Thursday, October 4, 2012

President orders Sajin Vass to show government’s gratitude to Hakeem

Thursday, 04 October 2012

The President has ordered his confidential financial advisor, parliamentarian Sajin Vass Gunawardena to provide for SLMC Leader, Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem for betraying the party and the Muslim community in order to support the government to form the Eastern Provincial Council, sources from New York said. Hakeem is currently in New York attending the UN General Assembly as part of the Sri Lankan delegation.

Sajin Vass had assigned the task to a Maldivian national called Suresh and asked him to attend to Hakeem’s needs without the notice of other members of the delegation. Several members of the delegation have however noticed Suresh secretly taking Hakeem out of his hotel at night to provide the entertainment required by him.

The duo after leaving the hotel saying they were going out for dinner have been seen re-entering the hotel at around 6 a.m. Suresh had taken Hakeem out for “dinner” every night. Members of the Sri Lankan delegation have said that Hakeem seem to be eating more than he could digest.

It could be that Hakeem has decided to get the maximum in New York since he would not be able to travel to the Eastern Province again.

Sri Lanka’s Policy Towards Witnesses Is Revenge, Not Reconciliation

By Frances Harrison –October 4, 2012

Frances Harrison

He looks like any other short dark balding Tamil man, wrapped in a thick fleece against the unfamiliar chill. A political refugee from northern Sri Lanka, now he lives in a tranquil landscape of pine trees and glaciers on the Atlantic Coast. Nobody in his country of refuge knows his past or gives him a second glance but back home patients, who owe him their lives, discretely visit his relatives to offer thanks. For them he’s a hero.

‘Call me Niron: I have to be careful. Any problem caused by me and they will take revenge,’ he says, referring to the Sri Lankan authorities who’ve been questioning his friends to find out where he escaped. ‘They were looking for me…Now they realise our importance as witnesses,’ he explains.

Dr Niron, not his real name, served as a doctor in northern Sri Lanka at the brutal culmination of the civil war in 2009 as the military used scorched earth tactics to crush Tamil insurgents, who in turn used child soldiers and suicide bombers. Though he worked inside rebel-held territory Dr. Niron was employed by the central government whose bureaucracy extended throughout the island.

When the Sri Lankan military drove the Tigers into a tiny pocket of land along the eastern coast, Dr Niron and hundreds of thousands of civilians went with the rebels, unaware that a bloodbath was coming in which the UN would later estimate up to 40,000 people died in just five months. Legal experts for the UN Secretary General later warned that Sri Lanka’s conduct “represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law” though there was evidence that both sides committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Though he had many opportunities to flee, Dr Niron decided his duty was to his patients. He stayed in the war zone even though the government ordered him out and stopped paying his salary.

As the frontline advanced and the population was crammed into a tiny sandy coastal spit, Dr Niron set up makeshift operating theatres in public buildings, homes, tents and then finally under a tree. In January 2009 he was the last person to speak to a young nurse minutes before she stepped into the yard of Uddayarkattu Hospital and was blown to pieces by a shell. She is just one of many colleagues Dr Niron mourns. Two thousand shells fell, he says, in those last ten days in January right inside an area the government had just declared safe for civilians.

There were far too many patients to operate on and life-saving drugs were running short. Normally the central government supplied civilian hospitals inside rebel areas but as the fighting intensified officials became less keen on helping people who might sympathise with the enemy. Dr Niron says all the government sent was paracetamol, allergy tablets, vitamins and a local anesthetic used for dental extraction. There was nothing to treat war wounds, despite desperate appeals from the doctors. A March 2009 Wikileaks cable has diplomats warning the Sri Lankan government that denying medical supplies to injured civilians was unconscionable. When the doctors themselves openly complained they were threatened with disciplinary action for embarrassing the government.

Blood for transfusions ran out. By the end Dr Niron was so desperate to save a sixteen-year-old-girl who needed bowel surgery, that he resorted to donating his own blood before operating. One of his worst memories is treating the survivors of an attack in April 2009 on a queue of women queuing for milk for their babies. In the hospital, he struggled to insert needles for the intravenous drips into the tiny veins of injured toddlers. ‘They were so small the veins would collapse. So we made small incisions and took the vein and put the drip in that way,’ he remembers, still haunted by the sound of those children crying.

