U.S. 'encouraged' by Sri Lanka moves on Iran oil

WASHINGTON | Fri May 18, 2012

May 18 (Reuters) - The United States is encouraged by Sri Lanka's drive to cut its oil imports from Iran, the U.S. State Department said on Friday in a positive assessment of the island nation's efforts to escape potential U.S. sanctions.

Sri Lanka's oil minister, Susil Premajayantha, said this week his government expected to avoid U.S. sanctions after cutting Iran oil imports by up to 38 percent by switching to alternatives from Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Premajayantha said Sri Lanka had reduced Iran crude purchases to eight cargoes a year from 13, buying four cargoes from Oman and one from Saudi Aramco.

"We are encouraged by the steps that Sri Lanka has taken," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met visiting Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris.

The United States has tightened sanctions due to Iran's failure to answer questions about its nuclear program, which Washington and its allies suspect is a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran rejects the Western accusations and says its program is solely for peaceful energy purposes.

In March, the United States granted exemptions to Japan and 10 European Union nations, giving banks in those countries a six-month reprieve from financial sanctions.

Banks in countries that do not significantly cut imports of Iranian oil could find themselves cut off from the U.S. financial system at the end of June, six months after President Barack Obama signed the new sanctions into law.

U.S. officials are still discussing the issue with other customers of Iranian crude, including its top two customers, China and India, as well as U.S. allies South Korea and Turkey. (Reporting By Andrew Quinn; Editing byPeter Cooney)

Clinton Urges Sri Lanka To Make Reconciliation Plans Public

May 19, 2012 By By Stephen Kaufman / IIP Digital /usembassy.gov

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States wants to be a supportive partner in Sri Lanka’s reconciliation and reconstruction efforts following decades of conflict between the government and Tamil rebels.

Speaking with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris ahead of their meeting at the State Department May 18, Clinton said the Obama administration “strongly supports the process of reconciliation and reconstruction” in the country and that Sri Lanka enjoys strong and independent ties with the United States.

Clinton

“We were encouraged to see the end of a very long, bloody, terrible conflict, and look forward to working with Sri Lanka as they pursue their commitment to a better future for all the people,” she said.

Following the meeting, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Foreign Minister Peiris had presented Clinton with “a very serious and comprehensive approach” to the implementation of recommendations from Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2011 to investigate and address the issues that led to the 1983–2009 conflict.

Peiris told Clinton about the Sri Lankan government’s plans with regard to the LLRC, such as making public, “both to Sri Lankans and to those outside Sri Lanka, what the government intends to do in the implementation round,” Nuland said.

The secretary reportedly encouraged Sri Lankan authorities to have a “really transparent, open public process, not only on the LLRC specifically and its implementation, but also with regard to accountability,” Nuland said, so that public confidence in its reconciliation efforts will be strengthened both inside and outside Sri Lanka, as well as to help “speed the healing of the country.”

According to Nuland, Clinton told Peiris, “’Good plan. Now you really need to make it public. Now you really need to show your people [and] the world the concrete implementation steps going forward.’”

She also stressed the importance of demilitarizing the northern part of the country and holding provincial elections there, as well as the protection of human rights, including the protection of the press, having the government create space for Sri Lankan civil society, and “generally the creation of an environment that is inclusive,” Nuland said.

Ahead of his meeting with Clinton, Peiris said there is an “intimate connection between reconciliation and economic development” in Sri Lanka, and “any realistic process of reconciliation must focus upon economic factors” with “a certain threshold of economic contentment and well-being, and emphasis on access to livelihoods and incomes.”

If Sri Lanka’s reconciliation process is to be successful, “it must reflect sensitivity to the aspirations of our people. It must have a homegrown polity,” so the majority of the people can identify with the process and allow it to “come alive in their hearts and minds,” he said.

Peiris said that with the return of peace and tranquility in Sri Lanka, “there is abundant scope for building further upon the relationship that is already very strong and vibrant” between Sri Lanka and the United States.

Former Sec. Of Jaffna University Students Union Assaulted

( May 18, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Former Secretary of the Jaffna University Students Union, Dharsha Nandan was assaulted by an unknown group today (May 18) at the Kalati junction in Kokkuvil, Jaffna.

