India gets tough; Menon here for crucial talks

Sunday, June 24, 2012
By Our Political Editor
New Delhi concerned over UNHRC issues and inflammatory statements

India is sending a top-level emissary to Sri Lanka to convey in “the strongest terms” New Delhi’s concerns over a string of important issues.

Shiv Shankar Menon, National Security Advisor to the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will have one-on-one meetings both with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The one-time envoy to Sri Lanka arrives in Colombo on Thursday evening and will have the two meetings on Friday. There will be no other engagements for him except for these two meetings.

Among matters Mr. Menon is expected to raise will be issues related to the United States-backed resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March. The three-fold resolution, backed by India, among other matters, called upon the government to (a) to implement the ‘constructive’ recommendations of the LLRC and to take all additional steps necessary to fulfil
the government’s relevant legal obligations and commitment “to initiate credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans. (b) It also called upon the government to present a “comprehensive action plan detailing the steps the government has taken and will take to implement the recommendations made in the LLRC report.

The Sunday Times learns that Mr. Menon will during his meetings both with the President and the Defence Secretary express “strong reservations” over what New Delhi believes is an escalating anti-Indian stance by sections in the government. In this regard, India will raise a senior cabinet minister’s recent “inflammatory” statements which India says are “rousing communal passions” and “obstructing” any possible measures at reconciliation.

Mr. Menon is also to discuss with Defence Secretary Rajapaksa matters relating to demilitarisation in the north.
It was only in April this year that an Indian Parliamentary delegation led by Lok Sabha Opposition Leader Sushma Swaraj told government leaders in Colombo, “We stood by you. There is a feeling of India being let down badly. There is disappointment.” Ms. Swaraj also said that troops in the north should not be involved in the “day-to-day lives” of civilians in the north. She later briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the visit.

Since the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration was voted to office in 2005, this is the first time an Indian government emissary has sought to have one-on-one meetings with the President and the Defence Secretary. They come ahead of Sri Lanka’s human rights record being taken up under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UNHRC in November.

Indo-Lanka ties ‘will never be weakened’

President Mahinda Rajapaksa held talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
The President’s office in a four-paragraph statement on the talks said the two leaders had “stressed that the relations between the two countries continued since time immemorial will never be weakened” and that “both leaders discussed the historical relations and the need to be in constant vigil over the strengthening of relations (sic). During crucial times the two states should explore the possibility of arriving at solutions through negotiations”.

Government swindles war heroes

Sunday, 24 June 2012

The government has failed to fulfill the pledge to grant Rs. 100,000 to every third child born to a military personnel’s family, sources from the security forces said. President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his 2011 budget speech pledged to give Rs. 100,000 to the third child born to every war hero’s family.

Out of the 130,308 families of married military personnel, only 1,521 families have been selected to provide this facility. Minister Dinesh Gunawardena informed parliament recently that 789 such families had been paid the promised amount.

However, sources from the three armed forces say that information has not yet been received of any military family that has received the facility.

They say the government has not taken any steps to make the payment although documents in relation to the facility have been prepared and constantly upgraded.

Dangerous Signals From The South

June 23, 2012 The Sunday Times Editorial -

Sinha Ratnatunga - Editor Sunday Times

One factor that backfired in the shooting at a legitimate political meeting in a remote village in the deep south last week was that the resonance was heard in Colombo.

The culprits could not have anticipated the fallout. They would have believed it would be just another statistic of unsolved crimes in police records, and a message delivered to the JVP that it has got enemies, and very hostile ones at that.That it happened to the JVP is indeed ironic; that it is the JVP which must complain today of its democratic rights to hold political meetings without being sprayed with bullets being under threat. The fact remains, however, that the JVP has now come clean and is engaged in parliamentary politics. This makes any attack on a JVP meeting undemocratic and a criminal act.

Accusations and counter-accusations are flying like the bullets that night. The Government asks the question as to why it should attack a pocket meeting in a remote village and attract unwanted flak when it is already under the microscope for alleged human rights violations. It was quick to point the finger at internecine rivalry between the Marxist parties.

The JVP was equally quick to pin the blame on a ‘contract job’ executed by hit squads of the Government in a district well secured by the security forces because of the regular presence of the President and his family.

