EDITORIAL: Time to zip and lock Gota’s grubby mouth

Following the end of the war with the LTTE, Gota has lost his senses and with the absolute power vested upon him is on the path to transform Sri Lanka into a lethal democratic-dictatorship.

 

(July 12, 2012, Colombo / New Delhi / London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Defence Secretary Lieutenant Colonel Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa popularly known as Gota, the dearly loved brother of the President Mahinda Percy Rajapakse is intoxicated with power, groomed with innermost hatred towards Tamils and fearful of his own self becoming a victim of his blood thirsty conduct.

Following the end of the war with the LTTE, Gota has lost his senses and with the absolute power vested upon him is on the path to transform Sri Lanka into a lethal democratic-dictatorship. The role of the Rajapakse & Co in the governance and in particular of the Mahinda-Gota relationship entail a progressing democratic-dictatorship very well. The older brother Mahinda project an image of democracy and is on the path to fiddle his way forward with his ever specialising task of machination of his wishes unscrupulously whilst his brother Gota with absolute power is resolved to make the nation of Sri Lanka - a pathetic and ignoramus state.

Gota’s utterances to the media reflect the type of leadership Sri Lanka is bestowed with. The verbal diatribe of filth and abuse towards the respectable journalist Frederica Janz of Sunday Leader speaks of the mindset of the violent, vulgar, inept and an inwardly man who is bestowed with unchecked powers to do what he feels fit for him.

With the highhanded mission of Gota’s Defence Ministry, free media has become the perpetual victim. All the ammunitions have been used to cajole the free media for being outspoken in their reporting. Of the free media Sunday Leader paid the heavy price for over a decade. Torching its press, threatening, intimidation, killings of its Editor in Chief Lasantha Wickramatunga, massaging the judiciary in favour of Rajapakse & Co., and many other forms of intimidations are experiences that no media would have experienced in any part of the world. Despite all the odds against it, Sunday Leader still limps its way through without cowing down to the state dictates of the totalitarians and to become a puppy newspaper like the other newspapers. Frederica Janze’s fate is now in the hands of the venomous Gota who’s hands are soaked in the blood of thousands victims and his angry outburst towards Fredrika is none other than a mission to be accomplished.

Sri Lanka media is maintaining dishonourable silence over the very worrying and murderous comments of the Defence Secretary. Puppets of the government in the media and the fear enthralled media persons are preventing a free and fair discussion about the blatant vulgar, annoyance, threat and intimidation of Gota. Proscribing the free media at strokes without even realising the inadequacies of the provision of the law to ban them are reality of Gota’s unquestionable and irresponsible power base.

Ever the failing democracy of Sri Lanka will not find an answer for the bigoted maggots like Gota who are stampeding the very fabric of the society. Killings, kidnaps and intimidations have become the rule of law in the country. It is time that international community exerts its responsibility without being cowed to the grandiose slogans of respecting sovereignty of a nation and non interference in its conduct even it is appalling. It is the right thinking international community that should impose on Sri Lanka to safeguard its citizens. Severity of international pressure if any attempt of cowardice act by the state against the fearless and respectable journalist Fredrika Janz must be a pre-empted effort and must be rightfully conveyed to the abusers without any reservations.

Gota’s latest threat on the eminent journalist must not be considered lightly and the process of war crimes inquiry against the hot headed Lieutenant Colonel must progress in a faster space to bring about sanity in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka descending toward dictatorship, critics say; U.S. determined to remain engaged

View Photo Gallery — Defining the future of Sri Lanka: After its civil war, critics warn that the country is descending toward dictatorship.

 COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The defeat of one of the world’s largest and most lethal terrorist organizations — and the end of a three-decade civil war — should have heralded a bright new dawn for the tropical Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka.

The economy is one of Asia’s fastest growing, and tourism is booming. But three years after the war ended, human rights groups and opposition leaders warn that the country is descending toward dictatorship, with dissent brutally crushed, the media cowed and the minority Tamils, whose insurrection caused the war in the first place, still treated like second-class citizens.

The United States and India, Sri Lanka’s two main trading partners, had largely looked the other way as the government crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels three years ago in a campaign that left between 7,721 and 40,000 people dead, according to U.N. estimates. But the two countries have expressed frustration at the lack of postwar reconciliation and urged Sri Lanka to do more to protect human rights.

