UN Secretary highlights attacks on Sri Lanka Human Rights defenders

Sunday, 19 August 2012  -              Sunanda Deshapriya -Journalist  and Human Rights Defender

Report of the Secretary General Reprisals against persons cooperating with United Nations human rights mechanisms  2012 Sri Lanka

38. My previous reports have referred to the climate of fear human rights defenders face in Sri Lanka.8 The negotiation and adoption of resolution 19/2 on Sri Lanka at the nineteenth session of the Human Rights Council in March 2012 resulted in significant escalation of hostile and defamatory media reporting in Sri Lanka, which primarily focused on human rights defenders in Geneva.

39. Human rights defenders described an environment of intimidation and hostility at the nineteenth session of the Council. Human rights defenders Sunila Abeysekera (affiliated with INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, Global Campaign for Women‟s Human Rights) and Nimalka Fernando (President of the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism) reported that they were approached in the Palais des Nations by a Sri Lankan embassy staff member who told them that “they should not be in Geneva” and that “they were letting their country down”. 8        Read more.

President’s Wife Can Be A Better Guide In Empathy For Post-War Reconciliation

By Jehan Perera -August 20, 2012

Jehan Perera

The highlight of last week’s visit to Sri Lanka by Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee of Liberia was the presentation of a Sri Lankan Women’s Agenda on Peace, Security and Development to the government.  The many co-sponsors of this Women’s Agenda would have wished to make this presentation directly to President Mahinda Rajapaksa himself.  However, they had to be content with handing over the document to senior minister Tissa Vitarana whose commitment to minority rights and inter-ethnic reconciliation has made him a popular and trusted figure to civic activists.  At the event organized in Kandy by Visaka Dharmadasa whose soldier son went missing in the war and now heads the Association of War Affected Women, it was Professor Vitarana who took to the floor on behalf of the government.

In his keynote speech, Prof Vitarana bemoaned the prevalent political culture in the country on two counts.  He revealed that during deliberations at the Parliamentary Select Committee on electoral reforms, he had advocated that as much as 30 per cent of seats in elected bodies to be allocated to women.  At present the proportion of women in elected bodies languishes as little as 2 percent at the local level, 3 percent at the provincial level and 6 percent at the national level.    As chairman of the All Party Representatives Committee appointed in 2007 by President Rajapaksa to find a solution to the ethnic conflict, Prof. Vitarana was in a unique position to press the polity for political reform.  But in a manifestation of one of the disappointing features of the country’s political culture, the women MPs in the committee opted for ten per cent, much to his surprise, he said.  Perhaps they have felt that an incremental approach was the safer one.

Another important observation made by Prof. Vitarana on this occasion was that post-war reconciliation practices in the country needed to be improved.  He said that although the war ended three years ago, sufficient steps had not been taken to ensure the reconciliation process and the country needed to expedite steps towards reaching that goal.  He also praised the efforts of the women’s organization in preparing the women’s agenda for peace, security and development and said that the proposals would be useful in the government’s programme to bring about reconciliation. He said that in particular, women and children suffered heavily during the 30-year turmoil.

MORE CARING                                     Read More

Truly sorrowful and shameful : Aid for the displaced rejected since ICRC refused 10% commission

(Lanka-e-News- 19.Aug.2012, 11.50PM) Lanka e news is in receipt of a most sorrowful and dismaying report that , because a 10 % commission was demanded on the aid of Rs. 240 million to be provided by the International red Cross to build houses for the displaced persons following the war , this aid had been withdrawn by the ICRC.

In connection with this project a representative of the International Organization ( ICRC ) had arrived recently in SL . It is none other than the people’s representative, the SL’s Minister for resettlement who has demanded this 10% commission amounting to Rs. 24 million from the ICRC representative. He had added that if that is not consented to , the project cannot be allowed to proceed. The secretary to the Ministry , Bandusena had discreetly stated, that sum is required for another resettlement project of the Ministry. 

The ICRC representative who was rudely shocked at the Ministry’s outrageously shameless attitude had stated that he has no permission to concede to the Ministry’s demands , and that this aid is only to be channeled towards resettlement of displaced persons. In any event , the MaRa regime had intimated by Fax that it cannot grant permission for this ICRC project. 