As the shelling grew more intense, Dr Niron operated inside a bunker inside a building, reinforced with layers of sturdy palm-tree trunks and sandbags. One day a bomblet flew into the room and lodged itself in the roof. He believes it belonged to a cluster bomb – a weapon the Sri Lankan government denies having used. On another occasion the doctor believes he himself was injured by white phosphorous while in a densely populated civilian area. The initial blast was quite different from usual explosions and the resulting wounds were unlike anything he’d seen in his years in casualty wards.

At first Dr Niron assumed the attacks on his makeshift hospitals were a terrible accident. He had red crosses painted on the roofs of his buildings so they’d be clearly visible from the air. He sent the GPS coordinates of each new hospital to the International Red Cross so they could share the information with the Sri Lankan military. Every time he did this the makeshift hospitals were hit within days, if not hours. Eventually he learned his lesson. There were five smaller hospitals, with no red crosses, whose locations he never passed on. Not a single one of those five buildings was ever hit. Dr Niron concluded that the military were deliberately targeting hospitals. ‘They were attacking purposefully; they wanted to kill as many as possible,’ he says.

His conclusion is borne out by a United Nations report that found that all civilian hospitals on the frontline were systematically shelled by the Sri Lankan government during those months, some even “hit repeatedly, despite the fact that their locations were well-known to the Government”. The authors of the report said that in early February one of the two remaining hospitals in rebel territory was attacked with multi-barreled rocket launchers and artillery for five days in a row while up to 800 patients were inside. Human Rights Watch also documented more than thirty attacks on hospitals in those months. One incoming rocket was even captured on video. International staff from the ICRC were present during an attack on a hospital and called the army six times to warn them their shells were falling dangerously close to the hospital building. They were not given proper access to the war zone again. When the war ended, the ICRC said it had seen a lot of wars, but rarely one where civilians had been so badly affected. It was, they said, an ‘unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe’.

Dr Niron is the only one of his colleagues who managed to evade arrest at the end of the war. Strangely this brave man feels he failed because he abandoned 150 patients under a tree to die on the last day of the war as he ran for his life. He can’t stand the sight of blood anyone and no longer wants to be a doctor. There have even been times when he’s contemplated suicide.

There are other medics and volunteers from the hospitals still emerging from Sri Lanka with testimony that supports the doctor’s account and the findings of lawyers and human rights researchers. But the Sri Lankan government and many of its supporters in the south of the island simply deny any of this happened and blame everything on the Tamil Tiger rebels. It’s a short sighted policy that will hamper any kind of reconciliation or understanding between the different ethnic groups. The trauma for Tamil survivors like Dr Niron is so deep that it’s simply not possible to forgive and forget and move on. At the very least their suffering – unprecedented even by the bloody standards of Sri Lanka’s civil war – needs acknowledging.

*Frances Harrison is a former BBC foreign correspondent based in Sri Lanka. Her book of accounts of survivors from Sri Lanka’s civil war “Still Counting the Dead” is published today (Oct 4 2012) in the UK and online in ebook form by Portobello Books. Courtesy opendemocracy

Sri Lanka's policy towards witnesses is revenge, not reconciliation

FRANCES HARRISON , 4 October 2012

Dr Niron knows the Sri Lankan army targeted hospitals in 2009. Every time he passed their location on to the International Red Cross so they could share the information with the Sri Lankan military, the site was bombed within days, if not hours.
He looks like any other short dark balding Tamil man, wrapped in a thick fleece against the unfamiliar chill. A political refugee from northern Sri Lanka, now he lives in a tranquil landscape of pine trees and glaciers on the Atlantic Coast. Nobody in his country of refuge knows his past or gives him a second glance but back home patients, who owe him their lives, discretely visit his relatives to offer thanks. For them he’s a hero.

‘Call me Niron: I have to be careful. Any problem caused by me and they will take revenge,’ he says, referring to the Sri Lankan authorities who’ve been questioning his friends to find out where he escaped. ‘They were looking for me…Now they realise our importance as witnesses,’ he explains.

Dr Niron, not his real name, served as a doctor in northern Sri Lanka at the brutal culmination of the civil war in 2009 as the military used scorched earth tactics to crush Tamil insurgents, who in turn used child soldiers and suicide bombers. Though he worked inside rebel-held territory Dr. Niron was employed by the central government whose bureaucracy extended throughout the island.

