G.L.Peiris And His Sermon In The UN General Assembly

By S. V. Kirubaharan –October 12, 2012 

S. V. Kirubaharan

Last month, the 67th session of the UN General Assembly – UNGA commenced under the Presidency of Mr. Vuk Jeremic, (ex- Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia), the youngest ever UNGA president – 37 years old.

Any Presidency of UN bodies rotates annually among the five regional groups – Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin American & Caribbean and Western Europe & other States. On that basis, the 67^th session was Eastern Europe’s turn. Serbia and Lithuania posed their candidates and Serbia was elected.

Before the birth of Serbia, Mr. Vuk Jeremic was in the public service of Yugoslavia as an Advisor to the Minister of Telecommunications.

Sri Lanka has been a member State since 14 December 1955. In 1976, Sri Lanka’s representative Mr Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe held the Presidency of the GA, on behalf of the Asian group.

Voting in the UNGA

Each UN member state has one vote in the UNGA. Whenever votes are counted, member states can vote ‘Yes’, ‘No’or ‘Abstain’. A two-third majority is required in the election of members to the Security Council. All other voting can be decided by a simple majority. Nowadays, UN bodies take special efforts to achieve consensus rather than deciding by formal voting.

It is to be noted, a Member State with arrears in payment of its dues to the UN for two preceding years can lose its voting right. However, an exception is allowed, if the Member State can show that conditions beyond its control contributed to this inability to pay – article 19 of the UN Charter.

Presently five member states are in arrears of payment as of September 2012. They are: Central African Republic, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome & Principe and Somalia.

6 main Committees in the UNGA                                                  Read More

Keheliya’s utterances betray those behind attack on JSC Secretary







(Lanka-e-News- 12.Oct.2012, 11.30AM) The announcement made by Minister Keheliya Rambukwella yesterday (11) as Govt. Cabinet spokesman clearly betrayed who is the culprit behind the attack launched on the Judicial service commission (JSC) Secretary. He said , the media communiqué of the JSC Secretary on the 18th September that there are pressures being brought to bear on the judiciary is a wrong action taken . The Govt. is of the view that the JSC Secretary has no power to take such an action , and it is being discussed what measures should be taken in that regard. The Govt .’s attention is focused on what decision ought to be arrived at in respect of the Secretary, he added.
From these utterances it is very clear that the criminals who attacked the JSC Secretary recently while yelling out ‘you are the JSC Secretary’ have thought on the same lines as the Govt. Keheliya has impliedly given the answer to the question , on whose instructions these criminals attacked therefore. On the other hand , If Keheliya says that the JSC Secretary has no power to issue a communiqué to the public, from whom did Keheliya a Minister procure powers to take decisions in regard to the JSC Secretary? This is a vexatious issue.
Senior Lawyer J C Weliammuna had given a sound and solid answer to the stupid view of the Govt. that the JSC secretary has no such powers , when he spoke at the conference on ‘keep hands of judiciary’ on the 10th . He made it abundantly clear that if the Judiciary , Executive and the legislature are entertaining the belief that they are superior , nothing can be more foolish , for the supremacy is with the people as mentioned in section 3 of the constitution. Hence the sovereignty of the people cannot be divested . Some think the Executive has the right to monitor the judiciary , which is an absolutely wrong conception, Weliamuna asserted.
Weliamuna also stressed a very salient point : if the judiciary thinks that it should have the security attaching to the Executive, this is wrong because in that event the judiciary’s independence is eroded. The judiciary shall be secured by the people . The Executive and the legislature have methods for their security , but not for the judiciary. In a country where the sovereignty of the laws are non existent ,the security of the judiciary is in the hands of the people. This is precisely why the JSC Secretary issued a communiqué to the people revealing clearly that pressures are being exerted on the Judiciary, Welamuna elaborated. 

