Ruling Siblings, The Sinhala-Buddhist Heartland And The Electoral Truths

By Tisaranee Gunasekara -September 15, 2012 

“And the people bowed and prayed, To the neon god they made” Simon and Garfunkel  (The Sound of Silence)

How more blatant can it get? President Mahinda Rajapaksa had reportedly wanted a special exposition of Kapilawastu-relics at Temple Trees. ‘Relic diplomacy’ is a standard weapon in the arsenal of those in possession of movable holy-objects, from the Catholic Church to India and China. The Rajapaksa version is relic-politics: using sacred items venerated by masses of believers as a means to bridge popularity deficits.

Kapilawastu-relics were brought to Sri Lanka in 1978, when the Jayewardene administration was  implementinga broad expanse of less than popular measures (such as the abolition of the rice-ration book), in an economic atmosphere reeking of steep inflation and growing income inequalities. The UNP government, though more popular than the SLFP-led opposition, needed diversions to keep public attention away from insalubrious economic issues.  The Opposition understood the stratagem and condemned it as a blatant attempt to use religion to gain political mileage; the more radical elements within the Opposition even claimed that the relics were ersatz.

Mahinda Rajapaksa was a leading light and a very vocal voice of that opposition which condemned the UNP’s unholy use of relic-politics. 34 years later the same Mahinda Rajapaksa made a far crasser effort to exploit relic-politics to his electoral and familial advantage. The first round of provincial council elections conflated perfectly with the arrival of the relics in Sri Lanka. Even if that timing is passed off as a fortuitous coincidence, the fact that the national peregrination of the relics made the three first stops in the three provinces where polling was scheduled indicates that the relics were used to buttress the UPFA’s electoral fortunes. From Kelaniya, the relics were taken to Pelmadulla (Sabaragamuwa Province), Anuradhapura (North Central Province) and Kantale (Eastern Province). That schedule was a blatant political decision aimed at drumming up electoral support for the UPFA; just as the appointment of Presidential offspring Namal Rajapaksa as the ‘lay custodian’ of the relics was motivated by the need to create an identification in the public mind between these objects of public veneration and the Ruling Family.

Race and religion are potent weapons in the Rajapaksa arsenal and the Ruling Family does not hesitate to use both with a meaty-fist. Burnishing the image of the Rajapaksas as the ‘sole protectors’ of Sinhalese and Sinhala Buddhism is especially handy when the regime’s Southern base is in need of fortification. For instance, during the grand finale of the Defence Ministry organised reality-show, Ranaviru Real Star in the election year of 2011, actor-filmmaker Jackson Anthony claimed that the Rajapaksas are related to the Buddha himself via King Dutugemunu!

The request to allow a special exposition of the relics at Temple Trees was taking the relic-politics to a new, embarrassingly coarse low. The Indians reportedly refused, arguing that Temple Trees was not a “place of worship and that it is merely the official residence of the Prime Minister or the President” (Ceylon Today – 9.9.2012). This need to strengthen the nexus in the public mind between the Rajapaksas andBuddhism/Gautama Buddha becomes explicable when the election results are analysed.

Electoral Truths

The UPFA won the first round of PC polls as anticipated. This wholly expected and totally unsurprising victory hides a deeper malaise – the UPFA’s vote base is eroding. Compared to its performance at the 2011 local government elections, the UPFA’s tally has declined by 58,908 votes in the North Central Province and 60,454 votes in the Sabaragamuwa Province. Even if the decrease in the Sabaragamuwa province can be partially attributed to the CWC factor, it is not so in the case of the very Sinhala and very Buddhist Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. The UPFA vote in the North Central Province has decreased by about 15% in just one year; clearly the water-starved farmers of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa found the UPFA’s fairy tales somewhat harder to stomach.

The UPFA base is eroding, and not very glacially either; and that erosion is symbolic and symbiotic of the slow weakening of the Rajapaksa magic.

