T-Junction in the Road

Sutirtho Patranobis and Pramit Pal Chaudhuri 
April 19, 2012
THEN At one point in May, four years ago, it seemed a golden age in India-Sri Lanka relations was imminent. Tamil Tiger supremo V Prabhakaran had been killed and the 26-year-old Lankan civil war had come to an end. India was pleased. Both sides were one the need to defeat the good: the final battle took place as Tamil Nadu went to the polls — and the pro-Tiger parties lost heavily.

The Tamil insurrection was over. Lanka, it seemed, had been purged from Indian domestic politics. New Delhi’s relief at ending the region’s bloodiest conflict, one that had led India’s largest overseas military intervention and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, led it to brush aside allegations of large-scale Tamil civilian deaths.

There was also a remarkable degree of contact between New Delhi and almost all the players in the Lankan polity. The Tamil parties, especially the umbrella Tamil National Alliance (TNA), looked to India. Military to military ties were excellent. Even ultra-nationalist Sinhalese parties had toned down their anti-India rhetoric. The January 2010 Lankan presidential elections were unprecedented as both the incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and his opponent, former army chief Sarath Fonseka, wooed India.

NOW Two years later the T-word is back.

Colombo was shaken and shocked by India’s decision to vote against them this month at the UN Human Rights Commission. Referring to Rajapaksa’s failure to seek a Tamil political settlement, the resolution prodded Colombo to “reach a political settlement on the devolution of power to the provinces.”

The Sinhalese were apoplectic. “India has not only dealt a killer blow to India-Sri Lanka relations, but also to reconciliation efforts between Sinhalese and Tamils,” one Rajapaksa hatchet man, Minister Champika Ranawaka, wrote in the rightwing Nation.

But the vote sent two messages.

One, say Western diplomats, India was increasingly frustrated at Rajapaksa’s unwillingness to take even baby steps for the Tamils. Colombo didn’t even want to recognize it had to win the peace after winning the war. 

“There’s been a lot frustration with Rajapaksa’s refusal to implement even what his own promises,” say Indian officials privately. At senior levels in New Delhi there’s a belief the vote had its uses when it came to pressuring Colombo, at least once India got the resolution’s wording diluted.

Two, Lanka’s stubbornness was forcing its Tamil policy back into Indian electoral calculations. The UN vote was part of a larger political deal by New Delhi with Tamil Nadu chief minister,

J Jayalalitha. While she has never been an LTTE supporter, she seems to fear Tamil minority rights could become a voting issue in future and sought to cover her own flanks.

WHY is Rajapaksa stonewalling?

One theory is a sense of invincibility. Winning the civil war made him believe he really has nothing to fear. Rajapaksa’s trademark response to problems has been long speeches and lengthy promises that are then forgetten.

Tamil academics and activists believe the regime is just not interested in any settlement with the minority community.  “I think the Rajapaksas sincerely believe that some mega infrastructure projects, a pinch of cultural pluralism and some economic giveaways are reconciliation. They really believe most Tamils can be won over that way,” says Tamil commentator Tisaranee Gunasekara.

Rajapaksa’s sense of power stems from his complete control over the army. With an estimated 300,000 men under arms, Sri Lanka is among the world’s most militarised societies.

The military has been given a free-run in the Tamil-dominated North and East. New cantonments are being built, army personnel run shops and Tamils are being shouldered out of their traditional fishing areas. In these areas, as a British diplomat who visited there says, “Civilian authority is completely subservient to the military.”

Next: More altercations with India may be in the offing as New Delhi presses home that it cannot keep waiting forever.

Ex-President Chandrika Kumaratunga recently wondered at her successor’s talk of “China, Iran and Myanmar” as Lanka’s new global friends. But New Delhi is insouciant about the so-called “China card” being flaunted by many small neighbours. “Bluff,” say Indian officials.

