Sri Lanka not keen on CEPA with India

Nayanima Basu / New Delhi Aug 24, 2012

Sri Lanka has apparently informed Indian authorities it was not keen on having a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India, as it feared granting more Indian access to its markets would destroy that country’s domestic industry. However, it has made its own set of fresh demands to consider under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which is under operation since March 2000.

During the recent visit of Commerce Minister Anand Sharma to Colombo, the Sri Lankan government refused to resume talks on Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) even though the mandate to upgrade the FTA to CEPA was formally agreed in June 2010 during the visit of their President Mahinda Rajapaksa. While the FTA is only on goods, the CEPA will entail trade in goods, services and investment. Subsequently, fresh round of negotiations to establish the CEPA between the countries started in November 2010. But since then, there had not been any fruitful outcome.

According to commerce ministry officials, “mislead campaign by some section of business in Sri Lanka” has come in the way for conclusion of CEPA. India has categorically said its principal objective was not to seek preferential market access to Sri Lanka, but to develop an arrangement creating a win-win situation for both sides. India has also reiterated any upgraded framework would be based on differentiated obligations, and not reciprocity. Apparently, the Trade and Economic Relations Committee headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given the mandate of closing the talks within the next three months.

“Some sections of the Sri Lankan industry is indeed a little apprehensive of signing a CEPA with India as it will entail services and investment trade. And their main fear is India would swamp their services industry. Besides, they want to build more political consensus on having the CEPA,” a senior commerce department official told Business Standard.
Under the proposed CEPA deal, India has offered additional concessions on garment quota of 8 million pieces that was granted. Besides, the 3 million pieces granted at zero duty earlier under the FTA, India has now agreed to allow another 3 million pieces more at zero duty and additional 2 million at 75 per cent margin of preference. India has already removed port entry restrictions and conditions of sourcing fabrics from it.
Officials also said that a “fear psychosis” has emerged within some quarters in Sri Lanka of over dependance on Indian market that indirectly gives India the power to have its say on their political matters. On the other hand, Sri Lanka has made a list demands from India in terms of barter deals and tariff free quota free (TFQF) access for its textiles, which has not been agreed by India.
Ironically, Sri Lanka was the first such country that had signed a FTA with India.The India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement was signed on December 1998, which has been in operation since March 2000.
Negotiations for CEPA were started in February 2005 and concluded in July 2008, after 13 difficult rounds. However, the Agreement could not be signed then on account of some reservations expressed by Sri Lankan government.
Sri Lanka is currently the largest trading partner of India in South Asia.
The bilateral trade for 2011 stood at $5.16 billion compared to $3.63 billion in 2010, with exports at $4.44 billion and imports at $0.71 billion. Presently, India enjoys a trade surplus of $3.72 billion with Sri Lanka. Both sides have set a target of achieving bilateral trade worth $10 billion by 2015.
India is the largest foreign investor in Sri Lanka contributing $110 million out of total $ 516 million received by Sri Lanka. Some of the main Indian companies that have invested there are IOC, TATA, CEAT, Nicolas Piramal, Ashok Leyland, SBI, ICICI Bank, AXIS Bank, LIC and Jet Airways among others.

Higher Education In Sri Lanka: School’s Out

By The Economist | Colombo -

An elderly couple sat inside an auto-rickshaw holding a placard with bold red and blue writing: “Don’t mess with our granddaughter’s right to free education”.

The pair, both in their eighties, were among hundreds of protesters who met at Colombo’s Hyde Park on August 23rd to demand a dramatic increase in the government’s education spending. “Darling, I’m nobody,” the old woman said. “But poor people are having trouble getting their kids educated.” And she wanted the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to take note.

Sri Lanka’s state-run universities have been crippled since July 4th, when nearly 5,000 lecturers went on strike to call for a 20% salary increase. The Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) said droves of academics were leaving Sri Lanka because of poor wages.