This decrease in the UPFA’s vote should be seen in conjunction with the small vote gain by the UNP, a party in the midst of a veritable existential crisis. The UPFA lost votes despite the best efforts of the Rajapaksas to win votes. The UNP gained 50,670 votes in the North Central province (it lost 9,090 votes in the Sabaragamuwa province), despite the untiring efforts of Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and Alternate LeaderSajith Premadasa to push ordinary UNPers into apathetic despair with their ill-timed and juvenile antics.

The JVP is finished as an electoral force. It cannot compete with the Rajapaksas on the ‘patriotic’ front with its anti-devolution, anti-Indian platform (the mainstay of the Second Insurgency) under Rajapaksa occupation. If the JVP cannot remake itself as a modern left party, it will decline into total irrelevance a la the old left.
But the UNP is still not dead, and that is a measure of the growing public disenchantment with Familial Rule. However, the elephant’s unexpected return to flickering life will be lost, if the UNP does not get its act together. Consequently the Rajapaksas will do all they can to worsen the internal conflict in the UNP.

Apart from the TNA (sometimes the SLMC), the UNP is the sole surviving opposition party. No serious effort at resisting Rajapaksa rule can get off the ground without taking into account this reality. There will have to be a return to Ranasinghe Premadasa’s alliance of the poor and the powerless, of the economic have-nots and the minorities (plus the discontented elements of upper and middle classes) – a policy prescription which seems to be as alien to Sajith Premadasa as it is to Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Massive billboards (managed by the Presidential media unit) hailing President Rajapaksa as ‘Our President forever’ are mushrooming in Colombo. The first principle of Rajapaksa politics is familial power. Anything which impedes familial power is opposed while anything which enhances familial power is promoted. So the forthcoming rounds of provincial polls will be characterised by even greater abuses of state power and resources. So Mahinda Rajapaksa, the progenitor of the Workers’ Charter, is trying to impose arbitration on the striking University dons; as the FUTA pointed out, this demand indicates “duplicity on the part of the government…(and) raises issues of tremendous concern with regard to the state of governance in this country” (Colombo Telegraph – 11.9.2012). So the Education Ministry works tirelessly to militarise the school system: “Selected school principals are being offered the ‘Colonel’ rank, following a one-week training programme which commenced this week… 23 principals had been called for interviews in Rantambe…” (Ceylon Today – 13.9.2012).

The realisation that the Ruling Siblings are nothing but illusion-manufacturing ‘neon gods’ is beginning to seep slowly from the cities into the Sinhala-Buddhist heartland. In the absence of a strong opposition this erosion of Rajapaksa magic will happen too slowly to challenge Rajapaksa Rule any time soon. But its very existence will make the Siblings nervous. The foreseeable future will not contain a regime change, but it may well bring about more dissent and greater repression.

Sri Lanka

 

Saving Sri Lankan lives through open data

ReliefWeb (Colombo 13 September 2013)

In the last 34 years natural disasters have killed more than 37,000 Sri Lankans. As recently as November 2010, heavy monsoon rains triggered devastating floods in parts of the country, affecting close to 1.2 million people (319,451 families). Thousands of families lost their livelihoods. Some 30,000 houses were partially damaged or completely destroyed and 300,000 hectares of rice paddy was ruined. The economic cost of disasters over the last ten years in Sri Lanka exceeded LKR 257 billion rupees, or USD 1.95 billion dollars.

In an effort to mitigate the effects of disasters, the Survey Department of Sri Lanka and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) signed a historic agreement for Digital Data Dissemination on 13 September 2012. The agreement, the first of its kind between the Government and the United Nations, allows for organisations to freely use Government geographic data for disaster management purposes.

Numerous challenges arise for national authorities and partners when responding to a major disaster: recording the damage to housing, infrastructure, and services; tracking displaced people; distributing food and water; and coordinating the work of humanitarian organisations. Ensuring these organisations all use the same geographic data is essential if the information is to be shared quickly with the Government, as well as other humanitarian partners.

Mr. Mahesh Fernando, the Surveyor General of the Survey Department of Sri Lanka, said that this agreement “will assist in addressing information gaps in disaster management by improving how disaster related information is analysed, as well facilitating better decision making.” Both the Government and UNOCHA underscored the pivotal role that common data standards make towards making disaster preparedness and response activities more efficient and effective.