When the Sri Lankan military drove the Tigers into a tiny pocket of land along the eastern coast, Dr Niron and hundreds of thousands of civilians went with the rebels, unaware that a bloodbath was coming in which the UN would later estimate up to 40,000 people died in just five months. Legal experts for the UN Secretary General later warned that Sri Lanka’s conduct “represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law” though there was evidence that both sides committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Though he had many opportunities to flee, Dr Niron decided his duty was to his patients. He stayed in the war zone even though the government ordered him out and stopped paying his salary.

As the frontline advanced and the population was crammed into a tiny sandy coastal spit, Dr Niron set up makeshift operating theatres in public buildings, homes, tents and then finally under a tree. In January 2009 he was the last person to speak to a young nurse minutes before she stepped into the yard of Uddayarkattu Hospital and was blown to pieces by a shell. She is just one of many colleagues Dr Niron mourns. Two thousand shells fell, he says, in those last ten days in January right inside an area the government had just declared safe for civilians.

There were far too many patients to operate on and life-saving drugs were running short. Normally the central government supplied civilian hospitals inside rebel areas but as the fighting intensified officials became less keen on helping people who might sympathise with the enemy. Dr Niron says all the government sent was paracetamol, allergy tablets, vitamins and a local anesthetic used for dental extraction. There was nothing to treat war wounds, despite desperateappeals from the doctors. A March 2009 Wikileaks cable has diplomats warning the Sri Lankan government that denying medical supplies to injured civilians was unconscionable. When the doctors themselves openly complained they were threatened with disciplinary action for embarrassing the government.

Blood for transfusions ran out. By the end Dr Niron was so desperate to save a sixteen-year-old-girl who needed bowel surgery, that he resorted to donating his own blood before operating. One of his worst memories is treating the survivors of an attack in April 2009 on a queue of women queuing for milk for their babies. In the hospital, he struggled to insert needles for the intravenous drips into the tiny veins of injured toddlers. ‘They were so small the veins would collapse. So we made small incisions and took the vein and put the drip in that way,’ he remembers, still haunted by the sound of those children crying.

As the shelling grew more intense, Dr Niron operated inside a bunker inside a building, reinforced with layers of sturdy palm-tree trunks and sandbags. One day a bomblet flew into the room and lodged itself in the roof. He believes it belonged to a cluster bomb – a weapon the Sri Lankan government denies having used. On another occasion the doctor believes he himself was injured by white phosphorous while in a densely populated civilian area. The initial blast was quite different from usual explosions and the resulting wounds were unlike anything he’d seen in his years in casualty wards.

At first Dr Niron assumed the attacks on his makeshift hospitals were a terrible accident. He had red crosses painted on the roofs of his buildings so they’d be clearly visible from the air. He sent the GPS coordinates of each new hospital to the International Red Cross so they could share the information with the Sri Lankan military. Every time he did this the makeshift hospitals were hit within days, if not hours. Eventually he learned his lesson. There were five smaller hospitals, with no red crosses, whose locations he never passed on. Not a single one of those five buildings was ever hit. Dr Niron concluded that the military were deliberately targeting hospitals. ‘They were attacking purposefully; they wanted to kill as many as possible,’ he says.

His conclusion is borne out by a United Nations report that found that all civilian hospitals on the frontline were systematically shelled by the Sri Lankan government during those months, some even “hit repeatedly, despite the fact that their locations were well-known to the Government”. The authors of the report said that in early February one of the two remaining hospitals in rebel territory was attacked with multi-barreled rocket launchers and artillery for five days in a row while up to 800 patients were inside. Human Rights Watch also documented more than thirty attacks on hospitals in those months. One incoming rocket was even captured on video. International staff from the ICRC were present during an attack on a hospital and called the army six times to warn them their shells were falling dangerously close to the hospital building. They were not given proper access to the war zone again. When the war ended, the ICRC said it had seen a lot of wars, but rarely one where civilians had been so badly affected. It was, they said, an ‘unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe’.

Dr Niron is the only one of his colleagues who managed to evade arrest at the end of the war. Strangely this brave man feels he failed because he abandoned 150 patients under a tree to die on the last day of the war as he ran for his life. He can’t stand the sight of blood anyone and no longer wants to be a doctor. There have even been times when he’s contemplated suicide.

