Decisive Moment In The Defence Of An Independent Judiciary

By Asian Human Rights Commission -October 10, 2012 

On 7 October 2012 four persons attacked the Secretary to the Judicial Services Commission of Sri Lanka (JSC), Mr. Manjula Thilakaratne.  Thilakaratne is a senior high court judge. The Secretary, accompanied by his wife, had taken their son to drop him at the St. Thomas’ College gymnasium. After dropping his wife and son at the college, he parked his car. Since he had to wait for some time, the Secretary waited in his car reading a newspaper.

Suddenly Thilakaratne saw four persons stopping near his car. One of them had a stick that was about three-foot long and the other was armed with a pistol. The one with the stick walked towards the passenger side door of the car and the other three took position by the driver side. The three men ordered the Secretary to open the car’s door. But Thilakaratne refused.

Then they threatened to fire at him. The JAC Secretary opened the door. One of them asked Thilakaratne whether he was the boss (Lokka) at the JSC? Then without warning they started beating Thilakaratne on his face and tried to drag him out of the car.

Thilakaratne resisted them. Having realised that it would be difficult to pull Thilakaratne out of the car the men tried to push Thilakaratne into the passenger’s seat. At that moment Thilakaratne realised that the men were trying to abduct him. At this stage he shouted loudly.

On hearing his cry for help, some residents in the locality came out. Some three-wheeler drivers and others persons in the vicinity were also attracted to the noise.

At this stage the four assailants ran towards the road behind the car and Thilakaratne lost sight of them. Later the Thilakaratne was admitted to the hospital, and is receiving treatment for his injuries.

A sequence of events prior to this attack clearly suggests the reasons behind the attack and to those who might have instructed the four assailants.

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International human rights bodies concerned about attack on JSC Secretary

Wednesday, 10 October 2012 

The attack on the Secretary of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) Manjula Thilekaratne on Sunday (7) in Mt. Lavinia has been taken into account by international human rights bodies like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Article 19.

A special representative from a leading international human rights body said that the attack would have an adverse impact on Sri Lanka when the country’s human rights situation would be taken up for discussion at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions next March.

The representative expressed concern over the law and order situation in rural Sri Lankan since the secretary of a high level commission like the JSC could be assaulted in the country’s capital and the assailants manage to escape without being caught.

The human rights officials said the US and the EU countries that sponsored a resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC were closely monitoring the attack on the JSC Secretary and the actions taken by the Sri Lankan government.

The official noted that the incident would be a turning point for the government if it tries to sweep the issue under the carpet.

SRI LANKA: Will FUTA lose the game?

Contributors: Nilantha Ilangamuwa-October 10, 2012

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down."
-- Frederick Douglass (1860 speech in Boston)

The tread of hundreds of thousands of feet walking across the country in search for the liberty of education has ended (as has the lives of two students in the process) at the Ministry of Economic Development, one of the ministries headed by a brother of the president. The Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA) had the 'opportunity' to sit with the minister of the subject at his high security compound and receive his 'political' answers. Later, they met the Secretary of the Treasury, P.B. Jayasundara, who tried to explain the real facts and figures that comprise the banana republic, now world famous as a laboratory of nepotism.

However, things are still unstable and unclear. Even the president of FUTA, who spoke to this writer earlier this morning, does not have a clear idea about the ruling family's policy towards the education crisis. And this is after one of the longest union actions in the recent history of Sri Lanka.  It is obvious that the President of the country is ignorant of the concept of good governance; his chief political strategy being nothing more than using the armed power under his control or simply killing time until all that oppose get tired and give up. Today, what we are witnessing in the name of politics is that sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity, which, as Martin Luther King, Jr. remarked, comprise the most dangerous scenarios.

As this writer has repeatedly pointed out, the basic foundation of politics in Sri Lanka is embedded in habitual lies and vulgarism. These are the core tactics which the government is using to stay in power. Spreading baseless gossip against opponents has become a very important strategy not only for keeping up its reputation but in undermining the truth. In this context, popular politics has sincerely ignored the political wisdom, eventually overlapping with popular cultural aspects rather than organizing within the framework of the rule of law.

Generally, politics has more connection with culture than with legalities and because of this an idea of "social change" entered into the discourse where social moments originated. It was the revolt against the "culture of silence." Our culture is based on a pyramidal hierarchical chamber, which is always allowed to dominate and undermine the people who are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Caste has registered a system where freedom has no room. We do not have common authentic acceptance on conditions for justice. We value human beings according to the place they have in the hierarchy. Religion came after culture, but reality was too harsh; religion has been adapted into cultural acceptance and habituates each of the communities. The whole scenario has been based on one question, which is, abstaining from the rule of law and the habitual cultural deviation from the rule of law.