Though the ICRC project is rejected , it is no issue , as the monies received by the Ministry of Wimal Weerawansa is adequate to build the houses, it has pointed out.

It is very unfortunate because of the overriding greed of this MaRa Govt. for collecting illicit commissions , the Rs. 240 million aid towards building houses for the suffering displaced persons had been denied .

Meanwhile , the ICRC representative who toured the north recently had discovered that a large quantity of the Rs. 7 million worth roofing metal sheets which were donated by the ICRC earlier to be used for the displaced persons , have been instead used by the govt. for the roofs of Bunkers and Army camps . When the ICRC representatives had tried to take photographs of these wrongful uses, the Army had forbidden them, according to reports. 

Earlier on Indian media exposed that 20 % of the metal sheets provided by India towards the displaced persons were similarly misused by the army.

IMF says concerned over resignation of Sri Lanka SEC head

Mon Aug 20, 2012

* Former SEC chief had taken right regulatory steps - IMF

* Sad to see SEC lose another strong chairperson - IMF

* Karunaratne pressured to quit after complaints to President

* New SEC head yet to be appointed

By Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO, Aug 20 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Monday raised concerns over the resignation of the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, observing that the regulator had been taking the right steps to ensure market participants obeyed the rules.

SEC head Tilak Karunaratne resigned on Friday, saying he had come under pressure from stock market players under investigation for stock manipulation making false allegations against him.

His resignation was the second in less than nine months after his predecessor left amid complaints from brokers that tougher regulations were hurting stock prices.

"It is sad to see the SEC lose yet another strong chairperson, and in such a short period too," Koshy Mathai, Sri Lanka's IMF resident representative, told Reuters in response to an e-mail query on the resignation of Karunaratne.

The SEC chief had been pushing investigations into stock market malpractice, including so-called pump-and-dump deals in which investors are lured into apparently cut-price equities.

"From all credible accounts, Karunaratne and his team were taking exactly the right steps to ensure that stock market participants obey the rules."

The global lender completed the disbursement of a $2.6 billion loan last month and said it was under preliminary discussions with Sri Lankan authorities for an extended fund facility.

Brokers said some market players had complained about Karunaratne to President Mahinda Rajapaksa that the former regulatory chief had over regulated the market and intimidated some key investors by sending strong summon letters for investigations.

"In any country, it is only with a firm set of regulations and an active regulator to enforce them that foreign and domestic investors will have confidence that the stock market is indeed a level playing field for all and not just designed for the benefit of a select few," Mathai said.

"This is an important issue for Sri Lanka, as development of the capital markets is a key priority in ensuring the country's continued rapid growth."

Sri Lanka's stock market has fallen more than 20 percent since the start of the year.

The Finance Ministry has yet to appoint a regulatory head, but SEC sources said it would be meaningless to expect a new SEC chief to promote the market under the influence of a group of manipulating individuals instead of regulating it.

Analysts and stock brokers are highly divided over Karunaratne's resignation with some noting regulation will be difficult to enforce even under a new SEC chief as investors are powerful enough to lobby against any probes. (Reporting by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Julampitiye Amare to be taken to find weapons

Monday, 20 August 2012 

Underworld leader Geegana Arachchige Amarasena also known as Julampitiye Amare, who is currently in remand custody for his alleged involvement in a double murder, is to be taken by authorities to find hidden weapons, a source from the CID said.

Amare has told the CID in a statement that he was in possession of vie weapons. Since he has said he was in possession of a large haul of locally manufactured weapons, the police are preparing the relevant B report to file before courts to get permission to allow Amare to be taken by the STF to find the weapons.

The operation to collect the weapons has been launched after the CID has found that a weapon belonging to the Carlton House in Tangalle had gone missing in 2010 and that it was now in Amare’s possession.

All underworld members who have been taken by the police to find the places where weapons have been hidden ended up dead. The Rajapaksas have meanwhile decided that Amare was making too much noise. The officer who gave us the information said the Amare could face the same fate that befell Chandi Malli.

He added that the Defence Ministry has assigned the operation to IP Anura Silva from the CID who is one of the trusted Rajapaksa officers.