There are some signs of change. Colombo quietly walked away from a threat to try and block the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu. Lanka and India are still closer than they have been in decades. But getting Rajapaksa to grasp the nettle of a Tamil political settlement will be a long drawn-out diplomatic and political process.

For Menik Farm Tamils it’s going to be food and shelter problem

MENIK FARM, April 18, 2012
R. K. RADHAKRISHNAN

The Menik Farm camp for the war displaced Tamils of the Northern Province, which now houses about 6,000 persons, will close in two months.

“What will then do,” asked one of the residents of the camp, as the Indian joint Parliamentary delegation, led by Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj, swept through the camp this morning for a first-hand study of the situation in the camp. The camp, which soon after the war housed about 2.94 lakh Internally Displaced Persons, is now home to very few who still have no place to go. Some of them, while saying that they wanted to get out of the camp, were not sure how to make a living outside.

“In such a small time, we have resettled 300,000 people,” said Basil Rajapaksa, Minister for Economic Development. Mr.Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan Minister of Economic Development, took the team around some of the projects where reconstruction work was undertaken by the Government of Sri Lanka in the north.

The IDPs mainly raised two issues – employing their own choice of words. One, related to housing once they are asked to leave the camp. They are not part of the 50,000 houses that the Indian Government is assisting in building, nor are they part of any other scheme. “From my interactions, I come to the conclusion that these people did not have homes even earlier,” said T.K.Rangarajan CPI (M).

It did not matter at that point of time since there was some way to find a livelihood. Now the issue is one of finding livelihood too. In some ways, this is the story of the entire north: the issue of shelter, and that of livelihood. The problem gets compounded because the Army is intricately involved in economic activity in the North.

In a resettled area in Puliyankulam, the team interacted with people. They also handed over bicycles, a school, equipment to a hospital and benefits to people across the various stops. It was not a government Minister that handed these out, it was Ms.Swaraj, the Leader of the Opposition. This came in for a lot of commendation from the Sri Lankan civil society.

In all their interactions, the MPs delegation, especially those from Tamil Nadu -- M.Krishnaswamy, Sudarsana Natchiappan, Rangarajan, Manik Takur, NSV Chittan -- noted the efforts of the Government of Sri Lanka in the field of rehabilitation and resettlement and underlined the need for progress towards a political settlement.

Sinhala academic blames US-UK axis for genocide in Tamil homeland

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 April 2012, 23:15 GMT]
Speaking at a meeting on “The Tamil Struggle for Self-Determination: A Leftist Sinhala Perspective” at University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, Sinhala academic Dr. Jude Lal Fernando highlighted the need to understand the role of powers in shaping and manipulating the forces among the Sri Lankan state and the Eezham Tamils, on Thursday. Talking extensively about how the western establishments tilted the parity of status against the Tigers during the CFA period, he expressed the view that the US-UK axis was to blame for the 2009 massacre. Dr. Fernando, who was one of the main co-ordinators of the Dublin Permanent People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka, explained how with the implementation of neoliberal policies the Sri Lankan state expedited privatization and militarization of the Tamil homeland. 

Jude Fernando is a lecturer and a post-doctoral researcher in peace studies at Trinity College, University of Dublin.

Dr. Fernando told the packed audience that anyone who wanted to understand the Tamil national question and the conflict in the island had to first comprehend the international influences impacting the internal dynamics in the island. Based on his research interest in the Irish peace process, Dr. Fernando observed that the success of the peace process in Ireland was based on the parity of status between both warring parties. 

Dr. Fernando argued that in the Irish peace process the parity of status was the outcome of the struggle of the people, and the outcome of a particular geopolitical context in world politics conducive to the parity of status. However, parity of status between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan Government was not respected by the same international powers that backed the Irish peace process. 

 Full story >>

Truth in Diplomacy

by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

( April 17, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Sri Lanka Guardian reports that Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka – Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France, has been summoned to Colombo to meet with the President as well as the Minister for External Affairs. Each one of us would work out the reason to be one or the other – as per our desires and needs. This may or may not be identical to that of the reason shown by the Sri Lankan Administration. But those who are true Administrators would intuitively identify with the true reason why.