In this circumstance, the idea of "no alternative if we lose the present" has rooted into our system, becoming part of the culture even after colonial inventions in the sixteenth century.  The rule of the country was based on the emotional intention of the king, people's rights were none other than what they received by birth. No one has dared to challenge the "power centric system", preferring to rather obey everything. The idea to struggle against "absolute power" or the "royal absolute" was the first time questions rationally arose. This was during the end the colonial times, courtesy the social change that occurred in Europe over the ferment of the industrial revolution, though there were minor incidents reported in ancient times, which were basically identified as "power struggle between brethren."

We never fought to change the system. We fought to protect the system on behalf of the kingdom, while people who really wanted to change the system were labeled as "nation traitors." Basically, we did not have courage to fight against authoritarianism and unjustness until the British established a system based on the electoral process. This was developed up to a certain extent, but our own politicians were unable to read meaning into it. As a result, the electoral process has become a cynical manipulation of power and believing in the system is nothing but infantile. In this context, politics has become agitation without visionary political ideology. The very core reason behind this failure is that we do not extend our knowledge to understand the importance of dissent or collaboration of voluntarily work in politics.

FUTA entered into society in this prevailing situation. That is why many people started to believe that FUTA itself had tremendous opportunity to change the system. Perhaps many thought it had the capacity to re-construct authentic dissent in this country.  Creating dissent is absolutely dependent upon voluntarily based social movement and there is a minimum role to play in the political parties in this country. It will be another betrayal if FUTA were to lose their voluntary-based battle just for "politics of vulgarism."

TNA's expectations and fears ahead of India visit
R.K.RADHAKRISHNAN-October 10, 2012

On the eve of a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) delegation’s departure for an important visit to India, a senior leader in the group said on Tuesday that New Delhi must convey to the Sri Lankan leadership that long lasting peace can only come through meaningful devolution.

A senior Sri Lankan Minister, on the other hand, said it wanted India to use its good offices to prevail upon the Tamil political grouping to agree to a Parliamentary Select Committee process for hammering out a solution.

Amid speculation here that the TNA had been “summoned” to New Delhi to be told to participate in the Parliamentary Select Committee — announced by the Rajapaksa government — TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran said he feared that the committee would be used as an instrument to scrap the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which provides for limited devolution of power to the provinces.

“The PSC has 31 members. We will have 5 members. They will suggest to scrap the 13th Amendment…Their agenda for the PSC is to take away the 13th Amendment,” he said.

That is why, Mr. Sumanthiran said, the TNA had made its participation in the PSC conditional to a guarantee from the government that the agenda for discussions would not go below a certain existing devolution threshold.

“The way forward is for sense to prevail, and for good friends close by to din it into the [Sri Lankan government’s] heads that for long lasting peace you have act statesman-like [and take steps towards] meaningful devolution,” the MP said.

Mr. Sumanthiran is part of a seven-member TNA delegation which will meet, among others, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and top Foreign Ministry officials in New Delhi. TNA leader R.Sampanthan, Maavai Senadirajah, Suresh Premachandran, Pon. Selvarajah, Vinayagamoorthy and Selvam are the other members.

Indian officials said it was wrong to describe the TNA’s visit as a “summons”. The Tamil political group had expressed the desire to visit New Delhi a few months ago. However, New Delhi did not want to be seen as hosting a Tamil delegation immediately after the Human Rights Council vote in Geneva that saw India vote against Sri Lanka.

The TNA’s visit at this time, weeks after its good showing in the Eastern Province elections, sends out another kind of message: India considers this political group, made up of different Tamil parties, the legitimate representative of Sri Lankan Tamils.

The TNA has said it wants the PSC to discuss five existing documents on devolution, prepared by the previous governments and the Rajapaksa government. However, before that “intense talks” between the Tamil grouping and the government were needed for consensus on a solution, it said.Dismissing the TNA’s fears as “unfounded”, Foreign Minister G.L. Pieris told The Hindu that had the aim been to scrap the 13th Amendment, it could be done directly in Parliament, as the government had a two-thirds majority.

The select committee, the Minister noted, was proposed as a way to involve all parties in a solution. The TNA’s condition that Tamil representatives and the government must reach a consensus beforehand, he said, went against the very idea of the select committee.

Sri Lanka: Time to face some uncomfortable truths

By Asian Correspondent Oct 10, 2012 

By Frances HarrisonSri Lankan ethnic Tamil refugees land from a passenger ship upon their return from India at a port in Colombo, Sri Lanka last year. Pic: AP.

Asian countries thinking of investing in post-war Sri Lanka should put more emphasis on helping the country really overcome its past by addressing issues of injustice. It’s not enough to fund tourist hotels and roads without ensuring there is rule of law and a process to confront uncomfortable truths.

It’s normally Sri Lanka’s relationship with India and, to a lesser degree, Pakistan that are discussed but its connections to South East Asia are also strong. Thailand and Japan both played an important role hosting peace talks during the conflict, while Malaysia has a sizeable Sri Lankan Tamil minority with strong ties back home. There are also the many Asian countries that sold arms to either side during the war and now reluctantly host increasing numbers of Tamil refugees fleeing persecution.