Sri Lanka: Moving From ‘Tamil Eelam’ To ‘Eelam Tamil’

By R Hariharan -August 20, 2012 

Col. R. Hariharan

Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) leader M Karunanidhi seems to have quietly acquiesced toNew Delhi’s pressure to shift the focus of his widely publicized “Eelam Tamils’ Rights Protection Conference” on August 12 from ‘Tamil Eelam’ to ‘Eelam Tamil.’ The exercise was more than semantics; except for two – Thol Thirumavalavan of the Viduthalai Chiruthai Katchi (VCK) and Veeramani of the Dravida Kazagham (DK) – other mainline speakers hardly made a reference to an independent Tamil Eelam. Even Thiruma’s speech was mostly devoted to redeem Karunanidhi’s reputation damaged during the Eelam War-4.

Apart from representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, delegates from a number of European countries,Australia and Mozambique, Sweden, Nigeriawere also present. Some of the overseas speakers (i.e. representatives from Sweden and Malaysia) devoted most of the speech to praise the ‘Kalaignar’ (artiste) Karunanidhi. However, Dr Wickramabahu Karunaratne, the firebrand leftist leader from Sri Lanka, did not disappoint the participants; he came out hammer and tongs at the callous attitude of Sri Lankain handling Tamils in the postwar period. Abdul Razak Momoh, member of Nigerian parliament, raised the question “If UN sanctions can be imposed on Iran for taking a nuclear route, why can’t they be imposed onSri Lankafor indulging in human rights violations?”

At a preliminary meeting organized at a city hotel before the conference, Karunanidhi said thelong-term solution to ensure the rights of Tamils was a political one, which had been discussed and debated for long. The medium term solution involved reconstruction of infrastructural and civic facilities in Tamil-majority areas in north and east to ensure a decent living for the people including the right to property, education, employment and other democratic rights. Immediate solution was to be found for resettlement, relief and rehabilitation for the war affected Tamils.

Conference resolutions                        Read More

Centre 'Soft Handling' Attacks on TN Fishermen: Jaya
PTI | CHENNAI | AUG 20, 2012
Charging the government at the Centre with "soft handling" the issue of Sri Lankan Navy's alleged attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today asked it to ensure that the island nation's Navy strictly refrains from harassing them with impunity.

"The Sri Lankan Navy, emboldened by the soft handling of the issue by the Government of India, is attacking/harassing fishermen of Tamil Nadu with impunity," Jayalalithaa said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

She said the statements at diplomatic level meetings of the two countries stating that "the use of force on fishermen cannot be justified by any means" remained only on paper and were honoured more in the breach by the Lankan Navy.

The Lankan Navy's actions "seem to be making a mockery of the entire diplomatic process," she said referring to the latest incident, where its personnel allegedly forcibly took away fish netted by fishermen in mid-sea off Arukattuthurai in Tamil Nadu yesterday.

"This incident is yet another instance of the high handedness of Sri Lankan Naval personnel who keep on targeting the poor and innocent fishermen of Tamil Nadu while they try to eke out their livelihood through fishing," she said.

Jayalalithaa referred to her earlier communications to the Prime Minister, seeking Delhi's intervention to end the alleged attacks.

"I, therefore, request you to kindly take up this issue strongly with the Sri Lankan Government and ensure that the Sri Lankan Navy strictly refrains from harassing Indian fishermen who conduct fishing in their traditional waters for their subsistence and ensure that such incidents do not occur in future," she said.

Current IGP carrying out more government biddings than his predecessor

Monday, 20 August 2012

Senior police officers say that while former IGP Mahinda Balasuriya was servile to the government, current IGP N.K. Illangakoon who took over the post saying he would re-establish the good name of the police force, is carrying out more bidding for the government.

It is learnt that the current IGP who worked in an independent and unbiased manner had irked the Rajapaksas and is now working to score brownie points from them.

The directive issued by the IGP to all CID officers carrying out raids in various parts of the country to return to Colombo and report to work has shocked them.

These CID officers have been engaged in apprehending those involved in criminal activities in all parts of the country.

Police personnel are disillusioned that the IGP has stopped due to political pressure the investigations carried out by these officers in remote areas of the country under harsh conditions.

The senior police officers who gave us the information said that many disgruntled CID officers were now requesting for transfers to other units in the police.