There are other medics and volunteers from the hospitals still emerging from Sri Lanka with testimony that supports the doctor’s account and the findings of lawyers and human rights researchers. But the Sri Lankan government and many of its supporters in the south of the island simply deny any of this happened and blame everything on the Tamil Tiger rebels. It’s a short sighted policy that will hamper any kind of reconciliation or understanding between the different ethnic groups. The trauma for Tamil survivors like Dr Niron is so deep that it’s simply not possible to forgive and forget and move on. At the very least their suffering - unprecedented even by the bloody standards of Sri Lanka’s civil war - needs acknowledging.

Frances Harrison is a former BBC foreign correspondent based in Sri Lanka. Her book of accounts of survivors from Sri Lanka’s civil war “Still Counting the Dead” is published today (Oct 4 2012) in the UK and online in ebook form byPortobello Books.

Complaint against the JSC Secretary is a lie

Wednesday, 03 October 2012

Naula Magistrate Rangani Gamage has told a Magistrate in the Waymaba Province that she had never complained against the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) Secretary Manjula Thilekaratne to the President or any other person.

Gamage was summoned by the JSC on the 1st to inquire about an affidavit allegedly given by her father that she had been subjected to unwanted advances by the JSC Secretary.

The Naula Magistrate had told the other Magistrate that she had expressed her shock at the complaint before the Supreme Court judges inquiring into the matter saying she had not given any affidavit to the effect and that she believed her father would have not given such a document as well. Gamage had said she had told the inquiring committee that she had not heard of any such complaint until she had appeared before them.

She had been disgruntled that her name had been sued to sling mud at the JSC Secretary. She had added that a request was made by her from the JSC to give her a transfer to another magistrate’s court since she was unable to continue at the Naula Magistrate’s Court.

The Wayamba Province Magistrate who gave us the information said that the young Naula Magistrate is under great mental stress over the whole saga.

Midweek Politics: Will The Judiciary Make Its Stand?

By Dharisha Bastians -October 4, 2012

Dharisha Bastians

As hostilities between the Government and Judiciary rage on, the controversial Divi Neguma Bill may prove the tipping point

The battle between the Judiciary and the Government looks set to intensify with the Tamil National Alliance yesterday firing another salvo at the controversial Divi Neguma Bill proposed by the Government by seeking to prohibit the Northern Province Governor G.A. Chandrasiri from approving the bill in the absence of a provincial council in the North. The case filed by TNA General Secretary and Jaffna District MP Mavai Senathirajah seeks to prohibit the Governor from deciding on the Divi Neguma Bill and to make ineffective any decisions made by him in that regard.

The TNA MP is making the case that the Governor is not the competent authority to give an opinion about legislation proposed by the Central Government and cannot exercise the powers of a democratically elected body in the absence of a provincial council in the north, especially with regard to powers vested with that council.
The Court of Appeal hearing has been put off for today (4) to give the Governor’s lawyers time to respond.
The TNA filed its case shortly before the Government Information Department announced last evening that with North Central, Sabaragamuwa and Southern Provincial Councils voting in favour of the Divi Neguma Bill, all nine councils had extended their support for the proposed legislation. The Government Information Department is counting the Northern Province Governor’s nod as sanction of the bill.
How the Judiciary moves on the issue therefore, based on the TNA’s case, will make or break the Government’s hectic bid to have the controversial legislation enacted as soon as possible.

Standing in the way Read More

Colombo snatches away even little power devolved to EPC: TNA councilor

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2012, 21:40 GMT]
The leader of the opposition in the Eastern Provincial Council, Mr C. Thandayuthapani, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politician, has said that the Sri Lankan government in Colombo was trying to snatch even the littler powers already devolved to the provincial administration in the Eastern Province. The comment by the TNA politician has come in the wake of EPC endorsing the controversial ‘Divineguma’ bill on Tuesday. The draft bill is a blueprint for the structural genocide of the country of Eezham Tamils, say Tamil civil officials in the East. In the meantime, the TNA has also filed a case at the SL Court of appeal against a move by Colombo to get a similar approaval from the colonial military governor in North to approve the bill in the absence of an elected provincial council in the North.

The draft bill has paved way for the establishment of a Department of Divineguma Development incorporating the existing Samurdhi Authority, Southern Development Authority and the Udarata Development Authority into a single unit under Colombo governments Development Ministry, which is headed by SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa.

