True State of Affairs Regarding Govt -TNA Talks and the Parliamentary Select Committee Invitation

Monday, 03 September 2012 

 Last Sunday I asked the question whether Tamils in this country can be glibly asked to ‘forget the past’ and move forward?

Today I wish to list out the promises made to the Tamil People and their representatives, particularly after the General Elections of April 2010. It must be remembered that President Rajapakse did not win in the North and the East, although he got a clear mandate form the rest of the seven provinces at the Presidential Election held in January 2010.

In fact he did not win in Nuwara Eliya District and Colombo Municipal limits. Basically his mandate was only from the Sinhala majority of this country. A telling result, after he claimed to have freed the Tamil People from the clutches of terrorism!

The Government is also continuously engaged in a false campaign against the TNA, accusing the TNA of being the cause for the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee not commencing its work. This is far from the truth. The TNA has fully co-operated in the process of setting up of the PSC, albeit, with reservations.

It is the conduct of the Government that has made it impossible to commence the PSC deliberations, despite the TNA being willing to make compromises at least three times, in order to break the dead-lock and move forward. The following historic narrative will make this clear:

The TNA made a public request in April 2010 that the Government must engage the TNA with regard to the evolution of a political settlement and the immediate concerns of the Taml people in the aftermath of the war, and despite the President agreeing with the Leader of the TNA that two committees would be set up for these two matters in November 2010, only one committee was appointed in January 2011 consisting of representatives of the government and representatives of the TNA for ‘long-term reconciliation’. It was clearly stated in the letter of invitation to the representatives of the TNA that the other members were ‘representatives of the Government of Sri Lanka’.

18 rounds of talks were held from 10th January 2011 throughout that year on the evolution of an acceptable political solution. Although no separate committee was set up with regard to matters of immediate concern of the Tamil people, at the invitation of the Government delegation, the TNA raised the following matters of immediate concern:

(1) Resettlement and Rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced Persons,

(2) the removal of High Security Zones and disarming of para-military forces operating in the North and East and

(3) the issue of political prisoners and detainees.

The resettlement process continues to be snail-paced with several thousands still in the camps and many more tens of thousands in transit camps and with friends and relatives. Even those who have been permitted to return to their original places, are without proper shelter and are unable to recommence their livelihood activities, resulting in there being no qualitative improvement in the lives of these people.

Although some progress has been made in the Palaly High Security Zone area, several other areas in the North including Sampur in the East continue to be prohibited zones for the civilians. Even in Palaly, now a long barbed-wire fence has been erected across the peninsula, physically preventing the resettlement of about twenty eight thousand people who have been displaced for over twenty six years.

Para-military personnel continue to operate with impunity causing abductions, demanding ransom and even carrying out killings. This is acknowledged by the Government in the recent Action Plan to implement the LLRC recommendations, and the Key Performance Indicator for this to be completed is six months!

The Government delegation also gave an undertaking in writing at the 2nd round of the talks on the 3rd of February 2011 that the next of kin could check if their relatives are held in detention at a specified place in Vavuniya. At least three separate dates were fixed for a representative each from the Government and TNA to go to Vavuniya and check this out, those visits were always called off by the Government and never took place. To date this has not happened and real information pertaining to the detainees continues to be withheld and denied to the next of kin.

After the end of the war in May 2009, a programme is being implemented whereby cultural and religious places in the Tamil areas are misused, damaged and destroyed, increased militarization and military’s intervention in civilian life, lands being allocated to persons from outside the North and East ostensibly for development purposes resulting in demographic change in the North and the East, the transformation of the cultural identity of areas in the North and the East, all of which will have irreversible evil consequences to the future well-being of the Tamil people. Representations made to the Government in regard to such matters have not resulted in remedial action indicating that they have not received due consideration by the Government.

While the Tamil people have not been enabled through appropriate action by the Government to return to their homes within the Jaffna District, their absence is sought to be utilized to reduce the representation of the Jaffna District in Parliament resulting in the denial of franchice and the perversion of democracy.

In regard to a political solution the TNA placed before the Government delegation in writing at the very first meeting itself, the speech made by President Rajapakse at the inaugural meeting of the APRC and the Committee of Experts in July 2006, which was referred to in my article last Sunday, as the position that would be acceptable to the TNA. On the invitation of the Government delegation a further outline was given at the second meeting.