Mr. Brendan McDonald, Head of UNOCHA Sri Lanka, said that the agreement was “a practical example of the Government’s commitment to the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action” which was adopted by the Government in 2005 at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, Japan. He also said that the agreement reflected how the Government and the United Nations work together to build sustainable partnerships in advance of disasters. This partnership can reduce the impact of disasters on people’s lives, as well as the Sri Lankan economy and environment.

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit http://unocha.org/.

Govt. has machinery to do things their way
Sunday 16 September 2012

– Tilvin Silva

By Padmini Matarage

General Secretary of the JVP Tilvin Silva says that there is a tendency for people to complain against the government, criticize it, but at the same time, vote with the side that wins. The voters also vote without studying what is good, but merely drift towards the winning side.
Excerpts:

You suffered a humiliating defeat at the recently concluded Provincial Council Election. What are the reasons?  
We accept that it is a defeat for us when we lose, whatever the election is, not only at the PC elections.  The reason why we are not accepting it as a political defeat is because, looking at the  motives of the government and the motives of those who voted, it was clear that the  government used force to win the elections – such as force, coercion, bribery and thuggery. Therefore, we cannot rule this as an independent, free and fair election. That is because the  ruling party has all the power at its disposal.  That is why the people who are opposed to the government stay away from the elections  or they maintain silence. We will continue our struggle to find solutions for the problems  of the people. Our target is to carry on with the struggle for the people while also attempting to increase our vote base.   
The JVP had 41 seats in 2004 and it gifted some  to the SLFP in 2004. Was that election fair? Is it only when you lose that elections become unfair ? 
We should understand that there is no electoral system within the capitalist class system that would be fair. But we have to remember that the SLFP was in the opposition and so was Ms Kumaratunga. It was the UNP  which was in power. 
However, the situation in the country is different today. The president and the government are on that side. They have all the machinery to do things their way. That is how the media also operates. They use the state media to conduct propaganda for the government on a round the clock basis and they also project a wrong image of the parties which are  opposing the government. So, how can such an election be fair? 

You say that you will take to the streets holding countrywide protests on a staggered basis against the government.  
The people have given all the support that we need for protest campaigns. These  struggles are based on the wants of the people. No one can create artificial struggles. Similarly, no one could integrate these struggles either. These are not artificial instruments which have been created.   
Generally, protests are carried out by the opposition as a united opposition, but all your agitations are conducted alone. Why? And you don’t seem to have the full clout of an opposition protest.
The JVP has a clear target of what it wants to achieve but we have participated in common struggles as well for the common cause such as at the time we teamed up with other political parties when university dons had a problem. It was the same when we wanted free education protected as well. We were with the students and the parents in that instance. We will not join an integrated opposition which will help to form a capitalist party. 

You  made many allegations against the government. But the voters voted for the government. Why didn’t they listen to you if your stance was sincere?
This is definite pattern in the Asian region which we are not satisfied about. There is a need to stir up a debate on this and we need to think about it as well. There is a tendency for people to complain against the government, criticize it but at the same time, vote with the side that wins! 
The voters also vote without studying what is good, and merely drift to the winning side.  There are the people who are poor and who are suffering and it is that segment that the politicians thrive on. The people who are also poor  and the deprived, also attempt to pursue these shortcuts as well.

Provincial Elections: Mahinda Doesn’t Care One Hoot For Local

By Kumar David -

Prof. Kumar David

Statistics is a dangerous game and electoral statistics are quicksand, hence I will draw only the broadest conclusions from the outcome of the threeProvincial Council elections of  September 8. The first impression and one that is valid is that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA has held its ground in the Sinhalese heartland – what are the implications of this for the next three to four years up to the next presidential elections? The second outcome is that the TNA (strictly it was the Illangai Thamil Arasu Katchi – ITAK – that contested alone) has emerged as the principal representative of the Tamil people of the East. What does that say about the Northern Province? And thirdly, what does the UPFA’s sucess imply for the apparently paradoxical wave of anti-government sentiment that is sweeping across the Colombo classes (bourgeoisie, elite and fixed income working and middle classes)? What are the real qualitative changes implied and hidden in these results and to what extent do these results matter so far as medium term political fundamentals are concerned? I will mull over these questions.