It is not helping Sri Lanka to endorse Colombo’s version of the conflict unquestioningly. When it crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, Sri Lanka initially claimed it had  a zero civilian casualty policy. Today it concedes some deaths but still denies its soldiers were involved in any atrocities. This is in spite of plenty of credible evidence to the contrary.

A preliminary investigation by legal experts for the United Nations said Sri Lanka’s “conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law” concluding that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in just five months. There are indications that the death toll could be even higher.

At conferences attended by Asian militaries, Colombo has promoted its victory over the Tigers as a new way to defeat terrorism, called  “the Sri Lankan option”. This is in fact a callous euphemism for a scorched earth policy, failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians and removing independent witnesses.

Between the months of January and May 2009 the Sri Lankan military indiscriminately shelled and bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in a small rebel enclave in the north of the island, ordering all journalists and international aid workers out first so there would be no one to say what really happened.

The traumatised survivors who escaped describe a living hell. Starving Tamil women and children cowered in earthen trenches as the Sri Lankan army pummelled them with volleys of shells fired from multi-barrelled rocket launchers and dropped bombs from supersonic jets. In a lull in the fighting, people would emerge to find human body parts strewn around, quickly burying the remains with shovels to prevent the dogs eating them.

Makeshift hospitals staffed by a handful of brave doctors were systemically attacked more than 30 times as life saving drugs for surgery and bandages ran out. Mothers and babies were shelled while queuing for milk rations despite being visible to the drones that flew overhead constantly. Exhausted surgeons resorted to amputations without anaesthetic and donating their own blood to keep patients alive.

The war crimes were of course not perpetrated by only one side. The Tamil Tiger rebels compounded the catastrophe by refusing to allow civilians out of the killing field, rejecting the idea of surrender and forcibly recruiting teenagers to fight.

But when the Tigers were finally obliterated the killing didn’t stop. In the final hours eyewitness saw soldiers throw grenades in bunkers to finish off the injured rebels. Some of the last civilians who walked out say thousands of dead bodies lay sprawled on the ground, rotting in the tropical heat. Every single survivor was herded into a giant refugee camp, where women lived in fear of rape by the security forces who roamed inside the camp at will. Today there are  reports of scores of disappearances and executions all over the island, torture in custody is commonplace and there is still an overwhelmingly heavy military presence in former conflict areas. The rebels are nowhere to be seen but the “ethnic problem”, as it’s referred to in Sri Lanka, has not gone away.

The Sri Lankan government did conduct its own flawed inquiry into the war – known as the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.  Unconvincingly it seemed to blame everything on the Tigers and exonerate its own security forces though there were some sensible suggestions for improving the human rights situation in general. Several ministers disowned the inquiry and so far nothing whatsoever has been done to implement its findings.

The government did draw up a “national action plan” to implement its Lessons Learnt and Reconcilliaton Commission but it looks increasingly like an attempt to stall and obfuscate in the hope the world will forget. It was a response to a politely worded resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council in March. Worryingly the government’s accountability plan relies on the wrongdoers to investigate themselves – and that too over the next five years.

In the meantime Sri Lanka is storing up trouble for the future. Denying the experiences of Tamil survivors makes reconciliation and forgiveness impossible. The deep ethnic grievances that led to conflict in the first place remain dangerously unresolved if not intensified. The defeated I have met are shattered broken people who never want to fight again,  but in another generation the desire for revenge may well kick in.

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 this month (Oct 4) in the UK and online in ebook form by Portobello Books . 

Umpires suspended by ICC

  October 10, 2012

Six umpires accused of corruption will not be selected to officiate by the International Cricket Council until allegations made by an Indian television news channel have been investigated fully.

India TV named six officials it claimed were willing to fix matches for money in the build-up to the World Twenty20, leading the ICC to confirm they were urgently looking into the matter and prompting three of the accused to deny the accusations.

But on Wednesday morning the ICC confirmed that none of the implicated officials would be considered for upcoming matches while an investigation is under way.

An ICC statement read: "The International Cricket Council (ICC) and its relevant Full Member Boards have agreed not to appoint any of the umpires named in a sting operation recently conducted by India TV to any domestic or international cricket matches pending the outcome of the ongoing investigations into the allegations made.

"The officials named are not contracted by the ICC and those Boards who employ and nominate the umpires directly will conduct the investigations as a matter of urgency."

Bangladeshi umpire Nadir Shah had earlier rejected the allegations, telling the BBC: "It is absolute rubbish.

"These people are setting up these things. Telling whatever they feel like. Once we knew that these people are crooked we backed out. I didn't know it was a sting operation. Once I found out that these people are trying to fix matches I just backed out and left."

None of the umpires named by the TV station officiated in the World Twenty20.