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The ITAK Convention- Refuting some misconceptions

June 22, 2012

By Dr. Nirmala Chandrahasan

Reading through some of the articles that have appeared recently, following upon Mr Sampanthan’s Presidential address at the ITAK Convention, it appears to me that there is a big trust deficit. Interpretations are being put on words, and inferences drawn which are not justified by the plain meaning of, or the relevant context in which they have been used. For instance asking for devolution of powers within a ‘united’ country, is taken to indicate a desire to set up a separate state. The term self- determination is construed as secession. Let us look at other countries for example the United Kingdom (UK). In the United Kingdom, Scotland and Wales, and more recently Northern Ireland which have different ethnic populations, have their own devolved units and their own Parliament in Scotland and National Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland, while they also send members to the Parliament at Westminster, but is it a divided country? The Union of India, has 28 states, and has a quasi-federal constitution, but remains one country although it does not have a unitary constitution

Defining self

determination

The plain meaning of the term ‘self determination’ is the human right which ‘peoples’ have to administer themselves and look after their own affairs and to have control over their own resources. It may be noted that this right is one of the first rights set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, to which Sri Lanka along with almost all countries of the world are parties to. The right figured largely in the fight against colonial powers and in the process of decolonization, but today self determination is not limited to colonial situations and also has an internal dimension, which is relevant to constitutional demands for devolution, autonomy and federal structures. In its external or internal dimension the underlying principle is that no ethnic or religious group or people, has a right to rule over another, whether in a colonial situation or where they are all citizens of one country.

Sovereignty is another term which has been the subject of much misinterpretation. In the Constitution of Sri Lanka sovereignty lies in the people of the country and this includes the Tamil and Muslim people. When the speaker refers to the sovereignty of the Tamil people this could be interpreted as their right to share in the governance of the whole country i. e. to have a say in the administration of and control over the resources of those parts of the country in which they form a majority, as well as a share in the Government of the country at the centre. This right appertains to the Sinhalese and Muslim inhabitants too.

Kingdom

The reference to a Tamil kingdom is not an indication of a ‘secessionist continuum’ but is merely to reaffirm the point that the Tamil speaking people have had a long history of administering their own regions which is what is now denied them. At the advent of the Portuguese in 1505, there were three kingdoms the kingdom of Kotte, the kingdom of Kandy, and the kingdom of Jaffna. However, these were not necessarily looked upon as Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms in the sense of modern nation states. Kings ruled over regions and had subjects of all ethnic groups. They fought each other for territories, and they also inter-married and historians will know that there were frequent marriages between the kings of Jaffna, Kandy and Kotte. There were also instances when princes and kings from Kotte and Kandy have sought shelter in the kingdom of Jaffna as when Vidiya Bandara, the Regent of the Kotte Kingdom, fleeing from the Portuguese fled with the crown jewels of Kotte to the kingdom of Jaffna and similarly King Karaliyada Bandara and his daughter Kusumasana (later known as Queen Dona Catherina, who ruled the Kingdom of Kandy along with her husband King Vimaladarmasuriya I) fleeing from Rajasinghe of Sitawake, sought Sanctuary in the Jaffna Kingdom. We can see from the foregoing that the country was well integrated, although there were different self governing kingdoms. Queens were also brought over from the South Indian Kingdoms. In this way the last four kings of the Kandyan kingdom were Tamil kings belonging to the Nayakkar dynasty of Tamil Nadu, and it was during their reign that there was a revival of Buddhism in the Kingdom. That Tamil was an important language in the Court is borne out by the fact that in the Kandyan Convention between the Kandyan chiefs and the British, many prominent Sinhalese chiefs have signed in Tamil just as today many of us sign in English. The concept of the nation state as comprising a distinct ethnic group or nationality is a western European concept and was not prevalent in this part of the world at that time.

Historical habitation

However, it could be said then as now that the areas of ‘historical habitation’ of the Tamil speaking people was in the north and east, and the Sinhalese speaking people in the west , south and central regions. But, this does not connote exclusivity and even at this period, and even thereafter there were and are Tamil speaking communities along the western sea coast and Sinhalese speaking villages in the Vanni regions. During British rule the kingdoms were administratively united. It is interesting to note that prior to the granting of independence when the Soulbury Commissioners arrived, it was the Kandyan representatives who first proposed a Federal constitution for the country under which there would be three units for the Tamils Kandyan Sinhalese and the low country Sinhalese similar to the earlier division into three kingdoms, possibly because they felt that the Tamils and low country Sinhalese had greater educational and economic advantages at that point of time and would take control of the administration of the country.