He therefore made it very clear an independent judiciary ought to be secured by the people and the Lawyers.
In the circumstances , the view of Cabinet spokesman ,Minister Keheliya that the JSC Secretary has no powers to issue a communiqué is absolutely untenable , anti democratic and tantamount to kicking and trampling on the sovereignty of the people.

'Actions of Int'l Community will decide our future path' : Jaffna Civil Society

08 OCTOBER 2012

BY RAMANAN VEERASINGHAM

Sending a very strong signal to the outside world, the powerful Jaffna Civil Society Organisations have told a visiting UN delegation that “they are no longer prepared to trust the government of Sri Lanka and that their future path to achieve the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamils would be decided by the actions of the International Community”, local media reports said Sunday.

Explaining the factual situation on the ground to the UN team led by the UN Assistant Secretary General Dr. Ajay Chhibber, the Jaffna Civil Society members have complained that the incumbent government of Mahinda Rajapaksa “continued to engage in carrying out its campaign of genocide by various other means even after the end of the war” 

“We told the UN team not to get carried away by just looking at new highways being freshly re-laid and a few buildings being erected as landmarks of developmental activities. We urged them to walk just few hundred meters into the adjoining villages if they wanted to witness the real plight of the war-ravaged people,” a Jaffna Civil Society member, who took part in the meeting with the UN delegation told JDS on condition of anonymity.

“One cannot reach a permanent political solution through development. But a sustainable development could be achieved through a lasting political solution to the Tamil national question,” we told the UN team, highlighting the impediments placed by the government authorities in delivering the socio-economic assistance to the war affected people.

“Apart from several thousands of acres of fertile lands inside the High Security Zones, the military keeps acquiring vast stretch of lands of our people. Systematic Sinhala colonisation is being carried in full swing to change the fundamental demographic nature of our traditional homeland. The implementation of Tamil language is almost close to zero. We highlight many such issues to the UN team,” the Civil Society member told the JDS via phone from Jaffna. 

The UN envoy visited Sri Lanka between on October 4 on a two day visit to assess ongoing programmes of the UNDP. They met top government ministers and officials in Colombo before undertaking a visit to the northern Jaffna peninsula. 

Issuing a statement at the end of his visit, Dr. Ajay Chhibber called for greater attention to be given towards the resettled war displaced people.

Uncovering the Truth About Sri Lanka's Civil War: a Painful But Urgent Task

In May 2009 within a region of Sri Lanka known as the Vanni, government forces finally routed the rebel secessionist militia known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), drawing to a close the island nation's long civil war, an internecine struggle that had claimed 100,000 lives over 26 years.

The last months of the conflict were perhaps the bloodiest of all, during which time it is alleged that terrible expedients were deployed in order to eradicate the LTTE, resulting in what the International Red Cross described at the time as an "unimaginable human catastrophe" for local civilians. The government has long maintained that it behaved honourably, while ethnic minority Tamil representatives have described the events in the Vanni (where Tamil civilians were allegedly killed en masse) as genocidal.

So what actually happened? One cannot be sure. International agencies and journalists were largely excluded from the battle zones, and the sole substantial government-ordered probe wascriticised by NGOs as limited and self-exonerating. Investigations by a United Nations panel of experts and reports by human rights groups have acknowledged credible allegations of grave war crimes . The most serious of these allegations is that up to an estimated 40,000 civilian lives were lost due to indiscriminate or deliberate government shelling of hospitals and civilian safe zones by the Sri Lankan military. Journalists have documented chilling allegations that the government knew of or ordered these practices. Colombo denies these claims.

In the absence of an inquiry viewed as satisfactory by the international community, a small number of journalists have attempted to piece together available evidence and conduct their own investigations in order to reconstruct what may have taken place. The latest example of this is represented by a recently-released book written by former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent, Frances Harrison. Her work, "Still Counting the Dead" is an account of the conflict's denouement told through the testimonies of survivors, augmented by her own research. It makes for a harrowing read.