Sri Lankan official Maurice Zilva echoed Shah's denial, telling the BBC: "All I have to say is that we are innocent of all these charges."

Compatriot Gamini Dissanayake was quoted by the Times of India as saying: "I reject all allegations. This is an attack on the entire Sri Lankan umpiring fraternity by an external force."

The AHRC Seeks UN Intervention On The Independence Of The Judiciary In Sri Lanka

By Colombo Telegraph -October 10, 2012

The Asian Human Rights Commission today wrote a letter to Ms. Gabriella Knaul, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers informing her of the attempted abduction and assault of Mrs. Manjula Tilakaratne, the secretary of the Judicial Service Commission of Sri Lanka.

The AHRC stated that: The judiciary in Sri Lanka is facing an exception threat of being reduced merely to administrative functions and of rubber stamping the decisions of the executive as are some ‘judiciaries’ in Asia such as that of Myanmar and Cambodia. This is a very real and serious threat.

The AHRC requested the Special Rapporteur that:

…. in your capacity as the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers you should seek a visit to Sri Lanka in order to observe the situation yourself or otherwise take some exceptional steps for assessment of the situation and to make an effective intervention. The highest bodies of the United Nations need to be duly informed about the predicament that the independent judiciary in Sri Lanka is faced with.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

Dear Ms. Knaul,

Re: Attempted abduction and the assault of the secretary of the Judicial Service Commission of Sri Lanka

I refer to my earlier correspondence to you dated September 25, 2012 regarding a press release issued by Mr. Manjula Tilakaratne, the secretary to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) regarding certain threats faced by the JSC and the independence of the judiciary in Sri Lanka. I am now writing to you to inform you that there was an attempted abduction of the JSC secretary in which he was assaulted on October 7. Perhaps you have already been made aware of this incident.

The details of the incident are as follows:

On October 7, 2012 the secretary to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), Manjula Thilakaratne, a former High Court judge, was attacked by four persons. The JSC secretary, accompanied by his wife, had taken his son to drop him at the St. Thomas College gymnasium. After dropping his wife and son at the college he parked his car and as he to wait for some time took a newspaper and was reading it.

Suddenly he saw four persons stopping near his car. One of them had a pole that was about three-feet long and another was holding a pistol. The one with the pole walked towards the passenger’s door of the car and the other three were in front of the door on the driver’s side. The one with the pistol and the other two demanded that the JSC secretary should open the door but he refused.

Then they threatened to use the pistol and at that point he opened the door. One of the three persons asked whether he was the boss (Lokka) of the JSC. Then without warning they started beating him about the face and tried to drag him out of the car.

He continued to resist them. Having realised that it would be difficult to pull him out of the car they tried to push him into the passenger’s seat and he realised that they were trying to abduct him. At this stage he shouted loudly.

On hearing his shouts some doors from the nearby houses opened and some three-wheeler drivers and others were attracted by the noise.

At this stage the four assailants grabbed his mobile phone and ran towards the road behind the car and he lost sight of them.

Later the JSC secretary was admitted to the hospital and is being treated for his injuries.

The following day all the judges and lawyers of Sri Lanka boycotted the courts for a day as a mark of protest.

I am attaching herewith a copy of a statement issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission pointing out the basic threats faced by the JSC and the independence of the judiciary in general in Sri Lanka.

The judiciary in Sri Lanka is facing an exception threat of being reduced merely to administrative functions and of rubber stamping the decisions of the executive as are some ‘judiciaries’ in Asia such as that of Myanmar and Cambodia. This is a very real and serious threat.

Perhaps in your capacity as the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers you should seek a visit to Sri Lanka in order to observe the situation yourself or otherwise take some exceptional steps for assessment of the situation and to make an effective intervention. The highest bodies of the United Nations need to be duly informed about the predicament that the independent judiciary in Sri Lanka is faced with.

Hoping for your urgent intervention on the situation of the Sri Lankan judiciary,

I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Basil Fernando
Director Policy and Programme Development
Asian Human Rights Commission

Final conspiracy to kill JSC Secretary hatched in StarDust Casino Club by PSD and Galkissa CI
-Investigations falsified

(Lanka-e-News-09.Oct.2012,  Based on the information garnered by Lanka e news on the brutal attack launched on the Secretary of Judicial service commission (JSC), Judge Manjula Tilakaratne on the 7th , it has now come to light that the President’s security division (PSD) and the chief Inspector of the Mt. Lavinia police headquarters , Pushpakumara are jointly maneuvering to show that this attack was motivated by robbery .

On 6th night at about 10.30 , that is the day before the attack , a group of the PSD had arrived at the Galkissa Police to meet Pushpakumara. This group had arrived in a Montero jeep AA512/121. Since Pushpakumara had said , a PSD vehicle will arrive to meet him in a little while that night , the police had noted down the vehicle No. when it arrived.