Federal party

When the Federal Party was formed in 1949 it was against the backdrop of the disenfranchisement of the Indian origin Tamils in the upcountry regions and it was felt as in the case of the Kandyans that a federal system would afford better protection to the different ethnic groups and enable them to better exercise their sovereignty within a united country. It must be kept in mind that prior to 1956 the different communities in the island had a greater sense of cohesion and ‘Ceylon’ was regarded as the common motherland of all the communities. This feeling can be illustrated by the fact that before the passing of the Sinhala only Act in 1956, when Sinhalese was not an official language, private schools in Jaffna had started teaching Sinhalese of their own accord, because people wanted to know the language of their fellow countryman, and I was reminded of this fact recently by the former Principal of the Chundikuli Girls School a leading girls school in Jaffna. However, when the official Languages Act was passed and Sinhalese made the only official language the Tamil speaking people felt that they were no longer equal citizens of the country. While it was generally accepted that it was only fair and just that the Sinhalese people should not be governed in a foreign language, but in Sinhalese, it was equally felt that it was not fair or just for the Tamil speaking people to be governed in the Sinhalese language. Immediately the teaching of Sinhalese was discontinued in the schools even though this meant that recruitment to the public service would be affected.

To be continued on (Monday)

Domestic Policy and International Positioning: A True Test of Sovereignty

In post-war Sri Lanka, there remains a growing need for a robust foreign policy grounded in strong interest-driven national positions.

By Salma Yusuf
Contributor

A widely held belief among the populace is that the discourse on foreign policy remains the sole prerogative of those in the highest echelons of political power; that is, until presented with a statement by the likes of well-known American political activist, Ron Silver, who declared: “I can't talk about foreign policy like anyone who's spent their life reading and learning foreign policy. But as a citizen in a democracy, it's very important that I participate in that.”
Such sentiments serve as both a reality-check and a wake-up call to every Sri Lankan citizen, as the country moves on from a phase of post-war to post-conflict.

It is beyond dispute that Sri Lanka’s three decade conflict was externalized due to a combination of factors, among others, ranging from the presence of an active expatriate community abroad; the involvement of foreign facilitators in the peace process; and the presence of foreign peacekeeping forces in 1987. By the end of the war, Sri Lanka was placed well within significant cynosure of the international radar. Such international attention has spilled over into the country’s post-war phase as well, but this time taking on new meaning.    Full Story>>>

GOVT. PLANNING TO USE FORMER LTTE TOP BRASS FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE - MANO

June 23, 2012
Claiming that former female political wing leader of LTTE, Subramaniam Shivathai, was now in the ‘consideration list’ of the government, the Civil Monitoring Commission claimed the government has a secret plan to use former LTTE seniors to its political advantage.

Convener of the Civil Monitoring Commission, DPF leader Mano Ganesan issuing a statement on behalf of the voluntary organization today welcomed the transferring of Subramaniam Shivathai alias Thamilini to a rehabilitation camp from detention.

It however said that she is now in the consideration list of the government along with Selvarasah Pathmanathan alias “KP”, Karuna Amman, Pillaiyan and Daya Master. 

“It also seems that government has a secret plan to use these former LTTE seniors to their political advantage within the governments’ political agenda,” Ganesan said.

Nevertheless, he said they have no issue over this and that if they (the LTTE seniors) are willing to work with the government, they could do so. 

“But why is this consideration not given to other Tamil political prisoners who are languishing in the remand prisons over five to fifteen years?,” he questioned.

The leader of Democratic People’s Front said that, there are many women with their children, elders, sick persons and clergymen as political prisoners. 

“Most of them are Tamils. There are some Muslims and Sinhalese too imprisoned under PTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act), he alleged.

Mano Ganesan accused the government of only pardoning “some selectively for political reasons” and also for keeping the other remaining imprisoned also for political reasons. “That is why we are calling them as Political Prisoners.”

The Civil Monitoring Commission demanded that all of them also released under a general amnesty “as it happened after the JVP rebellions in 1989 and 1971 in the south.”

Court yesterday (23) ordered authorities to provide rehabilitation training to Thamilini, after she had expressed willingness to undergo rehabilitation.

Thamilini was arrested and kept in remand custody since the end of the military campaign against the LTTE in May 2009.

SL military extends HSZ in Jaffna, evicts resettled people from Kuppuzhaan North

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2012, 23:46 GMT]

The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna has re-confiscated more than 250 acres of land in Kuppuzhaan North in Valikaamam South division of Jaffna district in recent days, evicting resettled families from their land, complain the uprooted families. The Sinhala Army has been putting up permanent concrete fences and has instructed people not to cross the fence. The news of the latest land grab by the SL military and the news of people being evicted again from the resettled areas of the former ‘High Security Zone’, on top of the news that the SL military planting land mines in de-mined areas of Maathakal, have slashed hopes of resettlement among the 40,000 people, who still remain as uprooted people after their eviction from Valikaamam HSZ. 

The SL military has put up new concrete fences in Kuppuzhaan North of Valikaamam South and has evicted the resettled people from there.