The union’s wish list expanded significantly as negotiations with the government broke down. It now includes a stipulation that the government should increase expenditure on education from the current 1.9% of GDP to 6%. This became the battle cry of a determined—and growing—movement that has rattled the government so much that on August 22nd it shut down all universities indefinitely.

Many demonstrators, most of them university lecturers, wore orange and black T-shirts that said “6% Save Education” and “6% GDP for Education”. They huddled under umbrellas, three to each, when the monsoon rains poured down.

From the stage, Maduluwawe Sobitha, an influential Buddhist monk, urged the public to join their campaign. This wasn’t just a “university issue”, he boomed. This was a struggle to protect free education.

The government is right to feel nervous. Since defeating the rebel Tamil Tigers in 2009, it has gone relatively unchallenged. The ruling alliance won staggered local government and provincial elections (there will be another round on September 8th) by significant majorities, except in the north, which is predominantly Tamil. Hobbled by internal power squabbles, the main opposition force, the United National Party, has posed no threat.

University teachers realised that their struggle couldn’t be expressed by a simple salary demand when the entire education sector was in crisis, in the judgment of Ahilan Kadirgamar, a political analyst. So they started spotlighting the more sensitive stuff—such as how key appointments and decisions in universities have been made by politicians; about how universities are forced to hire security from a firm owned by the defence ministry; and how it is not normal for university entrants to be administered “leadership training” by the army.

The academics then collected signatures on street corners and held smaller rallies everywhere. What has followed is a heated national debate about the government’s policy on free education. It was introduced in the mid-1940s but is now widely accepted to be “in trouble”.

When FUTA eventually staged its largest protest, they were joined by a wide array of compatriots, not least the saffron-robed Buddhist monks. Among others lending support were members of unions representing industrial workers, health services, railway employees, lawyers, women’s organisations, teachers and principals, telecommunications and electricity workers and unemployed graduates.

For the government, this might lend credence to the theory—expounded in private—that “certain forces” were trying to instigate an “Arab Spring” style revolution in Sri Lanka. S.B. Dissanayake, the minister for higher education, insists that university lecturers are entangled in a plot to bring about regime change.

Another minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that “everyone knows a meeting took place about two months ago where it was discussed how to have an ‘Arab Spring’ in Sri Lanka, starting from universities.” He says it was attended by several NGOs (the regime’s usual suspects for this kind of thing), two ambassadors and some opposition leaders.

Snacking on an ice cream after the long march, Mahim Mendis, a spokesman for FUTA, dismissed these allegations as an attempt to stir up hysteria. Whenever the government is unable to meet the reasonable demands of any segment of society, he said, it resorts to conspiracy theories. University lecturers have anyway (perhaps unhelpfully) themselves dubbed their trade-union campaign an “Academic Spring”.

The closing down of 21 universities and educational institutes was strongly criticised, even by pro-government private newspapers such as the Island. An editorial of theirs urged the president to intervene. Others too are speaking up for students whose exams—and graduation dates—are now delayed.

FUTA has vowed to continue its strike till the government gives “a clear, written commitment” on how its main demands would be met. But with students divided on the issue, academics will have to agree on an exit strategy soon. Besides, they have not been paid for two months.

For analysts like Mr Kadirgamar, it is immaterial how and when the strike will end. He knows that trade-union action cannot continue indefinitely, however many noble ideals it invokes. What he finds encouraging is that FUTA has at last got the public talking.

Courtesy The Economist

‘Save State Education’ in Sri Lanka: Photos and video from FUTA rally in Colombo

‘Save State Education’ in Sri Lanka: Photos and video from FUTA rally in Colombo

24 Aug, 2012

Image courtesy Vikalpa

Groundviews

As noted in the mainstream media, “thousands of university teachers, undergraduates and trade unionists marched to the Hyde Park yesterday, accusing the government of turning a blind eye on their grievances. Lecturers representing all universities in the country participated in yesterday’s protest organised by the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA).”

Vikalpa was present at the rally, and captured these photos and video.