The basic statistics are mandatory; the UPFA took 60% of the vote in the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kegalle and Ratnapura Districts, which along with the Southern Province – which did no go to elections – constitutes the Sinhalese heartland. The UNP was able to garner only 35% in each of these districts. Does this say it all; is the Sinhala-Buddhist petty bourgeoisie still rock solid with the government? In the main yes, but with reservations. What reservations?

I believe that the percentage poll at between 60-65% is on the low side even for a PC election though I have not had time to search through the statistics of all previous PC elections. If some 5-10% more than usual refrained from voting, it is likely to be opposition voters who realiszed that theirs was a lost cause. In any case, in Sri Lanka, the ruling party invariably wins provincial and local government elections. This is the opposite of the experience in Europe and America where by-elections are an opportunity for people to express dissent. Lanka’s contrarian behaviour is to do with the profound corruption of a public whose main interest is to be on the government’s side and be well positioned to extract favours.

There is also the need to compare voting trends – but should we compare with the 2008 PC polls in the middle of the war or the 2010 parliamentary poll when the UPFA was riding high on a wave of victorious post-war jingoism? Let’s do both. In 2008, the UPFA share was 56% and 59% in the NCP and Sabaragamuga respectively, and the UNP 38% and 41%, respectively. In round number we can then say that the UPFA has improved by about 3%, and UNP declined by about 5%, in 2012, if the 2008 PC elections are used as a benchmark.
Comparison with the 2010 parliamentary vote in the same group of districts indicates an opposite trend. At that election the UPFA polled 66% in the electorates of these districts and provinces while the UNP took about 30%. Hence we can conclude that the UPFA has lost and the UNP gained about 5% in the 2012 PC poll, if the 2010 parliamentary poll is used as a benchmark.

In summary, in respect of the Sinhalese heartland, we can say that the UPFA vote rose from 58% in 2008 to 66% in 2010 and fell back to 60% in 2012. The UNP share of the vote fell from 39% in 2008, to 31% 2010, but recovered to 35% in 2012. The broad conclusion is that the UNP has recovered about half the ground that it lost between 2008 and 2010, during the past two years.

What significance?                                            Read More

Traders in North face dilemma as banks stop loans

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 15:55 GMT]
Eezham Tamil business community in the Jaffna peninsula and the Vanni mainland are in a dilemma as all Sri Lankan banks in public and private sectors have suddenly stopped issuing loans and also have increased the rate of interest to loans already issued by four percent. The entire business activity in the districts of Jaffna and Ki'linochchi has come to a grind halt, according to Mr.R.Jayasekaram, the president of the Jaffna Chamber of Commerce. 

Several Tamil traders have closed their businesses as they are unable to repay the loans already borrowed from the banks, he told media at the office of a Traders Association held at Maanippaay on Thursday morning.   He added that the sudden termination of issuing loans to businesses is the starting point for the major economic crisis for the entire business community in the peninsula.   “More than one hundred and fifty branches of public and private sector banks are functioning in the peninsula. These bank branches were established after the war under the theme to provide livelihood assistance to people. However, these bank branches have not provided any social welfare facilities or livelihood assistance to the affected, instead they were functioning with the sole purpose of earning profit,” he said. 

“Many traders with the loans obtained from these bank branches have already launched their business activities. But, the bank branches phased down the amount of loans issued to the traders six months ago. Now the branches have stopped providing loans completely,” Mr.Jayasekaram said.   Majority of business people have mortgaged their properties to these banks to obtain loans. Now they are left in the lurch to find money to run their businesses, he said.