After taking Pushpakumara into the vehicle , the group had gone to the Stardust club belonging to Ravi Wijeratne , a multi millionaire and a bosom pal of the President. They have discussed the plan regarding the attack on the following day . Pushpakumara following the discussions had left for the police station at about 1.15 a.m. after getting down a police vehicle to the StarDust club.

The assault on Manjula Thilakaratne was launched at 8.15 a.m. The aforementioned Montero jeep AA512/121 had been stationed near the venue of the attack for about an hour before the incident. In the front seat was an individual with hair cut short . A shop keeper who had his shop in the vicinity of the attack , and was an eye witness said , the assailant’s movement attracted his attention because when passing by the former had been staring at him. This had spurred him to note down the vehicle number.

The vehicle No. recorded at the police on the previous night and that noted by the shopkeeper are one and the same. The shopkeeper says , though he told he was an eye witness to the attack to the officers of the State intelligence service (SIS), the Colombo CID , the CCD and the Galkissa police who appeared on the scene , nobody had taken the trouble to record a statement of his.

Puspakumara who was at the scene after the assault had said ‘ well there are no eye witnesses to this. So Okay’ in order to forestall any eye witnesses coming forward. Consequently , even those who saw the incident did not come forward . Besides , no statements were recorded of individuals like the shopkeeper who came forward to give evidence, the shop keeper lamented. The attack on Manjula Thilakaratne took place at about 8.15 a.m. , and the Galkissa police was informed of the crime at 9.00 a.m. Intriguingly , like how there was no record of the first informant at the Gampaha police over the recent ghastly student murders , in this instance too , there is no police record of who gave the first information of this crime to the Galkissa police.

The most ludicrous part of this drama is , after the attack , it is Pushpakumara the Galkissa C. I. who has taken the victim Thilakaratne to the Hospital. Moreover , there is no record at the police where this CI was waiting (or rather hiding in readiness) until the attack was over to take the victim to Hospital . Neither is there any police record of who passed the information to Pushpakumara regarding this crime. 
Surely, satanic Pushpakumara can’t be possessed of the extraordinary sixth sense or divine prescience to know there will be an attack . Very clearly this attack was premeditated with his participation and he was in readiness to take the victim to the Hospital by appearing on the scene immediately after the attack. 

One more ground that provokes suspicion is : the officers of the MSD minister security division at the entrance of Jawatte Road leading to where Thilakaratne’s house is situated had noticed two motor cycles in the vicinity at about 7.40 a.m. on that day , and they have reported to the Galkissa police. It is a big question mark why they reported to the Galkissa police without informing the MSD security Headquarters? It is very evident therefore that this report to the Galkissa police was in pursuance of the co ordination action to give the signal that everything was cruising along smoothly and duly according to the dastardly plan.

The most ridiculous and deplorable part of this episode is : the Galkissa police recording the statement of Judge Manjula Thilakaratne in the police register as just an ordinary robbery of a mobile phone and pair of spectacles and as though the victim is just an ordinary riffraff , and made to look completely different from the factual episode which is a grievous and serious offence of assault on a judge .

In the Galkissa police crime register No . 322 /136 , the statement of the Judge had been recorded by IP Ovitigama as follows :

Robbery of a mobile phone worth Rs. 20,000/- and a pair of spectacles worth Rs. 19000/- after attacking with a pistol. 
———————————————————————————————`
Name Herath Mudiyansalage Ruwindra Mnajula Thilakaratne
Address 48/1 Gregory’s Road , Colombo 07

“I dropped my children at S. Thomas’ college for tennis practices along with my wife. I thought of buying a newspaper . I went t o Galle road along Hotel Road , and bought the paper from a shop. I went back and was reading the paper while seated in the driving seat. I received a call from the Kurunegala district judge.
                                                         Full story »

Sri Lanka plans 26 pct rise in defence, urban development spending

COLOMBO | Tue Oct 9, 2012

Oct 9 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka plans to increase spending on defence and urban development by 25.9 percent to 289.5 billion rupees ($2.26 billion) in 2013, a budget appropriation bill presented to parliament showed on Tuesday.

The total maximum borrowing for 2013 has been increased by 12.6 percent year-on-year to 1.3 trillion rupees, while the total expenditure is forecast at 2.52 trillion rupees compared to this year's estimated 2.22 trillion rupees.

No reasons were given for the rise in defence spending, three years after the end of a 25-year war against Tamil separatists. The budget proposals will be presented to parliament on Nov. 8.