It evidently made for a harrowing write also. When I spoke to Frances she related to me the near-incredulity she felt when encountering aspects of the available record that indicate serious abuses. She explained:

"Writing this book there was something really horrifying about confronting these things, it was difficult to accept some of them, almost to believe them. So the idea that hospitals were deliberately targeted...you couldn't imagine that anyone would do that on purpose and do it, according to Human Rights Watch 35 times and on purpose...I found that almost too difficult mentally to get my head around as it is so, so shocking."

She added further that,

"you can't hit hospitals so many times in so many months and [say] its accidental...the [hospitals] whose positions were not given [GPS co-ordinates sent by doctors & international groups to Colombo] weren't hit and the government had surveillance aircraft, drones were flying all the time, there were desperate phone calls from ICRC, with doctors saying don't hit the hospital...I find it hard to attribute a motive to something so utterly wrong."

(NB: Deliberately targeting hospitals is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, to which Sri Lanka is a signatory.)

Harrison's book contains a collection of grim facts that begin to establish an account of the events of early 2009 from a macro standpoint (referencing facts from reliable sources) complemented hauntingly by individual stories of human tragedy. It is the latter that makes it such a heart-breaking read, from the story of the teacher who suffered a "miscarriage on the beach at the climax of the war" to the young woman who alleges she was brutally raped by drunk police in cells.

While it is clear from the book that Harrison deeply empathizes with Tamil civilians and is highly critical of the conduct of government forces, it is interesting to note that she is likewise unsparingly censorious about the perceived failures of the LTTE leadership. The latter, in her view "deliberately exposed their own people to slaughter and refused to surrender, even when all was plainly lost", thus increasing the body count. She also takes aim at the UN and the international community who, she suggests, knew enough about the carnage at the time to have taken a more active role in trying to intervene.

In Still Counting the Dead, Harrison assembles a narrative that, while convincing, is necessarily limited by a lack of access to official documentation held by the government, satellite imagery collected by the United States and India (if certain wikileaks cables are to be believed) and other key materials. Access to the areas where the fighting took place is likewise still restricted, and survivors (some of whom I have spoken to myself) remain terrified about speaking out for fear of reprisals.

Nonetheless the book, and the interest it may garner, is a step in the right direction. While peace in Sri Lanka is to be welcomed, a culture of impunity cannot prevail among the nation's political and military elite given the horrific atrocities that, by all indications, probably occurred during the conflict's finale. "Still Counting the Dead" reminds us of the need to remember this tortured corner of modern history - as painful as it is to do so - and for the international community to press the Sri Lankan government for accountability over horrors that will not be extirpated from the island's soul unless the past can be faced with courage.

Investigations into attack on judge is a camouflage –Top flight police officer (IGP’s division) exposes

(Lanka-e-News- 12.Oct.2012, 8.30AM) No less a person than a top flight officer of the IGP’s Office speaking to Lanka e news said , the police have not so far shown any interest in securing scientific evidence , nor sought the assistance of the officers of the finger prints Registrar Dept., in the assault and robbery case on the 7th where the JSC Secretary, judge Manjula Thilakaratne was the victim. The police statement to the media that finger prints were taken is also a falsehood , he added.

Based on the statement recorded by the police of the JSC Secretary that the assailants tried to open the driving side door and attacked it, and the glass shutters, it is very clear the first step the police should have taken is to summon the officers of the finger print Dept. to the scene, as well as enlist the assistance of the police dogs, the top flight officer pointed out. As none of these measures were taken the opportunity to apprehend the culprits is lost since the vital scientific and researched evidence don’t exist, he further observed.