Never Again to Genocide Trials

Srebrenica massacre memorial gravestones 2009. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

HEIDELBERG – Rarely does one read such hopeful news: in late June, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić of genocide. That might sound like a bad thing: Karadžić, who once warned Bosnia’s Muslims that war would lead them down the road to hell, surely deserves to be sentenced for the acts of which he was just acquitted – murder, siege, and slaughter almost beyond naming. But for genocide? Better not.

In fact, we would be better off getting rid of genocide as a crime altogether. The legal concept of genocide is so incoherent, so harmful to the purposes that international law serves, that it would be better if we had never invented it. Karadžić’s acquittal – precisely because he is still on trial on other counts related to the same atrocities – is an opportunity to move toward the sensible goal of retiring it.

This was not just any acquittal. The ICTY decided that, after a two-year trial, the prosecution had not presented enough evidence for any judge to find Karadžić guilty of genocide early in the Bosnian War (he faces a separate count for the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, and the prosecution is appealing the acquittal). The court has been consistent: with just a few trials left, it has issued no convictions for genocide apart from Srebrenica.

The broader charge was always risky, but, for many advocates, it is an article of faith that genocide was Bosnia-wide. Still, the problem with genocide is not narrow judging, but that the crime itself is doubly irredeemable: it is defective in its definition and troubling in its moral and political effects.

Genocide requires “special intent.” A genocidaire must intend both to commit a defined crime and to destroy the victim’s group. In domestic law, the motive behind a crime is usually irrelevant – and for good reason. People have complex reasons for acting illegally. War – a collective enterprise in which killing your enemies can be legal – increases that complexity.

Trying to prove genocidal intent has drawn prosecutors into thickets of interpretation – such as giving lessons on the history of Greater Serbia – that distract from trials’ forensic core and encourage their politicization, as defendants “hijack” proceedings with their own justificatory glosses. But the alternative – relaxing evidentiary standards – would undermine values such as legality and reasonable doubt, which are essential to a fair trial. Genocide’s stringent requirements mean that it is – and should be – difficult to convict a defendant.

That is consistent with our intuition that genocide is unique. But, while granting supreme status to the “crime of crimes” may seem morally attractive, the gravitational effect of genocide distorts international law and politics.

Genocide makes other crimes seem less important. When Goran Jelisić – a camp guard in Bosnia who called himself “the Serb Adolf” – was acquitted of genocide in 1999, one might have concluded from the prosecution’s stunned reaction that Jelisić had walked free. In fact, he confessed to 31 other counts covering the same underlying acts, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Likewise, reactions to the Karadžić decision show how inflated the perceived stakes are. Some say that acquitting him denies his victims’ suffering – as if only genocide mattered. But it is only because acknowledgement of suffering has become identified so dogmatically with one crime that anything else seems inadequate.

The problem extends beyond Bosnia. Asking “Was it genocide?” does little to illuminate what was done to which Armenians by which Ottomans during World War I. Today, Turks willing to discuss or even apologize for the massacres refuse to confess to the “supreme crime,” but Armenians can accept no other label. Any group whose suffering is not called “genocide” feels like a second-class victim.

This is morally perverse. It is not more wrong to kill people because of their ethnicity than it is to kill them because of their political beliefs, gender, or for the sheer pleasure of watching them die. Yet this is precisely what elevating genocide presupposes.

The political cost is high. Genocide’s status eases the pressure to intervene in crises that are “only murderous.” Yet crying genocide too liberally quickly cheapens its value, entangling efforts to respond to ongoing exterminations in debates about their precise legal nature.

Despite these problems, prosecuting genocide might be worthwhile if it were the only way to hold mass murderers accountable. But it is not. Buried beneath the headlines about Karadžić’s acquittal are those other charges: he will be tried for the same acts, but classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes. If the prosecution produces enough evidence, Karadžić will be sentenced for the same shelling and sniping, the same killings and rape. All that will be lost is the opportunity to label those acts “genocide.”

This is the real reason to drop “the crime of crimes”: its redundancy. There is no act of genocide that is not also another crime. Genocide is a crime of characterization, an interpretation. Rather than parse killers’ motives, we better affirm our own values by denying that any reasons could ever justify such acts.

Genocide is a socially meaningful way to describe a species of annihilation; it is the legal category that we must question. We need international crimes that are minimally characterized – commonsensical analogues of domestic crimes – with as little room for interpretation as possible. In court, we need not know why men slaughter to condemn them for it.