At the same time, Washington and New Delhi have found themselves increasingly marginalized, their leverage limited as the government in Colombo has forged close economic and diplomatic links with China and Iran.

“The Sri Lanka government have the wind in their sails, and they want to define the future of their country on their own terms,” said Harsh V. Pant, who teaches at the Department of Defense Studies at King’s College in London. “It is going to be very difficult for outsiders like India and America to influence anything domestically. And if Sri Lanka has problems in international institutions, they know they can rely on China.”

At the height of their power, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ran vast swathes of Tamil-dominated northern and eastern Sri Lanka as a virtual mini-state. But they had also turned a struggle for the rights of the island’s Hindu and Christian Tamils into a terrorist campaign involving suicide bombers and child soldiers — assassinating anyone who stood in their way, including thousands of moderate Tamils, a Sri Lankan president and former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

But after a long stalemate, the Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa took the war to the Tigers with unprecedented ruthlessness and single-mindedness.

As the scorched earth campaign entered its final stages in 2009, it cost tens of thousands of lives – a U.N. report called for an investigation into war crimes by both sides, accusing the Tigers of using civilians as human shields and the Sri Lankan military of indiscriminate shelling and denying civilians access to humanitarian aid.

Rajapaksa is enormously popular among the island’s Buddhist Sinhala majority for ridding this country of 20 million of the specter of terrorism and war, but critics say he is in danger of squandering the peace.

The military still runs northern and eastern Sri Lanka, with locals complaining that its control of every aspect of daily life is deeply intrusive and humiliating, and that anyone who challenge it risks deadly retribution.

Gota’s conspiracy and atrocity exposed : Vavuniya prison officers held captive is an absolute lie – Prisoners attacked with iron rods

(Lanka-e-News-12.July.2012, 9.30PM) Lanka e news is in receipt of information with evidence that the story that did the rounds that three prison officers were held to ransom on June 28th by prisoners of the Vavuniya prison is an absolute lie , and was one that was concocted by the Rajapakse regime and given publicity by its media in order to most wickedly devastate the fast unto death that was staged by prisoners inside the prison. 

Now it has become necessary to challenge the Govt. to reveal the names of the three prison officers who were held captives . If truly there was such an incident , the Vavuniya prison officers should first inform the Vanuniya police at least over the phone. The prison should have called for police assistance. There is no record of any such complaint in the Vavuniya police records.

In the daily record book of the police where such an incident of holding captive , if reported must be entered by the Vavuniya police OIC , P H Eric Lakshman Perera , or an authorized police officer has also not been done.
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Tiger country

A rebel stronghold becomes an unlikely tourist trap

Now can we go swimming?

Jul 14th 2012

IN A war-scarred pocket of jungle in north-eastern Sri Lanka are the remains of the last stronghold of the rebel group, the Tamil Tigers, before they were wiped out by the armed forces in 2009. It looks like a godforsaken place: just to get there busloads of people drive through a swelteringly hot landscape of bombed-out houses, emaciated cattle and mangled cars. But then, surreally, appears a swimming pool, 25 metres long and seven metres deep. This was where government photographs once showed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the pudgy leader of the Tigers, taking a dip and reclining on a lilo.

As wartime propaganda goes, the images were unbeatable. In fact, the pool also had a serious purpose. The frogmen of the rebels’ crack naval wing, the Sea Tigers, trained there, learning to destroy ships by attaching magnetic mines to their hulls.

Today triumphalism abounds among Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhala population. The army found the pool in 2009, drained it, then invited tourists in. Now they come by the thousands. Mostly Sinhala visitors from outside the Tamil north, they gawp at the empty pool, then gulp iced drinks at the adjoining Café Sixty Eight (run by the army’s 68 Division). Signs are only in the English and Sinhala languages.

The pool is one stop on a tour of former war zones in the district of Mullaitivu, one of the worst areas of fighting during a conflict in which up to 100,000 people died. On a recent Buddhist holiday tourists crammed into Prabhakaran’s favourite underground bunker in the village of Visuvamadu. When he was alive, the concrete structure, buried four storeys underground, was air-conditioned. Now it is stuffy and stinks of sweat.

At nearby Vallipunam, tourists view the torture chambers with their smelly, open latrines, and walls on which inmates scratched poignant notes, many of them expressing faith in God. Inside another bunker sits the container that held the diabetic Prabhakaran’s insulin vials. Visitors shuffle through a secret underground passage leading from the wardrobe of a Sea Tiger leader to his garden.