I identify with Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka’s situation through my own, when I went to meet the Vice Chancellor of the University of New South Wales. If I had not gone, I would have become a nobody to myself and to all those who value themselves through me and my work – knowingly or otherwise. I did actually resign after listening to Ms Pauline Hanson on ABC’s Four Corners program on 10 August 1998, thinking of returning to Sri Lanka. I reacted to Ms Hanson’s statements asking us to ‘go back’ to our countries of origin. Now I know that I have to make the decision to value both my countries. No one else should be given the authority to tell me what to do. That to me was the sovereign power I was born with and needed to preserve right through my life.

The same Four Corners program presented the Channel 4 (British) report against Sri Lankan soldiers. Some Australian Parliamentarians reacted to this particular program and now the Sri Lankan High Commissioner does not seem to be happy with the Australian Government. With surface reactions we add and deduct as per the apparent authority (ABC combined with Australian politicians) instead of basing it on common principles and values – the deepest one being the Truth we know about ourselves. According to that Truth I had every right to stay here in Australia as an Australian. By upsetting me and other true Australians, Ms Hanson was diluting her sense of belonging at the level of real management that current Australia is driven by.

ABC presented also in April 2002, the story of Professor Bruce Hall, of the University of New South Wales, on the basis of scientific misconduct and fraud. According to this presentation, Professor Hall would seem ‘guilty’ as charged. The charges against Professor Bruce Hall included the following:

• Misrepresented data in a grant application to the National Health and Medical Research Council.
• Subsidised his wife's laboratory from his NHMRC grant.
• Transferred $46,000 from another researcher's NHMRC grant to cover his own research assistant.

On 08 July 2008 (years before the above presentation by ABC) I felt very upset by the conduct of the University’s Head of Research Administration in relation to NHMRC grants. Following is an excerpt from my report to my supervisor: Read More »

For Menik Farm Tamils it’s going to be food and shelter problem

17 April, 2012

Sri Lanka’s major Tamil party expressed optimism that the visiting Indian parliamentary delegation will take positive steps towards addressing social, political and safety issues faced by Tamils in the north and east. Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs led by Rajavarothayam Sampanthan has told Indian Parliamentarians led by the leader of opposition in the Indian Lower house of parliament- Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj that Tamils need effective power devolution similar to the Indian system. “Power devolution without power is of no use,” TNA MP Selvam Adaikkalanadan told BBC Tamil service following an hour long meeting with the Indian delegation in Colombo. Land and police powers “We need police and land powers for the provincial councils like the states in India,” said MP Adaikkalanadan. Indian MPs now touring Sri Lanka have told the TNA MPs that they would stress the need for devolution of powers to Tamil-speaking provinces when they meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday. "People are struggling to return to their normal lives" When the Lankan MPs wanted the Indians to bring pressure on their government to urge the Sri Lankan government towards a lasting solution to the Tamil national question through dialogue, the delegation said they would take due note of their concerns. MP Adaikkalanathan said they briefed the Indian delegation on the appalling conditions prevailing in Tamil areas. He said that heavy military presence in the North is an impediment for Tamils who are struggling get back to their normal lives after suffering during and after the Civil war which came to a brutal end with the LTTE being militarily defeated in May 2009. Buddhist temples “Land grabbing continues in the north and east, while Buddhist temples are being built in traditional Tamil areas,” the TNA has told the visiting the Indian delegation. TNA members have also told the Indian MPs that the situation could be improved in the North and East for Tamils if the administration is handed over entirely to the elected officials instead of the military, so that they could live with dignity in Lanka. That can happen only when powers relating to land and policing were devolved to the provinces, the TNA has emphasised to the Indian delegation. TNA also has requested the visiting Indians that the tour to the north should not be a guided one. It will enable the Indian MPs to meet the Tamil people in the north and east and get to know their problems first hand, without government minders , he added. The Indian delegation has also met senior representatives of the government and leaders of up country Tamils on Tuesday.