The Divineguma bill was recently challenged in the SL Supreme Court by two political parties. The SL court ruled the draft bill be referred to the provincial councils before it was passed in the SL Parliament.

On Tuesday, the controversial bill was passed in the Eastern Provincial Council by Mahinda Rajapska's UPFA, with the support of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC). 21 voted approving the bill while 15 opposed.

14 members of the ruling UPFA and 7 members of the SLMC voted for the bill and 11 members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNBA) and four members of the United National Party (UNP) voted against it.

The chairperson of the council, Mrs Aroiyawathi Galapathi, a member of the ruling UPFA, did not vote.

Mr Abdul Majeed Mohamed Najeeb, the chief minister of the EPC, who said the bill was paving way for a ‘fast development’ of the Eastern province irrespective of ‘cast, creed and race’, presented the bill for debate on Tuesday morning and the bill was put for vote after a full day debate on Tuesday evening.

Abdul Majeed Mohamed Najeeb has finally paved way for the transfer of even the limited powers in deciding the development affairs to the Colombo centric SL State system, Tamil members in the opposition told media.

The development authority coming with a Sinhala name, Divi-næguma (raising the island) shows what 'development' actually means to Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims in the island, commented civil society circles in the East.

This is also an example for the LLRC-based language-implementation of the genocidal state, to inaugurate which the former Indian President Abdul Kalam visited the island earlier this year, the civil circles further said.

[Divi: Theevu in Tamil, island; Nægeema in Sinhala: ascending, ascension; Nægu as prefix in words in Sinhala means to raise; Nookku in Tamil: push, raise, lift, impel, incite. A word of Dravidian Etymology. Dravidian Etymological Dictionary 3722. Other related words in Tamil are Nempu, DED 3743; Nimir, DED 2922.]

Aritta Wickremanayake addressed the SEC Commission Members

Thursday, 04 October 2012

Aritta Wickremanayake, a former director general of the SEC was invited by the SEC chairman Nalaka Godahewa to address the commission members of the SEC last week.

Aritta is the main partner of Nithya Partners law firm which provide legal assistance to many companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). He also provides legal assistance and appears for some of the alleged players on the CSE. While providing such services for people who are accused by the SEC, he provides consulting services to the SEC is a clear case of ‘Conflict of Interest’.

Aritta had been the main architect of drafting the SEC Act in 1987 and became the first director general of the SEC. He again plans to mislead the SEC commission members in bringing new amendments to the SEC Act. His main proposals for amending the SEC Act would pave the way to legalese some of the breaches under the existing SEC Act. The market analysts are of the opinion that the so called “big Players” of the CSE are behind this move.

In the mean time the director-investigation (newly appointed deputy director general) Dhammika Perera deliberately delays some investigations against the so called big players until the amendments to the SEC Act are brought in, the SEC senior officials said.

This move is another improper and corrupt act of the SEC chairman Nalaka Godahewa.


Karunanidhi for self-rule for Tamils in Sri Lanka

Thursday, Oct 4, 2012
Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M Karunanidhi has said that Tamils in Sri Lanka have been denied basic rights since long and self-rule for them is the sole solution.

Karunanidhi told media here on Wednesday that the Sri Lankan administration has never let Tamilians to live in peace.

"As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, it will never let the Tamilians in Sri Lanka live in peace. So, right from the beginning Tamilians have been denied peace and they have been demanding self-rule. The right to self-rule must be given to them, this is not a recent demand, but from the very beginning," said Karunanidhi.

Earlier in September, the visit of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to attend the launch of an international university on Buddhism in Madhya Pradesh had invited the wrath of DMK and other like-mined outfits. Their leaders had warned that this could lead to protests.

According to United Nations panel, tens of thousands of civilians were killed in 2009 in the final months of Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war, as government troops advanced on the ever-shrinking northern tip of the island controlled by Tamil forces fighting for an independent homeland.

Sri Lanka acknowledged that ''some civilians were killed ''in the last months of the offensive, but said the numbers cited by the UN panel are vastly exaggerated.

Sri Lanka also said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters - a group classified as a terrorist organisation by more than 30 countries - often dressed in civilian garb, making it unclear who was a combatant.

