Deepali asks why it was wrong for the President to have attended her daughter’s wedding (Photos)

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 

Head of the High Court trail at bar that delivered the verdict of the White Flag case has asked several journalists during a friendly chat whether it was wrong to have had the President and the Defence Secretary attend her daughter’s wedding.

Judge Wijesundera has said that she has been closely associated with the President and his family members for some time and has accused some websites of publishing distorted stories about the President’s participation at her daughter’s wedding.

A few weeks before the wedding our website reported that the President was to sign as the witness from the bride’s side at Judge Wijesundera’s daughter’s wedding.

We also reported that the President had given a brand new vehicle to the bride as a wedding gift.

There is no problem over the giving of gifs given by the President to his friends and their children. However, the President maintaining close links and giving gifts to the lead judge of the High Court trail at bar hearing a cooked up case against the candidate who contested against him at the Presidential election has a direct impact on the independence of the judiciary.

Since Judge Wijesundera’s daughter’s wedding is now being discussed in political circles, we have published several photographs of the wedding that were previously published by us.

Read more...

Regime chief's reciprocal gesture: Deepali and Raseen to have foreign pleasure trips

(Lanka-e-News -20.Nov.2011, 11.55P.M.) The Regime chief has arranged an excursion for justices Deepali Wijesundara and Zulfikar Raseen to Malaysia and Singapore on a holiday as a reciprocal gesture for sentencing Gen. Fonseka and putting him in jail. 

The expense for this tour is being met by the Central Bank under the foreign Ministry of the regime chief . This tour to be embarked on the 11th of December will have another 8 judges making up the group. This group for the tour had been chosen at the sole discretion of Deepali Wijesundara, according to inside sources of the High court..
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Deepali shows her gratitude for daughter’s wedding gift

Saturday, 19 November 2011

Lanka News Web has learnt of the valuable wedding gifts given by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the daughter of High Court Judge Deepali Wijesundera, who sentenced former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka to three years in prison in the White Flag case. President Rajapaksa signed as the witness from the bride’s side for the wedding.

After signing as the witness for the wedding, the President has handed an envelop to the bride with a cheque signed for Rs. 1 million to Deepali Wijesundera’s daughter. The President had also sent a brand new unregistered vehicle to her house few days after the wedding.

A Captain from the Commando unit of the Presidential Security Division had taken the unregistered vehicle to her house.

Deepali Wijesundera had told her daughter that she would have to face some problems if the media found out about the unregistered vehicle and had made arrangements to sell the car.

US Senators write to Clinton on LLRC

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Solheim hijacks thrust of Norway report

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 November 2011, 03:39 GMT]
Norwegian minister Erik Solheim, while speaking in Oslo 11 November at the release of the report evaluating Norway’s failed peace process in Sri Lanka, tried to hijack the philosophical thrust of the findings of the report and this brought him into confrontation with the evaluation team leader, Gunnar M. Sørbø. Mr. Erik Solheim tried to defend the main criticism in the report and the stand of Sørbø that Norway should have quit the peace process to signal the world of the impending dangers. Arguing that nobody expected a military solution succeeding, Solheim painted the picture of a star-crossed and epic-style tragedy that everyone has to be now contended with in a philosophical way, and said that the stand of Sørbø was ‘arrogant’. Solheim’s speech made Sørbø to remind that the issue was of life and death and Norway should have had contingencies ready. 

Sørbø’s stand on the failed peace process was that “there was no excuse for not anticipating them, or for lacking a strategy to deal with them,” as there were patterns and structures and some of them were “old tricks in the Sri Lankan book.”

Coming out with many ‘If’s, Solhiem defended why Norway could not withdraw.

The following were the main thrusts implied in Solheim’s speech: 

Full story >>


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Solheim hijacks thrust of Norway repor

Could Norway have stopped the war in Sri Lanka? India wanted LTTE 'put in its place': Norway report

Sri Lanka devalues currency

21 November 2011

Sri Lanka has devalued its currency by 3%.

The move was announced in the nation's 2012 budget statement released on Monday.

The country's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, said the move would help Sri Lankan exporters suffering because of the global economic downturn.

It will also help protect Sri Lanka's economic recovery after nearly three decades of civil war. The BBC's Charles Haviland reports.