‘Save State Education’

A protest march and a rally organized by the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) under the theme ‘Save State Education’ was held in Colombo today (23rd).

36 University associations representing 14 universities, nearly 40 trade unions and several civil organizations participated in the demonstrations and the rally.

Two demonstrations that commenced from Nawaloka Hospital Junction and Nelum Pokuna marched to Hyde Park where the rally was held.

Accomplice in Genocide; UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay

The Africa Village

UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF NAVI PILLAY

The UN’s Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has spent her entire time in office as an active accomplice in the genocide being conducted by the western funded Ethiopian regime against the people of the Ogaden.

A report on the genocide in the Ogaden remains under lock and key in Navi Pillay’s office under her direct order. The investigations this report was based on were conducted by at least two teams sent to the Ogaden in 2007 after the independence war and counterinsurgency being waged there first hit the worlds stage with the killing of a dozen or so Chinese oil workers exploring for oil despite being warned off by fighters from the Ogaden National Liberation Front.

According to persons with first hand participation in the investigation in the Ogaden in 2007 the report contains words such as “murder”, “mass murder”, “scorched earth policy”, “food blockade”, “medicine blockade”, “crimes against humanity” and even “genocide”.

With both the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders expelled from the Ogaden since 2007, before the investigation was completed, there is little possibility of any really independent observers providing any alternative to the still secret report. Two Swedish journalists who attempted to do so were nearly murdered by the Ethiopian death squads in the region and are now rotting in an Ethiopian dungeon, convicted of “terrorism”.

After years of demands from authors of the report Navi Pillay still is refusing to release it.

One person from within Ms. Pillay’s office reports that when challenged to provide a reason for suppressing this well documented expose of the worst ongoing crime in the world Ms. Pillay blamed the Obama White House and in particular President Obama’s Senior Advisor for Africa Gayle Smith.

Apparently Navi Pillay knows where and when she must kneel down to Pax Americana and would prefer to be an accomplice in genocide rather than lose the position marking the pinnacle of her career in service to the USA and its bosses and underbosses at the UN.

Today Navi Pillay, for the first time, is expressing “deep concern” over the actions of the Ethiopian regime formerly headed by the now deceased Meles Zenawi, decades long head of a regime that is now in the beginning stages of collapse.

It seems she can see the handwriting on the wall and doesn't want to be caught out completely in distancing herself from the most corrupt, brutal and murderous dictator in Africa if not the world, Meles Zenawi.

With the Ethiopian empire crumbling and the independence of the Ogaden seemingly inevitable it will be up to the liberation fighters turned new government to try to bring Ms. Pillay to justice, though the list she is a part of includes many much more powerful, and ultimately responsible, than she.

Thomas C. Mountain is the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. His interviews on the genocide in the Ogaden can be seen on PressTV and RTTV. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

‘Mahinda Chinthana’ And The University Crisis

By Laksiri Fernando -August 23, 2012

Dr Laksiri Fernando

21 August 2012 will go into the history of Sri Lankaas a Black Day for the whole education system. The most stubborn Minister of Higher Education, SB Dissanayake, has decided to close down all universities, except medical faculties, exposing the government’s complete inability to resolve, clearly a straight forward salary issue and a policy dispute with the academic community.

Academic strikes are not usual in any country let alone Sri Lanka. The academics would not have resorted to trade union action if there were other avenues to resolve their grievances. They are one of the most temperate sections of our society. The grievances that led finally to the current strike have been accumulating for over three decades. All the negotiations before and after the strike have failed, due particularly to the intransigence of the Minister. He is apparently trying to emulate the Army Commander or the Defence Secretary, tragicomically, in combating the academics in a warlike fashion.

It is not long time ago that overwhelming majority of the academics decided to support the present government at the last national elections in 2010, presidential and parliamentary, considering the circumstances, and believing that the government would deliver the promises that it gave in the Mahinda Chinthana, the election manifesto of the current President. I vividly recollect the mammoth meeting of academics attended by over 3,000 at the Temple Trees makeshift meeting hall in January 2010 prior to the presidential elections.