The finger prints Dept. officers have so far made no official announcement on this. It is also not possible to make such an announcement now. The police instead of immediately summoning the finger prints experts have got down the ‘Thailaya’ quality officers to dupe the public .They are identified as ‘SOCO’. These are morons who are not only incapable of researching on the evidence but even incapable of producing a scientific conclusion based on the evidence. These SOCOs are comprised of ordinary police officers knowing nothing on this subject and without a proper training. Their ‘expertise’ and ‘abilities’ to garner and marshal evidence will be exposed only in the courts, the top rung officer lamented. In this grave heinous crime of assault and robbery committed on a judge - the JSC Secretary , these moron SOCOs were summoned leaving out the Finger prints Dept. officers for obvious reasons , the Police top dog of the IGP’s office pointed out.
He also added that the pictorial sketch of the suspect produced to the media by the police media unit on the 9th is illegal, as it is only the police photography unit under the police Dept. . that has the power legally to release such a sketch . Instead of that , releasing ludicrous ‘ cartoon pictures’ on suspects by those in police stations who have an ability to draw pictures is absolutely forbidden and unlawful. It is just to mislead the people wholesale this type of action was resorted to , he emphasized.

The top flight police officer also made reference to a most important point : when anybody is recruited to the police or any security division , it is imperative that their fingerprints are taken and are carefully kept in the custody of the Finger prints Registrar . But , the present so called recruits to the new and novel (Presidential security division) PSD paramilitary Force are exempt from abiding by that most vital requirement . The top flight Officer said he can without any trace of doubt and with full responsibility vouch that their finger prints are not registered with the Finger prints registrar’s Dept.

The Plundering of Sri Lanka

Where the Dead Walk

OCTOBER 12-14, 2012

by NILANTHA ILANGAMUWA

“History had a slow pulse; man counted in years, history in generations”

― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

Colombo, Sri Lanka.

It was another extrajudicial killing. And, it happened two days ago. This time the victim was cut into pieces and the pieces were strewn in a suburb of Colombo. Eyewitness to the incident told media that some people arrived in a vehicle, threw ‘something’ out, and set the same alight in the early hours of the day. Later, the villagers realized the pieces belonged to a human body.  Nobody knows who the victim is; the police are ‘busy’ conducting their ‘investigation.’

There have been dozens of mysterious killings in the highly militarized island nation in last couple of weeks. Are they part of an “international conspiracy”, as the government has always suspected? The conspiracy theory has become a political comedy – considered the best strategy to cover up the failures of the government, not only in Sri Lanka, but in many countries of the world. The fact is that, “to live and seethe in that world of conspiracy theories means rejecting any form of objective reality” (Editorial; International Heralds Tribune, October 11th 2012).

We have lost something but are unsure what exactly it is we have lost. It was my personal experience to see human beings not have the validity of even an animal, when confronted with a brutal war. As we define terrorism, we see that war also is a symptom of the same disease, and once one finishes the battle on the ground the true implications lay bare. In the Sri Lankan context, what we saw during and after the battle was that we had eliminated the LTTE but never really understood the true consequences of the underlying problems. Were we hiding the real problems for the time being to expand personal wealth? The nation became a pool to pirates and plundering state resources is still the daily experience.

We have lost the strength to fight against the unjust, and the dissidents lost the art of fighting against autocracy. We shouted loudly against one autocracy for the chance to take up another. One after another; we changed the heads but we never thought to change the system.

We used an “electoral system” to show others that we are civilized and we are implementing basic principles of freedom in a way that everyone can enjoy. But in reality we changed the appearance of power but didn’t scratch the soul; and perhaps we dressed up “racial nihilism” as a guardian of the nation.

B.R. Ambedkar’s comment that “it is very easy for anybody to become a Mahatma in India by merely changing his dress,” is applicable to the situation in Sri Lanka. “If you are wearing an ordinary dress and leading an ordinary life even if you perform extraordinary noble deeds, nobody takes, any notice of you. But a person who does not behave in normal manner and shows some peculiar trends and abnormalities in his character becomes a saint or a Mahatma;” he wrote.

If we no longer believe in our own infallibility; then it is obvious we will lose the battle. What we have to understand in this dire point in time is that we have given power to a tyrant. Only once we have fully understood the nature of this disaster, can we really find out how we can take it back. Let us therefore consider the changes that came about since the 1978 constitution from a different perspective.