‘Sandwich theory’ an excuse for not taking a stand: Indian academic Radha D’Souza

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 November 2011, 17:59 GMT]
“Those wanting to remain equidistant from state and the struggles of people. [..] actually end up legitimating the moral authority of the state by giving the state the moral authority to continue with the war on people.”, observes Radha D’Souza in an interview to TamilNet on Sunday. Dr. D’Souza, who is a reader of law at the University of Westminster and a social justice activist from India, argues that such an approach by international agencies that act as ‘peace-brokers’, ‘NGOs’, and local actors, only benefits militarist states in the final analysis. They are the other face of oppression because the other face is necessary to sustain the armed intervention, she says. 

Radha D’Souza

On ethnic questions, D’Souza says: “Vast majority of ethnic conflicts happen in societies with colonial histories. In the formation of European nation-states, they were truly nations and capitalist. In the colonies, that is not how the state structure came in to being. In the colonies, the colonizers just lumped together people in one state structure. The territorial boundaries were often the result of inter-imperialist rivalries between colonising powers – the Dutch, French, English, Portuguese whatever.

“During the anti-colonial struggles people thought that it was possible to retain the state structure to fight the common enemy and things could be worked out together after Independence. Which may have been possible, but not in the context of this overarching imperialist world where imperial economies must depend on arms and defence industry – Eisenhower’s military-industrial-commercial complex – to exist. This is why movements have to question the nature of imperialism today and the way ethnic conflicts are fuelled by the imperial war machine.

Full story >>

Freedom of Expression on the Internet in Sri Lanka

CENTRE FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES on Nov 22, 2011 

22nd November 2011, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for Policy Alternatives is pleased to release a new report examining the freedom of expression on the Internet in Sri Lanka. Since 2007, the freedom of expression on the Internet has faced considerable restrictions on account of the arbitrary blocking of websites and pronouncements by the government for greater regulation and monitoring of online content. There have also been concerns about the transfer of technology from countries such as China that may strengthen a surveillance regime and lead to further restrictions on web content. These issues along with a repressive legal framework have a chilling effect on freedom of expression on the Internet.

In line with the need to emphasise a rights-based framework when addressing online freedom of expression, the report examines the specific cases and practices that restrict freedom of expression on the Internet with respect to regulation, legislation and arbitrary action. In consideration of international freedom of expression standards, CPA’s report examines the government’s compliance with the broader international best practices and recommendations detailed in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, which was submitted at the Seventeenth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

The report looks specifically at the arbitrary blocking and filtering of web content; criminalisation of legitimate expression; the status of intermediary liability and actions of intermediaries; the potential for disconnecting users from Internet access, including on the basis of intellectual property law due to the broad nature of intellectual property legislation. The report also examines the potential threat that cyber-attacks may present to online freedom of expression, as well as the growing concern over and implications of the lack of substantive legislation for the protection of individual privacy and data. The final consideration of this report is with regard to Internet access and the acknowledgement of government policies with respect to providing adequate infrastructure for increasing Internet penetration in the country.

While the reform of existing legislation and regulatory practices is required in order to address the clear concerns about online freedom of expression, the report proposes national and international advocacy to ensure that the government addresses the issue of reform and adheres to international standards on the freedom of expression. There is also a need for a multi-stakeholder initiative so that the perspectives of users, intermediaries and other resource persons are incorporated into the design of legislation and formulation regulatory standards, thereby ensuring wide deliberation and participation to achieve the ultimate goal of strengthening freedom of expression on the Internet in Sri Lanka.

Freedom of Expression on the Internet in Sri Lanka

Judge Kotelly to decide Rajapakse's legal fate in US

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 November 2011, 04:16 GMT]
Lead counsel for the three Tamil plaintiffs, who have charged Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse of war-crimes in the District Court of District of Columbia, filed a memorandum Tuesday requesting Judge Kollar-Kotelly to validate the service of process based on the publication of the summons and complaint in TamilNet as ordered by the Judge in her October 13th ruling. The plaintiffs also have submitted to the Court affidavits and supporting documentation that attempts at publication in Colombo media were not successful due to Rajapakse's "brutally effective" efforts to silence critical media through "politically motivated deaths, attacks, and disappearances," and have requested for a waiver from local publication as "compliance has been frustrated by Defendant’s alarming attack on freedom of the press." 

• Memorandum to validate service of process (127Kb)

• Exhibits attached to the Memorandum (13Mb)

The plaintiffs have also requested authority from the Judge to effectuate service on Rajapakse via his individual U.S. Post Office Address, Facebook, and Twitter Accounts as alternate methods if the Judge finds further attempts are necessary to effect legal completion of service of process, court documents filed Tuesday say.