Mahinda Chinthana    

Mahinda Chinthana 2010 talked about five hubs and one of which was a ‘Knowledge Hub’ that has now become a standard joke. In explaining this hub, a whole section was devoted from page 75 to 77 on university education admitting correctly that “University is the centre of generating and disseminating knowledge.” The ‘Chinthana’ however was not truthful in saying, “I provided the necessary infrastructure and human resources to establish new universities and to develop the existing local university system during the past four years.” No new university was established under the incumbent President and the last one, Uva Wellassa, was established in June 2005. More appalling has been the deteriorating funding for universities that has been clearly explained by theUniversity ofMoratuwa Teachers Association in their presentation, “Miracle of Asia and Higher Education.” During the period, while the student population has increased from 62,000 to 70,000, the annual expenditure per student has decreased from Rs 120,000 to Rs 105,000.

 Read More

Sri Lanka government shuts down universities

By Charles Haviland ---            In January university students held protests against government plans

Sri Lanka's government has closed down almost all universities for an indefinite period amid a row about the future of education in the island.

Academics have been on strike for nearly two months, accusing the government of interference and demanding more be spent on the sector.

The authorities say teachers are putting students in a position of "darkness, without any hope".

For decades, university campuses have been a source of turmoil in Sri Lanka.

Students' problems helped trigger the Tamil insurgency as well as equally bloody Sinhalese insurrections in the 1970s and 80s.

Security row

Since early July academics have been on strike in Sri Lanka. They denounce government plans to partially privatise a tertiary education system that has always been state-funded and free.

They want an end to what they say is political meddling in campus life. They want much more spent on education overall and they are demanding a salary increase.

The government has now responded by closing down 13 of Sri Lanka's 15 state-funded universities, apart from their medical faculties, with no indication of when they might reopen.

They have also accused academics of trying to topple the government.

"Their [the trade union's] aim is to create instability and a political crisis leading to a regime change, we guess," higher education minister SB Dissanayake said.

Military training

The government says it has already agreed to five of the academics' six main demands. But the spokesman for the academics' main union, Mahim Mendis, told the BBC this simply wasn't true.

He said that the "politicisation and militarisation" of universities must end. At the moment, he said, ministers were appointing their own loyalists to top university posts.

"To suggest we want regime change is frivolous. You need to understand, Futa [the union] includes academics from all political parties. This is a national struggle," he added.

He also denounced an edict compelling universities to use security companies run by the ministry of defence and he criticised a two-week programme of military-led training which all university entrants now have to undergo.

Secondary education has also been in turmoil here, with a large-scale scandal involving incompetence in the marking of school-leaving exam papers.

Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission distorts figures of missing persons

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2012, 22:48 GMT]
The ‘Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission’, run by the Sri Lankan State in Colombo, has begun to conceal and twist the figures of complaints registered by its regional offices in the North and East. While announcing that a ‘high level’ delegation from Colombo is scheduled to visit Jaffna in the coming days to ‘investigate’ the registered complaints of missing persons since the year 2006, Mr. S. Kanagaraj, an official at the Jaffna office told media Wednesday that only 472 people were reported missing after the year 2006. However, informed human rights activists in Jaffna said that the office had registered 1,500 to 2,000 cases since 2006. There were at least 599 cases registered by the office in the year 2006 alone, they further said. 

Between 1998 and 2001, more than 800 persons were reported missing in Jaffna peninsula under the occupying Sri Lanka Army. The SL HRC is silent about these cases.

Recently, there were 800 cases of persons who were missing in Vanni after the end of Vanni war in 2009. These details were also registered at the Jaffna office by the resettling people in Jaffna. The SL-HRC doesn't want to talk about these cases. 

Usually, the SL-HRC office archives the complaints registered by the kith and kin of those reported missing. The office also seeks information from the SL military and files the response it receives from Palaali in the same file. 