Sri Lanka: Indian Parliamentary delegation to Colombo- Some Observations: – Update No. 215

17-Apr-2012

Col. R. Hariharan 

(Here is my response to specific questions raised by media on the Indian parliamentary delegation’s visit to Colombo on April 16, 2016.) 

1.     Is this parliamentary delegation on a goodwill visit or fact finding mission to Colombo? 

The visit is a reciprocal visit from our parliament after a parliamentary delegation from Sri Lanka visited India. Such delegations are regularly exchanged between many countries; in fact a Sri Lanka parliamentary delegation visited Pakistan in February 2011. So the overall objective of this delegation is also presumably to increase the goodwill between Indian and Sri Lankan parliamentarians. 

But viewed in the rather strained situation of Indian vote for UNHCR resolution on Sri Lanka, it has assumed a lot of political overtones both in India and Sri Lanka. Any Indian parliamentarian going to Sri Lanka has to look at the progress made in rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes for Tamils in Sri Lanka for which India has allotted large sums of money. So from that point of view this delegation also has a “fact finding” mission; however, in the present political context it will have enlarged responsibility on understanding the human rights situation also.  And for any real “fact finding” goodwill of Sri Lanka is also needed; so if you want positive outcome, you cannot separate the two objectives as they are complimentary rather than contradictory. 

2.    The visit of the delegation became controversial particularly after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms Jayalalithaa condemned the move and withdrew her representative from the delegation and the DMK also pulled out thereafter. Under such circumstances, do you think goodwill would be increased between the two countries by the delegation’s visit?  

Full Story>>>

India to test fire long-range missile

 18 April 2012

The Agni range of missiles has been fully developed in India

India is due to test fire a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The locally-developed Agni-V missile has a range of more than 5,000km (3,100 miles) and is expected to be launched in the eastern state of Orissa.

Analysts say the Agni (meaning "fire" in Hindi and Sanskrit) missile family is to be the cornerstone of India's missile-based nuclear deterrent.

The missiles are among India's most sophisticated weapons.

In 2010, India successfully test-fired Agni-II, an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a range of more than 2,000km (1,250 miles).

'Game changer'

Full Story>>>

Sushma stresses on 13A.

WEDNESDAY, 18 APRIL 2012

India’s opposition leader Ms. Sushma Swaraj who is currently leading a parliamentary delegation on a visit to Sri Lanka stressed yesterday that the government should evolve a political solution to the national question based on the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, informed sources said yesterday.

The visiting delegation of Indian parliamentarians representing both Lok Shaba and Rajya Sabha had an interactive session with a Sri Lankan parliamentary delegation led by Leader of the House Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva in the parliamentary complex.  

During the meeting, Minister de Silva said that the government consists of a few parties   with different political ideologies, and therefore, it is difficult to take unilateral decisions with regard to the national question. As a result, he said that the government had proposed to appoint a parliamentary select committee to evolve a political solution in consultation with all the parties concerned.  He criticized the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for not nominating its members to this committee. 

TNA leader R. Sampanthan joined the discussion saying that the successive governments had neglected their responsibility in delivering a reasonable political solution to Tamil people. In a hard hitting speech, he viewed that his party started a dialogue with the present government in January, last year, but no progress had been made for the fulfillment of political aspirations of Tamil people.  He analyzed how democratic struggles by Tamil parties were suppressed in the past, and the situation eventually led to the advent of Tamil militancy. (Kelum Bandara )

The Need for A Genuine Change In Governance

April 18, 2012

By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -

Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena

Does one need to possess foreign citizenship to practice basic rights of life, liberty and free expression in Sri Lanka?