District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

Bruce Fein, constitutional lawyer

Bruce Fein, lead counsel for the plaintiffs commented after filing the memorandum with the Court, "Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse's sneering contempt for the judicial process in the United States is not likely to militate in his favor. If the court enters an order validating service of the summons and complaint because of the Defendant's tacit threat to assassinate any cooperating newspaper journalist, Mr. Rajapakse would have 20 days to respond under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

"If, as his spokesman indicated, Defendant Rajapaksa chooses to ignore the summons and complaint, we will file for a default judgment and pursue his assets everywhere in the world until proper damages are collected for the bereaved Plaintiffs," Fein said.

Court papers referred to supporting e-mail and other material from Bob Dietz, co-ordinator of the Asia Program at the Committee to Protect Journlists, quoting: "[a]uthorities have turned the notion of law enforcement on its head, obstructing justice in numerous attacks against journalists. Prime examples are the unsolved 2010 disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda, and the unsolved 2009 murder of prominent editor Lasantha Wickramatunga. But those cases are hardly unusual," the submitted CPJ statement said. 

"[Sri Lanka's] President Mahinda Rajapaksa has presided over an appalling era in which every journalist murder—nine since he rose to high office—has gone unpunished. Anti-press violence continued in 2011," CPJ's publication on Sri Lanka added.

Spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group that sponsored the law suit, commented: "Judge Kotelly, who served as the Presiding Judge on United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), has enviable expertise in legal issues on extra-territorial defendants and immunity defences. Her earlier decision to allow the case to proceed and her directive on publication using the internet as a valid medium for service, reflect her independent, precedent setting legal mind. Tamils will earn a major legal victory if the judge validates the service, or accepts cyber social networks as acceptable service medium of last resort," TAG spokesperson said.

• Text of complaint for case 1:11-cv-00235

• U.S. Court: Filed motion for Alternate Service

The Complaint filed in January 2011 alleges multiple violations of the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) based on Sri Lanka's President Rajapaksa’s command responsibility for the extrajudicial killings of Ragihar Manoharan, the son of Plaintiff Dr. Kasippillai Manoharan, of Premas Anandarajah, a humanitarian aid worker for Action Against Hunger, and husband of Plaintiff Kalaiselvi Lavan, and four members of the Thevarajah family, all relatives of Plaintiff Jeyakumar Aiyathurai.

The plaintiffs seek $30m as damages through six counts of violations of the TVPA.

Armitage and Solheim on Sri Lanka's conduct, war crimes and the Tamil question

14 November 2011

Expressing dismay at the “chauvinistic attitude” of the Sri Lankan state, former US Deputy Secretary of State said on Friday the international community was united in its criticism of Sri Lanka’s conduct in the north and east and that President Mahinda Rajapaksa would not be welcomed internationally unless conditions there improved.

Speaking alongside Mr. Armitage at the launch of the Norwegian evaluation of Oslo’s peace process in Sri Lanka, and echoing his message, Norwegian minister for Environment and International Development, and former peace envoy, Erik Solheim also said the question of accountability for the mass killings of civilians in last phase of the war“will not go away”, and that “the only way the Sri Lankan state can reduce the impact of this is to reach out to Tamils and find a way of resolving the Tamil issue.”

They were speaking in Oslo at the formal launch of the evaluation report on Norway’s protracted peace role in Sri Lanka, at which the question of Sri Lanka’s future was also discussed.

Mr Armitage told the audience,

“I don’t think anyone disagrees that the Tamil people have been mistreated and are continuing to lack – across the board – fundamental freedoms, dignity, etc,”

“Much to my dismay the government of Sri Lanka is still caught up in a chauvinistic attitude,”

“I don’t think they’ve been far sighted enough in their approach to the north and east. There has been a somewhat lessening of violence there, somewhat lessening of the abductions and things of this nature, but not sufficient.”

“From the US point of view we are quite dismayed at the lack of progress in human freedoms, human rights, etc, and I made that view known [to President Rajapaksa].”

“But what to do about it is the question."

"[Firstly] the international community is generally coalesced around the fact that the north and the east particularly need protections, and the government of Sri Lanka has to move in that direction. … That is the united message the international community gives.

“Second, I don’t think President Rajapaksa is going to be widely welcomed internationally – across the board – until there is some movement. Maybe that’s the wrong strategy, but that’s the way things are going.”

“I think in two conversations with President Rajapaksa he actually understood - better than I had thought – what the government has to do.”

Mr. Armitage speculated that President Rajapaksa might be constrained by chauvinist political forces.