Again at the invitation of the Government delegation, the TNA tabled a comprehensive set of proposals at the third meeting held on the 18th of March 2011. This included proposals in regard to the structure of governance, the division of subjects and functions between the centre and the devolved units and fiscal and financial powers and other matters relevant to the achievement of an acceptable and durable political solution.

The TNA invited the Government’s response to these proposals and despite the Government’s commitment to so respond, no response was forthcoming for several months. Consequently no meaningful or purposeful discussion could be held on the discussion papers tendered by the TNA.

This was clearly demonstrative of the lack of a genuine commitment on the part of the Government to the evolution of an acceptable political solution.

While attempting to show the world that the Government was engaged in a political process as an integral part of reconciliation, what the Government was really engaged in was no more than a deceitful exercise. It was in these circumstances that the TNA questioned the continuance of such a deceitful process.

The TNA therefore called upon the government to meaningfully define and state the Government’s response to three issues:

1. The structure of governance,

2. The division of subjects and functions between the centre and the devolved units and

3. Fiscal and financial powers, within a period of two weeks, to carry forward any future dialogue.

However, as usual, the Government went to town, accusing the TNA of behaving like the LTTE – laying down conditions and setting deadlines!

With the breakdown of the talks, the TNA leader met the President at his invitation.

Two agreements were made at that meeting. First, it was agreed to bring to the negotiating table, five previous proposals of the Government in lieu of a response by the Govnment. This agreement was recorded in the Minutes of the meeting held on 16th of September 2011 as a statement of the Leader of the TNA: “This meeting happens consequent to a meeting I had with HE. He explained the difficulty in presenting a proposal of the government in that it maybe leaked and then it will become difficult to make adjustments. I said that I appreciated this but that there are other earlier documents on the basis of which we could talk.

Those are Mangala Moonesinghe PSC proposals, Governments proposal for constitutional reforms 1995, 1997 and August 2000, HE’s speech to APRC and Committee of Experts inaugural meeting and Report A of the committee of experts. HE agreed to proceed on that basis and so there would be no necessity for the government to give their response to our paper.”

The second agreement was also recorded in the same Minutes to say that once consensus was reached at the bilateral talks, which can be taken to the PSC as either the Government proposal or the joint Government -TNA proposal, the TNA would join the PSC process.

On the basis of these two agreements, the TNA made its comments on the draft Terms of Reference for the PSC and the Government incorporated all of those and placed it on the Order Paper of Parliament on 10th October 2011. This was the first concession made by the TNA, after the Government went back on its promise to respond at the bilateral talks.

Subsequent to this adjustment, the bilateral talks recommenced and three meeting were held in the month of December 2011 at which devolution of land powers was discussed.

Three further meetings were fixed for the 17th, 18th and 19th of January 2012. But on all those three days although the TNA attended, the Government delegation failed to turn up! Instead the Government started to insist that the TNA must join the PSC, if the bilateral talks are to continue – contrary to the agreements reached and recorded in the Minutes. In order to break the deadlock, the Leader of the TNA met with three members of the Government delegation on the 27th of January 2012 and made further concessions.

By this, it was agreeed thst the TNA would nominate names to the PSC simultaneously with the recommencement of the bilateral talks and that the PSC would be convened only after substantial agreement was reached at the bilateral talks. This was reduced to writing and given to the Government delegation on the 31st of January 2012 to obtain the concurrence of the President. But sadly, there was no come-back.

The third attempt was an initiative made by the Leader of the Opposition in May 2012. The Leader of the Oppossition and other UNP leaders met with the President and several Ministers at which they were told that there had never been any TNA- Government talks and that it was TNA-SLFP talks! Apart from the original letter from the Presidential Secretariat, the joint statement issued after every round of talks clearly identified the delegation as Government delegation.

Once this was resolved, a particular agenda was agreed to according to which the Leader of the Opposition would nominate names to the PSC after further discussion with the TNA and the JVP. The text of that agenda was agreed upon after several drafts were exchanged.

Once this was agreed, the Leader of the Opposition wrote a speech, gave copies of it to the Government and the TNA and made that statement in Parliament on 23rd May 2012. It had been agreed that the Government would endorse the agenda suggested by the Leader of the Opposition. But sadly again, no such endorsement was made on the floor of the House!