The meaning of national sovereignty

This question has become particularly relevant given steeply increased abductions and disappearances in recent months. If Frontline Socialist Party’s Premakumaran Gunaratnam (aka Noel Mudalige) had not claimed Australian citizenship, what would have been his fate or for that matter, of his co-abductee Dimuthu Attygalle? We do not need to search far for this answer. The still unknown whereabouts of other disappeared individuals, including a detainee who was abducted from the court premises itself, stares at us in response. This column has said more than once; the Government cannot simply shrug off these incidents and profess to a bland denial of the same. In the heavily monitored and militarized society that Sri Lanka has become, despite the ending of active conflict three years ago, bare denials do not suffice. They merely become acutely laughable.

 Read More

Karunanidhi welcomes idea of referendum to create Tamil Eelam

April 17, 2012

Chennai:  DMK president M Karunanidhi on Tuesday welcomed the idea of a referendum for creation of a separate Tamil Ealam and called for India to play a role in this regard.

"The demand for a referendum among Tamils for a separate Eelam is welcome. Some countries have earned recognition following such referendum at the intervention of the United Nations (UN)," he said writing in party mouthpiece 'Murasoli.'

On that basis, UN should take efforts for the creation of a Tamil Eelam, he said, adding India should extend "required support and pressure" UN in this regard.

Slamming the law and order situation under AIADMK rule, Mr Karunanidhi said over 380 murders had occurred during the 11 months it had been in office.

He cited instances of robbery, chain-snatching, lock-up deaths and Paramakudi firing incident to contest Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's remarks at a Delhi meeting on internal security on Monday that no major untoward incidents hurting peace had happened during the 11 month AIADMK rule.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms at 30

John D. Whyte

It has now been 30 years since Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms was signed.
 Thirty years ago, on April 17, 1982, Queen Elizabeth, sitting under a wet and gloomy sky in front of Canada’s Parliament Buildings, proclaimed in force the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — a key element of the new Constitution Act.

This event did not bring about a transformation of Canada’s political life — it has not significantly added sensitivity to human rights to our politics. But what it did do was bring a missing legal instrument to Canadian liberal democracy: constitutional entrenchment of such basic rights as freedom of association, speech and religion, due process and equality.

At the time, some Canadian politicians opposed the Charter of Rights because it gave courts new power to review the decisions of Parliament, legislatures and governmental officials and to declare them invalid when they abridged rights. They objected to having the will of the people (as determined by elected representatives) be frustrated by the decisions of judges.

Opponents of the Charter forced the federal government to amend its constitutional plan and give legislatures the power to override the Charter, in some cases. This would seem to have defeated the claim that Canada had entrenched rights, except for the fact that governments fairly quickly abandoned use of the override clause — and it is not likely to come back.

Notwithstanding opposition to entrenched rights, a majority of Canadians seemed to agree to the creation of constitutional rights. And it is not at all clear what is anti-democratic in the people of a nation assenting to constitutional reforms that restrain exercises of political power. The people’s will to approve constitutional policies is certainly as valid as majority approved legislation.

How disruptive of governmental policies and public will has the Charter actually been? The list of court rulings over the past 30 years that have struck down laws is not insignificant. These include Canada’s abortion regulation, legislative barriers to same-sex marriage, legislated stripping of collective bargaining rights, restrictions on wearing religious symbols, excluding protection for homosexuals in provincial human rights legislation, excluding non-citizens from becoming lawyers, and restricting individuals wishing to campaign against Quebec separation. Reactions to these outcomes will vary from individual to individual but these decisions reflect a constitutional commitment to fair and just treatment.

Other decisions overturning government regulation have been more controversial — striking down limits on tobacco advertising and disallowing restrictions on private health insurance, for instance. While these decisions interfered with what seemed valuable governmental regulation, they have not actually led to the frustration of governmental plans for restricting smoking or maintaining a predominantly public health-care system.