The people of Jaffna, who use to register the details of the missing for the sake of the record, have no faith in the follow-up work done by Colombo's mechanism of SL Human Rights Commission, human rights activists in Jaffna told TamilNet. 

The latest twist from the Jaffna office is that there has been ‘no response’ from the families of the missing to a questionnaire it had posted to them in advance.

In the meantime, some of the families of the missing persons have left the island seeking asylum after 2006, the rights activists said.

There are also parents who are afraid of actively engaging in the search for their missing family members. Especially, parents having other young members in their families are cautious of not provoking the Sri Lankan military intelligence. 

The SL Human Rights Commission is financially dependent on the genocidal State of Sri Lanka. The SL President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the SL armed forces, appoints the commissioners of the outfit. 

in 2007 itself, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticised the composition of the SL-HRC that the SL president had personally appointed five commissioners to the outfit in violation of article 41B of the Sri Lankan constitution.

Annual Reports2010

Sri Lanka concedes ground to UN

The recent decision by the Sri Lankan Government to allow a United Nations human rights team into the country represents a chink in the armour of denial and obfuscation that has frustrated attempts at an accurate assessment of the state of the country since the end of the civil war.

What does leak out amid the welter of official reports stating all is well is disturbing, with increasing evidence that the Sinhalese majority, led by militant Buddhist monks, is conducting a campaign against the minority Muslims who made up much of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insurgency which was finally crushed in 2009.

Reports by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations state that a mob led by 100 monks demolished a Muslim shrine in Anuradhapura on the grounds that it had been built on land given to the Sinhalese 2000 years ago. This breathtaking timescale suggests the claim is based on ancient religious texts which, if taken literally, would grant the entire island to the Sinhalese, leaving no place for any religious minorities.

The popular conception of Buddhism as being a gentle religion that espouses non-violence has never been the case in Sri Lanka where religious militancy in defence of the realm goes back to the second century BC when, legend has it, an army of 500 monks, led by a prince with a Buddha-blessed spear, defeated Tamil invaders.

More recently the Buddhist hierarchy was the driving force in the 25-year civil war, giving its blessing to the final offensive in May 2009. This wiped out the LTTE along with thousands of civilians that the Tigers cynically put into the firing line in the hope that a horrified international community would force the Government to call off the attack.

In the three years since, the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has stonewalled attempts to find out exactly what happened in those last bloody days as the LTTE-held territory shrunk to a tiny strip of land around the Nandikadel Lagoon. For some time Rajapaksa denied that any civilians had died in the fighting but later reports amended this to around 2000 and then 8000. This flew in the face of eye-witness accounts by doctors treating the wounded who reported mass deaths caused by heavy shelling and indiscriminate all-out attacks by Government forces.

I was present at a Canberra seminar given by author and former United Nations spokesman Gordon Weiss who wrote in his book The Cage that he believed the toll was 30,000. Weiss was virtually shouted down by an audience stacked with local Sinhalese. However, A UN panel established by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year put the figure at 40,000, almost all resulting from shelling by Government forces.

Since the enforced peace the Government in Colombo has talked a great deal about reconciliation with very little action to back the words. Resettlement of the 300,000 Tamils displaced by the war has been slow and chaotic – and in some cases downright dangerous. For instance, a conference organised by the Sri Lankan Women's Agenda for Peace, Security and Development was told that when refugees were finally allowed to return to their home areas where the last battles of the war were fought they found almost all their buildings destroyed, their fields and gardens returned to jungle, and mines and other unexploded ordnance littered about.

Even so they may be the lucky ones, for at least they still have their land. The International Crisis Group (ICG) says the Sri Lankan military has seized sites within Tamil areas to set up bases and has established what can only be described as a ruthless form of martial law.