However, Mr. Solheim suggested otherwise,

“[Rajapaksa] has the strongest position of any Sri Lankan President ever; huge majority in the parliament, huge electoral victory, fantastic – from his point of view – military results,” Mr. Solheim pointed out.

“So why is he not using this opportunity to reach out to [the Tamils] and find a settlement?”

“[After the war] the remaining problem in Sri Lanka is not military, it is political, andit is for the President should reach out to solve that political problem, and the entire international community should be gathered behind that banner.

Mr. Solheim also said Tamils should pursue their struggle for legitimate rights peacefully and that the international community is agreed that TNA (Tamil National Alliance) should take the lead, and should be supported.

“Tamils should be told there is absolutely no support for violence. They must fight for legitimate rights through Gandhian, non-violent manners and they will get [international] support.”

“Leadership should move from the [Tamil] Diaspora to actors in Sri Lanka,” he also averred.

“The Tamil National Alliance is the most important [Tamil actor], and there is a broad international understanding that the TNA should be in the lead for Tamil rights and they [international community] should support the TNA and TNA-government talks.”

In his closing remarks on Friday, Mr. Solheim also spoke of international demands for accountability for the mass killings of Tamil civilians in the final months of the war.

“The most difficult issue [for Sri Lanka’s future] is that of accountability for what happened in the last phase of the war. That issue will not go away. It will remain for a long period of time, maybe forever.”

“There is no way governments can decide it should go away. These issues will be kept up by non-governmental actors, by media, and many other actors. So they will remain. 

“The only way the Sri Lankan state can reduce the impact of this is to reach out to Tamils and find a way of resolving the Tamil issue – then the international community will tend to take less interest in those matters.”

Asked about India’s expectations after the end of Sri Lanka’s war, Mr. M.R. Narayan Swamy, Executive Editor with Indo Asian News Service, also said:

“The expectations [of India] are the same as the rest of the international community."

"Nobody wants Sri Lanka to develop into a state where [the Tamils] feel permanently a minority – politically, culturally, in every sense of the term. If in the past the Sri Lankan state gave the argument there was the problem of the LTTE, they can’t advance that argument anymore.”

Apart from Messrs Armitage, Solheim and Narayan Swamy, the panel discussing the independent evaluation of the Norwegian peace efforts in Sri Lanka comprised Milinda Moragoda (former Sri Lankan Minister and government peace negotiator), Dr. Gunnar M. Sørbø, (team leader for the evaluation), Dr Jonathan Goodhand (Reader in Conflict and Development Studies, SOAS and deputy team leader for the evaluation) and Dr Suthaharan Nadarajah (lecturer with Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS – who was not involved in the evaluation).

The panel was chaired by Ms. Frances Harrison, Head of News at Amnesty International and former senior BBC correspondent. 

Could Norway have stopped the war in Sri Lanka? India wanted LTTE 'put in its place': Norway report

Uthayan News Editor goes overseas seeking protection

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 

The News Editor of the Uthayan newspaper published in Jaffna, Gunasundaram Kuganadan has traveled overseas for protection, it is learnt.

Fifty seven year old Kuganadan was subjected to an inhumane assault on July 29th when he was on his way home after work. He was treated in hospital following the severe injuries sustained during the attack.

No arrests have yet been made with regard to the attack.

Kuganadan who worked full time from his office in Jaffna for two years during the period of the war was criticized by Tamil parties affiliated to the government. Many believe that Minister Douglas Devananda’s EPDP members were involved in the attack.

It is further learnt that Kuganadan and his wife have traveled to a European country seeking protection.

Former AG says suspects were released following Poddala’s statement

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 

Former Attorney General (AG) Mohan Peiris has told in Geneva that the two suspects arrested in connection with the attack on senior journalist Poddala Jayantha were released based on the statement made by him.

The former AG had made this statement as the Sri Lankan representative at the sessions on Anti Torture in Geneva.

A senior journalist told Lanka News Web that the police had taken into custody the Editor of Lankaenews, Sandaruwan Sendheera and the News Editor of the website, Bennet Rupasinghe, who has first informed the police of the attack on Poddala Jayantha.

He said that the two journalists taken into custody in connection to the attack were never involved in the assault case.

The senior journalist said it was clear that the intention was to hamper the investigation by the police moving to arrest the two journalists who informed of the attack on the advice of the AG. He added that the former AG’s statement has clearly shown that the police and the AG’s Department have worked together in the case.

According to the senior journalist the statement made by the former AG that the suspects in Poddala Jayantha’s assault case were released based on his statement is lie aimed at misleading the international community.