($1 = 128.3500 Sri Lanka rupees) (Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Writing by Shihar Aneez and Sanjeev Miglani)

Colombo's militarisation budget to increase by 26%

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2012, 14:58 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Defence Ministry, headed by SL presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, has sought a 26% increase in its military and ‘urban development’ expenditures for the year 2013, news sources in Colombo said. The military expenditure for the year 2012 was 230 billion rupees out of a total budget of 2,220 billion. For the year 2013, out of a total budget of 2,520 billion, the SL defence ministry seeks 290 billion rupees. While the budget increase is 13% the military seeks 26% increase, a double. Meanwhile, a group of international academics pointed out last week that Sri Lanka's expenditure on education is only 1.86% of the GDP, which is the lowest in South Asia and one of the lowest in the world. 

“This crisis [in the education sector] is compounded by reports of rural school closures, problems in schools and university entrance exams and the politicisation and militarisation of the education space,” the academics said in an appeal last week supporting the striking university teachers in the island. 

Colombo should increase state spending in education to the order of 6% of GDP which has been recommended by UNESCO and agreed by the SL government in international forums, the international academics further said. 

Currently, the SL military is alotted with 10.3% of the budget. The increase the military seeks will make the allotment 11.5% of the budget in 2013.

In the meantime, according to Lalith Weeratunga who heads a ‘National Action Plan Task Force’ for the implementation of LLRC findings, various other ministries of the Colombo government would also get funds to proceed further with LLRC ‘implementation’. 

The LLRC implementation, supporting demographic changes, subtly paving way for the slow death of Tamil language and denying territory-based political solution, is regarded by Eezham Tamils as the blueprint for the completion of structural genocide and annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils. The LLRC implementation expects to achieve its goals by the year 2020.

TNA delegation to visit India Press Trust of India / New Delhi October 09, 2012

A delegation of leaders of Sri Lanka's Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by its parliamentary party chief R Sampanthan are arriving here tomorrow on a week -long visit during which they are likely to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Official sources said a seven-member TNA group will be in India and hold meetings with the leaders during which they are expected to apprise the leadership here on their proposal on political solution in Sri Lanka.

New Delhi has been pressing the Sri Lankan government to speed up the process of devolution of powers so that the Tamil citizens of the island nation can live with dignity.

Emerging as a powerful minority Sri Lankan Tamil political alliance in Sri Lanka, TNA secured a landslide victory in northern Sri Lanka in 2010 Parliamentary polls.

TNA, which handed over its proposals for a political solution to the Sri Lankan government last year during its series of talks with the ruling party, has been asking for total devolution of powers to the provinces and transfer of 'extensive financial and fiscal powers' to the provinces including land and police powers.
Talks between the government and the TNA have been deadlocked at the moment given the differences of opinion between the two sides on the participation in the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee.
Recently, the TNA has said that it is willing to join the Parliamentary Select Committee if India can provide an agenda for talks. Sri Lankan Government has been insisting that the political solution would only be home-grown.

FUTA: Drunk And Disorderly

By Kath Noble -October 9, 2012

Kath Noble

Something has gone to Mahinda Rajapaksa‘s head, and I’m guessing it’s power. Because that seems to be the only thing that interests him these days – how to bolster his own position and how to undermine everybody else’s.

Hence his first priority after the end of the war was to get himself another term as president. The presidential election was called early, and it was followed within a couple of months by a parliamentary election, enabling him to strengthen his grip on the legislature too. The Opposition was in disarray. But that wasn’t enough. He wanted a two thirds majority, so a few more crossovers had to be engineered. Neatly bringing us to priority number two – legislation to reduce checks and balances on the executive, and to enable him to run again, as many times as he finds convenient, by abolishing term limits. The Constitution was changed. And it was ‘urgent’. Naturally, for what could be more important than Mahinda Rajapaksa’s future? Not peace-building, certainly. That’s for wimps. The third and final priority was to keep the Opposition cowed. Which is why he has called one election after another, to keep them in campaign mode so that they never get around to replacing their has-been leader.

The actual running of the country has suffered. But that needn’t matter if people learn to be satisfied with the mere appearance of achievement rather than the real thing. What matters is announcing that resettlement is complete and Manik Farm closed down, right? Not whether the IDPs are actually back home with roofs over their heads. Get with the programme, folks.

The Government isn’t bothered about ‘details’ like that. After all, it won the war – nothing else matters.

It certainly doesn’t matter that university teachers have been on strike for three months. Never mind that such a massive and sustained trade union action by a normally rather conservative group of people is unprecedented in Sri Lanka.

What matters is not giving in to terrorism.

Sorry, did I say terrorism? I must be getting confused – the modern world is so difficult for those of us with only limited intelligence. It’s academics Mahinda Rajapaksa shouldn’t negotiate with, right?