So let us end genocide as we know it – by stopping genocides, but also by abandoning the crime of genocide. Let us call its constituent evils by their ancient names. That will do for Karadžić, when judgment comes: he is still on trial, and we can still name his crimes.

Copyright Project Syndicate-Timothy William Waters, a professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, worked at the ICTY on the trial of Slobodan Milošević, on which he is editing a forthcoming book.

Canadian MP to be conferred with VK Krishna Menon award 2012


A leading Canada-based Tamil human rights activist was on Sunday named for the VK Krishna Menon Institute's Personality of the Year award 2012.
Rathika Sitsabaiesan, a Canadian MP, was chosen for the award in recognition of her contribution to 
the advancement of human rights and her uncompromising opposition to the persecution of minorities including her fellow Tamils in Sri Lanka, director of the Institute Cyrian Maprayil said.

"The VK Krishna Menon Institute salutes this courageous young lady, not only for her Human Rights activities, but also for the able way in which she represents her constituency of all races and creeds. We will present the Award to Rathika at an appropriate and convenient time," Maprayil said.

Rathika was born in Sri Lanka. At the age of five she migrated with her parents to Canada in the face of the "most intense persecution of the Tamils by the fundamentalist Anti-Tamil zealots of the country backed and supported by the Sri Lankan Government", Maprayil said in a release.

The VK Krishna Menon Institute was launched in early 2006 to celebrate and commemorate the life, times and achievements of Krishna Menon, who served as defence minister under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Menon founded the India League which became a powerful force in the overseas movement to help liberate India.

One of the Institute's objectives is to present awards to individuals in India and the Asian Diaspora for outstanding achievements in various fields including science, literature, economics, politics, diplomacy and human rights.

Ethnic Conflict And Literary Perception: Tamil Poetry In Post-Colonial Sri Lanka

By M A Nuhman -August 19, 2012

Prof. M A Nuhman

The ethnic conflict inSri Lankahas had a direct impact on literary production in Tamil, comparatively greater than in the case of Sinhala. This is largely due to the fact that it has been the Tamil-speaking communities who were most directly and severely affected by the ethnic conflict throughout the postcolonial period.

The Tamil language is shared by three distinct ethnic communities in Sri Lanka, namely the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Muslims and the Malayaha (= hill country) Tamils, with their own dialect variations. This linguistic pluralism and the associated ethnic distinctions reflect in literary production too. Hence, when we speak of Tamil literature or Tamil poetry in ethnically divided contemporary Sri Lanka, the term encompasses a multi-ethnic socio-political context and reality.

In my essay, I briefly discuss the historical background of the ethnicity formation and polarization of the Tamil-speaking communities and their literary production, with special reference to poetry.

Sri Lankan Tamils: Linguistic Nationalism, the Separatist War and Poetry

The Sri Lankan Tamils are among the early settlers in this country (Indrapala 2005), coexisting and interacting with other social groups from the beginning of the historical period. Although Tamil has coexisted with Sinhala from the early historical period in Sri Lanka, a continuous Tamil literary history can be dated only from the 13^thcentury. However, a few poems appearing under their author’s name, Eelaththu Puuthan Theevanar (Puuthan Theevan from Elam [Sri Lanka]) are found in the Sankam anthologies that belong to the first three centuries of the Christian era. Even though the author’s Sri Lankan identity cannot be firmly established from his poems, we can assume that there probably would have been Tamil literary activity in ancient Sri Lanka, since we have strong archaeological evidence for the existence of a rich megalithic culture parallel to the one found in South India that produced a rich amount of classical Tamil poetry during that period (Ragupathy1987). Apart from this, a couple of Tamil verses are found among the Sigiri Graffiti that belong to the period from the 8^th to the 10^th centuries, providing further evidence for the existence of Tamil literary activity in the country before the 13^th  century (Paranavithana 1956).

Although there is a fairly long history of Tamil literature in Sri Lanka, there is no evidence of an ethnic consciousness or conflict finding expression in Tamil literary works until the late 19^th century. Ethnic awareness and ethno-nationalisms emerged in the form of religious and cultural revivalism in Sri Lanka from the mid-19^th century (Wilson 2000).  Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic revivalist movements were active in formulating and consolidating ethnic identities with political overtones in the respective communities.  As far as Tamil writing was concerned, Arumukanavalar and Siddhi Lebbe played a major role in this respect in the late 19^th century.