Nandan sustained injuries to his head and leg in the assault and has been taken to the Jaffna hospital while Jaffna police will conduct further inquiries into the incident.

He was scheduled to make an address this evening regarding the Mullivaikal incident.

University student leader attacked in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 May 2012, 09:25 GMT]
A four-member squad on Friday morning attacked the secretary of the Jaffna University Student Union (JUSU) using iron-rods near a Sri Lanka Army camp at Kaladdi in Jaffna with causing serious injuries to the 25-year-old student leader, who was on his way to the University in a bicycle to observe Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance. Despite the threats by the Sri Lanka military intelligence, the students of Jaffna University went ahead with the memorial event stating that it was their democratic right to mark the remembrance day and protested against the military operated administration of civil affairs in the peninsula. Tension prevails at the University of Jaffna where students have gathered in thousands. 

The brutal attack on the student leader has come while he was making arrangements to observe Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance event at the University of Jaffna on Friday. 

The student leader has been rushed to Jaffna Teaching Hospital with serious injuries to his head. 

K. Tharshananth is a third year student at the Art Faculty of the Jaffna University. 

After observing Mu'l'livaaykkaal Remembrance, the students gathered at the university protested against the attack on the student leader and criticized the University administration for failing to voice for the rights of the students. 

The students burnt the caricature of the Vice Chancellor of the Jaffna University Vasanthay Arasaratnam blaming her as a puppet of the SL military led administration and the EPDP paramilitary. 

Full story >>

TGTE-GTF Mullivaaikkaal Remembrance Message: History Recorded The Abject Failure Of The International Community

May 17, 2012

By Colombo Telegraph -

“The absolute power and the arrogant ways of the present Sri Lankan regime are earning the disgust of the international community. This in turn is creating conditions favourable to our cause. In addition, there are noticeable and encouraging changes in the mind set and approach of the international community following the disaster at Mullivaaikkaal. It is up to our ingenuity and political intelligence how we take advantage of these turn of events in the way we act. We should strengthen our ability to collaborate across differences with a shared understanding and collective action.” say  two powerful Tamil diaspora groups.

Issuing a joint statement called  “Mullivaaikkaal remembrance message” Global Tamil Forum (GTF) and Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) further say “many thousands of civilians were murdered by the Sri Lankan government forces in inhumane ways, under the guise of a war on terrorism, having abandoned all international norms and conventions of war. History has recorded the abject failure of the international community, including the United Nations, to take any form of sensible action to prevent the mass killings of Tamils in Mullivaaikkaal.”

Below we give the full statement;

Today marks the third anniversary of the genocidal events that the Tamils had to endure in Mullivaaikkaal. On this day, we remember with deep sorrow and solemn responsibility all the people who perished in Mullivaaikkaal and in the long freedom struggle of Eelam Tamils in preceding years.

Many thousands of civilians were murdered by the Sri Lankan government forces in inhumane ways, under the guise of a war on terrorism, having abandoned all international norms and conventions of war.

History has recorded the abject failure of the international community, including the United Nations, to take any form of sensible action to prevent the mass killings of Tamils in Mullivaaikkaal.

The Tamil people deserve justice for all the brutal inhumanity suffered by them. Those who committed the crimes should be brought before justice. It is also prudent to ensure that in the future no other people are subject to the same cruelty and pain that the Tamils were meted out. Our struggle for justice is, therefore, not for Tamils alone. It indeed becomes the struggle for setting the limit on any state that might intend using brutality and violence on its own people.

A substantial body of evidence is in our hands and those of the international community incriminating the Sri Lankan Government of its mass killings, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is not incomprehensible for the international community that the Sri Lankan State has neither the intention nor the capability of inquiring into its war crimes through an internal mechanism in an adequate manner.

The longer it takes for the outside world to act on Sri Lanka, faster it seems would be the rate of destruction of the Tamil people and their land by the same State. Therefore, we call upon the international community to act decisively to bring about an international and independent investigation on the events of Mullivaaikkaal.