New Book Details Sri Lanka’s ‘Habit Of Denial’

By Helena Williams -October 4, 2012

It saw one of the bloodiest conflicts of this century, and yet many still only see it as a tropical paradise.

While the south boasted palm-fringed beaches – a picture-perfect destination for cocktail-sipping tourists – northern Sri Lanka was a hell on earth for the Tamil minority as government troops clashed with Tiger insurgents.

“Denial has become a Sri Lankan habit,” explains Frances Harrison, ex-BBC Sri Lanka correspondent and author of Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Civil War.

The book details the devastating accounts of survivors of the 26-year conflict.
“Europeans sipped coconut juice and stared out at the horizon of the ocean, unaware that just an hour’s flight to the north, people were dying in First World War-style trench warfare.”
Channel 4′s The Killing Fields brought the story of Sri Lanka’s war crimes back into UK mainstream media.

Now, Harrison retells the conflict with a clarity and impact only a seasoned journalist can deliver, having travelled extensively in the war zone and reported on the Tamil Tigers during the peace process.

“Like the tourists, the world turned a blind eye to the tens of thousands of civilian deaths that took place in the north-east of Sri Lanka in the space of just five months in 2009,” she writes.
A media blackout imposed by the Sri Lanka government means that the death toll is impossible to pinpoint: estimates run from 7,000 to 147,000.

Now, the United Nations says there is evidence that up to forty thousand civilians could have been murdered in just five months.

These revelations are all the more bitter when Harrison writes,
“At the same time that Sri Lanka’s vicious war was raging, the world’s attention was focussed on the Israeli incursion into Gaza, where the death toll was about 1,500.”

Having witnessed the war in the early noughties, Harrison recounts the bloody climax in 2009 through harrowing stories from those she met along the way – tales of extraordinary survival, as well as devastation and death.

A young journalist covering the atrocities for the local TamilNet website; a Catholic nun who
enters war zones to comfort the dying as other flee; a woman who worked in the Tiger media unit, now a mother of two living in South London – Harrison touches upon all walks of life, painting their stories sensitively and in detail. It is the first time some of these stories have been told.

Grasping an underreported and extremely complex subject, Harrison demonstrates journalism at its best by backing up her emotive portraits with hard facts and figures.
As a new UN inquiry calls for further investigation into the atrocities committed by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil rebel fighters, Harrison tells more than figures ever could by bringing to light the human cost of war.

‘Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War’ is published by Portobello books on October 4, 2012.

*Helena Williams is a London-based freelance journalist and news assistant at the International News Safety Institute. Her particular interests centre around foreign affairs, women’s issues and the media.
She is a City University Newspaper Journalism MA graduate and has written for The Sunday Times, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and others. She also blogs for The Frontline Club. Courtesy huffingtonpost.co.uk

Rail Track Sanjeewa who killed the IUSF students flees overseas

Thursday, 04 October 2012

Underworld figure, Kotahena Rail Track Sanjeewa it is learnt had allegedly been involved in the murder of the two Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) student leaders in the early hours of September 27th.

Rail Track Sanjeewa is a disciple of Karate Dhammika and had been contracted to carry out the murder. He has now fled the country since attempts to show the death of the student leaders’ was an accident had failed.

It is learnt that the contract to carry out the murder had been assigned by several members attached to the VIP security division and these people had visited Sanjeewa at his place of lodging for a discussion several days before the incident. The murder was targeted at the IUSF Convener, Sanjeewa Banadara, but it was two others who were killed. Also, attempts to cover up the murder as an accident had also failed. Orders have been issued from a higher office to provide protection to Sanjeewa since it has now been proven that the students had not been killed in a road accident.

The VIP security unit had immediately taken him to a location out of Colombo.

It has been recorded that Sanjeewa was last seen on Sunday evening at around 7.30 p.m. in Kataragama. A person claiming to be one of his relatives has complained to the police that Sanjeewa had gone missing from Kataragama.

Kataragama Police is now inquiring into the complaint.

However, it is learnt that Sanjeewa had been sent overseas on the 1st from the Katunayake Airport. He has served as a drug dealer and contract killer to several governing party politicians.

Sri Lanka: MSF hands over last project in the country

Date Published: 04/10/2012 10:05

International medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has handed over its last remaining activities in Mullaitivu district, Sri Lanka, having first worked in the country in 1986.