What is more unsettling for some are instances of court failure to grant Charter protection — for example, to Hutterites who do not want their photos on driving licences, to young welfare recipients whose welfare payments were reduced to $170 per month, to Newfoundland’s women civil servants who sought to overturn the government’s refusal to implement a pay equity award, and to parents of autistic children for whom treatment was curtailed. These cases represent an undoubted tendency of the courts not to let the Charter add to governments’ burdens.

Questions remain. Has the Charter enhanced moral sensibility in Canadian political practice? Sadly, not perceptibly. Has the Charter weakened democratic practices? Something certainly has, but it is likely not the Charter. Have Charter decisions frustrated the achievement of public interests as declared by legislatures? Not to the extent that political outrage has often been induced. Have Charter decisions favoured the well-off who bask in liberty and left behind those who need government help in meeting basic needs? To some extent, this is true. For one thing, in our society the rule of law is realized imperfectly and the benefits of law, including Charter law, are distributed unevenly.

There is a question, though, to which the answer is clearer. Do Canadians now believe that the Charter was a mistaken constitutional initiative? This seems not to be the case; the Charter and democracy are still not opposing ideals.

John Whyte is a Policy Fellow at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Regina. He served as Saskatchewan’s director of constitutional law from 1979 to 1982.

US resolution criticises, surges beyond LLRC

March 15, 2012,  

by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

It is almost a crime to lie to the people and mislead them on a matter of vital national interest. When it is committed by politicians it is an act of unconscionable opportunism. When it is perpetrated by so-called intellectuals belonging to civil society, it is a counterfeiting of the currency of the intellect and the function of the educated, which is to educate the public.

One of the rankest untruths in the public domain today is that the US resolution is innocuous and unobjectionable because it only seeks to commit the government of Sri Lanka to implement its own LLRC report within a reasonable time frame. This untruth is perpetrated by the dominant elements of the UNP, the TNA and the civil society commentariat.

The utter falsehood of this assertion is instantly provable by a mere glance at the Resolution itself. Far from limiting itself to the harmless and arguably even constructive pursuit of merely seeking the implementation of the LLRC’s recommendations, the Resolution actually criticises the LLRC. The fifth and final paragraph of the preamble of the US Resolution, immediately preceding its operative clauses, reads: "Noting with concern that the LLRC report does not adequately address serious allegations of violations of international law…"

It is nothing short of disgusting that this sentence, in plain view in the text, is being hidden by pro-US resolution politicians and opinion-makers. It is one thing to be a critic, however harsh, of the government, quite another to be a supporter of the US Resolution and worse still, to brush under the rug that which is quite overt in the Resolution itself.

The Resolution’s criticism of the LLRC report is itself an untruth. That report not only earmarks issues of accountability which it states should be addressed by the government of Sri Lanka, it contains an impressively thick and closely argued chapter precisely on international law issues pertaining to the conflict. Given that one of the LLRC report’s authors is the former Chairperson of the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism and a former member of the International Law Commission, this assertion by the US Resolution is indeed disingenuous.

Having made this criticism of the LLRC, the US Resolution then goes on to stipulate measures in its operative clauses which range well beyond the LLRC’s recommendations:

"(1) Calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the constructive recommendations in the LLRC report and take all necessary additional steps to fulfil its relevant legal obligations and commitment to initiate credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans,

(2) Requests that the Government of Sri Lanka present a comprehensive action plan as expeditiously as possible detailing the steps the Government has taken and will take to implement the LLRC recommendations and also to address alleged violations of international law. (My emphases-DJ)

This plainly gives the lie to the assertion that the US resolution seeks only the (harmless) implementation of the LLRC’s recommendations. It is permissible to argue that the additional measures are good and necessary, but quite another to sweep under the rug, or divert attention from these stipulations which range beyond the LLRC into the domain of international law. That practice of providing a smokescreen for external interventionism is rather like persuading customers, in this case the Sri Lankan citizenry, to participate in a Ponzi scheme.