This is the true state of affairs with regard to the Government-TNA talks and the PSC. There is documentary proof for all of the above. Despite this the Government continues with its misinformation campaign blaming the TNA for its inability to evolve a political solution.

It even has the temerity to ask the TNA to forget all of this and start afresh by walking into the PSC empty handed. That is not a bona fide invitation. That is a ruse to cheat the TNA and the Tamil People yet again. The TNA is not about to make such a historic blunder.

The Dialectics of a Genocide

By Meena Kandasamy-2012-09-03
The Fourth Eelam War IV ended in May 2009 and marked the decimation of the Tamil Tigers. By the end, this genocidal massacre claimed between 40,000 and 100,000 civilian lives. In June this year, I had the opportunity to interview TamilNet.com’s chief correspondent in the Vanni, Lokeesan who stayed on in Mullivaaikkal until a few weeks before the end of the war. He is now an aslyum-seeker, in a European country.

My friends have warned me against extracting a feminist impression of the war, and yet, my first question to Lokeesan is about how the war was specifically brutal to Tamil women.

“I am surprised that you ask this question.” he says. “The Government of Sri Lanka would declare No Fire Zones (NFZs) and ruthlessly bomb these proclaimed safe zones. If this is how they reacted with regard to civilians, why do you expect civility from them when it comes to women?”

It is common knowledge that women who surrendered to the Army or got captured, were subject to rape. Tamil women were never accorded respect by Sinhala society, especially by the Sri Lankan Army. In the last days of the war, thousands of incidents of violence and rape took place against Tamil women. It hurts to say this, but what happened to Isaipriya, the rape, and the murder and the violation, happened to thousands of women in the Vanni.” Lokeesan says.

Lokeesan worked for TamilNet.com, a news website blocked in Sri Lanka for exposing the atrocities of the Government and presenting the Tamil side of the story. I first heard about Lokeesan's struggle and subsequent escape from the war-torn island in Beate Arnestad's moving documentary Silenced Voices about Sri Lankan journalists in exile. It featured interviews with Sonali Samarasinghe, the widow of assassinated Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, Bashana Abeywardane and his wife Sharmila Logeswaram.

“How different was your work, from the kind of reporting that Lasantha, or any of the dissenting Sinhala journalists were doing?” I ask him.

"Lasantha had all the facilities available to the media – internet, phone, email, camera, everything. But where we worked, we could not even charge our laptops. In the South, they were spared such horrors. They never had to dwell in death, whereas we worked in an area where it was impossible to operate.

To understand my situation, you have to remember that the Vanni never had telephonic connectivity to begin with. In thirty years, I never saw electricity. We were living in prehistoric times, like in the days when messengers and couriers carried news. After 2005, no fuel was provided. Even hospitals functioned with these difficulties. From late 2008, there was no agricultural activity. During the war, even a thousand rupees could not buy you a kilo of rice. The LTTE procured fuel through the fisher-people. Newspapers used to be published with power from generators. The supply of medicine was totally stopped. Only 10 to 15 percent of the required medicine required was provided through the ICRC. Vanni was a dark country cut away from the whole of existence.

You cannot calculate the body count based on my reports alone. Because of the difficulty in verifying facts, I tended to report only what I witnessed. While I kept telling the world about deaths among the Vanni people, I learnt that the world wanted to remain blind, deaf and numb. Everything happened within a 7-10 km stretch of the Vanni, the world could have easily seen this through satellites. The world did not want to save us. We were entrusted to our killers. The world acted for its own greed, for its own needs, though it publicly spoke of human rights. If 150 people died and 500 were injured in a single attack, I would report the same to TamilNet.com. For the next two, three days there would be a lull. They would hesitate and stop these mass civilian attacks briefly. But the world’s outrage was not potent enough. In the last days, there was no water for the injured and the dying. There was no cloth to tie the bleeding wounds of the bombed.”

There is a long, uncomfortable silence.

“I know how this world functions. If I had died in Lasantha’s place, nobody would have questioned Gotabaya (Rajapakse) about it. They would have called me a Tiger.