Abandoned huts of resettled people in Kuppuzhaan North

Earlier, the commander of the occupying military in Jaffna Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, the then SL Government of Jaffna District Imelda Sugumar and the SL Minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda gave much publicity in opening Kuppuzhaan North for resettlement. But, the same area has now been silently snatched away from the resettled people. 

With the latest move of the SL military, more than 25% of the lands in Kuppuzhaan North, where uprooted people were allowed to resettle, have been re-confiscated.

Similar fencing and re-confiscation of released lands in the ‘HSZ’ have been reported in Oddakap-pulam near Vasaavi'laan and in Kurumpachiddi in Valikkaamam North.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the SL defence secretary and presidential sibling has also refused to hand over the Palaali Teachers Training College and its 25 acres of land in the same area.

Informed sources say that a military enclave is being schemed, comprising a large tract of land belonging to 15 villages in their entirety and 8 villages partially in Valikaamam North as permanent cantonment of the three armed forces of Colombo. 

This military enclave will also contain the Sinhala families from the South and the corporate workers of abetting powers, constituting an ‘Economic Zone’ in addition to the ‘High Security Zone’ and the ‘Sacred Sinhala Buddhist Zone’ in Maathakal. 

Only 30 per cent of the ‘HSZ’ was earlier declared for resettlement and even that is now either re-occupied or made uninhabitable, civil groups representing the uprooted people say.

The Sri Lankan establishment, which has been projecting ‘resettlement’ along with its ‘LLRC’ hoodwink project, before the issue came up for discussion at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, has now stepped up the land grab again. 

Colombo has also sabotaged the work of independent mine clearing groups to enable slow-phased de-mining to facilitate its agenda of land grab.

Grassroot political activists in Jaffna say that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the section of diaspora groups, that hurriedly welcomed the US-tabled resolution in Geneva, should now take the responsibility of facing the consequence of their fatal mistake of having extended uncritical support to the US agenda that has saved Colombo from the international investigation. 

“Instead of giving false promises to our people that the powers would now open the door for the Eezham Tamils, the Tamil activists around the globe should realise that it is only a struggle-oriented leadership that could bring the necessary attitudinal change in the global establishments,” a student activist in Jaffna told TamilNet, questioning why the Tamil diaspora groups were not directing their protests at the gates of the powers that masterminded the UNHRC resolution and against the powers that continue to open ‘new doors’ to the oppressive Sri Lankan state. 
The Sri Lankan military occupied High Security Zone (HSZ) along the northern coast of Jaffna peninsula, that evicted a large number of Tamil civilians from their homes for two decades now [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]
       

A map revealing the status of mine clearing within the High Security Zone obtained by TamilNet in December 2010

Dharmaratnam Sivaram: Murder of a brilliant journalist
23 JUNE 2012  BY VIRAJ MENDIS

On Thursday 28th April, at about 7.30 pm German time I received the shocking news from Sri Lanka  that the Tamil Journalist Dharmaratnam Sivaram had been abducted by 4 men in a SUV type vehicle. From that time, for the next Eight and a Half hours, we were engaged in frantic activity to try to save Sivaram's life. At 4am (Friday morning) German time I heard definitively that his body was found. The depth of the collective sorrow was unbearable.  Tamils, Sinhalese, Europeans etc., weeping uncontrollably on the phone lines - with a common feeling of hopelessness engulfing us. Each an every one of us, who were engaged in this action had many past experiences of sudden death, the loss of people who were special to us and who were special to the struggle - but there was something else to the sadness that we felt. It was to do with what Sivaram's death represented.

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The New Depression threatens to be catastrophic
Sunday 24 June 2012

A left economic policy framework

The global economy deteriorated precipitately in the second quarter of 2012; there is a possibility of a catastrophic collapse worse than 2008 - not a certainty but a distinct possibility. European capitalism can soften the blow if Chancellor Angela Merkel throws the full force of the German economy into rescue mode; otherwise a possible worst case scenario looks like this: First Greece, then Spain, exit the Eurozone, then the Euro staggers wreaking economic carnage and wrecking the Union. Yes worst case, but just now China and India are stumbling - the latter in a steep decline that will not reverse for years - and worse, the US recovery is faltering. I previously sketched in this column a Wobble-U shape that captures the passage of the New Depression, but notwithstanding its aptness I will restrain a temptation to reproduce it today.
It is in this context of multisided global instability that I return to the rudiments of a left programme. I plan to offer a draft in five letters but with no illusions; they are but a starting point for more competent hands to improve. Last week it was (a), today item (b).

a) The political landscape
b) An economic policy framework
c) Industrialisation
d) Agriculture, services, foreign investment
e) National Question, State and Constitution