More...http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14023&page=0

‘Muslims Are Being Unfairly Treated In Mannar’ Says Citizens’ Commission On Expulsion Of Muslims From The Northern Province By The LTTE

Dr. Devanesan Nesiah

By Colombo Telegraph -August 23, 2012 

“At the root of the escalation of this problem is a perception among the Muslims that they are being unfairly treated in Mannar. They have no faith in either the civil administration or this particular magistrate in Mannar. There is a perception that they have been marginalized through civil mechanisms. ” says the Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE. The commission released its conclusions and recommendations after a fact-finding visit to Mannar.  Below we produce its report in full.

Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE

Findings of fact-finding visit to Mannar – 8^th and 9^th August 2012.

On 18^th July 2012 there was a protest outside of the Magistrate’s Court in Mannar that turned violent. According to media reports the incident occurred in relation to a dispute regarding a fishing harbor in the Uppukulam area of Mannar.  The Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTEhas been engaging with the northern Muslimcommunity since 2009. The Commission  felt that an impartial investigation into the causes of the disturbance was necessary.  Therefore  a delegation consisting of two Commissioners—Dr. Devanesan Nesiah and Ms. Chulani Kodikara, and representative of the Commission Secretariat Ms.Nafiya Khalik and two members of the Commission advisory group engaged in a fact finding exercise in Mannar on 8^th and 9^th August 2012.

The current report is based on the above visit during which interviews were conducted with affected communities (both from Uppukkulam and Vidathalthivu), Additional Government Agent, Representatives of the Bar Association, Police and Department Head of Fisheries Corporation in Mannar.

The Right to Fish off of Konthaipiddy Harbour                                Read More

Jaffna Catholics: government is lying about civil war refugees

08/23/2012

by Melani Manel Perera The Jaffna Diocese Commission for Justice and Peace (Cjpcdj) argues that the reality in northern Sri Lanka (devastated by civil war) differs from official version presented to the international community. Hundreds of thousands of refugees still to be resettled; territory militarised; Buddhism forced on people; worship of other faiths banned; war cemeteries desecrated. Colombo (AsiaNews) - The reality in which civil war survivors live in northern Sri Lanka is far from the image presented by the government to the international community. This was stated by the Jaffna Diocese' Commission for Justice and Peace (Cjpcdj), in an official statement. In the document, the Cjpcdj explains that the population of the Northern Province undergoes physical and psychological abuse of various kinds, which limit freedom of speech and violate basic human rights. Added to this the inability to be able to obtain justice, a condition that "day after day is exhausting the hopes of the people" to rebuild a just democratic and peaceful community. Among the most urgent problems to be solved, Cjpcdj indicates the thousands of refugees (internally displaced people, IDPs) still without a home, the military presence on the territory, the lack of aid from the government for reconstruction. Moreover there are reports of  a series of physical and psychological abuses leading people to live in an atmosphere of constant tension: the destruction of the war cemeteries; bans on prayer services for the victims of war, theft, looting and murder. Finally, the enactment of a kind of cultural depersonalization of the population, mostly Tamil and Catholic. This is done through various attempts to impose Buddhism, providing employment and privileges only to those who openly support the government, terrorizing people, threatening them with death. Rather than admit and face the reality of the facts, highlights the Cjpcdj, the government plans to widen and pave the roads, build new bridges, start work to expand the rail network, opening new banks, shopping centers and hotels; renew and modernize parks. This in the eyes of a visitor or a foreign delegate appears as evidence that the North is developing quickly, after a war that lasted 30 years. The Cjpcdj then gives some numbers that prove the apparent discrepancy between the reality and what is told to the international community. According to the Government of Sri Lanka in fact, of the approximately 300 thousand IDPs (first and second generation, ed) caused by war, 95% have already been resettled, provided with a house and all the necessary amenities. Only a few thousand (3-5 thousand people) still live in refugee camps, but within three or four months they will also be resettled. However, the UN report on alleged war crimes committed by the armed forces in the final stages of the conflict (2009) gives different numbers. According to the document, in the districts of Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Mannar 117,888 people have yet to be resettled permanently. Of these, 18,589 are in Vavuniya, 4928 in  Mannar and 94,371 in Jaffna. A substantial number of refugees live with friends and relatives. According to the Cjpcdj, the suggestions contained in the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the Board President Rajapaksa set up to investigate precisely the period examined by the UN, are a good start, but fail to address all aspects reported by people . Nevertheless, the government's response to LLRC "not encouraging" the demilitarization of former war zones has not yet occurred, inquires to find out what happened to the disappeared have never started; resettlement is still at an embryonic stage. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Diocese of Jaffna finally outlines the steps to be taken as soon as possible: provide real civil administration and not just window dressing and do not allow the military to interfere in people's daily lives, removing the army from government offices and schools, democratic elections and the independence of the judiciary to ensure security and protection of Tamil prisoners, particularly those detained in the south of the country.

