the End of the War to Have Learnt Nothing is Terrible by nelvely

On facebook? Twitter? Sri Lanka's rape survivors need your help

31/05/2014

Britain's Foreign Minister William Hague is about to launch the first ever Global Summit on Sexual violence, but he seems to have forgotten about Sri Lanka. Not only is Sri Lanka not on the conference agenda, but the team of experts William Hague has set up to look into sexual crimes around the world aren't going to look at Sri Lanka. And the British Government continues to deport victims back to Sri Lanka to face further abuse.

At the same time a new report has shown that rape and sexual torture are being systematically used in minority areas of Sri Lanka to oppress the Tamil community.

Click here to make sure Sri Lanka's victims are not forgotten

This summit cannot simply be a glamorous photo opportunity for William Hague and Angelina Jolie. Real actions have to come out of it, and Sri Lanka is somewhere where Hague's team of experts could make a real difference. Over the winter nearly 4,000 of you used our website to send Hague this message. But with the high profile of the Global Summit, now is the perfect time to make sure our demand is not ignored.

Please click here and add your voice to ours.

Thunderclap is a tool to combine people's voices on facebook and twitter strategically to have maximum impact. Simply click the link above and sign up with your facebook, twitter, or tumblr account - it is that easy.

Please do sign up straight away. Thunderclap's rules mean we need 89 more people to sign up in the next 9 days or it won't happen!

Govt. wrong-footed at Modi meeting

By Our Political Editor-Sunday, June 01, 2014

The message was delivered last Tuesday, the very first day he was in office as the fifteenth Prime Minister of India. Premier Narendra Modi asked President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the “early and full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.” He said the Government “should expedite the process of national reconciliation in a manner that meets the aspirations of the Tamil community for a life of equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka.” One would have expected the new Premier to settle down in office, address domestic issues and then turn to bilateral concerns with India’s neighbours. If that were to take months, Modi had ended it in just twenty minutes with Sri Lanka.

Govt. Wrong-footed at Modi Meeting by nelvely

Test For Diplomacy

Relations with Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka and the stand it will take on the looming new Cold War will constitute the biggest foreign policy and security challenges before the Modi government.

| by JOHN CHERIAN

Courtesy: Front Line, India

( June 1, 2014, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The world will keenly watch the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party-led government formulate its foreign policy priorities. 

Test for Diplomacy by nelvely

Modi May Appoint A Special Envoy

 Sunday, June 01, 2014

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may appoint a special envoy on the Sri Lankan issue, a Tamil media report in India stated.

The ‘One India’ Tamil publication quoted sources as saying that the special envoy, if appointed, will communicate between India and Sri Lanka.

Last week President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Modi met for bilateral talk, a day after the latter took oaths as the new Premier.

The two leaders had an in-depth discussion of issues of mutual concern. President Rajapaksa described the initiatives Sri Lanka has taken with regard to rehabilitation, resettlement, reconstruction and the ongoing reconciliation process in the country.

The two leaders also discussed the issue of fishermen of both countries and measures that can be taken to find a permanent solution through a process in which the views of fishermen from both countries can be taken into consideration. Both agreed that talks between the fishermen and the meeting of the joint committee of officials must continue.

Modi resets the clock to 13A, (when) will it start ticking in Sri Lanka?

May 31, 2014, 12:00 pm 

Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva has been in politics long enough to know that after 1983, the internal and the external in Sri Lanka have become inextricable. If anyone is interfering in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, it is because the Sri Lankan government has externalized its internal affairs. It will not be nice for India to say it, but any Sri Lankan politician with a head on his shoulders must know that India does not need Sri Lanka’s co-operation on anything but it is Sri Lanka who needs India’s co-operation to address its own internal as well as external affairs. The choice for the Sri Lankan government is to either co-operate with India on 13A to mitigate the West’s insistence on war crimes investigation, or alienate India and further aggravate the island’s internal and external circumstances.

by Rajan Philips

Modi Resets the Clock to 13A, (When) Will It Start Ticking in Sri Lanka by nelvely

theindependent.lk complaints to HRC over blockade

Thursday, 29 May 2014

Editor of theindependent.lk website, Subhash Jayawardhana, lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission today (29) that the website has been blocked from access from all local viewers by all local internet service providing companies.