Étienne de La Boétie, was a French judge, writer, anarchist, and “a founder of modern political philosophy in France. He wrote in his famous essay entitled, “Discours de la Servitude Volontaire” (The Politics of Obedience: the Discourse of Voluntary Servitude also known as Anti-One), which is one of the foundations of political dissent and the balance of power. As Roland Bleiker of Cambridge University described, “while Machiavelli’s The Prince helped to define sovereignty, state power and the ensuing international order, La Boetie’s Anti-One contributed to the emergence of forces that came to circumvent and undermine the spatial and political logic of this order.”  In his writing as a young student, Étienne de La Boétie expressed his objections against the authority and royal absolutions while spreading an idea of struggle for freedom and how to deal with radical oppression against absolute power. In the beginning of his Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, La Boétie, noted his main objective in dealing with the subject.

“It must be said that the domination of several could not be good for the power of one alone, as soon as he acquires the title of master, is harsh & unreasonable . . . it is extremely unfortunate to be subjected to one master, whose kindness one can never be assured of, since it is always in his power to be cruel whenever he desires; & as for having several masters, the more one has, the more extremely unfortunate it is.” La Boétie thus launched a fresh attack against royal absolutism.

The 1978 constitution in Sri Lanka was based on this critical issue, where we again opened our gates to royal absolutism, which had been annulled after a series of devilish struggles and colonialism. Unfortunately, we never critically analyzed this to create authentic dissent that can fight against this absolute power and a corrupted system. While we are taking Machiavelli into our home from the back door, we remained unconcerned as we wanted to find another side of Machiavellian politics in the western philosophical context.

Machiavelli and La Boétie are black and white if we compare a colour combination of their works. The writings by La Boétie were geared towards achieving personal liberty in ordinary citizen, as different from Machiavellian politics in the West. La Boétie always encouraged the citizen and discourses of volunteerism against the royal absolutism.

Even after the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in Sri Lanka, we are not moving any closer towards core notions of personal freedom (liberty) of citizens in the country. Instead, conducting narrow minded nihilistic actions have become a common phenomenon. Freedom seems to always be beyond reach in our society. What we have dragged up as freedom is not actual freedom. But how did we lose it? In other words, how did the regime become capable of creating a framework which limits freedom? How “tyrants get power and maintain it, it’s simple assumption is that real power always lies in the hands of the people and that they can free themselves from a despot by an act of will unaccompanied by any gesture of violence.”

The power of people is always exceptional and it can change the system. In China, a traditional saying goes: “Water can both sustain and sink a ship.”

Real ideology will never proclaim social reforms through violence. Thus La Boétie tried to explain that the tyrant is in power because of the people and only people can evaluate society to find the real meaning of freedom. What he explains is that tyrants are never true friends to his or her country but gaining and expanding absolute power is only the ultimate goal of the tyrant.

Today, Sri Lanka has become a sick society. There is an unimaginable level of destruction and the way in which her ordinary people live resembles a situation where the dead walk.

Nilantha Ilangamuwa is journalist and editor of the Sri Lanka Guardian, an online daily news paper based in Colombo Sri Lanka. He can be reached atilangamuwa@gmail.com or editor@srilankaguardian.org 

Great grandpa uses foul language in Parliament – Anura

SATURDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2012

Mr. J.R.P Sooriyaperuma uses foul language in Parliament and it indicates that the image he has developed through the media is only a fabrication says JVP Parliamentarian Anura Dissanayake.

He said this speaking in Parliament yesterday (12th) regarding words and expressions used by UPFA Parliamentarian J.R.P. Sooriyapperuma when he got up to interrupt Parliamentarian Ajith Perera while he was speaking on education.

Ajith P Perera: It was said this country would be made the center for aviation and also the center for education. However, there is no investment for aviation and to make this the center for education.