A lingering hangover of Stalinism is that the word ‘planning’ became an economic profanity. Regimented central planning and ubiquitous state ownership of everything from giant shipyards to street corner ice-cream vending is indeed an obscenity; the dinosaurs in Cuba are the last surviving learners. And Maoist adventure-economics has proved harmful and wasteful. But throwing everything to the market is a neo-liberal prescription gone toxic. Now state-capitalism is the paramount article of European intervention; America drip-fed finance capital and giant corporations two trillion dollars of public funds to resuscitate their corpses. The wheel has turned full circle; the state has arrived again.
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, then China and Vietnam - capitalist and non-capitalist - show directive-states intervening to promote growth. The dirigisme model is not a state-owned economy, nor autarchic inward-looking or neo-liberal. The role of the state is to manage economic movement and macro decision making. The capitalist sector and foreign investment are incorporated not as free agents but managed inputs. Direction is achieved by marrying economic tools (interest rates, taxation, capital controls) to explicit interventions such as choosing winners and losers; electronics was an obvious winner choice. The South Korean economy nearly toppled in 1997 when purposefulness and driving energy slackened and chaeybol cronyism undermined the model.

Dirigisme  approach
In the dirigisme approach growth is balanced by curbs on inequity, the trade-off between local needs and the export market is managed, picking winners is responsive to employment creation needs, and banks are directed to support SMEs. Industrialisation is priority, then the agricultural sector, followed by services. The exact lines in the sand will differ, case by case, depending on the class nature of the state in question, but always the trick is the same, planning and management of the trajectory. Whether state failure or market failure is the greater evil all depends. In the cases mentioned the state played a positive role, in failed states the opposite is more likely. A dirigisme strategy is not suitable for the Rajapaksa-UPFA; this letter is intended for a different kind of state animal.

Is there a plan in Lanka?
In any developing country there is always a degree of planning. India’s overarching five-year plans reached their apogee in the Nehru period. In Lanka memories of economic planning have not entirely evaporated. This current crop of dumb political leaders apart, a residue lingers in the minds of a few public servants in Treasury, Central Bank and other repositories of talent. It sometimes breaks to the surface in contradiction to the IMF’s neo-liberal prescriptions. Reports of plans for five massive economic zones in the north could develop to the point where the state picks winners and losers and tells local and foreign capital what it should do, insists on employment creation, and how much “labour market reform” (anti working class legislation) will be permitted. Yes movement along these lines is conceivable, but unlikely.
Why unlikely? Because this government is eclectic; it has no policy drift, it only strings together individual projects; rent-seeking state. Should it dare direct, it will conflict with the business friendly hands-off paradigm implicit in the IMF compact. A second more serious disorder is that though the regime promotes infrastructure it is committed in equal measure to useful projects and to madhouse white elephants. The Hambantota Harbour, international airport in the wilderness, stadium where weeds grow, a dumb tombstone opposite St Bridget’s Convent, and others of a feather, add to hundreds of billions of rupees on your children’s heads. Insane, but officials wet their pants before they can bring themselves to tell the emperor that his pants are off!

Who will bell the cat?
If you are with me thus far, then where should we seek an alternative? Let me draw your attention to a feature of all my writing; I never indulge in exclamations like: “The government must do/not do this” or “We respectfully call upon the President to do/not do to such and such”, etc. Even as a rhetorical mode of speech this is distasteful as it fosters the illusion the government may do the said thing. The problem is that regime will not do precisely the said thing. Be it objective economic governance, reconciliation with Tamils, respecting judicial independence, or better law and order, it is ludicrous to call upon President and government to do precisely that which they will not! I leave the rhetorical fashion to liberals; good for Friday foreplay or national peace counselling. 
A government of the left I readily agree is not imminent; is that reason for going slow on drafting a programme? Of course not, and it need not be a left-only programme. This series of letters strays well beyond a left-only outlook to accommodate liberal and democratic concerns. Unless I have misunderstood them, I am entitled to a friendly nod from the liberal side. Both want to eliminate those who rob the public of money and the nation of liberty.

Lanka’s anti-corruption report not ready for UN review

By Chandani KirindeView(s): 66

Sri Lanka’s has deferred its submission to the review group set up under the UN Convention against Corruption although it was due last week, the Sunday Times learns.Only one section of the report dealing with mutual assistance and corruption has been completed while criminalisation and assets section is now being prepared, an official said.

Sri Lanka was to submit its report to the Review Group which met in Vienna, Austria last week.
Justice D.J. de S. Balapatabendi, Chairman of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, said the commission was finalising the report with the assistance of two officials of the Attorney General’s Departmental and other experts.