Theindependent.lk Complaints to HRC Over Blockade by nelvely

Ranil and the Single-Issue concept - Kumar David

 Sunday, 01 June 2014 

Common Candidate for a full term presidency! Oh forget it!
Ranil hungers after things beyond his reach. Lanka News Web reported on 31 May that he informed Sobithahamuduruvothat “he would definitely contest at the next presidential election”. In that casetwo crucial questions arise: (a) is he seekingsupport from others as a Common-Candidate? And (b) does he see himself initially as a Single-Issue (SI) candidate exclusively for the purpose of abolishing the Executive Presidency (EP) forthwith?

The implication of (b) is that the temporary presidency will disappearin months. Thereafter, if he so wishes,Ranil can lead the UNP in the subsequent parliamentary electionshoping to become prime minister.I have no objection to shortlisting Ranil as possible common candidate if he says YES to question (b).

One can have a Common Candidate backed by the whole opposition for the sole purpose of abolishing EP forthwith, changing the constitution, and holding parliamentary elections. Will the JVP (or I) ever back Ranilfor substantive presidency? Rubbish! Will the UNP back Anura Kumara for a six year term? Of course not! Will the JHU back a Tamil, or Tamils and Muslims support Ranawaka? Day-dreaming; unmitigated tosh! However,all will support even a broomstick for a transitional term for the express, explicit and unique purpose of erasing EP. Then it’s: “Thank you very much;home and relax”. Let there not be a shadow of doubt that a Common Candidacy is possible if and only if it is for the unique abolish-EP forthwith objective. The SI concept and the CC concept are inseparable. Ranilis an unmitigated ass if he hankers after a common candidacy for a full-term presidency.

Let Ranil declare his intentions on the SI concept before he presents himself outside the UNPasking for support. Final candidate choice must take into account three crucial points; acceptability to relevant forces, ability to win the elections, political reliability. About half a dozen names are floating in the CC pool; most are not credible. It is time to narrow the shortlist.

I was the first person to propose and develop the SI-CC concept and strategy in a series of newspaper and web essays from about two years ago; hence I have an interest in participating in the discourse. This intervention is justified by continuity.

I’m contesting, Ranil tells Sobhitha Thera!

On Winning The Gratiaen

By Malinda Seneviratne - June 1, 2014 

Malinda Seneviratne

 

It is customary for the winner of the Gratiaen Prize for Creative Writing to deliver an acceptance speech.  Accordingly, on Saturday May 24, 2014, as the recipient of the prize I addressed the audience.  In previous years, The Nationhas featured those shortlisted for the award as well as the eventual winner.  Naturally, I excluded myself from these exercises.  This time, however, for reasons that do not require elaborate, when the Features Editor wanted ‘something’ I said I would write what I remember of my acceptance speech.  Later I realized that I might not remember everything and also that in the rush of the moment I left out certain things I ought to have mentioned.  So in this piece I will write what I said and in italics add that which I did not but ought to have.

It occurred to me that 29 years from now, I would be just one of fifty Gratiaen Prize winners.  Now had I not won, 29 years from now (who knows?) I might be the only one to have been shortlisted on five occasions.  I’ve submitted to the Gratiaen six times over the past seven years. Looking back, the high point has clearly been winning the H.A.I. Goonetilake Prize for the Best Translation, that of Simon Navagaththegama’s Sansaaraaranyaye Dadayakkaraya.  That was special because that text is an important literary landmark and because Simon Navagaththegama was one of the best writers in Sinhala in the second half of the last century.  It was special because of who Ian Goonetilake was.  He was an adornment to the Gratiaen.                            Read More

Concerning Us And The “Naga”

By Darshanie Ratnawalli -June 1, 2014

Darshanie Ratnawalli

Just last week my mother shouted me down when I told her that the god “Sakra” of the Buddhist canon was the same as the Aryan god Indra.

