Sunday, April 22, 2012

As rupee plunges, Govt. decides to take IMF loan

The government has ended its dilly-dallying over seeking further assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), just as the Sri Lanka rupee closed this week at more than Rs130 a US dollar, a near 20% depreciation since January.

It has agreed to take the final instalment of US$ 400 million (in July) of an ongoing loan. A decision on this would be taken after another review mission by the IMF, officials said. Earlier in the year, the Central Bank had been undecided on whether to accept the final (two) tranches of $400 million each, under the $2.6 billion Stand-By Arrangement as it was being disbursed at a higher 3% interest rate while the rest of the loan was given at little over 1%.

In a joint letter to the Fund, Deputy Finance and Planning Minister Gitanjana Gunawardena and Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal have said Sri Lanka will not revert to intervening in foreign exchange markets, unless absolutely necessary. The letter was released on Thursday by the IMF.

Sri Lanka has further sought an extension of the IMF package to July 23 from June to provide more time for the current flexible exchange rate policies to take root.

Forex dealers said the rupee ended weaker on Friday at Rs 130.20 levels from Rs 128 on the previous Friday, due to pressure from imports and possibly due to the issuance of a Central Bank bond where foreigners were transferring their money to the bond (from other accounts). The dollar was around Rs. 110 in January.

Intervention in the markets by the Central Bank last year saw foreign exchange reserves fall to US$ 5.9 billion by December 2011 from US$ 8 billion in August. Last February, the Bank withdrew from the market allowing the dollar to float which has seen it rising from the Rs. 114 in February. In January the dollar rose to Rs. 114 from Rs. 110 when the government announced a 3% devaluation.

“We are firmly committed to a flexible monetary and exchange rate policy under which we will take whatever necessary steps that are needed to achieve these objectives,” said the March 15 letter, released by the IMF on Thursday along with its report on the 7th review mission which eventually led to the approval of a $400 million tranche.

“Since early February, we have limited Central Bank sales of foreign exchange to supporting the oil bill on a declining scale. This has sharply reduced the level of intervention in recent weeks and the corresponding decline in reserves.

More immediately, we expect to start rebuilding our net international reserves and aim, at least, to reverse the recent decline in net international reserves completely by end-2012. We are confident that the package of measures taken will reduce the external current account deficit towards a sustainable level by the end of 2012,”it said.

These documents were released on the eve of the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank currently underway in Washington. A Sri Lankan delegation led by Senior Minister Sarath Amunugama and including Mr. Cabraal is attending the meetings.

Government officials said these were routine annual meetings attended by finance ministers and central bank governors from all member countries and they were unlikely to raise any specific issues as far as Sri Lanka is concerned. “

Sunday 22 April 2012
Dambulla mosque shut down after angry protests

By Ranga Jayasuriya

An ugly commotion over a mosque allegedly built on temple land has threatened religious harmony in Dambulla.
On Friday, a group of protestors led by Buddhist monks forced a mosque in Dambulla to abandon Friday Jumma prayers. The mosque was later shut down until next week by the government authorities. Over a thousand locals and monks surrounded the mosque, demanding that it be moved out. Their grouse was that it was built in the Pooja boomi (sacred area) of the Rangiri Dambulu Viharaya, a UNESCO world heritage site.
As a forewarning of the troubles ahead, the mosque came under a petrol bomb attack in the wee hours of Friday. No one was injured. Later in the day, Buddhist devotees who set off on a protest march from the Rangiri Viharaya arrived on the premises of the mosque and demanded that the worshippers and the caretaker of the mosque leave, an eyewitness said. Reyaz Salley, a Muslim activist said there were 75 worshipers inside the mosque when the protestors turned up. Full Story>>>

Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Scales Of Justice Are Tipped Upside Down

Those who believe that the country’s justice system treats everyone equally is living in a fool’s paradise. This is true of all justice systems in the world. While some countries try to make it more fair than the others, the truth is that there will never be a system that is entirely fair.
After all, a good lawyer has a better chance of keeping one out of jail than a bad one. The only problem is that good lawyers cost a tidy amount. So by that yard stick alone, the poor start with a major handicap. Add the influence peddling of the elite and bribery and corruption and the system is highly tilted in favour of the rich and famous. So, the system gets some sort of credibility when once in a way a rich or a famous person ends up at least in remand prison in spite of his wealth and connections.
The credibility of the justice system takes a huge knock when the rich and the famous even after being sent to prison end up in the relatively luxurious Merchants Ward of the General Hospital. Or, are flown out where they are allowed to lie for months in a foreign hospital allegedly enjoying visits from the Head of State no less. Read More »

April 22, 2012

A Violent Government

By Sanjana Hattotuwa -

Sanjana Hattotuwa

Around a fortnight ago, when I interviewed for public television Gomin Dayasiri, I asked him about Minister Mervyn Silva’s public threats to tear apart the limbs of and kill human rights activists. Mr. Dayasiri, a senior lawyer and a well-known supporter of the present government, expressed his confidence that the Police would investigate Minister’s most recent hysteria. Time did not permit me to ask Mr. Dayasiri about the fate of the many Police investigations in the past against Minister Silva’s odious violence and revolting public statements. Given the Minister’s revealing asseveration – not once denied by the President or government – that he derives his power and legitimacy directly from the President and the Rajapaksa’s, it’s hardly surprising they went nowhere. Par for the course then to read reports in the media last week that disciplinary action by the SLFP against the Minister’s most recent hate speech were stalled “because of the lack of support from the party hierarchy for such action”.