The local Tamil media continued to exist. Puligalin Kural (Voice of Tigers, a radio) and Eelanaatham paper existed up to a few days before the end of the war. But it was the Army's plan to run a war without any witnesses. They did not even allow Sinhala journalists to witness or document the war. They were not allowed into the Vanni.  If a dozen civilians died in an SLAF bombing, I would report it directly. There was no Sinhala media there. The Sri Lanka Defence website was the only one but it said that these bombings had targeted a Tiger camp. At that time, the world did not believe us. Now, the stories prove otherwise.

Everyone had a camera phone, so the truth came out because of the Sinhala soldiers. The Sri Lanka Army is not a disciplined fighting force. They are ‘proud’ of what they did, so they shot trophy videos. They wanted to display what they achieved. Only when these videos reached the hands of conscientious Sinhalese and Tamils, when it reached Channel 4, did the real story of war come out.”

Lokeesan further laments the honours heaped on Sri Lankan military officials who led the genocide.

“Major General Jagath Dias, who led the 57th Division that shelled hospitals in the Vanni was appointed Vice Ambassador to Germany and later Switzerland. Major General Shavendra Silva, who headed the 58th Division that shot dead the Tigers surrendering with white flags, is now the Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Sri Lanka Navy's Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe, who has been clearly indicted in the UN panel report for shelling carried out by the Navy into No Fire Zones during the final phase of the war, has been appointed Ambassador to Australia.”

Tired of tabulating this list, he breaks off.

“There is another reason why Sri Lanka’s war commanders are kept outside. If these monsters remain in the country, their bloodthirsty nature could destabilize the state. They have been totally dehumanized. They have been told it is perfect to slaughter and annihilate people. Also, if Shavendra Silva was in Sri Lanka, he could be blamed, he could be brought to book for war crimes. But if he is in the United Nations, it is not easy to point fingers at him. He will show the world that no war crime took place. He will continue telling everybody that nothing untoward happened, the war was perfect, the army was well-behaved – you know, those kinds of things. They drank the blood of thousands of Tamil children. Now they enjoy diplomatic immunity.”

His narratives of the war, his memories centre around children. Children undergoing amputation without anaesthesia, children dying from hunger, children bleeding to death from shrapnel injuries, children clinging to the breasts of dead mothers. He shows me videos that he shot in the Vanni: small children lamenting their dead parents, children carrying their injured or dead siblings, children hollering into a world that has ceased to hear. They still haunt him.

Lokeesan talks of how he overcame hostility and jealousy of other Tamil media institutions on ground, including those run by the LTTE. He had to fight off pressure to include their reportage, and managed to fend off the propagandists, and yet the “Tiger” label has persisted. 

“I think reporting about the war is a burden. But it is also a responsibility. Every day, I saw hundreds of people die. From late 2008 onwards, there was no difference between the battlefield and the civilian area. The cluster bombs for instance, detonated 15-20 feet above the ground level. Everyone standing was left dead. Scores of cattle died at the same time. The SLAF would drop more than 40 thousand kilos of bombs in the Vanni. These airshot bombs are meant for warfare on mountainous terrain, not for killing civilians. They started using cluster bombs with a vengeance because of their losses on the battlefield. Though it was referred to as a war against the Tigers, it was effectively a war against the Tamil people. They even circulated false information that only 70,000 people were there in the Vanni. Pranab Mukherjee was the highest ranking person who made this claim. It was part of their plan that only 70,000 of the 400,000 people should be allowed to survive the war. But people’s survival skills and self defence reduced the deaths.”

Perhaps this tenacity explains why 2,94,000 Tamils— and not the projected number of 70,000— ended up in the army camps even as per Sri Lanka’s official estimates.
I point out, “But it is said that Tigers held the civilians as human shields, and shot innocent civilians who got into military convoys.”  

He is quick to respond, “I have never witnessed this. But I have always been asked this question. One has to understand that the Sri Lanka Army had infiltrated the Tigers as well. They had a force called LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol). They were responsible for claymore attacks that killed the top leadership. They were known as the demon brigade because they impersonated the Tigers to carry out their operations. They were responsible for the Ambulance attacks. They killed K Sivanesan, the Tamil Member of Parliament from Jaffna. So, these incidents of shooting the civilians could have been carried out by the Sri Lankan armed forces, wearing Tiger uniforms. Also, Tigers were coerced into becoming informers for the Army. I do not rule out the possibility of these incidents, but since I did not witness anything like that, I can only surmise.”

Does he believe, as Tamil nationalists do, that India was waging a proxy war against the Tigers?