The handover of the mental health programme in August 2012 to an established international NGO with a long-term operational plan for the north of the country follows a progressive transfer of medical activities to the Ministry of Health during the last 18 months.

“The District General Hospital of Mullaitivu was almost non-functioning back in 2010 when MSF decided to provide support to enhance access to health care during the resettlement period for the internally displaced people,” said MSF Programme Manager for Sri Lanka Marie Ouannes.

MSF surgeon assess a patient for surgery in the men's ward, Mullaitivu Hospital.

“The partnership with the Ministry of Health teams, either in Colombo or at provincial level, led to much better access to health facilities for communities in Mullaitivu district.

"In terms of human resources, the government is also scaling up staff in these structures, which means MSF can now reallocate these resources to emergency contexts where medical services and facilities are in shorter supply.”

Gradual handover

From 2006 to 2011, MSF provided support at Point Pedro Hospital’s emergency unit as well as assisting in maternal health care, surgery and infection control. These activities were handed over successfully to the Ministry of Health in December last year.

In 2011, MSF staff performed 1,720 major operations and over 6,900 emergency consultations, approximately 5,300 women received antenatal care, and 929 births were assisted.

In 2012, MSF gradually handed over its responsibilities in the 80-bed Mullaitivu Hospital to the Ministry of Health. During 2011, around 5,000 consultations took place in the emergency unit, MSF surgeons performed 1,004 major surgeries, 329 babies were delivered and 2,295 women received antenatal care.

In order to provide access to primary healthcare and referral specialist services for isolated populations in parts of Mullaitivu district at the time, MSF began a mobile clinic project in December 2010. Throughout 2011, mobile clinics conducted 200 primary health care consultations at five different sites per week, or 11,524 for the entire year, mostly in Puthukkudiyiruppu division.

MSF also developed Mullaitivu Hospital’s electricity, water and sanitation systems to ensure sustainability in the future, and provided significant assistance to develop the health structure’s laboratory service.

Mental health needs

An MSF surgeon does the rounds of the women's ward, Mullaitivu Hospital.

Numerous communities in areas affected by the fighting witnessed deeply traumatic events that took place during the last phase of the civil war. While the physical scars may have healed for many, considerable mental health care needs remain. Many lost everything during the war and face new difficulties in the resettlement process.

Drawing on extensive experience of working in conflict and post-conflict settings, MSF launched mental health activities in 2009, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the College of Psychiatrists, first in Menik Farm – a camp for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war – and later in eight different sites in Mullaitivu district, including inside a specially built structure on the grounds of Mullaitivu Hospital.

As many sick people were unable to travel to health facilities due to a lack of public transport and money, mobile mental health teams had to travel to very remote areas to reach patients.
Between February 2011 and July 2012, MSF provided 4,629 counselling and group support sessions for identified vulnerable individuals suffering from psychological and psychiatric disorders, targeting children, women, the elderly and disabled. A psychiatrist also provided medical follow-up of diagnosed patients with post traumatic stress disorder, depression, psychosis and epilepsy.

The community outreach programme conducted group counselling sessions for pupils in schools in the region and provided training for teachers to identify children with mental health conditions.

Training local counsellors

Other key objectives of the project included establishing an efficient referral system within local health structures for those in need of treatment, as well as building a pool of trained local counsellors and community support officers.

In August 2012, MSF handed over its mental health programme - its last remaining activity in the country – to World Vision.

“While not in the acute post-conflict phase, mental health needs in the Vanni are still significant, despite the war having ended more than three years ago,” said MSF psychologist Gaia Quaranta.

“Specialised skills and a long-term approach to community rehabilitation is required to address these issues, which is why we call on other organisations with a long-term future presence in the area to continue providing mental health care support for local communities.”

In recent years, in addition to improvements in infrastructure and health facilities, access to the affected areas has improved for non-government organisations.

“As a medical humanitarian organisation specialising in emergencies, MSF must allocate our limited resources to where the health needs of neglected populations are greatest,” said Marie Ouannes.

“In the north of Sri Lanka, other actors that are better suited to a long-term recovery process are now able to reach the populations in need of care.”

MSF will continue to monitor the situation in Sri Lanka and stands ready to return to the country to provide emergency medical support if the need arises.