The story is interesting for another reason. It notes that because no action can be taken against Minister Silva – acknowledging in other words, that he is above the law – complaints relating to corruption, fraud and violation of party regulations against party members, SLFP members of Pradeshiya Sabhas, Urban Councils, Provincial Councils and Parliament could not be acted upon, even “though a majority of these complaints were well substantiated”. So essentially, even though violent, corrupt and cancerous elements within the ruling party have been identified, nothing can or will be done against them because of the impunity a single individual enjoys.

I cannot believe I am the only one who finds this incredible, outrageous and untenable. The President and trenchant voices in his government never tire calling human rights activists and NGOs traitors, doing and saying things against Sri Lanka. But the level of impunity Minister Silva so publicly enjoys, and worse, shamelessly trumpets, escapes similar reproof. Even within government, this hasn’t gone unnoticed, though no one wants to be named on it. One exception is Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, who noted recently that he was “of the view that no intelligent person could have failed to realise that such pronouncements were immensely damaging to the government, and to the President personally” and that intelligence which he thought basic “could not be expected of Minister Silva”. He goes on to submit that his expression, along with sentiment that violently rejects the West as detrimental to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty is “emphatically a minority viewpoint, and not shared by the vast majority of those in government”.

Prof. Wijesinha may like to believe this, just as much Mr. Dayasiri would like to believe in credible investigations into Minister Silva’s public threats. Both choose to ignore a more disturbing, and indeed, deeply embarrassing reality – the President, for whatever reason, protects Mervyn Silva. In protecting Minister Mervyn Silva – and what is in fact indefensible and possibly illegal – the President in effect projects the Minister’s voice and violence over and above the official policies and practices of government. That neither the President nor his powerful brothers have uttered a single word of condemnation against the Minister strongly suggests they condone his behaviour, and in fact, give him the freedom and legitimacy to continue with it. And seemingly no one, not even high ranking members of the SLFP, will put their name to efforts to hold the Minister in check, even though news reports clearly suggest they have been “embarrassed by the untoward actions and controversial remarks of maverick Minister” and find themselves “extremely helpless” to explain his behaviour. However, it’s not just the Minister. The Secretary of Defence, the President’s brother, has on a number of occasions and with equal impunity, employed a similar violent expression, and during the war years, along with someone now languishing in jail, incited public hate against independent journalists and human rights activists. Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra and “kudu Duminda” were not so long ago, leading lights of government.

I take no happiness in noting that contrary to what Prof. Wijesinha submits, it is violence in deed and word that sharply defines this government. Minister Silva is just one of many. This is a systemic problem. We may deserve those we elect, but surely, is this the face of a country – that is and can be more cultured and civil – we want to project to the world, especially post-war? Shouldn’t patriots be worried?

Read Sanjana’s writings @ http://sanjanah.wordpress.com

Sunday April 22, 2012

President again pledges 13 Plus to India

Swaraj makes claim at news conference but presidential spokesman refuses comment
LSSP, CP call for maximum implementation of LLRC recommendations

By Anthony David and Nadia Fazlulhaq

President Mahinda Rajapaksa will enforce provisions of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and “go beyond it,” India’s Opposition Leader Sushma Swaraj said yesterday.

She told a packed news conference the re-assurance was given when the Indian parliamentary delegation met the President at “Temple Trees” earlier yesterday. However, presidential spokesperson Bandula Jayasekera, who was present at the news conference, declined to comment on Ms. Swaraj’s statement.

A reported previous assurance on the same issue, made by the President to Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in January, however, ran into controversy and contradictions.

Mr. Krishna had told a news conference in Colombo on January 17 after a breakfast meeting with the President that Mr. Rajapaksa had assured him he would implement the “13th Amendment plus,” meaning further concessions. However, during a meeting with national newspaper editors on January 30, President Rajapaksa disputed the claim and declared “no assurance” was given. He said he had only “discussed the 13th Amendment plus.”

Sri Lanka rejects call to withdraw army from north

Sri Lanka's president has rejected a call by Indian legislators to withdraw soldiers from the island's former war zone in the north where minority Tamils are concentrated, his spokesman said Sunday.