The Tamils in Sri Lanka are longing for relief and a life of dignity to take them out of the miserable conditions in which they are trapped at present. It is essential that an international protection mechanism for safeguarding the lives of the Tamil people is created urgently.

It is timely that we seek the attention of the international community in our clamour for justice through unified sets of action. In this, Tamils in Eelam, those in the Diaspora and in Tamil Nadu would need to work with the support of the wider community of Tamils from around the world and the international civil society concerned with human justice matters.

The absolute power and the arrogant ways of the present Sri Lankan regime are earning the disgust of the international community. This in turn is creating conditions favourable to our cause. In addition, there are noticeable and encouraging changes in the mind set and approach of the international community following the disaster at Mullivaaikkaal. It is up to our ingenuity and political intelligence how we take advantage of these turn of events in the way we act. We should strengthen our ability to collaborate across differences with a shared understanding and collective action.

With this in mind, representatives of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam and the Global Tamil Forum got together in San Francisco on the 13th and 14th of this month. We are pleased to announce that following discussions on several areas of joint action, agreements were reached on some of these areas. This is indeed an important milestone as we move through the third phase of our struggle for freedom coinciding with the remembrance of Mullivaaikkaal.

The Global Tamil Forum intends to liaise with other Diaspora Tamil organisations and representatives of Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka in its efforts to build similar forms of shared understanding.

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, for its part, is engaged in building a power base among the world Tamil community, particularly in Tamil Nadu, and with sections of the international civil society. On this occasion, while we remember the mass atrocities in Mullivaaikkaal, it is incumbent upon us to jointly and solemnly declare that the pursuit of freedom by our people shall remain incessant.

Visvanathan Rudrakumaran                                                   Rev Dr S J Emanuel
Prime Minister,                                                                             President,

Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)              Global Tamil Forum (GTF)

G.L. to meet Clinton after unlocking the General’s handcuffs ?

Will Rajapakse’s cunningness work this time too?

( May 18, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Former Chief of Army turned politician - General ( Rtd) Sarath Chandralal Fonseka will be free on May 18, not because of the Government’s celebration of the victory day but as a tactic to gain political advantage from the bilateral crucial meeting scheduled with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of the United States of America, a source from the President’s office informed the Sri Lanka Guardian.

However, General Fonseka would be freed because the situation in Washington is giving the jitters to the ruling party, the source added.

The Government is trying to cover-up their failure to implement core requirements of the UN resolution which was adopted recently at the UNHRC, in Geneva. The Minister of External Affairs, Mr. Gamini Lakshman Peiris better known as the Prof. G. L. Peiris who is now in the US with other few key players of the ruling Rajapakse party, has disclosed that the government’s intention is for home grown solution. “At the end of the day, the solution that everyone wants has got to have a home-grown element to it, “ Minister Peiris said.

The relevant statement issued by the US embassy in Washington, highlights that, “ in a second Senate meeting with Democratic Senator Jim Webb, of Virginia, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Minister Peiris noted that reconciliation is Sri Lanka's main focus, along with the swift implementation of the LLRC’s recommendations acceptable to the government.”

However these days, the Colombo based media is focusing on ongoing dialogue between President Rajapaksa and Tiran Alles who is a business tycoon turned politician, holding a national list MP of General Sarath Fonseka’s Democratic National Alliance Party. Recently Media reported, while quoting Mr. Alles, that his attempt to release General Sarath Fonseka was becoming successful.

It was known that this Mr. Alles received a tight hug from President Mahinda Rajapaksa after the latter won the Presidential Election in 2005, while the former was evaluating his money laundering game with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However President Rajapaksa kicked out Mr. Allaes few months after he took the Presidential seat and claimed that his ( Mr. Alles’) newspaper company was helping the LTTE along with two other key players of that Presidential Election.

The Rajapaksa government banned this own newspaper company under strict instructions from Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa - Secretary of Defence and a brother of the President. However later, the source said, Mr. Alles was approached by Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa through a senior in the Sinhalese extremist political Party JHU and a deputy leader of one of the opposition parties.