In the Ministry of External Affairs annual report 2011, submitted to Parliament last week, the MEA expresses its willingness to implement the requirements under the UN Convention against Corruption.

External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunatillake Amunugama confirmed the report was being finalised and said it is a part of the voluntary mechanism that had been put in place under the UN Convention to assist member countries to deal with corruption.
Meanwhile UNP National List MP Eran Wickramaratna told the Sunday Times that it was important for legislative changes to take place in Sri Lanka in keeping with the requirements under the convention.

“The bribery and corruption commission has to be independent of the executive and must be brought under Parliament. Similarly the institution has to be well financed,” he said.

“Amare, I’m Here,” MR

• Julampitiye Amare’s Links With The President Revealed 
• Police Evade Arresting Amare With Five Warrants

Then opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa (third seated from the left) with then minister John Amaratunge (fourth seated from the left) listening to Julampitiye Amare making a point during the discussion on the Tangalle Prision plot in 2002 and The chief suspect of the Katuwana shooting incident, Julampitiye Amare is seen escorted by prison officers and the police.

By Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema

Last week’s double murder in Katuwana, Hambantota while sending a chilling reminder of the deteriorated law and order situation in the country has also implicated the President of having links with an underworld figure.
The chief suspect in the Katuwana shooting incident, Gigana Gamage Amarasiri alias Julampitiye Amare has for decades been rubbing shoulders with politicians in the Hambantota area and received political patronage to evade arrest for many crimes committed in the area.
The political powers wielded by Amare due to his affiliations to the First Family had prevented the police from arresting him even with five warrants being issued for his arrests.

Read More »

Didn’t I tell you to surrender the T56 ? -Judge and Amare love talk

Crooked Rajapakse’s love story with criminal unfolds

(Lanka-e-News-22.June.2012, 8.50PM) Julampitiya Amare and Tangalla f(j)udge Rajapakse’s duplicity was exposed at the Tanagalla courts day before yesterday (20) confirming the Lank e news story reported on the 19th. On the 20th we reported that the shameless fudge of a judge Chandrasena Rajapakse had not taking for hearing the 15 cases against Amare . Though the court issued warrants against the criminal , when the latter ignored them , no action was taken by this culprit of a judge to remand those sureties who signed for bail of culprit Amare . This judge had never meted out any punishment to this most wanted criminal and he had issued only warnings. Moreover , when Amare surrendered to court on the 21st despite being a most wanted criminal, this judge remanded him only for a day. Meanwhile , the Gen. Secretary of the JVP Tilvin Silva addressing a media briefing on the 20th said , this surrender of Amare and remanding of him are all parts of a spurious tele -drama and a conspiracy to protect and rescue Amare from his complicity in the double murder. This notorious criminal who has charges of 24 murders , 11 rapes and 13 robberies, and against whom there are over a hundred warrants was remanded only for a day , and he appeared again before court on the 20th only to ask for security to protect his life . The criminal asking for life protection from the court was nothing strange before his bosom pal judge , and the latter not refusing despite all the criminal records militating against it is also not surprising, Tilvin Silva stated. This judge who should pass judgment on criminals or better known as a criminal of a judge, while remanding his bosom pal Amare who requested protection until the 11th July stated as follows : The court certainly provides protection to anyone who seeks life protection. You are now scared about your own life .You have not acceded to my request to surrender the two T56 weapons . Yet because you have asked for life protection you are being provided, the judge Rajapakse stated . Doesn’t this imply that this criminal judge released him earlier after having pleaded from his criminal pal to surrender the two T56 weapons. Doesn’t the judge's remark ‘Today ,you did not do what I requested’ , mean just that? Looking at the entire scenario in court –Doesn’t the cringing conduct of the judge towards a criminal with such a putrid antecedence of so many crimes suggest that the judge has disgraced the entire judiciary ? If cases are heard this way with judges like Rajapakse (dis)gracing the judicial bench , what can a law abiding citizen expect by way of justice in this country? By the eagerness shown by the judge to remand this dastardly criminal in order to provide security to him had outrun his sureness of his judicial duties towards dispensing true justice to innocents who were his victims. If this criminal had been questioned why he committed these crimes and arrested , this warped minded judge would have blamed the police for subjecting the criminal to that predicament , because this judge never took the obligatory legal steps in that direction to arrest the sureties for bail when the criminal was evading arrest  No matter what, the CID SP P.K.D. Priyantha had told court that Amare is the suspect in the double murder committed in Katuwana . Accordingly he was remanded until the 29th , when he is to be produced to the Walasmulla Magistrate court for an identification parade , as ordered by the Tangalla f(j)udge to the Tangalla prison superintendent . Meanwhile Gigana Gamage Amarasiri alias Julampitiye Amare was identified by three of the four witnesses at the identification parade held at the Walasmulla Magistrate Court today, in connection with the Katuwana double murder case.