President Mahinda Rajapakse told a delegation of visiting Indian lawmakers that troops could not be pulled out despite the end of the decades-long Tamil separatist war in 2009.

"The president explained that there are troops elsewhere in the country as well," spokesman Bandula Jayasekera told AFP. "They are not only in the (Tamil-dominated) north."

The visiting delegation was the first team of Indian MPs to visit the island since Sri Lankan forces crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending an ethnic conflict which had claimed up to 100,000 lives.

Indian opposition leader Sushma Swaraj and the cross-party delegation met with Rajapakse on Saturday.

Among the visiting MPs were representatives from Tamil Nadu state, whose 60 million population share close cultural and religious links with Sri Lanka's Tamils.

Sri Lankan forces have a strong presence across the north, which was badly damaged during decades of fighting.

Tamil politicians there have demanded political autonomy to address long-standing grievances of discrimination and oppression by Sinhalese-dominated governments.

Colombo must persuade TNA to join talks: Sushma

R.K. RADHAKRISHNAN

Sushma Swarajspeaks during a press conference in Colombo on Saturday.— PHOTO: AP

Noting that talks to find a negotiated political solution to the Tamil ethnic question are deadlocked, the Indian parliamentary delegation, which wound up its six-day tour of Sri Lanka, has emphasised to the government that the stalemate has to be ended.

“We told [Sri Lankan] President Mahinda Rajapaksa that this stalemate has to be broken,” said the leader of the delegation, Sushma Swaraj.

“He [Mr. Rajapaksa] said we can't bring them [the Tamil National Alliance, the credible representative of the Tamils living in the Northern Province] by force. I said yes, you can't bring them by force, but you can bring them by persuasion,” she added.

This was the theme running through the visit, she explained. “Persuade the TNA, persuade the UNP [United National Party, the main Opposition party], to join the talks. And unless and until the Parliament Select Committee (PSC) works, the deadlock will remain. So in every meeting, we have emphasised on this point,” she added.

In a joint statement, the delegation hoped that the government would “seize this window of opportunity and follow an enlightened approach to reach a genuine political reconciliation, based on a meaningful devolution of powers, which takes into account the legitimate needs of the Tamil people for equality, dignity, justice and self-respect. We have been assured in the past that this will be done within the framework of “Thirteenth Amendment – Plus.”

Repeated promises Full Story>>>

Sunday, April 22, 2012
Crime And Punishment, In Rajapaksa Sri Lanka

“Terror does not evolve except towards a worse terror… Nowhere in the world has there been a party or a man with absolute power who did not use it absolutely”.
Camus (Resistance, Rebellion and Death)

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

For the Tamil families of Dilithura, a small village of mostly estate workers in Elpitiya, Galle, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year was not to be an auspicious one.
Their tragedy, which ended in burnt homes and looted possessions, began with a simple, everyday inconsequence: a young villager not calling a soldier on holiday, ‘sir’. The enraged soldier reportedly responded to this non-crime with disproportionate and extra-judicial punitive action. According to the ‘Ada Derana’ Tamil website, he assaulted the young man, as well as another Tamil youth who tried to mediate. Subsequently, “around 30 youths had gathered at the location, beaten up the two Tamil youths and set fire to seven houses, push cycles, motorcycles and three wheelers. They had also got away with money and jewellery…” (Sri Lanka Mirror – 16.4.2012). The villagers informed the police. Instead of arresting the perpetrators, the police detained two Tamil youths!
When seven Tamil families loose their homes and all their possessions because one Tamil boy did not call a soldier ‘sir’, does it not smack of collective punishment?Read More »

Sunday 22 April 2012
The American strategic pivot is actually a network Global military power on our patio

What President Obama calls pivoting military strategy on Asia is actually a major shift that will have long term consequences, much more serious than most people, except military analysts, have taken the trouble to ponder. The background, of course, everyone is aware of, and consists of four elements; Asia has become an economic powerhouse and deserves to be treated as the principal global strategic theatre, post the Soviet and East European collapse; commitment to European defence is no longer a priority; thirdly, petro-region states have improved their military muscle and need a nanny less and less, and in any case a southerly thrust from Russia/Soviet Union is not a worry; finally there is the other elephant in the global chamber, China.

Control of the seas Full Story>>>

At Next UNHRC Session Muslim Countries Will Have To Protect Mosques And Religious Freedom, Not The GSL – Kabir Hashim

April 21, 2012

Kabir Hashim

“Whether the government has so soon forgotten about the Moulavis who had rallied Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and other Muslim countries against the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka. At the next UNHRC session, they will have to be there to protect mosques and religious freedom, not the government” UNP MP Kabir Hashim said.

The present regime has seriously violated the brotherhood between the Sinhalese and the Muslims as well as the Islamic religious freedom, charged UNP MP Kabir Hashim further said.