Reconciliation Is Not Happening In Sri Lanka, And The Problem Isn’t A Question Of Time

By Sivakami Rajamanoharan -August 23, 2012

Dr. Sivakami Rajamanoharan

Three years since the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended, the Tamil speaking areas remain gripped by repression, ethnic tension and widespread suffering, rather than emergent reconciliation and peace – and the problem is not a question of time.

The war itself ended in a cataclysm of violence in which, according to a UN expert panel’s report, over 40,000 Tamil civilians were massacred, largely by government shelling of safe zones and hospitals. The period after the war’s end in May 2009 saw the internment of hundreds of thousands of shell-shocked civilian survivors in squalid camps (run by Sri Lanka’s ethnically pure Sinhala military), from which reports of deprivation, abductions, torture and rape were persistently emerging. Although after intense international pressure the camps were eventually closed, large numbers of Tamils are still prevented from resettling.

It is against this recent history, quite apart from the decades of ethno-political strife and quarter century of war, that today, ‘reconciliation’ is being discussed as a necessary step towards a lasting peace. So it is unsurprising that the question of how to achieve reconciliation or, more importantly, what exactly it entails, has only become more contentious.

Whilst the Tamils, eminent human rights organisations and leading democracies have called for accountability for the horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleged to have been committed by both sides, as the first step towards meaningful reconciliation, Sri Lanka dismisses such calls as ‘neo-colonialism’. Instead the Colombo government has tried to enforce its own brand of reconciliation – one that denies the military’s slaughter of large numbers of Tamil civilians, refuses to meaningfully address the Tamil people’s long-standing political grievances, and seeks to ruthlessly impose its own idea of what ‘national’ identity should be.

Sri Lanka’s understanding of reconciliation                                        Read More

Major Gen. Sooriyabandara dies prematurely : afflicted by the curse of the shawls- pension delayed
thursday 23 of August 2012
 (Lanka-e-News -23.Aug.2012, 9.00AM) A senior Army Officer who is a victim of the vituperative hate of the Rajapakses had met with an untimely death , according to a most tragic obituary received from Australia. Major General Samantha Sooriyabandara , was a member of the first group of 14 of the Army Major Generals who was sent on compulsory retirement induced by the belief and fear of the Rajapakses that he was a close associate of Gen. Fonseka and hence dangerous. He was forcibly sent on premature retirement ten years ahead due to the Rajapakse venoms and vengeances . He had passed away following a cardiac arrest in Australia. It is sad to note that this officer who was actively engaged in the battlefield to win the war for his country was denied his pension payments even until the time of his death owing to the Rajapakses’ treacherous attitude to a patriotic soldier.

Unlike Gotabaya (Goo Baya) Rajapakse who traitorously fled the country in fear of the war , to remain in America for over a decade , Samantha Sooriyabandara ‘died’ many times fighting the war bravely for his country demonstrating his true patriotism. It is well to recall that during the Jayasikuru war operations , the helicopter in which he was traveling was shot at by the LTTE . The helicopter crashed and was destroyed and all its inmates except Soriyabandara died tragically. 
It was the Tamil fisher folks who had helped him to save his life. In gratitude , he had gifted his gold chain to them , and had also never forgotten them ever after. 