Editorial-Commonwealth and Democracy
Sunday 16 September 2012
In the history of mankind, there have been only two liberal empires. One is an empire in decline, the United States of America, which undoubtedly shaped the global order more than any other world power since the end of the Second World War, and more prominently since its democratic message that prevailed during the Cold War. Though not an empire in its traditional sense, it is an empire by virtue of its sheer military power, economy, cultural influence, technological superiority, institutions of global academic excellence and the worldwide alliances it maintains. 
The other empire was more explicit in its imperial conquests. Despite its moral justification that it was embarking on ‘a civilizing mission’ in the 18th and 19th Centuries, the beginning of imperial Britain was marked by commercial domination, exploitation of native communities, and a series of famines and brutal crackdowns of local rebellions. In colonial Ceylon, the imperial British killed one per cent of the native population to suppress the popular Wellassa rebellion in 1818. In colonial India, the rule of the British raj was regularly tainted by famines that killed millions of natives. 
However, in the second half, the political dominance became the thrust of the colonial rule and with that emerged a marked shift towards classical liberal values and the increasing participation of locals in system of governance. By the end of the 19th Century, the colonial reform efforts gradually evolved to resemble the theoretical justification of colonial rule offered by Edmund Burke, an 18th Century British politician: “The British Empire must be governed on a plan of freedom, for it will be governed by no other.” 
The British Empire abolished slave trade, introduced Westminster styled governments, universal franchise and in some places, such as in colonial Ceylon, laid the foundation of the welfare state. Free education was introduced to Sri Lanka while it was still a British colony.
By the time of its dissolution, the British Empire left a group of newly independent nations, governed by the rule of law and educated local elites capable of shaping the destinies of their new nations. It is nevertheless open to question as to whether those elites lived up to their expectations. Countries such as Nigeria, which held so much potential at the time of gaining independence were looted by their own post-independent rulers. Most of the former British colonies evolved to be imperfect democracies, while others, ranging from Uganda to Pakistan fell into the hands of despots and military dictators. 
However, by virtue of its reformist credentials, the British Empire left a positive balance sheet. In moral terms, it reigned supremacy over the other imperial projects at that time – the French, Dutch, Japanese and Belgian, etc. It was a liberal empire and it managed its decline magnificently — despite occasional hiccups in certain places such as Malaysia, Kenya, Burma, etc. Its cultural and intellectual influence has withstood the decline of its economic clout and democratic institutions and traditions it introduced continue to shape the governance of its former colonies.
In the coming year, the 54 member-bloc of former British colonies will meet in Sri Lanka for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). As a precursor to it, the Commonwealth Parliamentarians Conference was held in Colombo, last week. One proposal taken up at the meeting was the creation of the office of the Commonwealth commissioner for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The proposal championed by Canada, Australia and New Zealand was vehemently opposed by Sri Lanka and some of our Asian neighbours  such as Pakistan. Sri Lankan government argued that the new commissioner would duplicate the role already played by the UN high commissioner for human rights. This theoretical opposition is both self-serving and flawed. 
First, UN, on some occasions, has notoriously been slow in acting against blatant human rights violations. Rwandan genocide is a case in point and the unfolding carnage in Syria is a more recent example.  
Second, local or regional blocs have proved to be far more effective in handling local situations, as the Arab League’s recent intervention in Libya indicated. 
Third, human rights and democracy are universal values, which should not be the exclusive prerogative of the United Nations.
Fourth, it is obvious that the objection of countries such as ours and Pakistan to the new commissioner of human rights stems from the fear that the Commonwealth would more aggressively get involved in domestic affairs. Sure enough, both countries need to strengthen their record in human rights, good governance and democracy. Though a Commonwealth oversight on local human rights and other related issues could be an irritant for the Government of Sri Lanka, which would be hosting CHOGM next year, it would also provide an impetus for the government to reform and strengthen its democratic institutions, and respect the fundamental rights of its own people. That is more the reason why countries like ours should support the creation of the new post of commissioner for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Rage on the Arab street, and Deficit of Tolerance