For more than a year after the war, much of Mullaitivu was off-limits to civilians. But even now many Tamils still cannot return home because of the danger of landmines—and the lingering military presence. Though Tamils are not excluded from the tours, few attend. M.A. Sumanthiran, a Tamil legislator, complains that the tourist trail is “a kind of gloating”, which he believes does not help post-war reconciliation.

Some visitors, however, have darker reasons for coming. An old woman from the southern city of Galle confessed she had not expected the journey to be so tiring. But she said so many men from her village had died fighting the Tigers that she had to come. If only the Tamils, too, could have their journey of reckoning.

Sri Lanka still has reconciliation issues in north: British envoy

By ANI  YAHOO! NEWS

Colombo, July 13 (Xinhua-ANI): Sri Lanka still needs to focus on post-war rehabilitation challenges to affect real reconciliation,British High Commissioner John Rankin said in a statement here on Friday.

In the statement released after John Rankin visited the former war zone in the Northern province, he called on the Sri Lankan government to investigate disappearances and resolve land issues that prevent people from leading normal lives.

"I have seen some of the continuing challenges faced by people after so many years of conflict and displacement. Land issues built up over decades remain complex; some people do not know what happened to lost loved ones; and many women heads of household face difficulties playing the dual roles of bread winner and care provider," he was quoted as saying in the statement.

Rankin urged the Sri Lankan government to look into the issues and pledged continued support from the British government to promote reconciliation.

"I hope post-conflict issues can be further resolved in the context of continuing reconciliation and development processes. The British government will continue to assist in such efforts, in support of peace, security and prosperity for the Sri Lankan people."

Sri Lanka ended a three decade war in 2009 with the Tamil Tiger rebels who had fought for a separate homeland for the minority Tamil in north and east Sri Lanka, and has resettled over 300,000 people since then but challenges of livelihood and security remain despite government insistence that normalcy has been restored. (Xinhua-ANI)

Sri Lankan journalists protest against state media suppression

Death threats to editors, police raids on websites, abduction and intimidation of journalists: the protesters had many complaints

Helen Pidd in Delhi and agencies   guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 July 2012

Journalists in Colombo protest against what they claim is media suppression, abduction of journalists and intimidation. Photograph: Pushpa Kumara/EPA

Sri Lankan journalists, activists and opposition lawmakers have staged a protest against media suppression and intimidation after the editor of a newspaper received a death threat from the president's brother.

Dozens of protesters gathered in the capital, Colombo, on Thursday. They denounced a recent police raid on websites critical of the government, as well as the alleged attempted abduction of a journalist, and secret police allegedly collecting journalists' personal information.

One protester was Frederica Jansz, editor-in-chief of the Sunday Leader, whose slogan is "unbowed and unafraid". Last week Jansz was warned by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's defence secretary and brother of the country's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, that "people will kill you" after she asked uncomfortable questions about his alleged abuse of power.

Full Story>>>

Attacking The Media In Filth, Then Cracking Down On ‘Filthy’ Media

indi.ca on Facebook

The Media Center For National Security, back in the day (2010)

By Indi Samarajiva -

Indi Samarajiva

All too often, this is how the government play goes. Someone, usually a Rajapaksa, says something ridiculous. In this case, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa called a journalist a ‘pig who eats shit’ and said ‘people will kill you’, all over a puppy story. I know. Then, rather than dialing down on the issue, in this case media freedom, the government dials up the crazy, this time by imposing an onerous tax on online media.

Basically, before the media and ordinary citizens are finished being offended by what Gotabhaya said, the Media Minister is asking online media to pay Rs. 100,000 to prevent ‘raw filth’. It’s mind boggling because this is what the Defense Secretary was speaking, including threats to violence, which should be taken seriously cause the last Editor of the Sunday Leader was killed. Literally, if Frederica Jansz was sitting in her usual office, she was at the same desk that Lasantha Wickremetunge was at before he was killed in the streets.

And then the government turns around and imposes an onerous and chilling tax on online news, because they’re purveying raw filth. Does the government want a monopoly on that?

Far too often, the reaction to a government embarrassment is to double down on stupid by making it policy. In this case, a leader threatens a journalist in raw filth, and the government starts cracking down on online media right after. It’s adding injury to insult, and the injury is to the right of speech held by you and me.