MSF in Sri Lanka

MSF worked in Sri Lanka from 1986 to 2003 until the cease-fire agreement, returning in 2004 for six months to assist in the tsunami recovery efforts before initiating new activities in May 2006 in response to the escalating conflict in the north of the country. MSF handed over its last activity in August 2012.

Hindu Community Faces New Religious Threat

By Chrishanthi Christopher

Several complaints have been received from parents of a girl’s school in Colombo

Religious sentiments are running high around the world. An online video film allegedly insulting Islam has sparked violence in several countries killing seven people. The US and the Western embassies in the Islamic countries have come under attack.
Here at home the Hindu sentiments are simmering. Recently the traditional practice of offering animal sacrifices to Lord Shiva in the ancient temple belonging to the Hindus came under protest. The Buddhist clergy and animal rights groups opposing the killing of animals in the Sri Bhadrakali Kovil Muneswaram called on the government to put an end to the killings saying that it was against the Buddhist precepts.
Adding to the series of problems confronting the Hindu community recently there were several complaints from parents of students studying in the Hindu schools in Colombo.  It is alleged that groups of people belonging to a certain Christian sector had been distributing Bibles.
It is learnt that these groups consisting of locals and a few     foreigners have met the principals of the schools and with their help distributed Bibles to children. Hindu parents of these children complain that it is an inappropriate act.
Puwenesweran a parent of the Ramanathan Hindu College in Bambalapitiya says that his daughter had brought a Bible home on Monday the 18th. “I was surprised to see a Bible in my daughter’s hands.”
On questioning his daughter he had found out that a couple of people - a foreigner and a local – had been handing over bibles to children at the gate of the school.
His daughter Abhira (not her real name) in Grade 7 says that she and her friends were compelled to take the Bibles that were distributed.   “When school was finishing my teacher told us that there are some persons distributing some books at the entrance and to take one home”.  She says that the book looked nice ‘like a diary’ and that they took it. She said that they were told that they can give it to someone else if they don’t want it.
Ravi a father of another student from the same school says that his daughter was forced to take the bible that was distributed.  He says that the books were distributed inside the gate. “It was inside the gate and they cannot do it without the permission of the principal of the school,” he maintains.
Balasubramaniam a parent of a student from Hindu College Bambalapitiya says that it is sad that these things are allowed in Hindu schools.  “We are not against Christianity but they are trying to convert our children adopting subtle methods,” he says.
“We must be careful,” he adds.
However the school authorities of Hindu College Bambalapitiya and Ramanathan Hindu College, Bambalapitiya are distancing themselves from the episodes.  They deny any involvement in the act. They maintain that the groups had been distributing Bibles outside the compound of the schools. They were denied permission they say.
Principal Kothai Nagularajah says that the books were distributed outside the school gate not inside. Nagularajah refused to talk to The Sunday Leader on the grounds that she has already sent out a statement to the Tamil media refuting the charges. Hindu College, Bambalapitiya, Principal, Rajaratnam also maintains that the Bibles were distributed outside the school premises and they have had no hand in the distribution. “We never granted any permission to distribute the books among our children it happened outside the school gates and we cannot comment on it,” he said.
However Nugegoda Tamil Vidyalaya Principal Thiagaraja has no qualms. She openly admits that a Christian group had come in to distribute Bibles to the children. “They handed me around 400 bibles to be distributed and I distributed them and still have around 200 left,” she says. Thiagaraja maintains that she had distributed the books only among the Christian children in the school.
Thiagaraja says that she attempted to return the bibles but was told to keep them as it might be useful in the future.
“I do not understand their motive but even my two daughters studying at the Ramanathan Hindu College brought home two Bibles,” she said.

Who is the person being tortured at the CCD?

Thursday, 04 October 2012

Information has been received of a person being severely tortured at the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) office in Peliyagoda.

Sources say the person had been brought in from the Modera are and is being referred to as “Janith.” He is being tortured and interrogated from the time he was brought into the CCD head office on the 2nd.

The new director of the CID, SSP Gamini Maturata had visited the CCD office to meet this person around 3 a.m. on the 3rd and the head of the CCD, Senior DIG Anura Senanayake had also come to see the person and at around 5.30 a.m.

According to our sources, this person could be linked to the underworld and Senanayake had given special directives to the officers to question the person in order to prevent him from revealing details that could be detrimental to certain politicians.