Read More

Genocide needs investigation but separation contextually unwise: Alan Keenan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2012, 21:43 GMT]
Alan Keenan 

Calls for investigation on what has happened and is happening now in Sri Lanka from genocide angle need to be looked into, said ICG’s Sri Lanka Project Director, Mr. Alan Keenan, in an interview to TamilNet on Friday. “If you want to call it an investigation, it needs to be looked into. I am fully supportive of it being looked into,” he said 3 years after the war and the Dublin Tribunal calling for such an investigation in Jan 2010. The ICG had earlier targeted the diaspora for the genocide argument that it aims achieving Tamil Eelam. To questions on ICG negating independence to Tamils, while supporting it for others, he said that independence [even] as an ultimate goal is unwise to the current context of Tamils, while “balance of merits” favours it in other contexts. When pressed to explain the contextual difference, he hinted at the chance of further violence coming from the Sinhalese. 

Alan Keenan

Mr. Alan Keenan was interviewed in London, when he came for the launch of the book, “Still Counting the Dead” by Frances Harrison, on Friday.

He was one of the three panel discussants at the book launch, along with Norway’s Erik Solheim, the failed peace facilitator and Yasmin Sooka, member of the UNSG panel that brought out a report on the war in the island.

A striking development in the stand of Mr. Keenan, noticeable in the interview, was his repeated stress on including “what is happening now” in Sri Lanka for the genocide investigation.

Alan Keenan’s interview brought out in full, is followed by observations on the interview by TamilNet political commentator in Colombo, added separately after the interview transcription.

Alan Keenan, 05 October 2012 by TamilNet

Full transcription of the interview of Alan Keenan by TamilNet:

TamilNet: You had said that the argument of genocide is being put forth by sections of the diaspora with the political objective of achieving a separate state of Tamil Eelam.

Mr Keenan: I meant, for some people that is one of the reasons that the argument appeals. It doesn’t mean that this is the only reason and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a case to be made that genocide has happened or is under way. I think that is a possibility, it needs to be explored by people who put together the facts and compare it to the legal issues involved and make some kind of chronological assessment.

TamilNet: So you agree that an investigation needs to happen to show whether it was genocide or not?

Keenan: An investigation. I think it would be a useful issue to look into in a serious way with legal scholars and people who are well informed of the facts of what has happened in Sri Lanka and is happening now. If you want to call it an investigation… it needs to be looked into. I am fully supportive of it being looked into.

TamilNet: The Permanent People’s Tribunal report in 2010 said that charges of genocide need to be investigated. Isn’t that good enough?

Keenan: What do you mean by isn’t that good enough?

TamilNet: Isn’t it good enough as a point of reference that charges that genocide happened to the Tamils need to be investigated by an independent commission in the island?

Keenan: I would think that would there ever to be, as I hope there will be, an independent investigation into the incidents leading up to the end of the war, and preferably also post-war, the question of genocide should be included among those issues.

TamilNet: About the political aspect of the entire question. There is a problem that whatever happened to the Tamils is being reduced to an issue of let’s say, just war crimes or humanitarian concerns, while obfuscating the larger political demands that the struggle of the Tamils put across. ICG, for instance, does not recognize the right of the Tamil people to have a sovereign state of their own. But you have recognized the right to form sovereign nation-states in some other conflicts. Why this difference and is there some other standard by which you are measuring this conflict?

Keenan: I don’t think that the Crisis Group has ever rejected the right of the Tamil people to rule themselves in a sovereign fashion. I think what we have argued, in the current political context, that the demand for separation is not a wise one. Having that as the agenda, as the ultimate goal, for the rights of Tamils, as the ultimate expression of how Tamil rights, collective rights and individual rights should be protected, is not a wise one in the current context. That is all we have said as far as I understand. What I believe we have said in other contexts, which are not ones that I have worked on, I don’t write reports about other parts of the world, is that in those contexts, given the balance of political forces internationally and internally, the risks and benefits of declaring an independent state in a given situation. In some of those other situations, on the balance of merits, it was the right thing to do. In Sri Lanka, our judgment is that’s not right way to go. But it is always a contextual judgement. And it doesn’t deny that there is a certain right of self-determination to find in a particular way. That there is an argument to be made for that and it is quite a strong argument.

TamilNet: You told that the context is not right. Why do you say that the context is not right? If not now, then when? After whatever happened in May (2009) and the after all the routinization of abuses which is happening…

Keenan: This is always a difficult judgement to make. I am not Tamil. I don’t live in Sri Lanka. But from an as dispassionate and as compassionate perspective as I can come to, the costs of pursuing a separate state to the Tamil people, given the lack of international support and given the virulent opposition that it would provoke among the Sinhalese, it would not be a wise thing. The costs, in terms of death, physical destruction, to the Tamil people themselves is not worth it especially given that the chances of succeeding are very small. That’s what I mean ‘it’s contextual’. If it was a different political context, if there was a larger percentage of the Sinhala population which was potentially amenable or open to that, if they were more sympathetic, if the political dynamics among Sinhala dominated parties was more open, then that might well be something that could be pursued. But in the current context, it is a recipe for further violence and further conflagration that will just add up more dead bodies to the already enormous pile of dead bodies that Sri Lanka, particularly Tamils have suffered the last 30-40 years.