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St. Nelson’s Legacy; Neo-Apartheid and the South African Miners Massacre

| by Thomas C. Mountain

( August 18, 2012, Eritrea, Sri Lanka Guardian) As the legendary life of South African leader Nelson Mandela draws to a close his legacy to his people has been brutally splashed across television screens worldwide showing neo-Apartheid police firing automatic weapons into crowds of striking African miners, killing two score or more and wounding nearly a hundred.

Every day crushed, broken and lifeless bodies of Africans are dragged from hellholes under the earth, joining a list of untold thousands who gave their lives enriching the bank accounts of western “shareholders” of gold, platinum and diamond mines in South Africa.

Working up to a mile underground, 10, 12 or more hours a day, where the very stones they bring crashing down are almost to hot to touch, and all for a dollar or two an hour.

With platinum in oversupply and prices steadily falling a British boardroom tightened the screws with safety slashed and workers, neo-Apartheid slaves really, pushed past their limit.

Last week the inevitable happened and Africans stood tall, downed tools and marched in the open air demanding to be treated as humans. Why risk our lives everyday yet not be able to provide a future for our children, to even afford to pay for their school fees they cried out.

And the answer given to them by their neo-Apartheid masters was no different than that received by their forefathers this century or more past, bullets shedding more African blood.

Only this time it was an African supposedly in command, with Africans standing side by side with Boers and Englishmen that fired weapons that massacred their erstwhile brothers.

While for the Africans slaving away everyday in the western owned mines life since the worst days of the Apartheid state has seen only small improvements, for the new, black, South African elite life has never been better.

Living in white neighborhoods, sending their children to white schools, sitting side by side at the tables of power with those they previously addressed as “baas”, the legacy of St. Nelson has been a true golden reward for some.

Today the servility of the neo-Apartheid African elite on behalf of their western masters has gone beyond all discretion.

It was the South African UN Ambassador, a black man, who cast the crucial vote allowing NATO to institute a “no fly zone” over Libya that saw the massacre by western air forces of 80,000 Libyans, or more.

It is a dark hued South African woman who sits as UN Commissioner of Human Rights who keeps under lock and key a report on the western funded genocide in the Ogaden, under the direct orders of Gayle Smith, a white woman in the White House, USA.

It is a black South African, former wife of the current President, who so proudly presides over the African Union soldiers enforcing their marching orders from Pax Americana, carrying out the occupation and slaughter of Somalis in Mogadishu.

While on her way to her AU installation ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ms. Zuma must have made sure not to look out of the tinted, bullet proof windows of her limo so as not to catch sight of the hundreds of thousands of her fellow Africans in the streets surrounding the AU headquarters, protesting the high crimes and genocide of her by then comatose host, Meles Zenawi.

This past thursday saw black South African blood spilled once again but at least this time it was spilled by Africans standing up as men, in the open air, not dying an ignoble death deep in the bowels of the earth. Fighting for a future for their children, fighting against the racially mixed agents of violent enforcement of the neo-Apartheid legacy of St. Nelson, former President Mandela, the first black president of a “free, democratic” South Africa.

Thomas C. Mountain was active in the anti-Apartheid movement and represented the USA at the 1st Asia-Oceania Anti-Apartheid, Anti-Racist Conference in Tokyo, Japan in 1988. Today he is the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

The Corruption of the ANC

The Corruption of the ANC

Crisis and Revolt

Socialist Resistance

Bobby Wilcox, a South African socialist who spent seven years in Robben Island under the apartheid regime, explains how the African National Congress has become notorious for its culture of self enrichment and corruption. 

Bobby Wilcox In 2007, when accused of profiting handsomely from his facilitation of a certain Black Economic Empowerment deal, Mr Smuts Ngonyama, then head of the ANC presidency notoriously answered: “I didn’t join the struggle to be poor”. This remark, which exposed his crass self-centredness, caused a huge outcry, mostly from hypocritical liberals outside the ranks of the ANC but also from within its ranks as well. But Mr Ngonyama’s statement was not without hidden sympathy and the belief in this idea has manifested itself to an ever increasing degree today.