The third and final operative clause of the US Resolution reads:

(3) "Encourages the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and relevant special procedures to provide, and the Government of Sri Lanka to accept, advice and technical assistance on implementing those steps and requests the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to present a report to the Council on the provision of such assistance at its twenty-second session."

In other words, the High Commissioner becomes the monitoring authority, with operational functions as well, of the compliance of the elected government of Sri Lanka with the US request to "take all necessary additional steps [beyond the LLRC] to fulfil its relevant legal obligations and commitment to initiate credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans…and also to address alleged violations of international law." This seeks to give the Office of the UN High Commissioner the role of an overseer, in relation to a national process of (national) reconciliation. In the US Resolution, the political and policy implementation process in Sri Lanka changes its circuitry and loops through the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights; an extra-national entity, accountable not to the UN Human Rights Council but primarily to the UN Secretary-General in New York.

Sinhala prisoners cut their Tamil counterparts with blades at Galle jail on new year day

Tuesday 17 of April 2012
(Lanka-e-News-17.April.2012, 11.55PM) On the New year day , that is on the 14th , the Tamil prisoners in the Galle prison had been viciously attacked by the Sinhala counterparts. The Sinhala prisoners have cut the Tamil prisoners with blades, according to reports.

The media had not reported on this incident. When the TNA M.P . However when TNA M.P.Ariyanendran had inquired from the Prisons Commissioner , the latter had admitted that there had been such an incident. He had stated that an investigation is being conducted into this attack. Ariyanendran had requested that the Tamil prisoners be immediately transferred to the Batticaloa prison , on security grounds as there is a grave threat to their lives.
It is a matter for deep regret that after the end of the war , when there is every opportunity to create an environment of peace and harmony among all communities by the rulers ,there had been sporadic racial attacks kindling ethnic hatred. The rulers who are doing lip service to racial unity are in truth stoking communal animosity and sowing seeds of racial violence.

Kshenuka to be appointed as External Affairs Ministry Secretary

Tuesday, 17 April 2012 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa it is learnt has decided to appoint the Additional Secretary of the External Affairs Ministry, Kshenuka Seneviratne as the secretary of the ministry.

Supervising MP of the External Affairs Ministry, Sajin Vass Gunarwadena has told several of his close confidantes that the President has assured him that Seneviratne would be appointed as the ministry secretary.

The President’s son, MP Namal Rajapaksa has requested the President to let Prof. G.L. Peiris remain as the External Affairs Minister and to appoint Seneviratne as the ministry secretary.

Seneviratne was the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in the UK when Namal was receiving his education in London and she had released two High Commission vehicles to Namal and his friends. Seneviratne’s husband had spent lavishly on Namal and his friends while in London. Seneviratne had also taken a luxury house in London from High Commission funds claiming that it would be used by Namal when he visits the UK.

Seneviratne’s husband had spent lavishly to fund Namal’s secret expenses. Although intelligence units have uncovered that Seneviratne’s husband had been involved in several deals with two LTTE members during the period, the investigations have been swept under the carpet by Namal.

However, it is learnt that Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera is displeased that G.L. Peiris was trying to remove External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunathilaka Amunugama and to get Seneviratne appointed as the Ministry Secretary by getting Gunawardena and Namal to make the request from the President. Jayasundera has explained to the President that the Chinese government might not be pleased if a sudden decision was taken to remove Amunugama since he played a key role in getting the Chinese government to provide aid to Sri Lanka during the war and has now got the Chinese to invest in the country.

The diplomatic community recognizes Amunugama as an official loyal to the Chinese.

The President has discussed the inefficiencies of the External Affairs Ministry with some of his close confidantes and they have advised him to strengthen ties with India and to appoint an official with good ties with Indians as the External Affairs Ministry Secretary.

They have said the ideal person for the job would be Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India, Prasad Kariyawasam.

We previously reported that the senior Foreign Service officials are divided into three groups as those supporting Europe, China and India.