TamilNet: Do you think Tamils are entitled to Remedial Sovereignty?

Keenan: Remedial Sovereignty? I don’t know what that means.

TamilNet: This is a concept which is gaining ground in international jurisprudence that any nation or a group of people facing systemic persecution under a current political system have a right to exercise self-determination and sovereignty in order to protect their community from extinction in whole or in part. Do you think Tamils are entitled to this?

Keenan: I’ll have to think more about the question. I am not going to give you an off-the-cuff answer. I am sorry. 

Observations on the interview by TamilNet political commentator in Colombo:

Two weeks ago, Mr Keenan came out with a piece of writing, “Sri Lanka: Time for action, not action plans.”

While his piece of writing was viewed by many as counting trees for action and deliberately deviating from the sight of the wood, Sinhala media in Colombo reacted strongly, providing excuses for the ICG-like, to cite at the Sinhala attitude to negate justice to Eezham Tamils and to hide the fact, whose ‘balance of merits’ actually denies justice.

Any one determined in committing genocide would not provide the kind of amicable ‘context’ envisaged in the interview by Keenan to facilitate independence to victims.

The ICG was actively articulating during the antecedents as well as the course of the genocidal war. It continues its articulation in the structural genocide aftermath. 

Mr Keenan, in lines with the stand of the US Asst. Secretary of State, Mr Robert Blake and the failed Norwegian peace facilitator, Mr Erik Solheim, is well known in the Tamil circles for his project of campaigning among potential Tamil activists, dissuading them from uttering the word genocide or claiming independence. 

Keenan in the interview on Friday said that he didn’t think that the ICG had ever rejected the right of the Tamil people to rule themselves in a sovereign fashion, but all what the ICG had said is that the demand for separation is not a wise one in the current context.

This is blatant denial of the detrimental role the ICG played by internationally negating any righteousness in the independence demand of Eezham Tamils.

For the edification of Keenan and enlightenment of the readership, the video evidence added herewith would show how the CEO of the ICG, Louise Arbour. was negating the sovereignty and the demand for independence of Eezham Tamils in September 2010.



Why after more than three years of the war, and after allowing structural genocide to set in, Keenan now says the genocide case could be looked into, without compromising on his fundamental of negating independence and dodging a question on remedial sovereignty rights of a people? 

Has a situation come where they could now confidently tell, ‘yes, there may be genocide, but accept it, try to survive through it, and nothing could be done about it now’?

But, sections of Eezham Tamil activists think that there is a change in the ICG perception. This is exactly what Keenan aims at, to insinuate into sections with which the ICG has no credibility and to engage them in the brainwashing.

A perusal of his interview would show that the genocide investigation he envisages is a passive one, as though somebody else has to undertake it and prove it through a lengthy legal process. 

“It needs to be explored by people who put together the facts and compare it to the legal issues involved and make some kind of chronological assessment,” Keenan said. 

The tactic is to buy more and more time.

* * *TamilNet on Sunday has reproduced some of the recent email communications it had with its columnist in the Asia Pacific who passed away last week, explaining the course of affairs of the International Community of Establishments (ICE) and the ICG:

“We need to open our eyes and see the collusion games being played by DFAT, ICG and the like as tools of the International Community of Establishments (ICE),” the columnist said.

“Up to the CFA it was GoSL that was buying the time, but after that, it was the IC that is buying the time,” he wrote.

On the current world situation, the columnist said: “Humanity is facing a leadership crisis. The dark clouds of deteriorating environment, the deepening world economic crisis, and the successful pre-emption of the completion of national liberation by the globalised establishments currently transforming under the influence of intelligence agencies as an insurance against the establishment of a socialist world order– All indicate a very favourable objective conditions for a revolutionary change.” 

“But the 99% having been submerged under ideology of individualism and egoism, being influenced and divided by the uneven distribution of the bribe/spoils of war & oppression, are suffering from a leadership crisis.”

“History will not forgive us if we engage in the propagation of divisive stories promoted by the oppressor,” the columnist cautioned.

If justice is not coming from the ‘context’ of the Establishments of today, Eezham Tamils have no option other than reaching out to the likeminded masses of the world for mobilized action.

The Asia Pacific columnist was suggesting a Plan B of canvassing International public opinion, as he was sure of the Plan A of approaching India or the West becoming useful only in proving that they would not support the cause of Eezham Tamils.

The diaspora is fully capable of Plan B, he said.

“A very effective Plan B may even make Plan A workable, if the numbers behind Plan B are large enough. Mobilising TN [Tamil Nadu] population is very important,” the columnist said in an email in July this year.

An orchestrated campaign is currently unleashed specifically against TamilNet, by certain Establishments, their agenda-workers, diplomatic missions, and by a group of gullible followers or ‘1% aspirants’ among Eezham Tamils, who believe that the stand of TamilNet is spoiling the ‘grand designs and strategies’ they have for the island.