Attacks like this spread fear – Jayagoda
Sunday 24 June 2012

Rathindra Kuruwitha spoke to Frontline Socialist Party’s (FSP) Pubudu Jayagoda and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) Vijitha Herath about the shooting of two JVP activists at a JVP meeting in Katuwana, Hambantota on June 15. They spoke about what led to the heinous incident and the subsequent fallout, in light of suspect Gigana Gamage Amarasinghe alias Joolampitiye Amare having surrendered himself to the police on June 20.

Iran, SL ask for new world order

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa stressed the need for establishment of a new world order in their meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Friday.

Ahmadinejad and Rajapaksa met on the sidelines of Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

“Cooperation among independent states is essential for their progress forward; the justice-seeking nations should cooperate to design a new global order; those who are behind today problems do not deserve designing the new order.”

“Independent states are under great pressures from hegemonic powers but they should understand the fact that the pressures including the sanctions and resolutions will not affect nations’ desire to resist; the biggest violators of human rights use the issue as an excuse to confront sovereign nations.”

“Arrogant powers use also environmental issues as an excuse to pressure developing nations but if they were real defenders of environment; they would change their polluting technologies.”

The Iranian president noted that those who afraid of change of the world current order are designing plots to weaken independent states and prevent their progress; Non-Alignment Movement summit in Tehran is an opportunity to make positive steps in favor of independent nations; Today’s world lacks independent movements and NAM has the capacity to fill the gap.

Ahmadinejad also underlined that Iran is committed to expand cooperation with Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s president for his part, welcomed development of bilateral relations with Iran, noting that NAM should become stronger to confront the pressures posed by arrogant powers.

“Holding of NAM summit in Tehran can boost its role in the international community,” he noted.(IRNA)

WHO WILL CHE CHOOSE, REALLY?
Sunday 24 June 2012
The president last week visited Cuba, and significantly he dropped-by to see the living relatives of the late Che Guevara, the charismatic leftist guerilla idol who championed the Cuban revolution along with Fidel Castro.
Strange, some would say. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s political party has a history of quelling a so called Che Guevara insurgency in 1971, which was of course a JVP uprising led by Rohana Wijeweera who imbibed his revolutionary fervour in the Patrice Lumumba University in the USSR.
But the beret wearing Wijeweera modelled himself after Che Guevara, and in 1971 therefore, the youth who rose up to topple the then Sirimavo Bandaranaike government were called ‘Che Guevara karayas.’
Mahinda Rajapaksa has no doubt been a champion of underdogs worldwide, most notably the Palestinian leadership fighting for a state of Palestine in Israeli occupied territories.
But he has rarely been a champion of leftist revolutionaries, though his relationship with China is solid, and he has  in tow with him Wimal Weerawansa — who has latterly turned a Hugo Chavez admirer after newspapers such as ours corrected the distorted picture that many ‘liberals’ in Sri Lanka have about the Venezuelan leader as some kind of tin-pot dictator. (We know Wimal Weerawansa gets a great percentage of his political inspiration – at least for the good things he does – from this newspaper, and we raise our hat to him for that!)
Those who lay claim to the Che Guevara brand at home, are those who would say that Mahinda Rajapaksa and Wimal Weerawansa both belong to the oppressor class that Guevara himself would have reviled  – even fought against.

Merits analysis
Nobody needs to accept the JVP claim without argument, but as with every political claim, the JVP’s contention merits some analysis as well.
This week particularly, the apparent claimants to the Guevara legacy, Sri Lankan variety, be they pretenders to the title or not, would claim that in Sri Lanka there is some re-enactment of sorts of what happened when Castro prowled through the jungles of Cuba in a quest to overrun the Batista regime of oppression.
In Hambantota, Katuwana – two JVP activists, ‘Che Guevara karayas’ – were killed last week, in gunfire which the victims’ party claims came from government sponsored hit-men.
This claim of course is heavily disputed by the regime, but the question is whether the regime that has close connections with the Castros, the Guevaras and the Chavez’s is, as the claimants to the Guevara mantle in this country say, suppressing the voices of the unwashed masses?
Ah, and about Chavez, now, that is almost another matter. The president and his retinue, after the Cuba and Brazil visits, are to be hosted by the mildly ailing Chavez in Venezuela.
This means there is no doubt about the purpose of this visit – it is to say, we are comrades with the bloc of nations that does not deify the West.
It is also to say that the regime is comrades in arms with the regimes that are identified as those that are left leaning, ‘peoples’ and proletarian inclined. 
Is the Sri Lankan regime this way inclined? Wickramabahu Karunaratne will say not. It is because several governance issues get in the way of the image of the government. The Katuwana issue is one in a string.
No doubt the JVP will make political capital out of it – and the party has all the right to, considering that two of its young party operatives have died in the incident. In any event, it seems that for far too long, a character who was creating mayhem, was getting away scot free.
This of course does not behoove well at all for a government that is cultivating its image as proletarian. Certainly, not in an area in which the original claimants to the mantle of Guevara, and the Chavez/Castro ideological project have for long considered home turf, i.e.: the JVP has always had grassroots support in Hambantota.
True, this support is heavily dented now, and has gone the way of the Rajapaksas, the new claimants to the Guevara/Castro legacy. But, between old and new, it would be almost comic to the departed Guevara, etc., from their celestial mokshas, to watch this rather risible tug o’ war for their legacy in a far off island.