Speaking to the media in Colombo yesterday (Apr. 20), he alleged that mobs had driven away devotees and destroyed a mosque at Dambulla, despite the president, ministers and the police chief being informed about the threats to the religious place.

Police and the Army looked on as the mosque was demolished, charged the Kegalle district MP. Noting that the Islamic religious place in Dambulla was built way back in 1963, he noted that had it been an illegal construction, the matter should have been dealt with in accordance with the law.

MP Hashim asked whether the government has so soon forgotten about the Moulavis who had rallied Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and other Muslim countries against the UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka.

At the next UNHRC session, they will have to be there to protect mosques and religious freedom, not the government, he said. He urged the government to conduct an impartial and extensive investigation into the destruction of the mosque in Dambulla and to ensure religious freedom.

YAHOO! NEWS

Indian MPs press Sri Lanka to share power

Indian legislators Saturday asked neighbouring Sri Lanka to de-militarise former war zones and share political power with minority Tamils to ensure lasting peace.

Indian national opposition leader Sushma Swaraj, leading a 12-member multi-party delegation, said they urged President Mahinda Rajapakse to deliver on promises to devolve "meaningful power" to the island's ethnic Tamil minority.

Swaraj's delegation also included five lawmakers from India's southern state of Tamil Nadu whose 60 million population share close cultural and religious links with Sri Lanka's Tamils.

Swaraj said Sri Lanka should implement the recommendations from its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) which Rajapakse had set up to deflect international calls for an independent war probe.

The LLRC did not apportion blame, but called for a wider probe of the 2009 military drive that defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who had been fighting since 1972 for independence from the majority Sinhalese nation.

Sri Lanka's military success in crushing the Tigers, known for their use of suicide bombings, has also led to widespread condemnation of Sri Lanka's human rights record.

India last month voted for a US-initiated resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for a war crimes probe in Sri Lanka where international rights group say up to 40,000 civilians perished during 2009's military action.

Colombo was upset when New Delhi voted with the United States at the UNHRC meeting in Geneva, but Swaraj defended India's action, saying the motion had only urged Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of its own LLRC war probe.

Swaraj told reporters at the end of her four-day visit that her delegation wanted Sri Lanka to also implement a 1987 constitutional provision that promised limited political autonomy to Tamils in Sri Lanka's northeast.

The United Nations has estimated up to 100,000 people were killed in ethnic bloodshed between 1972 and 2009.

"While there has been substantial progress in the area of rehabilitation and reconstruction, a lot remains to be done," Swaraj said, adding she personally saw 6,000 civilians still languishing in a refugee camp in the island's north.

Peiris going to US with secret Action Plan

Palestinian faces turn red as External Affairs Minister refers to them as Israelis
Ministers and UPFA party leaders asked to give their views before April 28

By Our Political Editor
With Internally Displaced Persons (IDP's) at Vavuniya.

External Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris, made a colossal diplomatic blunder last Monday.
To use his own words: "Your Excellency Dr. Riyad-al-Maliki, Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, Your Excellency the Ambassador of Israel, Deputy Minister of External Affairs of Sri Lanka, Secretary to our Ministry, Ladies and Gentlemen of the media. I am very happy to extend on this occasion a very cordial welcome………."

There was neither the Foreign Minister of the state of Israel nor its Ambassador present at the External Affairs Ministry in Colombo where a news conference was held. The two dignitaries were in fact representing the state of Palestine. Foreign Minister Maliki had accompanied Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on a two-day visit to Sri Lanka. He was with Peiris for a joint news conference. Also present was the Palestine Ambassador Dr. Anwar Al Agha.

The faces of doctors Maliki and Agha reddened. They blushed as Peiris continued referring twice to Israel. The uneasy body language of Ambassador Agha prompted Peiris to realise his blunder. He said "sorry" very matter of factly and continued.

At least for a while, it seemed that the External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka did not know the difference between Israel and Palestine. Sri Lanka not only enjoyed close ties with Palestine but President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was then a budding MP, was a champion of the Palestinian cause. He then headed the Sri Lanka chapter of the Movement for Solidarity with Palestine. In his honour, the state of Palestine named one of their streets President Mahinda Rajapaksa Avenue.

That was in the presence of the local and foreign media in Sri Lanka. The video of Peiris' remarks can be seen on website www.sundaytimes.lk. Needless to say that it is one of the biggest gaffes by an External Affairs (Foreign) Minister in post-independent Sri Lanka.

There was some similarity in a different direction last Sunday. US President Barrack Obama made what was described as an "uncharacteristic error" by referring to Malvinas as the Maldives. These two words were used to describe his gaffe since his predecessor; George W. Bush was reputed for many, some bordering on the dumb side. Obama was speaking at the summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Columbia. Malvinas is the Spanish name for the Falkland Islands located off the south eastern coast of South America.