Minister G. L. Peiris is scheduled to meet the Secretary of the State, Mrs. Clinton on May 18. The son of the President Namal Rajapaksa MP, Sajin Gunawardha, who was appointed as “Monitoring MP of the Ministry of External Affirs”, Ms. Senarathana, who is one of most corrupted diplomats in Sri Lankan foreign services and currently the Secretary to the Ministry, and Minister Yapa, a genius in communication are also included in this official visit.

Unofficial source from the US State Department says that Ms. Clinton would focus on the UN Resolution and the LLRC Recommendations. The Secretary of State is expected to confirm the time frame work for implementing the UNHRC-LLRC recommendations.

FBI questioned Minister Susil

Friday, 18 May 2012

American FBI agents have interrogated Petroleum Minister Susil Premajayantha and a racketeer who had accompanied him to the US recently.

The racketeer who had traveled with the Minister worked as an intermediary in bringing down arms and ammunition to the country during the period of the war.

Following the end of the war he is engaged in a massive racket of importing oil to the country.

The FBI agents have questioned the Minister and his racketeer friend about allegations on importing Iranian oil to Sri Lanka through various countries.

SRI LANKA: Thousands missing three years after war ends

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

Still searching

COLOMBO, 18 May 2012 (IRIN) - Three years after the government of Sri Lanka declared an end to decades of civil conflict with separatist rebels, thousands of people are still missing, according to the UN and Sri Lankan activists. 

The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 5,671 reported cases of wartime-related disappearance in Sri Lanka, not counting people who went missing in the final stages of fighting from 2008 to 2009. 

Hostilities between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, who had been fighting for an independent Tamil state for nearly 30 years, ended on 18 May 2009. 

“It’s been almost three years. My son went missing on 14 May [2009] and I have not heard from him ever since. He was not a member of LTTE or [any] other group. He was just a normal Tamil civilian,” said Aarati*, 56, a mother of three in the northern town of Kilinochchi, in the former war zone. Another son has been missing since 1993. 

Ganeshan Thambiah from the town of Jaffna, also in the north, told IRIN he has lost hope. “My son has gone missing for three years. It hurts me a lot but he is probably dead.”     [ read more ] 

The Politics Of A Crony-Mafia Cabal In A Five Star Democracy
May 18, 2012

By Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe -

Ajit Rupasinghe

The summary dismissal of Ms. Tamara Kunanayagam from Geneva, along with a concerted attack being launched against Dr. Dayan Jayatileke and Tamara Kunanayagam accused for being responsible for the defeat over the US-led resolution, is part of a veritable coup d’état being hatched by crony upstarts in the Ministry of External Affairs. It signifies a wholesale capitulation to US and Western Imperialism led by this cabal, backed by the Mahinda Rajapakse Regime, and the President himself. The defeat in Geneva was orchestrated and manipulated by this very same cabal, whereas Tamara and Dayan are on record for their exemplary and intransigent opposition to the US-led imperialist diplomatic-political aggression.

Mahinda Rajapakse has played this game of deception for too long, pretending to be an ardent, cream of the crop, true-blooded, anti-imperialist patriot. Yet, it is he who sold out the country to US imperialism during the ‘patriotic’ war through the “Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement”, which has already provided the US with free access to all military facilities on call-on land, air and sea. Everyone, except the deluded Sinhala-Buddhist masses, knows that the Mahinda Rajapakse Regime is entirely dependent on the World Bank and the IMF to finance his neo-liberal Capitalist project, adorned as the “Miracle of Asia”. He simply tried to juggle the Chinese-Russian-Iran-Libya- Venezuela connection to optimize his survival options, and have got caught in a deadly vice.

As it is, Hon G.L. Pieris is in the US to honorably convince the US authorities that the Regime shall not only implement the terms of the Geneva Resolution- although in a homegrown hybrid version-, but is busy in begging the US to invest in the country through trade and other bi-lateral agreements. He is busy convincing the powers that be that Sri Lanka, under the Mahinda Rajapakse Regime, is quite attuned to the political, economic and strategic interests of the US, and is willing to serve as a neo-colonial outpost in the South Asian region- under the blessings and tutelage of India.