A perverted elderly Prelate who raped a (samanera)child monk arrested

–Children being made monks shall be banned

(Lanka-e-News- 23.June.2012, 11.55PM) The police arrested a shameless sex starved 68 year old Buddhist Prelate who had cruelly raped a 10 year old Samanera monk of the same Temple. Following an investigation based on a complaint received by the Nagoda police on the 21st that an under aged samanala monk had been brutally raped at about 22.10 in the night of 2012-06-01 in the Yatalamaththa Suramyarama Vihara , Nagoda police under which division this temple comes has arrested this rapist. The Nagoda police is conducting further investigations. Though the young boys who are inducted as samaneras are subject to sexual assault by high Prelates and is widespread in Temples , these crimes are not always reported to the police. Children below the age of 18 years being inducted as monks even with the permission of the parents ought to be completely banned . The children must be allowed to spend their formative years.. The international laws governing children’s rights shall be abided by. Many children who have been made samaneras in their young days , have after reaching maturity abandoned the robes after realizing it is against their grain. Taking into account these reasons , children being made monks in their young age before they have reached independent thinking should be banned .

Rajapaksa's son starts human trafficking from Vanni to Australia

UP TO 75 FEARED DEAD IN AUSTRALIA BOAT CAPSIZE - POLICE

June 21, 2012 

 Australian police said Thursday that early reports suggested up to 75 asylum seekers had died after their boat capsized off remote Christmas Island en route from Sri Lanka.

Western Australia police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said a “large number” of the 200 on board were feared to have perished.
Full Story>>>

Rajapaksa's son starts human trafficking from Vanni to Australia

Namal Rajapaksa, the son of SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been behind a human trafficking ring, which operates from Mullaiththeevu in Vanni, sending Eezham Tamils to Australia from the seas off Mullaiththeevu at a price tag of one million SL rupees per person,

reveal families that have already sent their sons and daughters through the ring. Snatching away the entire coastal stretch of Vanni from Eezham Tamils, the Rajapaksa regime is also evicting them exploiting all possible avenues, concerned civil sources in Vanni said adding that the operation also discredits the asylum seekers who really need protection from the South Asian establishments. 

A batch of 25 individuals, from Vanni and other parts of the island, were recently sent from Ka'l'lap-paadu in Mullaiththeevu.

The families had to pay 200,000 rupees per person in advance.

The remaining sum has to be given to the operators once their kith and kin have reached Australia, the sources further said.

The guarantee for the settlement of the remaining money is the family members who live under the military rule of the Rajapaksa regime.

Another batch has been recently recruited, the sources further said.

It is claimed that the transport by Namal Rajapaksa's ring is ‘secure’, as the victims are transported in ships to go near the coast of the destination as far as possible. The ‘asylum seekers’ are then boarded into smaller vessels to land.

The operation is backed by the SL military governor of North Maj Gen (retd) GA Chandrasri, SL Ministers Rishard Badurdeen, Douglas Devananda and the SL Navy, at the instruction of Namal Rajapaksa, who often visits Mullaiththeevu to oversee the secret operation, which is carried out by SLFP operatives and agents in Mullaiththeevu.

Claiming that he is ‘re-constructing’ and ‘developing’ Mullaiththeevu, Mr Namal Rajapaksa is enaged in commercial exploitation of the coastal tracts of Vanni. As an elected parliamentarian from Hambantota district, Namal Rajapaksa, has also vowed to conduct the so-called Sri Lankan national sports meet in Vanni.

In the meantime, Diaspora Eezham Tamils who visit Vanni and claim their lands and properties back, have been threatened by the SL military establishment.

Recently, a Canadian Eezham Tamil was brutally slain, after he was demanding back his shops and other properties that were being exploited by the top hierarchy of the SL military.