“Indra, the most vividly realized Vedic god, embodies the powerful Aryan warrior…the continuing popularity of Indra, which is reflected in a large number of tales told about the heroic deeds, and even more so about his ability to change his shape at will, his trickery and his sexual adventures…  His fame…is still well reflected by his prominent and active position in the Pali canon where he is called Sakka (Skt. < Śakra).” – (pages 55, 83, Witzel and Jamison:1992[i]- full text) 

I questioned her concern about Sakra: did she perchance think that he was an integral part of Buddhism proper? She answered, yes the Pali canon described the realities, events and beings actually experienced by the Buddha; the Sakra whom the Buddha actually met and conversed with was therefore integral and not some Vedic flotsam; kindly stop holding such‘mitya dristi’. Was she aware, I asked, of how many Vedic continuities there are in the canon? What about the Buddha’s attitude towards women or more glaringly his attitude towards the Asuras? According to the Pali canon, Rahu, the Asura, listened to a sermon of the Buddha which brought enlightenment to many in the assembly, but not to him, who, as an Asura, was unfit. Where did she think that came from if not from Buddhism’s anchorage in the Vedic myth pool?       Read More

FUTA ready for token strike on June 3

Dewasiri

by Maheen Senanayake-May 31, 2014

"Everything is now ready for our token strike with all unions attached to the Federation of University Teachers’ Association confirming their participation on June 3," said Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri , Past President of FUTA.

"We are now ready to resume our trade union action to seek our demands", said Chandragupta Thenuwara, President, (FUTA) at a press conference held at the University of Colombo faculty centre last week. "We begin with a token strike on June 3.’’

Prof Rohan Fernando, General Secretary FUTA added "Except for the Uva Wellassa University where they did not permit the right to association and the South Eastern University where the only two trade unions are inactive, academics in every other university will take part in our symbolic strike, deemed necessary to reawaken the government to our demands.’’

The government had agreed to several issues in a joint statement released to the public by the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and FUTA which at the time was preceded by a Note to Cabinet signed by Ministers S B Dissanayake and Basil Rajapakse according to a press release by the FUTA.

FUTA and the authorities abandoned the strike action on October 12, 2012 following assurances given by Minister Basil Rajapakse, at the time 100 day long trade union action.

Among the issues the FUTA wishes to take up is the issue of salary increase of academics, increasing allocation for education, establishment

of a presidential commission to look into education reforms and appointing of a high level committee to establish a special category for university academics. FUTA also wants the government to address issues of deterioration of university autonomy and academic freedom within the state university system.

On Tuesday (June 3) the strike will be led from the Colombo University premises where academics will gather at around 9 am where they will have a meeting followed by a protest campaign.

"The research allowance that was granted as an interim and compromise solution to salary grievances has completely failed ,’’ said Dewasiri. I believe that even Chairman of the University Grants Commission Shanika Hirumburegama had problems drawing her research allowance. There are now audit queries raised on the allowance."

Reacting to the forthcoming strike, one student exclaimed "Oh god! Not again. We have lost so much time and it looks like the academic year is going to be extended.’’

Commenting on the demands Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Senior Minister for International Monetary Co-operation and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning said "If you start giving the increases they are asking for without addressing the many and serious issues in education this will all end up as salary increments. The curriculum has to be addressed. The position of the arts versus sciences have to be addressed. And it is certainly not one of allocations as I see it. I think we have a Minister of Higher Education who is actually trying to do what is right".

One trade union leader who requested anonymity said "The FUTA needs support but there are several issues here that require attention. Normally trade union action would be clearly towards one two or three demands. Here there is a shopping list, and the people will not be able to comprehend why the strike is going on, which means that soliciting support would remain academic.

"Now that they have called upon the AHS faculty students to return to class, I don’t really know how they can go on strike without harming both the students and the trade union action objectives".

Tamil asylum seeker on bridging visa dies from burns to 90% of his body

Sri Lankan man understood to have self-harmed in frustration over lack of progress on protection visa

Michael Safi-Sunday 1 June 2014 

A Sri Lankan asylum seeker on a bridging visa has died from burns in an apparent self-harm incident.

The 29-year-old Tamil man arrived in Darwin by boat in January 2013 and has been on a bridging visa since May 2013, living in Geelong.

The man suffered burns to 90% of his body, apparently in a self-harm incident which occurred early on Saturday. He died on Sunday morning at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital.

The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, confirmed on Sunday that “an illegal maritime arrival of Sri Lankan nationality suffered serious burns in an incident … I understand he died of his injuries overnight.”

Trevor Grant, from the Tamil Refugee Council, said the man had fled persecution in Sri Lanka in the later stages of the country’s decades-long civil war, spending time in an Indian refugee camp before arriving in Australia.

Grant said the man was frustrated at the lack of progress on his protection visa.

“He was very, very depressed about his situation, not knowing what’s happening to him.

“He feared if he went back [to Sri Lanka] … he’d be going straight back to jail and probably torture,” Grant said.