What burns us citizens is the sheer façade- at the tax-payers cost- to mobilize paid lackeys of the Regime to protest against US imperialism, while paving the way for this capitulation, including plans to set up an Israeli-Mossad diplomatic mission- an embassy- in the country. Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing, but more importantly, where the hell is Wimal Weerawana and Champika Ranawake? What burns all progressive, democratic and genuine patriotic forces is that this capitulation is being done in secret. The people of Lanka are not aware of these secret dealings. The talk of the possible release of Sarath Fonseka is all part of this deal to bring Mahinda Rajapakse to compromise or to be isolated, encircled and displaced. Sarath Fonseka is a far better bet for the US given that he can be trusted to plug out the Chinese connection and fall in line fully with the US-India geo-strategic agenda, and to command a military-fascist Comprador-Capitalist terrorist State, given only that Mahinda Rajapakse is rapidly losing control. On his pathetic part, Mahinda Rajapakse is desperately trying to prove to his US masters that he is the better bet and not to dump him, and not to drag him to a war crimes tribunal. Whatever the case, the US has carved out strategic political, economic and diplomatic leverage to call the shots in Sri Lanka.

This is what the attack on Tamara Kunanayagam and Dayan Jayatileke is all about. It is being orchestrated by a parasitic, crony-mafia cabal that has accumulated a lot of political clout by undertaking extremely confidential work and personal favors for the Rajapakse triumvirate and other ministers, bureaucrats, drug barons and political pimps. Some of their clients are heads of illicit financial empires, powerful billionaires, who have served the triumvirate well to the extent that even the almighty Mahinda Rajapakse dares not oppose them now. It is clear that Mahinda Rajapakse is fatally beholden to this cabal, lest the worms crawl out of the can and cause a deadly, poisonous stink! The vampires, monsters and demons unleashed by him have now come to haunt him to extort their blood rewards. Poor Minister G.L. Peiris, the careerist political lizard par excellence, has now to serve his masters, lest he too will be politically beheaded. So off to Washington to pimp for the cabal!

So, the heads of Tamara and Dayan have to roll to make way for this Mafia. So much for their spirited dedication in defending the Regime and going up against the entire Western Imperialist bloc on its behalf. I have expressed my irreconcilable political differences with the political stand of both these individuals in whitewashing and defending the Regime, but I can certainly vouch for their outstanding professional and moral integrity. I state this with full knowledge of the consequences to my life.

For all those who dream and aspire for an era of peace, reconciliation, freedom and prosperity under this dog-eat dog system better wake up! We are being devoured by predator Imperialist and regional hegemonic powers, aided by blood-thirsty, power-hungry Comprador wolves reining in our country. The only way out is to unite the exploited and oppressed masses to wage revolutionary struggle to overthrow this rotting and tottering system of imperialism and neo-colonial domination and establish a People’s Democratic State where the people of Lanka shall share this Land and decide their future and their destiny and together claim their freedom .

Raynor Silva gives vehicles as gifts to the CID

Friday, 18 May 2012 

UPFA MP R. Duminda Silva’s brother, who is the head of the Hiru Media Network, Raynor Silva has ordered two vehicles from Japan to gift to the Director of the CID, SSP Mahesh Perera and the CID officer investigating into Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra’s murder, ASP Shani Abeysekera, sources from the CID told Lanka News Web.

The two vehicles have already been shipped from Japan and are expected to reach Colombo by the end of the month. The head of the Hiru network is to gift these two vehicles to the two CID officers as a token of gratitude for their support extended towards Duminda Silva since the commencement of Bharatha Lakshman’s murder investigation.

CID Director, SSP Mahesh Perers has recently visited the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore to visit Duminda Silva and the trip had been sponsored by Raynor Silva.

Sources say that the Bharatha Lakshman murder case is to be taken up for hearing on the 22nd of this month and there was likelihood of removing Duminda Silva’s name from the list of suspects.

Mahesh Perera and Shani Abeysekera, according to sources have carried out the investigation and recorded statements on the Attorney General’s directive in a manner that even a future government would be unable to prosecute Silva on a later date.

The DIG in-charge of the CID, Jayantha Kulathileka has said that the CID under his purview was a den full of thieves and he was unable to clean the institution since most officers had political immunity.