Sooriyabandara who received training in America, Pakistan and China is an expert parachutist. The first group of parachute trainees had to parachute jump to the ground. They had to jump from thousands of feet above to a spot in the ground within a small circle , which Sooriyabandara accomplished with such great skill , that it shocked even the American soldiers. 

It was Major General Sooriyabandara who was in the front line of the Muhamule battle as the Commander of the 53rd regiment during the final phase of the victorious war. He had also served as the Washington military attaché at one time. An old boy of Nalanda College , Sooriyabndara was only 50 years old when he died suddenly due to a heart failure.
There is some significant historical information which many do not know. Sooriyabandara ‘s father was not only an officer of the Army , but he was the first recruit soldier of the SL Army after the whites left . He was the proud soldier with No. 0001 as his SL Army registration Number. 

Sooiyabandara’s father died when the former was very young. Father Sooriyabandara became the Captain of the CLI. 
(Lanka-e-News -23.Aug.2012, 9.00AM) A senior Army Officer who is a victim of the vituperative hate of the Rajapakses had met with an untimely death , according to a most tragic obituary received from Australia. Major General Samantha Sooriyabandara , was a member of the first group of 14 of the Army Major Generals who was sent on compulsory retirement induced by the belief and fear of the Rajapakses that he was a close associate of Gen. Fonseka and hence dangerous. He was forcibly sent on premature retirement ten years ahead due to the Rajapakse venoms and vengeances . He had passed away following a cardiac arrest in Australia. It is sad to note that this officer who was actively engaged in the battlefield to win the war for his country was denied his pension payments even until the time of his death owing to the Rajapakses’ treacherous attitude to a patriotic soldier.

Unlike Gotabaya (Goo Baya) Rajapakse who traitorously fled the country in fear of the war , to remain in America for over a decade , Samantha Sooriyabandara ‘died’ many times fighting the war bravely for his country demonstrating his true patriotism. It is well to recall that during the Jayasikuru war operations , the helicopter in which he was traveling was shot at by the LTTE . The helicopter crashed and was destroyed and all its inmates except Soriyabandara died tragically. 
It was the Tamil fisher folks who had helped him to save his life. In gratitude , he had gifted his gold chain to them , and had also never forgotten them ever after. 

Sooriyabandara who received training in America, Pakistan and China is an expert parachutist. The first group of parachute trainees had to parachute jump to the ground. They had to jump from thousands of feet above to a spot in the ground within a small circle , which Sooriyabandara accomplished with such great skill , that it shocked even the American soldiers. 

It was Major General Sooriyabandara who was in the front line of the Muhamule battle as the Commander of the 53rd regiment during the final phase of the victorious war. He had also served as the Washington military attaché at one time. An old boy of Nalanda College , Sooriyabndara was only 50 years old when he died suddenly due to a heart failure.
There is some significant historical information which many do not know. Sooriyabandara ‘s father was not only an officer of the Army , but he was the first recruit soldier of the SL Army after the whites left . He was the proud soldier with No. 0001 as his SL Army registration Number. 

Sooiyabandara’s father died when the former was very young. Father Sooriyabandara became the Captain of the CLI.
Though the ungrateful Rajapakses haven’t even an atom of gratitude, and were on a witch hunt against Sooriyabandara who left the country on security grounds after winning the war , (unlike Goo baya fleeing the country in fear of the war) , Sooriybandara on the other hand had always been stating that his first love is for the country , and he wished to return to his motherland and fulfill whatever obligations as a true patriot. 

It is presumed that Sooryabandara’s heart condition would have been precipitated due to his mental distress and turmoil engendered by the legal tangles regarding official residence in Australia which the Rajapakses took advantage of to hold back his pension payments .

In the circumstances the best tribute that can be paid to this patriotic soldier by the citizens , is to do everything within their powers to extricate this country from the curse of the shawls.