Courtesy  http://indi.ca/

US Media's Role in the Silent Death of Sri Lanka's TamilsJul-12-2012

Warning: article contains Extremely Graphic images!

(SALEM) - War crimes ravaged the Tamil population of Sri Lanka only three years ago as the world looked away in a grotesque type of silence.

The genocidal path of this government toward its minority culture is an extension of the crimes against Tamils that have been underway since the island nation gained independence from Great Britain in 1948.

Pre-meditated murder is among the darkest of crimes, multiply it by at least 40,000, and you begin to see that the violent acts of this government are of a particularly unthinkable nature. Look more closely and you see that 160,000 Tamil people failed to exist at the end of the war. Many are held in camps, but sources in the north say most of the missing are dead.

The tools to avoid this extraordinary loss of human life were available, but most of the American press was asleep at the wheel when it comes to this story and they have still to awaken to the reality of what happened, or their role in this unprecedented human disaster.

In an article titled Sri Lanka: Genocide of the Tamil minority in January 2009, Dr. Brian Senewiratne wrote:

"There is a humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, where the Tamil minority in the island's north and east are facing annihilation at the hands of the Sinhalese-dominated government."^[1]

Never were so few words so true, yet a crystal ball was not required; those paying attention could see that death was calling out to the Tamils in a mocking voice. They would die in some of the most horrible ways as these photos attest.

Warning: Very disturbing images from April 2009

Dr Brian Senewiratne

Brian Senewiratne's prophetic words came before the genocide's ugliest and deadliest, final four months.

Today he lives in Australia, but this noted writer hails from Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority population. He is unique for his journalistic accomplishments and for being such a tireless humanitarian activist, yet his position typifies that of many Sinhala Buddhists who decry and deplore what took place in the north under Rajapakse's orders. This is important.

Years after it was published, Brian Senewiratne's article is still easy to locate on Google. In fact it is the first search result under 'Sri Lanka genocide'.

The simple point is that there were no secrets; the Sri Lankan government went to great lengths to silence its critics, but the UN was in place until the very end and their observations were public for anyone who cared to look or listen.

If we were able to cover this event as a small Internet news agency, why were those with real resources not able to do the same? There were people in the UN willing to release information; content was available then and in the ensuing time it has only grown in both volume and intensity and all of the major human rights organizations have paid attention, yet the media fails to follow their lead also.

The warnings were dire and clear; they just have not been viewed with concern from those who produce the news and make no mistake about the power of the media; these are the people who could have collectively brought the Tamils relief simply by doing their jobs.

July- the Tamil's Black History Month





Warning: article contains Extremely Graphic images!

Sri Lanka's morally bankrupt political leaders began accelerating the pace of their Tamil ethnic cleansing program from the time current President Majinda Rajapakse took office in 2005.

This state terrorism regime had the resistance force that defended Tamils, the Liberation Tiers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), declared a terrorist organization and this was the key that unlocked Sri Lanka'sfinal solution toward their minority Hindu and Christian ethnic enemies.

The more I study the history of this conflict, the more I see a pattern of the Tamil Tigers having attacked military installations and soldiers, and Tamil civilians being attacked in return.

Yet the LTTE is the side that was declared as a terrorist group and the dubious designation was pushed through due to the efforts of George W. Bush and Tony Blair- who were prepared to label all of their self-perceived enemies as terrorists as the record clearly shows.

One of the most unforgettable examples of Tamils being terrorized, happened in 1983 during what became known as 'Black July'. More than 4000 Tamil civilians were murdered by angry Sinhala Buddhist mobs who raped and burned and murdered innocent civilians faster than they could escape.

No excuses exist to justify what occurred particularly to children, during the Tamil genocide

In 2009, militants and civilians died en masse. Among the wreckage of homes and businesses were the tens of thousands of bodies of adults and children who were slaughtered like animals by the Sri Lankan Army. Bodies were burned to prevent the spread of disease, however large numbers of corpses laid in place for an extended period of time.

Sri Lanka's government sniveled about 'fake video' and 'fake photos' and looked like fools at best; their excuses all fell short; most are not even worthy of discussion. The rest have been disproved. In the end, it was one of the most shameful military affairs carried out in modern history against a country's own population.

Human beings were bombed after being directed into so-called 'safe areas' as we have revealed in past reports. The acts of horror and terror enacted upon this population are among the most barbaric on record.