The anti-Islam low budget movie, Innocence of Muslims is repulsive and deplorable, to say the least. The only objective of its creators, it appears, was to instigate Muslims and cause mayhem. Many an Islamic fanatic played into the hands of movie directors, alleged to be a group of American Christian right-wingers and a disgruntled Egyptian Coptic Christian. The American ambassador to Libya was killed by Salafist mobs inside the consulate in Benghazi, a town he helped save from a massacre by the Gaddafi regime. Anti-American protests have turned into an orgy of violence in Egypt and Yemen.
While the movie was inflammatory and highly insulting to Muslims, ensuing violence on Arab streets is a pointer to a sad, though not uniquely, Arab phenomenon, i.e. deficit of tolerance;  whether such intolerance stems from cultural and religious ethos in the Arab world is open to question. The manifestations of intolerance and Islamic fundamentalism could also be a result of long years of suppression by autocratic and despotic regimes which ruled those countries.  
However one thing is abundantly clear. Despite the initial fun-fair at the ouster of old dictators, the democratic project in the Arab world has only begun. It is now at the crossroads. Forces unleashed by the Arab Spring could go either way; to create moderate Islamic democracies like Indonesia and Turkey, or theocracies like Iran. One could only hope and pray that no country would opt to emulate Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Even More Outrageous Conduct From Those Who Don’t Seem To Know The Meaning Of The Term!

By Emil van der Poorten -September 16, 2012

Emil van der Poorten

Recent news reports about the performance of this government, collectively and its separate elements up to and including the Chief Executive, makes one shake one’s head in puzzlement. That puzzlement does NOT stem from the disorientation that might come from having spent better than three decades in an “orthodox” democratic country before returning to the Miracle of Asia.

You have a man, Thilak Karunaratne, who speaks to the fact that he was arm-twisted into accepting the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission making statements that simply accuse the very Chief Executive whom he considers (considered?) a trustworthy friend pushing him out of a regulatory role where he was expected to “clean house”. His crime?  Trying to do just that!

You have a politician on the stump in the recent provincial election campaign exhorting his supporters to “be not afraid” because they will be saved from the consequences of committing capital crimes if those crimes are committed in the promotion of the ruling party’s interests.
You have Mervin Silva threatening to interfere with the rituals of a Hindu temple, rituals that are considered sacrosanct by adherents of that religion.  With no admonition, contradiction or even attempt at defusing such inflammatory rhetoric from On High.  Does anyone remember the mosque attack in Dambulla and the eerie similarity of response from the forces of law and order?

You have haphazard actions by the Elections Commissioner, pecking away at inconsequentialities in a rotten-to-the-core bunch of Provincial Election campaigns.  Given, by his own admission, the (again) monumental contravention of every election law still on the statute books, why is it seemingly inconceivable that this man should have, at least threatened to cancel the polls or their results and compel a government which was brazenly contravening every election law on the books to go back to square one in the process?  Wasn’t this the only threat that was likely to get the attention of those concerned for even one fleeting moment?
Ah! But no, serving the rulers of the Miracle of Asia must take precedence over every principle of decency mustn’t it?                              Read More

International civil society urged to act on CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka

Commonwealth parliamentary delegates visiting Jaffna, received by the occupying Sinhala military commander Maj Gen Mahinda Hathurusinghe [Photo courtesy: Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna]

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 September 2012, 21:38 GMT]
After seeing the behaviour of today’s establishments in the Commonwealth that was once known for its effective action against South Africa’s apartheid, and after seeing the Indian diplomat turned Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma stretching his position to uphold the genocidal state and regime in Sri Lanka, the gagged Eezham Tamil civil society activists in the island urged the International Human Rights Organizations to come out with an international civil society boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in November 2013. They also urged understanding governments in Canada, Tamil Nadu state and elsewhere to lead the international civil society paradigm, and the international media to help such a paradigm. The diaspora should be awakened to new struggle strategies, they further urged. 

Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma visiting Colombo this week urged Canada to drop its boycott move of the CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka in November 2013.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stand is that he would not attend the meet unless Sri Lanka addresses the war crimes charges. During the CHOGM meet at Perth last year, Canada and Australia were vocal at Sri Lanka’s accountability issue and Canada opposed the Sri Lanka venue of the 2013 meet.