Police are yet to formally identify the man or inform his family, none of whom are believed to be in Australia, Morrison said.

Another Tamil man died in similar circumstances in Sydney in April after receiving a letter from the department of immigration telling him his application for refugee status had failed.

Contact Lifeline on 13 11 14

Tamil man recovering from self - immolation in Sydney 

Tuesday, 15 April 2014 

A Tamil asylum-seeker is recovering in a Sydney hospital from burns to 70 per cent of his body after setting himself alight last week.

A member of the Sydney Tamil community, Balasingham Prabhakaran, said today that 29-year-old Janarthanan began showing signs of recovery at the weekend when he came out of an induced coma.“He opened his eyes and looked around a bit. He can’t talk because of all the tubes in his mouth
but the signs are a lot better than they were. Nobody can be certain about his long-term health but it’s good news that he will survive,” he said.

Janarthanan, from Jaffna, (pictured above) is in the burns unit of the Concord Hospital, where he is expected to remain for at least three months. He has undergone several operations. His 65-year-old mother and brother are expected to arrive at his bedside later this week once visas are arranged by the Sri Lankan and Australian authorities.

Janarthanan, 29, received notice from the Immigration department last Tuesday that his application for a protection visa had been refused and he would have to return to Sri Lanka, where he insists he will face persecution, including jail and torture.

After he finished his shift as a cleaner in a building in Balmain last Wednesday, he poured petrol over himself and set himself alight. Several men working in a nearby shipyard ran to his aid and doused the flames. Paul Garrett, a member of the Maritime Union of Australia, was at the scene soon after it happened. “We are all in a state of shock. It was a hellish thing to witness. The men who helped him are devastated. It will be comfort to them to know he has survived,” he said.

Craving for vehicles has no bounds!

THURSDAY, 29 MAY 2014

The Presidential vehicle collection that was worth Rs.30,900,000 when President Chandrika Kumaratunga relinquished her position has been increased to Rs. 3,400,600,000 by the end of last year.

At a time when terrorism has been defeated and it is not necessary to buy bullet proof cars, Rs.315,354,000 has been spent to buy such vehicles during last year.

Accordingly, the cost of vehicles bought for the presidential collection during the eight year term of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is Rs. 3,400,600,000. This is an increase of 1005%.

This is revealed in the annual report of the Ministry of Finance for 2013.

Joining to PSC, foolish - TNA

 

Sunday, 01 June 2014 

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will not join the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) which holds the purpose of abolishing the prevailing 13th amendment as well said by the parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran.

Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran has stated that, despite the government's request, the

Speaking to BBC MP M.A Sumanthiran has stated that they will not commit such stupidity.

He has further stated India has not informed him to join the PSC as the Indian government has also understood the particular matter.

Marxists Are Piling In Against Piketty

By Kumar David -June 1, 2014

Prof. Kumar David

It does seem a bit unfair, after all Thomas Piketty did prove Marx right on one crucial point. He has done a splendid job validating on one of Marx’s key expectations (Relatively, the rich will get richer and the poor poorer); but after saying ‘thank you very much’ all the world’s Marxists are savaging the fellow mercilessly. Maybe they feel reinvigorated these post-2008 days, think all-the-world lies intellectually prostrate at their feet, and show little mercy to deviants. Poor Piketty has done huge data collection and processing for which we should be grateful. An unknown guy comes out of nowhere and establishes something the Master’s disciples have been saying for 150 years but could not prove empirically. A data savvy young group after 10 years hard labour proves sustained and expanding wealth-inequality; they deserve more than a thank-you nod. True Piketty is weak on theory and abstraction; but be kind; perhaps the bugger can be trained. Capital in the Twenty-first Century is outselling everything on Amazon’s list, pulp fiction, do-it-yourself, even thrillers, which is remarkable for a 600 page tome on economics.Read More

Healing The Addiction Memory

By Ruwan M Jayatunge -June 1, 2014

Ruwan M Jayatunge M.D.

Drug addiction has become an increased phenomenon in the modern civilization. Addiction habits have impacted individuals, families and the society. Addiction has been regarded as an individual disease as well as a social condition. Addictions cause structural changes in cultural, social, political, and economic system in society (Ajami et al., 2014). Addiction is almost universally held to be characterized by a loss of control over drug-seeking and consuming behavior (Levy, 2014).