“When LTTE attacked the Vavuniya JOSSOP (Joint Services Special Operation) camp, Army headquarters in the Vanni in 2008, Indian military personnel operating radars for Sri Lanka Air Force were injured. This exposed India’s hands-off policy. The military victory was possible only because of inputs and active help from imperialist world powers. Those who secretly supplied weapons to Sri Lanka were more dangerous than those who supplied weapons publicly. India has stood at the forefront, annihilating Eelam Tamils. In the refugee camps, there are 20-year-old children who’ve never seen their homeland. When I was there, Eelam Tamils were on a protest-fast,” he says. 

His own personal experience in India has left him embittered.

“We had to go to New Delhi for a visa. We were asked to wait for a week. My son was only three months old, he had survived a thirty-hour train journey from Chennai. A taxi driver took us to every hotel but we were refused accommodation because we were Eelam Tamils. It was impossibly cold. My son cried uncontrollably. No one took pity on us. A lady at the embassy gave an apple to my wife when she saw how distraught and tired we were. She even spoke to a hotel she knew, but they refused to take us in. This incident showed me the reality of being an Eelam Tamil in India. You were nothing but a terrorist in the eyes of the Indian state. Today, the world exalts the media. But in India, I knew that being a journalist from Tamil Eelam was worthless. I was only seen as a criminal.”

At present Lokeesan is working on his eye-witness account of the war. “When I first escaped, I decided to stop writing. I did not want to ever write again,” he says.

He then tells me of his most fulfilling project, a series he did on Tamil Tigers serving at the Forward Defence Lines. 

Can we find copies? In libraries, with private collectors, or at least at some NGO office?

“No.” He says firmly. “When Vanni was destroyed, everything in it was destroyed. They did not allow anything from the past to remain.” He consoles himself. “I remember almost all of what I wrote.”

I quote Kundera: “The struggle of man against power, is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

He stays silent and I lack the courage to look into his eyes.

Few days before I leave Europe, we meet for lunch at a tiny cafe opposite his office. His project co-ordinator is with us. When the buzzer beeps, Lokeesan and I go to fetch our plates.

“This is heavy. Can you carry two plates at once?” I ask him.

“For years, I have carried my home in these hands,” he says.

Enforced Disappearances And An Unjust Republic

September 3, 2012

By Basil Fernando -

Basil Fernando

Forced disappearances have left quite an impression on the psyche of the Sri Lankan people living in all parts of the country. Since 1971, there has been continuous use of enforced disappearances as a tool by the state, for what they referred to as the maintenance of “law and order”. The result is a negative mindset, arising from what the people have seen and heard over several decades, due to so many incidents and stories about enforced disappearances. The shocking news has obviously been borne deep into the psyche of the people of all the people, living in all parts of the country.

Such deep impressions alter the views of people on many issues. One of the great changes in the minds of people, due to the impressions that are left in their minds of enforced disappearances, is to change their ideas about all those in authority; about the police, the military, the intelligence services and also the political leaders. The people now in their inner minds have different ideas as to what these things meant in the past before these large scale enforced disappearances happened.

Today, the police and the military are often seen by the people as abductors who may come in any guise, at any time. What the people expect from the police, the military or anyone else who represents a lawful authority and exercises such things as arrests has undergone a fundamentally deep change. The expectation of what might happen in the event of abduction or arrest is now very different. People have lost the legitimate expectation that they might have in the event of dealing with their law enforcement agencies; the expectation that whatever happens will be within the limits of the law and rationality no longer exists. Now the expectation is that the law will be flouted, that anything might happen, and that if anyone were to come out of the situation safe and sound it would his or her great luck.

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Stalin to leave for New York, to meet Ban