The media and the politicians can offer their song and dance for missing the ball, but the truth is painfully clear; the acts of mass murder and debauchery were carried out while the world slept. If it actually was a ball game, they could at least be voted out of the league. Instead we are stuck with the members of this profit-driven industry and the results are very grim.

Today through Wikileaks and other sources, we know that American politicians were aware and tried to talk the Sri Lankan government into pulling back but they refused and the UN should have militarily intervened to stop the slaughter.

Of course they did not and then the worst possible thing happened, the last remaining handful of UN observers were removed from the area 'for their own safety' as the Tamils begged them to stay.

It was for so many people, a final good bye to the outside world the day the UN left. Observers on the ground in most cases, tried to avoid being pulled out.

The Tamils were failed on a human world level and their only request all along, was to live with freedom and fairness; clearly this was more than the government was ever willing to allow.

For those who are not familiar, Tamil people are an ethnic group native to three places:

Puducherry or 'Pondicherry'; (as it was renamed in 2006) - a Union Territory of India formed out of four enclaves of former French India. The name means "New village" in Tamil.

Tamil Nadu; the most urbanised state in India, has been the home of the Tamil people since at least 500 BCE. Its official language Tamil has been in use for over 2000 years.

Tamil Eelam is the independent state Tamils aspire to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Evidence of Tamil culture here dates as far back as 2nd century BC.^[2][3][4]

Image by Carlos Latuff

Last weekend, our team had the pleasure of attending the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

10 May 2009: UN Says Urgent International Scrutiny Needed in Sri Lanka

15 March 2009: Sri Lanka: Possible War Crimes

I was invited to speak to the main audience of more than 3000 Tamils, about the way media failed to cover the terrible events of 2009. I can not overemphasize how troubling this matter is to the family and friends of the victims.

In discussing our coverage of the conflict, I mistakenly stated on more than one occasion that Salem-News.com didn't cover the events of 2009 until more than a year after they had taken place.

However I discovered today by searching our records, that we did in fact carry two reports about the deadly events in Sri Lanka in 2009; one in March and one in May.

The articles were not tagged properly and consequently failed to show up in our recent searches. As a result, I had convinced myself that we must not have carried them. Locating these articles today was a rewarding discovery.

When I gave the key note address at FeTNA, which is the largest gathering of Tamils held each year in North America, I had several images projected onto the large screen behind me.

Among them were two pieces of artwork that speak to the immense tragedy that befell the reporters and media employees in Sri Lanka who were murdered for reporting from a non-government viewpoint.

Tim King at FeTNA 2012 discussing Sri Lanka war crimes. Photo: Agron Belica

One portrays the Sri Lanka press being lured by the government with an ice cream cone that has a razor blade hidden within. Among so much significance, is the deception that the government used to take advantage of these men and women who simply relayed the news of what was taking place.

The other shows the audacity of the Government of Sri Lanka when it came to the reality for so many and that was disappearance and death. The list of these brothers and sisters slain in the name of honest journalism is long and disturbing and the names sadly, continue to mount.

Two facts trouble me greatly about this:

• One is how the outcry against the way this government laid waste to innocents is loud around the world,
• and the other is the fact that Americans are vastly unaware of this terrible event.

Will 'The Newsroom' Examine Sri Lanka?

Warning: article contains Extremely Graphic images!

A new television program on cable titled 'The Newsroom' involves a critical review of past news events and it merges these realities into a weekly series that causes the viewer to believe there is a ray of hope in the TV broadcast world, and that Edward R. Murrow himself could potentially be reincarnated to lead us all to a new, truthful and uncompromising way.

I wonder if the Genocide of Sri Lanka will become a focus of one of their programs, it would be the best thing they could do to educate Americans about what they missed and why. This idea came up several times at FeTNA and I was happily surprised that many people there were also familiar with this new program.

HBO states this about the program by Aaron Sorkin, creator of 'West Wing':

"Focusing on a network anchor (played by Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), the newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel) and their boss (Sam Waterston), the series tracks their quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles-not to mention their own personal entanglements."^[5]

The Tamil community greatly appreciates the interest our group has shown their cause and the great hope is that other media begins to look at this event and help direct attention toward some of the worst crimes against humanity in recorded history.