Justice made a mockery by Deepali’s professional treachery – Has there ever been a worse prostitution of officialdom by a judge ?

(Lanka-e-News-23.Nov.2011, 2.30PM) Justice Ms. Deepali Wijayasundara the High court judge who gave an outrageous verdict in the white flag case defying all respected norms, practices and hollowed traditions of the judiciary arena, not only degraded her own dignity but even disgraced the entire judiciary , whereby the faith of the people in the judicial processes has been undermined most shamelessly and on an unprecedented scale, not to mention the denting of its image even before the whole world. She has stooped so low as to install secretive cameras in the High court to permit the President of the country , the regime chief and his brother Gotabaya , better known as Bayagotha (paranoid Gotha) to follow the court proceedings on the sly, according to reports reaching Lanka e news. Full story >>

Tracing Sri Lanka's missing children

Usha Devi Selvaratnam holds up a photograph of her son Sivakajan at an orphanage …

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  Girls line up for lunch at their orphanage in the Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya. Officials …
  Orphan girls at the compound of their orphanage in Vavuniya. Two and a half years …

• Orphan girls at the compound of their orphanage in Vavuniya. The Vavuniya-based Family …

Two and a half years after the end of Sri Lanka's bloody ethnic conflict, hundreds of families displaced by the war are still engaged in a fraught, exhausting search for missing children.

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians were caught up in the chaos of the military's ferocious final assault on cornered Tamil Tiger rebels in the jungles of northeast Sri Lanka in April and May 2009.

As the offensive intensified, Usha Devi Selvaratnam said goodbye to her teenage son, Sivakajan, having sold a gold chain to buy him passage on a rebel-controlled vessel bound for the relative safety of the northern Jaffna peninsula.

She never saw him again.

"There is no trace of him... just a big hole in my heart," she told AFP in Vavuniya where huge numbers of refugees were interned in the months following the end of the war.   Full Story>>>

Sri Lanka denies devaluation at IMF request

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka denied on Wednesday that it had devalued its currency at the demand of the International Monetary Fund to secure the rest of a $2.6 billion bailout.

Colombo on Monday cut the value of the rupee by three percent against a basket of currencies, despite spending millions of dollars in recent months to defend the unit.

Release of the latest IMF payment had been held up by the Washington-based body's calls for the island to adopt a "flexible exchange rate policy" to ensure its export competitiveness and protect reserves.

But Sarath Amunugama, senior minister for international monetary cooperation, said: "The IMF concerns are not our priorities.

"We have done it (the depreciation) to meet Sri Lankan priorities" of boosting exports, he told reporters in the capital.

He added that Sri Lanka may not even need the final installment of the bailout as the island's economy is growing robustly.

"We have foreign remittances of $4 billion (from Sri Lankans employed abroad) and we have eight percent growth," he said. "We are not in a crisis situation... We are not in a rush for the IMF money."

"We don't need that (IMF) money," Amunugama said, although he added that the government might consider accepting it only because the loan was on concessionary terms.

Sri Lanka obtained the IMF bailout in 2009 when the island's foreign reserves dipped below $1 billion and the country faced a major balance of payment crisis.

It has drawn $1.8 billion of the package, with the most recent payment coming in April when the IMF released $218.3 million.

Sri Lanka says its economy has been improving steadily since government security forces crushed Tamil rebels in May 2009 and ended a decades-long Tamil separatist war which cost up to 100,000 lives between 1972 and 2009.

The Sri Lankan editor trapped in his office for the last five years

New freedoms promised by the end of 25-year civil war are still being denied journalists in Sri Lanka, where many who have taken an unbiased stance have paid with their lives

It is not simply dedication to his job that has led newspaper editor MV Kaanamyl-nathan to not leave his office for five-and-a-half years. In the spring of 2006, gunmen stormed into the building and sprayed automatic fire that killed two employees and left bullet holes in the walls and the table in the conference room that remain to this day.

Since then, two police officers have been assigned to permanent duty outside the building and Mr Kaanamylnathan and his wife have left their three-bedroom home in the city and moved into a small space next to the newsroom. "I don't go out. The only exception is to go and see my doctor, a heart-specialist, once every three months," Mr Kaanamylnathan said. "For that, I have to make to make special arrangements.Full Story>>>

Sri Lanka For Sale: Wealth Creation by Dispossession

*groundview journalism For citizens 

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.” Karl Marx

No one knows how far the government is planning to go to gain control over nation’s wealth and sell it to those who patronize its economic and political agenda.            Continue reading »