September 3, 2012 

By K.S. JAYASEELAN 

Correspondent 

New Delhi

In an attempt to pressurise the United Nations into acting against Sri Lanka, DMK’s heir-apparent and former deputy chief minister M.K. Stalin is all set to leave for New York on September 20 to meet UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and personally handover the resolutions adopted at the Tamil Eelam Supporters’ Organisation (TESO) conference that was held recently in Chennai. On his way back, he is also scheduled to stop at Geneva to hand over the same resolutions to the United Nations high commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Senior leader T.R. Baalu will be accompanying him. Dravida Kazhagam leader Veeramani and Sugaveera Pandian — both members of the TESO executive committee — may join the duo.
According to sources, the process of securing an appointment with Ban Ki-moon is on and in all probability, the meeting would take place on either September 21 or 22. Sources also said that Mr T.R. Baalu and Mr Stalin would inform the speakers of their respective houses namely Ms Meira Kumar and D. Jayakumar about their impending visit keeping in mind the norm.
Among the demands put forward by TESO that Sri Lanka would find very difficult to accept are conducting a political referendum in the Tamil-dominated areas of north and east of the island-nation to allow the Tamil people to decide their own political future, formation of a United Nations monitoring committee to supervise the rehabilitation work being carried out there and conduct of an enquiry by UN into alleged war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Army during the closing days of the war against the Tamil tigers, rejecting the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

Stop Training Lankan Army Personnel: CPI to Govt
 SEP 03, 2012
CPI today asked the government to stop training Sri Lankan Army personnel anywhere in India and respect the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, who are opposed to any such measure.

CPI National Secretary D Raja dashed off a letter to Defence Minister A K Antony explaining the opposition to the training programme to Sri Lankan Army personnel in the state.

He dubbed as "highly deplorable" Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju's statement that the training would continue.

"Instead of taking note of the strong feelings that prevail in Tamil Nadu over the issue of giving training to Sri Lankan Army, which carried out genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka and committed war crimes, the government has reiterated its commitment to continue the training programme," Raja rued.

"The recent statement by Raju has further infuriated the already hurt feelings of Tamil people," the CPI MP said.

Raja told Antony that the government should immediately stop training Sri Lankan Army and make a categorical assurance to the people of Tamil Nadu in this regard.

The training to Sri Lankan Army was shifted from Chennai after a row erupted in July but parties in Tamil Nadu oppose training to the personnel from the neighbouring country anywhere in India.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and DMK chief M Karunanidhi have been demanding that the training programme be scrapped immediately.

David Hemler: 28 years on the run

By Robin Banerji

David Hemler deserted from the US Air Force and was on its most-wanted list for 28 years. He assumed a false identity, got married and had a family in Sweden. But in the end, the truth came out.

It was 1984, the height of the Cold War, and President Ronald Reagan was deploying Pershing II missiles in West Germany. At the time David Hemler was a 21-year-old linguist working for the US Air Force in Augsburg, Bavaria. But he was not happy.

He approached his superiors and asked for a discharge on the grounds that he had become a pacifist.

Their response was to send him to see a psychiatrist.

"I did not think being a pacifist meant I was mentally ill. But I had been feeling bad," says Hemler. "At night I stayed up thinking and I could not sleep. I had difficulties eating also. I had passed out a few times."

The air force did not let him leave. Instead he was stripped of his top secret job and given work as a cleaner.

After a year cleaning floors, Hemler realised that the air force was not going to release him easily.

Just deserts?

• Pte Thomas Highgate was first UK soldier executed for desertion during WWI
• 306 executions by UK/ Commonwealth military
• US Pte Eddie Slovik was shot by a firing squad on 31 January 1945, the only American to be executed for desertion during WWII
• About 20,000 executed by Nazis for desertion or treason during WWII
• Both Nazis and Soviets used punishment battalions to prevent desertion
• US soldier Jeremy Hinzman (above) deserted and fled to Canada in 2004 to avoid fighting in Iraq
• US soldier Victor Agosto court martialled in 2009 for refusing to serve in Afghanistan

Continue reading the main story

David Hemler spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service

Full Story>>>

Missing And Forgotten

Sunday, September 02, 2012

Women holding up pictures of their missing family members and A wailing mother holds a picture of her missing son.

Kumarasamy Pathmanathan has a question. “If the war is over and if there is no problem in the country, why are they arresting people?”
Pathmanathan is one of the 300 people who showed up in the city of Vavuniya on Thursday, August 30, holding up pictures of a loved one who has gone missing. In his case, it’s his daughter, 31-year old Vasanthamala.
The crowd gathered to commemorate their missing on the International Day of the Disappeared, and to call on the government to take steps to find out whether they are alive – or what had happened to them.
They started with a peaceful demonstration in the heart of Vavuniya city, and then proceeded to the temple by foot, with plans of then going to the church, Kovil and the mosque. At the temple, one woman holds up a large picture of her son and starts calling out to a God different from her own. What starts soft turns louder and she soon starts wailing about her son who has gone missing, withheld tears finally pouring down from her eyes. Her cries – and tears – evokes the emotions that others have so far hid. In a matter of minutes, the crowd splits into two distinctive groups.