Commonwealth parliamentarians hosted in SL occupied Jaffna

Full story >>

Maithri comes to Berty’s aid

Sunday, 16 September 2012

SLFP Secretary, Minister Maithripala Sirisena has been engaged in a cold war with former North Central Province Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake over the post of chief ministering the province. However, Sirisena on the 12^th has said that Dissanayake should be re-appointed as the North Central Province Chief Minister considering his seniority in the party and politics.

Sirisena had made this comment during a discussion on the appointment of a chief minister to the North Central Province and all senior SLFP members have unanimously endorsed Sirisena’s proposal. The senior SLFPers have said that sidelining Dissanayake would have a negative impact on the party in future.

Meanwhile, Minister S.M. Chandrasena had told a senior Presidential staff member at Temple Trees that any move to re-appoint Dissanayake would result in the downfall of the SLFP. Chandrasena had told the official that the provincial council election was won entirely because of the President.

Dissanayake’s media coordinator said the President had promised to re-appoint him as the North Central Province Chief Minister.

The media coordinator had added that Dissanayake had to face many obstacles even from senior party members during the election campaign and that Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa had helped, Chandrasena’s brother, S.M. Ranjith get the highest number of preferential votes.

He noted that the Economic Development Ministry had made financial allocation for Ranjith to distribute 200,000 mammoties at a cost of Rs. 900 each during his election campaign. A sum of Rs. 186 million had been spent on the programme.

Euthanasia: Political, Social And Health Dilemmas

By Ruwan M Jayatunge M.D -September 16, 2012

Dr. Ruwan M Jayatunge MD

You don’t need to kill the patient to kill the pain –Dr. Andre Bourque University of Montréal

Euthanasia or assisted suicide is a controversial topic that is defined as deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life, to relieve intractable suffering. Today several countries have legalized euthanasia and some view it as a human right. Those who support euthanasia point out that the importance of personal autonomy and self-determination, the right of every human being to have his / her wishes respected in decisions involving his / her own body and the recognition of every human being is in principle, master of his/ her own destiny.

In 2002 Holland became the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia and in 2003, 1626 cases were officially reported fromHolland. The Dutch euthanasia law gives doctors immunity from prosecution if they help to kill patients over the age of 12 who are suffering unbearably from incurable conditions and who have repeatedly requested euthanasia.

Euthanasia Guidelines in Holland

The Dutch laid out narrow guidelines for doctors: The patient, who must be suffering unbearably and have no hope of improvement, must ask to die. The patient must clearly understand the condition and prognosis and a second doctor must agree with the decision to help the patient die.

Euthanasia in Belgium

Belgiumlegalized euthanasia in 2002, but the laws seem to encompass assisted suicide as well. Since its legalization eight years ago, euthanasia now accounts for 2 per cent of deaths in Belgium- or around 2,000 a year. Two doctors must be involved, as well as a psychologist if the patient’s  competency is in doubt. The doctor and patient negotiate whether death is to be by lethal injection or prescribed overdose.

Oregon Death with Dignity law

In 1994, voters in the state of Oregonapproved a ballot measure that would have legalized euthanasia under limited conditions. Under the Death with Dignity law, a person who sought physician-assisted suicide would have to meet certain criteria. In order to qualify for physician-assisted suicide, a person must be an Oregonresident, 18 years of age or older, must have decision-making capacity, and must be suffering from a terminal disease that will lead to death within six months.

Forced Euthanasia                   Read More

The end of war in Sri Lanka, captured for posterity by Google Earth

The end of war in Sri Lanka, captured for posterity by Google Earth

Groundview

When in early 2009, UNOSAT released satellite imagery of what later turned out to be the final weeks of Sri Lanka’s 27-year old war with the LTTE, the images were met with vehement Government condemnation, and counter-analysis by the Ministry of Defence. During this heady, hellish time, the subject of The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lankan & The Last Days of the Tamil Tigers by former UN spokesman Gordon Weiss and the recently released Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War by the former BBC correspondent Frances Harrison, while the President assured Sri Lankans and the world that heavy weapons weren’t being used, the satellite images from UNOSAT added to the confusion, showing clear and widespread indications of heavy shelling. The question then became when the shelling occurred. From the report by the UN Panel of Experts, appointed by the UN Secretary General to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report, the trading of allegations and counter-allegations over the use of heavy weapons and the deliberate targeting of civilians continues apace. It is a heated, deadly serious debate.