After all, Julius Malema, expelled president of the ANC Youth League also stated, “what the whites have, we also want”. We are being confronted with a litany of corrupt acts by senior members of the ANC along with questionable appointments to high ranking state positions. We have had the appointment of Menzi Simelane as director of the National Prosecuting Authority, later ruled as improperly appointed by the Supreme Court of Appeal. There is the notorious case of President Zuma’s buddy, Schabir Shaik, who was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for corruption, only to be released after two years in dubious circumstances for so-called medical reasons.
Cape Town township: grinding poverty for the vast majority
 of the non-white populationWe have the case of Richard Mdluli, member of the heinous “Special Branch” of the South African Police Service in the apartheid years, who was appointed head of Police Crime Intelligence, but later suspended on full pay, facing an investigation of murder, et al. Now there has been the case of former head of police, Jackie Selebi, found guilty of fraud and corruption and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. He too has been released on parole after serving less than two years of his sentence, spent in the convenience of public hospital treatment.

The list goes on and on – Julius Malema, who allegedly enriched himself through corrupt political dealings in the Limpopo Province, Tony Yengeni, convicted fraudster who also enjoyed early release on parole and now Head of Political Education in the ANC and the late Sicelo Schiceka, Minister of Cooperative Governance, who, inter alia, utilised state funds to visit his girlfriend imprisoned in Switzerland on drug related charges. Schiceka recently died at the age of 45 “after a long (undeclared) illness”, etc, etc, etc. The corruption in the ANC is not without precedent.

 The history books are replete with the acts of the leadership of bourgeois democratic struggles turning to corruption and in many cases, brutal dictatorships to enrich themselves. After all, “we didn’t struggle to be poor”. The petty bourgeois leadership of the ANC in order to promote its class interests, reached accommodation with the representatives of the bourgeois, the leadership of the National Party and formed a ‘government of national unity’ with them.

On assuming power the ANC proceeded to reward Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and its other leaders, who had served long terms of imprisonment under the regime, by sanctioning their unprecedented enrichment. Nobody, least of all the now critical liberals, questioned where this money came from and what its purpose was. Then, the salaries of politicians and high ranking personnel in government offices were dramatically increased, besides the grand salary allocations for those in the employ of ANC itself.

This was ostensibly to reward Blacks with the kind of standard of living that they were previously denied. Suddenly, it became highly profitable to be a politician, particularly an ANC politician. For instance, the chairman of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), Andile Lungisa, earns a whopping salary of R790 000 a year. Not to be outdone the chief executive, Steven Ngubeni, earns the magnificent sum of R1.8 million (£141,790 /$222,450) per year. The Chief Operations Officer, Magdalene Moonsamy, earns R1.2 million a year. All are former members of the ANC Youth League – no other qualifications required. Salaries within the Youth League itself do not fall far behind. There have been serious questions about the validity and necessity of the NYDA which has achieved very, very little to promote the interests of the youth of South Africa to date.

 All of this has resulted in an unholy scramble for lucrative positions that needed no special qualifications other than being a loud proponent of the ANC. Today the country is paying dearly for grossly inefficient and corruption ridden municipal councils which the ANC now admits is a result of the appointment of persons to senior positions for which they were not qualified.

 But the problem goes beyond municipal government. It extends to provincial and national government departments in no uncertain terms. We see for example, the tragic case of school text books not being delivered in the Limpopo province after seven months of the school year and the Dept. of Education only responding when challenged in court. The situation in the Eastern Cape is no better. Last year the provincial Dept. of Education overspent its budget with a number of dubious contracts involved and then dismissed 3000 temporary teachers whose salaries could not be paid.

A number of schools have no running water and grossly inadequate toilet facilities. In spite of this blatant mismanagement President Zuma drily stated that no action would be taken against Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga. It is becoming clear that the agenda of the corrupt has gained the upper hand in the ANC. This has prompted Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade unions (COSATU) to utter strong warnings, on various occasions, that if something radical is not done to curb this corruption then the country faces the real danger of a general revolt that can be equated to the Arab Spring. But it appears that except for a few, most of the ANC leadership are not heeding this warning.