Addiction is defined as compulsive drug use despite negative consequences (Hyman, 2005). Addiction is a multifactorial phenomenon (Shaghaghy et al., 2011). McLellan and colleagues (2000) conceptualize addiction as a brain disease. Leshner (1997) views addiction as a chronic, relapsing brain disorder that involves complex interactions between biological and environmental variables. According to Mate (2014) addictions are experience based and it has close links with pain, distress, negative emotions, loss of meaning and often connected with adverse early childhood experiences.  Drug addiction leads to profound disturbances in an individual’s behavior that affect his/her immediate environment, usually resulting in isolation, marginalization, or incarceration (Volkow et al., 2004).

Addictions and Brain Structures                                                      Read More

Dangerous justification of extra-judicial killings 

 May 30, 2014 
Yesterday, our lead story, quoting Police Spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana said that hereafter police would use 'necessary force' as opposed to 'minimum force' in dealing with troublemakers.
 
 
He said this to seemingly justify the recent killings of suspects in police custody and the police assault on protesting undergraduates.
Extra judicial killings by the police and the country's armed forces first came into focus during the April 1971 insurgency, where it is estimated that 13,000 Sinhala youth, both men and women, from the South, lost their lives, many of whom, ipso facto, were victims of extra-judicial killings.
It once more gained the dubious limelight 12 years later, after the July '83 riots, which spawned Tamil terrorism and ended only 26 years afterwards, in May 2009.
 
 
In the interim period, with the signing of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and the Sri Lankan security forces being confined to barracks after the induction of the IPKF as a condition of the Accord, Southern Terrorism which had previously been ruthlessly crushed 16 years ago in April '71, once more raised its head as a protest against India's armed intervention in the internal affairs of the island.
If the rise of Southern Terrorism in April 1971 was to instal a Marxist State in Sri Lanka by an armed revolution, the ostensible reason for its 'rebirth' in July 1987 was as a protest against the Indo-Lanka Accord and the induction of the IPKF to the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, supposedly to maintain the peace, just when the Sri Lankan security forces were about to deliver the death knell to Tamil terrorism in the North.
 
 
The resurgence of Southern Terrorism in the South in July 1987 was finally put down after the end of a bloody war (in the South) which lasted for more than two years, leaving in its aftermath, the brutal killings of thousands of Sinhala youth once more, many of whom were victims of extra judicial killings, a repetition of April '71.
This doesn't discount the fact of the thousands of innocent Tamil civilians who also lost their lives, especially in the period, July 1983 to May 2009, victims of the establishments, whether it was the Sri Lanka Government or the Indian Government, the latter, vis-à-vis the IPKF.
 
 
The focus of this piece is the danger of institutionalizing extra judicial killings in the present and in the future, as insinuated by SSP Rohana's alleged apologia in respect of the recent police assaults on unarmed, protesting undergraduates and the killings of suspects while in police custody, ostensibly being put to death in self defence for threatening to attack their law enforcement escorts with lethal weapons while being in handcuffs!
When considering such tragedies, it was not so long ago that the people of this country equated such extra-judicial killings to take place with such unwavering consistency and monotonous regularity, to the banana republics of the Latin Americas, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh and States such as Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia, in the Far East and in South East Asia.
 
 
Though unreported, such killings were accepted as the norm, taking place behind the Bamboo Curtain (Mao's China) and the then USSR and its satellite countries, but never in Sri Lanka, with the possible blight being during the time of the '71 April Insurgency.
But now, the tables apparently have changed, with those countries once labelled as being pariahs, returning to respectability and decency, and thus being recognized and accepted by the global community of nations, while Sri Lanka is seemingly, wantonly, sinking into that abyss, by apparently being nonchalant about what the world community thinks of such in the 21st century, which have shaken the dust off their feet which was the 20th Century, after the Cold War was relegated to history with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, 25 years ago in 1989.
 
 
SSP Rohana and the Government of Sri Lanka will be living in a fool's paradise if they think that they can get away scot free by playing a word game by using phrases such as 'minimum force' and 'necessary force,' in a globalized environment, where Sri Lanka is but a pawn on the global chessboard of geo-politics and human rights and neither a King or Queen, to strut about and strut around in a state of self-imaginary aggrandizement, as metaphorically exemplified in Hans Christian Andersen's popular children's fable, "The Emperor and his New Clothes."