Basil Rajapaksa's men threaten Tamil-speaking voters: Sampanthan, Hakeem

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 September 2012, 15:31 GMT]
More than one thousand men sent under the instruction of SL Presidential sibling and Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapakse have been engaged in intimidating Tamils and Muslims in the three districts of the eastern province namely Ampaarai, Batticaloa and Trincomalee that they would face serious consequences if they fail to vote for the ruling United Peoples Freedom Party in the forthcoming election to the Eastern Provincial Council that is scheduled to be held on Saturday, September 8 , according to complaints lodged with the Commissioner General of Elections by the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R.Sampanthan and Rauff Hakeem, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, who is also the Justice Minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's cabinet. Basil Rajapakse is also a minister in same cabinet. 

Gangs of persons dispatched by Minister Basil Rajapakse are said to be Samurdhi officers known as ‘social service officers’ of the occupying Sri Lanka government. 

They are reportedly roaming in villages in the three district wearing blue color shirts, visiting every household along with local candidates of the ruling UPFA warning the voters belong to two communities Tamil and Muslim that if they fail to vote that they have to repent after the poll. 

Mr Sampanthan and Mr Hakeem have also requested the Commissioner General of Elections to take immediate steps by stopping unruly elements creating terror and to ensure peaceful free and fair election in the eastern province.

Tony Blair should face trial over Iraq war, says Desmond Tutu-                                                                                                                                                                                   

Anti-apartheid hero attacks former prime minister over 'double standards -on war crimes'
Toby Helm, political editor
The Observer, Sunday 2 September 2012

Tony Blair has strongly contested Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s views. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war.

Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided "than any other conflict in history".

Writing in the Observer, Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran.

"The then leaders of the United States and Great Britain," Tutu argues, "fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us."

But it is Tutu's call for Blair and Bush to face justice in The Hague that is most startling. Claiming that different standards appear to be set for prosecuting African leaders and western ones, he says the death toll during and after the Iraq conflict is sufficient on its own for Blair and Bush to be tried at the ICC.

"On these grounds, alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague," he says.

The court hears cases on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. To date, 16 cases have been brought before the court but only one, that of Thomas Lubanga, a rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been completed. He was sentenced earlier this year to 14 years' imprisonment for his part in war crimes in his home country.

Tutu's broadside is evidence of the shadow still cast by Iraq over Blair's post-prime ministerial career, as he attempts to rehabilitate himself in British public life. A longtime critic of the Iraq war, the archbishop pulled out of a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair, who was paid 2m rand (£150,000) for his time, was attending. It is understood that Tutu had agreed to speak without a fee.

In his article, the archbishop argues that as well as the death toll, there has been a heavy moral cost to civilisation, with no gain. "Even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.

"Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?" Blair and Bush, he says, set an appalling example. "If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth?" he asks.

"If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?"

In a statement, Blair strongly contested Tutu's views and said Iraq was now a more prosperous country than it had been under Saddam Hussein. "I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.

"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre. We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.

"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time.

"In short, this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.

"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with the child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."

• This article was amended on 2 September 2012 to remove an incorrect paragraph concerning ongoing criminal proceedings at The Hague

Agony Without Ecstasy On The Long-Distance Buses

 Sunday, September 02, 2012

Nearly all the buses appear to be operated with a passenger unfriendly ‘Fleece them’ motive

 Colombo-Jaffna Express Buses Are Veritable Death Traps
Plying between Colombo and Jaffna every night each way are about 50 buses and many more during the weekends. Nearly all of them, it appears, are operated with a passenger unfriendly ‘Fleece them’ motive. There have been some horrendous accidents already, yet the public have not reacted. This is no que sera sera business; it is a matter of life and death.
Some buses, but too few to canvas favourable consideration, have plus points The bus operators call them AC Luxury, Non-AC Semi-luxury and Ordinary. And none have toilets on board and neither are there any along the way except for a badly maintained one at the temple stop at Murugandy.  You pay Rs. 10 for its use; a few weeks ago it was Rs. 5 and the chaps working there can be quite insulting.