References:

^[1] Sri Lanka: Genocide of the Tamil minority

^[2] Pondicherry - Wikipedia

^[3] Tamil Nadu - Wikipedia

^[4] Tamil Eelam - Wikipedia

^[5] HBO The Newsroom

^[6] First they came... - Wikipedia

Notes on the Military Presence in Sri Lanka's Northern Province

 28, July 14, 2012 

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The Sri Lankan government may have won the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the country, but another protracted struggle is looming on the horizon, that of winning democracy and development back from the clutches of militarisation. In the meantime, for those in the north (and the east) struggling to recover socially, economically and psychologically from the war, the message for the moment at least is clear: reconcile, by keeping your head down, give way to the army, be patient and hope for the best. In other words - "do pretty much what you did to survive the reign of the LTTE".

The bumpy road descended sharply onto a little bridge, which straddled a lazy stream under the welcoming shade ofpalu trees and the watchful eyes of a Sri Lanka Army post. They are ubiquitous in the Vanni; the palu trees and the army, wood and iron everywhere. Three years after the end of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lanka Army is no longer digging in but building up. Makeshift camps have steadily transformed into signs of a more permanent nature, neatly landscaped areas, flashy new gates and imposing entrances, w­ell-cut playgrounds, communications towers, barracks – the works. It appears that they are here to stay.

The Vanni, the area of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province south of the Jaffna peninsula, is believed to get its name from the Tamil Vanniar feudal chieftains of a distant past. Its present-day chieftains, however, are smart and a­rti­culate divisional and brigade commanders of the Sri Lanka Army who preside over inaugurations and interrogations alike.

The question of militarisation, in the Northern Province as well as more generally across Sri Lanka, and its impacts and implications for human rights, development and the economy are receiving increasing attention (Rajasingham-Senanayake 2011: 27-30, Venu­gopal 2011: 67-75). However, the full extent of the footprint of the security affect in the Northern Province remains to be traced in detail. Indeed, their size matters because, in addition to civil rights issues, it can also adversely affect both the process of reconciliation – as noted in the testimonies before and recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) – and the prospects of a political solution inasmuch as it undermines trust between the government, civil society and other key Tamil political actors. So, how many military personnel are there in the Northern Province? What is the nature of their presence, i e, has military presence translated into militarisation? What are its implications? This commentary attempts to address these questions.

Despite the lack of systematically supplied official information about the size and scale of the Sri Lankan military and its constituent units, information compiled from the statements of senior government and security officials, the websites of the armed forces themselves, media reports and other sources can enable us to draw some reasonable conclusions. In 2011, the defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, told an international defence seminar that the Sri Lanka Army alone had “over 2,00,000” personnel, having expanded by the end of 2009 from nine divisions to 20; 44 brigades to 71; and 149 battalions to 284.¹ Indeed, shortly after the end of the war in 2009 but before he fell out with the regime, the then army commander Sarath Fonseka told a tele­vision channel that the Sri Lanka Army “is going to be 3,00,000 strong very soon”.² However the clearest statement on the strength of the army comes, in fact, from the defence secretary himself. In 2010 he had this to say to the Indian Defence Review:

We tripled the strength of the Army from 1,00,000 to 3,00,000 in three years. In fact, in the 1980s the strength of the military (Army, Navy and Air Force) was 30,000. In 2005 when President Rajapaksa assumed charge the strength was 1,25,000. Between 2005 and 2009 the figure swelled to 4,50,000 out of which 3,00,000 is the strength of the Army.³

 Read more

Gotabhaya Rajapaksha: Too Drunk with Power to Exercise it?

Gotabhaya Rajapaksha: Too Drunk with Power to Exercise it?

Groundviews

Dr. P. Saravanamuttu

Excerpt from first conversation  12 Jul, 2012

FJ: Mr. Rajapaksa are you threatening me?

GR: Yes! I am threatening you! Write every single word I have told you if you want – you write a bloody f…..g word and we will see…

FJ: Mr. Rajapaksa I called you as a journalist to inform you of what was happening and get your version but all you have done is abuse me in raw filth…

Excerpt from second conversation

GR: Yes I threatened you. Your type of journalists are pigs who eat shit! Pigs who eat shit! Shit, Shit Shit journalists!!! Ninety percent of the people in this country hate you! They hate you!!! You come for a function where I am and I will tell people this is the Editor of The Sunday Leader and ninety percent there will show that they hate you.