When, for obvious reasons, during the UN HRC sessions in March this year, a web news report titled Is Google Earth Hiding Sri Lanka’s Ghosts? was published, the attention of Groundviewswas directed towards the existence, on Google Maps and Google Earth (which largely share common geo-spatial tiles and database), of imagery focussing on the North East of Sri Lanka, taken from the first quarter of 2009. The original story was largely conspiratorial – alleging that Google was somehow, through careful blurring of ground truths in their geo-spatial database, aiding the Sri Lankan government escape war crimes charges. The real story was thus missed – the existence of this imagery, which no one in Sri Lanka including the government and no international human rights organisation we know of, have studied or flagged in detail.

This is a first and non-exhaustive crack at exploring this vast imagery. We sincerely hope it contributes to a larger, crowdsourced investigation into what this imagery can reveal about those final brutal weeks of war. Groundviews is guided by two key reports, both published by UNOSAT.

1. Satellite Atlas: Civilian Safety Zone (CSZ) Mulattivu District, Sri Lanka, released 23 March 2009
2. Updated Analysis Report (19 April 2009) Satellite-Detected Damages and IDP Shelter Movement in CSZ, Mullativu District, Sri Lanka (the original location on UNOSAT servers doesn’t seem to work anymore, so this is a copy of the PDF we’ve uploaded anew)

Usually, satellite imagery is inaccessible for crowdsourced analysis because of one key factor – money. A single tile (say a frame of 1km by 1km) can cost thousands of dollars to acquire, making satellite image acquisition theoretically a commercial possibility, but in fact, impossible for any Human Rights organisation in Sri Lanka to even imagine undertaking. At scale and over time, this is not something even the largest International Human Rights organisations can afford.

Google Maps / Google Earth offer, for our purposes, two advantages over the acquisition of commercial satellite imagery, the cost saving aside. One, the availability of good enough satellite imagery to work with. The other, historical imagery, from 2009, to compare and contrast specific geographical areas and any visible changes. There is historical imagery from as far back as 2005 and up to the end of 2011, but for the purposes of this study, imagery dated 3/16/2009, 5/24/2009, 6/15/2009 and 9/8/2009, which show the most amount of detail on shelling and the locations of the so-called Civilian Safety Zones (CSZ), have been used extensively. A final advantage of crowdsourcing this kind of work is that it is, in a sense, open data. Anyone, from anywhere, for free, can confirm or contest a sighting of something interesting, and flag other points of interest.

What Google Maps and Earth does NOT enable one to do, given (1) the quality of some of the historical imagery (which sometimes features extensive cloud cover of vast regions) and (2) the large gaps between the available historical imagery (mid March, late May, after the official end of the war and killing of the LTTE’s leader, then mid-June and early August) is any robust analysis on when shelling in a specific region took place, and importantly, by whom. Resolution matters, and allows for certain kinds of analysis and spotting. While it is possible, for example, to discern the effects of shelling,

Click here for larger image.

at almost the same zoom level (the maximum possible without serious pixellation / image corruption), it is virtually impossible to discern with any accuracy what individuals or groups of IDPs were doing on the beachfront of CSZ on 3/16/2009.

Click here for larger image.

Ultimately, what Google Maps / Earth have recorded, and quite clearly, is the sheer scale and extent of the destruction and human displacement in Sri Lanka during the final phase of the war, between March and May 2009. Plotted on a map, seeing this is fundamentally different to reading about the same information in a static report. In all the examples below, we have extrapolated from the UNOSAT report lat/long coordinates you can copy and paste into Google Earth to quickly zoom into an area, and then use the time slider to go back to available imagery from previous years around that area.

For general orientation, the sliver of land sandwiched by lagoon and sea highlighted in grey below, between Puttumattalan in the North and Mullaitivu in the South, is the area of study.

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