Everything inferior in SL ! - Earlier fuel ; Now drugs imported by Maithri-bala (inferior Health Minister)

(Lanka-e-News -02.Sep.2012, 6.00PM) It is a widely known fact that the Health Minister Maithribala Sirisena made loud and proud announcements that during his tenure of office , no inferior quality drugs had been imported. But , now it has been proved without any doubt that 67 varieties of drugs of low quality had been got down during this year alone under his Ministry. Therefore the Minister is a blatant and shameless liar, as revealed by Jayantha Bandara , the Secretary of the Senaka Bibile memorial Organization . 

Bandara stated that , according to the drug analysis reports , already this year alone , 67 sub standard drugs had been imported , and they have been dispensed through the Hospitals to the patients, whereby the patients are facing inevitable grave life risks . While this vacuous Minister Maithri bala is waxing eloquent about his efficiency , the whole country has come to know of his true deficiencies , and the substandard drugs (bala drugs) that were imported during this year until July 2012 for which he is fully responsible . The list of substandard drugs imported are given hereunder :

3 varieties in January 
13 varieties in February
9 varieties in March
4 varieties in April
7 varieties in May
16 varieties in June
15 varieties in July.

There are also details of the substandard drugs imported during the other months , but we furnish below only 15 varieties of substandard drugs got down by loud mouthed substandard Minister Maithri bala in July alone:

Quality Defects in Pharmaceuticals Reported During the month of July 2012
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01. Cefuroxime for Injection 750mg - Swiss Parenterals Pvt. Ltd, India. - Presence of a piece of glass inside a reconstituted vial
02. Calcium gluconate Injection 10% - Star Drugs & Research Labs Ltd, - India. - Presence of visible particles in intact ampoules
03. Cephalexin Oral Suspension - Kaushik Therapeutics, India - Contents do not dissolve properly
04. Chlorpheniramine Tablets - Nestor Pharmaceuticals Ltd, - India. - Failure in the tests for related substances & friability
05. Cloxacillin Injection 250mg - Makcur Laboratories, India. - Failure in the test for water; sealing defects, presence of foreign objects in reconstituted vials
06. Coamoxyclav for Injection 1.2G - AMN Life Sciences, India. - Failure in the test for water
07. Coamoxyclav for Injection 1.2G Ranbaxy Laboratories, India. - Failure in the tests for assay & water
08. Domperidone Oral Suspension 5mg/5ml, 100ml - Unijules Life Sciences Ltd, India. - Failure in the tests for microbial contamination
09. Glucose Injection 50%, 50ml - Nirma Ltd, India. - Presence of visible particles
10. Glyceryl trinitrate Tablets 500mcg Actavis, United Kingdom - Failure in the test for disintegration
11. Isopropyl Alcohol - Safe House, Kalutara, Sri Lanka. - Failure in the test for identification
12. Metformin Tablets 500mg - Venus International, India. - Deviation from definition (uncoated tablets)
13. Phenoxymethylpenicillin Tablets 250mg - Arvind Remedies Ltd, India. - Failure in the test for friability; tablet defects
14. Povidone-Iodine Solution 10% - Central Drugs & Pharmaceuticals, India. - Failure in the test for assay
15. Vincristine sulfate Injection 1mg - Naprod Lifesciences, India. - Shrinkage of lyophilized mass; almost empty vials
It is specially noteworthy that all these inferior drugs had been imported from India. Many of these drugs meant for Diabetes, High blood pressure , respiratory ailments, cancer, Asthma, mental ailments , emergency medications, essential antibiotics and several others had already been dispensed .

In addition , syringes, Catheter, Cotton, Gauze, and other pharmaceutical equipments including medical stitching requirements , which are all substandard had been distributed and used on patients. The patients’ recovery notwithstanding , their lives are definitely at stake. Moreover , the patients are going to lose financially too. 
Because of these substandard antibiotics, the patients are facing long term risks by their use, as they are being exposed to other multiple bacterial infections , which can eventually make this country most infection ridden, and disease abounding .

The Secretary of the Senaka Bibile memorial Organization , therefore said , it is very evident that there is a huge illicit Commission motive sacrificing national health and interests of the patients behind these substandard drug import , for the Health Minister Maithribala had so far not taken any action against any of the pharmaceutical Companies that are involved in these rackets.