GR: But I will put you in jail! You shit journalist trying to split this country – trying to show otherwise from true Sinhala Buddhists!! You are helped by the US Ambassador, NGOs and Paikiasothy – they pay you!!!

FJ: I wish.

GR: You pig that eats shit!!! You shit shit dirty f…..g journalist!!!

FJ: I hope you can hear yourself Mr. Rajapaksa.

GR: People will kill you!!!  People hate you!!! They will kill you!!!

FJ: On your directive?

GR: What?? No. Not mine. But they will kill you – you dirty f…..g shit journalist.

The above excerpts need no elucidation. They are from two telephone conversations between the Defence Secretary Gotahbaya Rajapaksha and the Editor of the Sunday Leader Frederica Jansz as reported in the Sunday Leader of 08 July 2012.

This columnist is mentioned in the second conversation. This is not however, the issue I want to highlight in this column.  The issue I want to highlight is the behaviour of the Defence Secretary, a senior government official at the apex of power and given the dynastic structure and the nature of power, arguably the most powerful individual in the country.  Over the last seven years in which he has held this position he has a record of abusive conduct in the media and against the media. This is not the first time he has threatened a newspaper editor – the last time was in 2007 and it involved another female editor.  He has gone ballistic on international media on more than one occasion and likewise, strayed beyond his ken to venture policy pronouncements and spew out disparaging and derogatory comment with impunity.

I have called for his resignation or sacking on three occasions- the first in 2007.  I do so yet again.  The Defence Secretary is reported as telling an editor of a newspaper in the foulest of language, that people hate her and will kill her. The quoted transcript is clear as to where his sympathies lie.  In effect, his remarks foster a climate of hate and hurt and harm against Ms Jansz. It is an egregious violation of even that much -sullied pretense at governance and reconciliation we as a country are treated to on a daily basis. Should we be paying a public official to threaten newspaper editors or indeed any of our fellow citizens?

There are those who maintain that this is nothing egregious but rather attitude, language and behavior that epitomizes the current dispensation. Others maintain that this should not be taken seriously – the Defence Secretary, war hero to boot, is hot–headed and we all have our bad days, limited and abusive vocabulary!

The latter category, are clearly apparatchik apologists or just plain terrified to think or say otherwise.  The former category may well be correct about the vulgar and abusive character of the dynastic project, but their cynical acceptance of this incident may well also mask fear and their unwillingness to take exception is probably the most frightening thing about this whole episode when judged from the perspective of democratic governance.  I had the opportunity, a year ago, to remind an audience of the words of Montesquieu – the tyranny of the oligarch is not so dangerous to the welfare of the public as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.  This is the challenge confronting all of us individually and collectively with regard to this incident, as well as many others that the media dare to report.

Is the Defence Secretary a power unto himself?  What will his president/our president, his minister, his brother do about his behavior, which, whether he can help or not, is just not acceptable in any decent, democratic society. Apart from anything else, this is so egregious a violation of the Mahinda Chintana first edition and of the subsequent Idiri Dekma version! Does this country owe Gotabhaya Rajapaksha so much for his role in defeating the LTTE that his horrendous and appalling behavior should be dismissed as inconsequential, condoned by silence and nourished by impunity?

There should be a groundswell of public opinion calling for his resignation or removal.  Those of us who do will be told that he will be in his position as long as his brother occupies the seat of power and that he probably will be a repeat offender and an even more powerful one at that.  No point therefore in making a point about him, now or ever.  He will live and die in power.

The temptation to quote Pastor Niemoeller and on an issue in any way connected to the Sunday Leader notwithstanding, is it not time that we as a society stood up against such atrocity at the very heart of the regime?  Across the water, the media would surely have decided to boycott official events presided over or attended by such an individual and if not, most definitely have raised a mighty chorus for his resignation or removal? Parents surely would have robustly expressed their disapproval were he to be invited to any official function involving their children?

Ms Jansz’s fellow editors have yet to rise to her support and in condemnation of this chilling exchange.  The same applies to our great and good, the denizens of our society in their guilds and fora and congresses. They are yet to bring to bear their not inconsiderable collective authority, secular, moral, temporal and spiritual, in even the mildest censure. Perhaps they will. In a while…

They must; we must. Even if we cannot transform the ugly and nasty in our midst, we must surely recognize it for such.  We will be further removed from even the pretense of civilization and decency if we accept and condone it as merely commonplace.