The recent ANC Policy Conference, ostensibly to conclude an intelligent approach to a number of issues troubling South Africa and its economy in particular, turned out to be a farce. There was a day long debate of a wordy document, backed by Zuma and supporters calling for a “second transition”. Others argued that the country was still in its first transition and to speak of a second transition was meaningless. The conclusion was a compromise adoption of what was called the “second phase of the transition”, without much of the original document being altered. Other serious issues, such as the agrarian problem and the call for nationalization of the mines were discussed at length. But all that was achieved were semantic changes in the old interpretation of the ANC’s stance and its commitment to neo-liberalism remains.

Indeed, the conference appeared to be more about the leadership struggle in the ANC, in preparation for its elective conference to be held in December this year. This calamitous state of affairs we find ourselves in South Africa today is rooted in the class interests the ANC leadership is pursuing and its open reliance on cheap populism, by way of which a large number of opportunists were attracted to and welcomed into its ranks. It could bask in its dubious accreditation as the leading organization in the liberatory struggle by the liberal press.

Today the country pays the price. Protests at a lack of housing and service delivery continue apace. The ANC appears to be totally incapable of dealing with the country’s dire unemployment problem. The possibility of a major rebellion is indeed growing, while the radical left still struggles to find its feet, to present the nation with a positive alternative. In the meantime the conservative Democratic Alliance continues to gain ground. It is sloughing off its characterisation as a party representing those who quietly benefited under the apartheid regime and is attracting more support at the polls. The future of the country remains in the balance, but the working class was not and has not been defeated and critical battles lie ahead.

Stock Market Mafia: “It’s A Wild Wild Market” Says Tilak Karunaratne

By Azhar Razak -

Clamour for credit and indirect pressure exerted to stop investigations have been the main demands of the so called ‘stock market mafia’ existent on the Colombo Bourse, says Tilak Karunaratne, who tendered his resignation as the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday.  Reluctantly stepping down barely nine months after taking over the position, the former Chairman said that he had tried to fast track investigations into market malpractices under his tenure so as to bring sanity to what he described as ‘a wild market where some people were shooting  from the hip’.
In what could be his first interview with The Nation Gain following his resignation, Karunaratne explains the sequence of events that led him to call it a day and his expressions showed that his main disappointment was that he could not effectively take some of those real perpetrators of the Colombo’s Stock Market to task.

Q: What made you accept the position in the first place?

Well, I’ve known the President for a long long time. We’ve been in the same party for a long time together. We’ve been buddies and in a way that we’ve worked together to strengthen the party when it was in the doldrums and to bring it back to power. But unfortunately, I had to leave when  Anura Bandaranaike joined the UNP in 1994. I’m a very close friend of Anura and at that time I thought I shouldn’t let my friend down and crossed over whereas, the President decided to stay on. When you look back, I would say he took the right decision. Anyway, since I rejoined the party, the President had been offering me many posts. Before Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda went to Japan as an Ambassador, he offered me that post. However, I very politely turned down (the offer) saying that I want to be in Sri Lanka and I’ve other involvements.  Anyway, I’m no diplomat. You can see from the way I behave. I’m not inclined to satisfy all the parties which is part of the game in diplomacy.

Then after some time, before Harry Jayawardena was appointed Chairman of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), he offered me that post. Again, I said very politely I don’t want, because petroleum has been a den of thieves and rogues. And I did not want to go and make my henchmen. Then, there was a vacancy in the High Commissioners Post in London and the President offered me that. Again I rejected that offer. So I’ve been constantly saying no to all the offers that came my way.

However, last year, when the President came as the Chief Guest to the 125th Year Anniversary celebrations of Ananda College on my invitation (as I’m the President of the Old Boys Association), he said “Tilak, don’t say no this time. I think this is an ideal opportunity for you. You have been an investor for a long time in the stock market and you know the workings of the stock market, therefore accept the position as SEC Chairman.”
Since, I’ve been saying no to him all this time I was at the time reluctant to say no to him, so I said, give me 48 hours to decide. So I thought about it and consulted my wife and children about it who were not in favour of it at all. But, still I thought about it and I said I will accept it and work purely in an honorary capacity. No job, no car, no chauffeur, no petrol, no mobile phone, nothing….and I also said that I want my independence and I said I would like to do as per the objectives of the SEC Commission’s Act and want to achieve those objectives impartially without fear or favour. So the President said “no issues Tilak, at all. I know the way you conduct yourselves and just sign it”. So on  December 7,  last year, I assumed duties.

Q: When do you think you faced your first obstacle after you took over?

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