J.R.P. Sooriyapperuma: you all should be shot or hanged. You all are donkeys born a day or two before. Tell the truth. The UNP opposed free education. When free education was established you were not born. You were in your mother’s womb. Don’t talk nonsense.

Ajith P Perera: Ox, donkey, fool are words that are used by this senior, great teacher and senior Parliamentarian! This is how he talks.

J.R.P. Sooriyarachchi: What can I say to an ox other than using the word ox? There is no other word for a donkey. The coat is from the embassy; shoes too are from the embassy. That fellow (When Parliamentarian Sujeewa Serasinghe attempted to say something) is a two penny lawyer. Fool (When another Parliament attempted to talk) don’t talk. He has come to Colombo from rural areas.

Anura Dissanayake: The Parliamentarian representing the government who spoke earlier had developed his image through the media as a very intelligent and matured person. However, the words used when school children are present by this person who had seen even his great grand children are very primitive. We are very unhappy that words and expressions that had never been used in the Parliament had been used by this person.

Sri Lankan opposition raps gov't over big loss in Greek bonds

2012-10-12 
COLOMBO, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's opposition is blaming the government for the loss of 15.5 million U.S. dollars in Greek bonds and are calling for a full investigation into the oversight, an official said here on Friday.

Sri Lanka's main opposition, the United National Party (UNP) MP Dr. Harsha de Silva who is also an economist by profession has severely criticized the Central Bank for investing in what he termed as "junk bonds" of Greece in the aftermath of the Euro crisis.

"The monetary board of the Central Bank was not consulted and this investment was made after all rating agencies gave the lowest possible evaluation for Greek bonds. However the government has failed to clarify why this decision was taken when such a massive economic meltdown was happening," he told reporters.

Sri Lanka has reputedly invested over 30 million euros in Greek junk bonds on April 5, 2011 and subsequently lost an estimated 15. 5 million U.S. dollars, according to Dr. Harsha de Silva.

He went on to say that the high powered officials were acting with impunity and that the UNP was not allowed to voice their concerns within the parliament.

"When this issue was to be taken up before parliament on Tuesday we were not allowed to question the government. Senior Ministers responsible have misled parliament by not divulging all the information related to the Greek bonds," he added.

The UNP has long criticized the Sri Lankan government for not following good governance practices in relation to investments.

"It's the same group of people that are mismanaging public funds," he said referring to questionable stock market practices that have cropped up in the recent past with regard to Central Bank investments.

The Opposition has vowed to continue their demand for transparency in the parliament.

War displaced urge UN against being removed to transit camps

POST 24 SEPTEMBER 2012

BY ATHULA VITHANAGE

he United Nations has been called upon to intervene in preventing hundreds of Tamil war displaced families from being removed to transit camps away from their homes in northern Sri Lanka.

In an appeal to the UN human rights chief, former parliamentarian Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam says that those remaining in the Chettikkulam war displaced Camp in Vavuniya Menik Farm, have been threatened to be removed on Monday the 24th of September by the military.

Military threats

The threat by an army officer has been made at a meeting held with the military, government officials and representatives of the war displaced following a demonstration opposing plans to remove the displaced to the Vattrapallai school premises. The demonstration was attended by the war displaced living with host families in Vattrapallai and by representatives of the Tamil National Alliance, Democratic People's Front, Nava Sama Samaja Party and the New Democratic Marxist Leninist Party. Protesters were intimidated by suspected military personnel, and vehicles carrying Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) President and general secretary have been attacked on Friday the 21st of September.

Along with his letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navaneethan Pillai, Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) President Ponnambalam has sent a petition signed by those in the Menik farm who call to be resettled in their native village.  The petition ‘would have had more signatories if the Sri Lanka Army had not prevented people from inside the Menik Farm camp, from attending the protest held on Friday' says the TNPF leader in his letter to the UN.

Petition by war displaced

The petitioners from Keppapulavu in the Mullaitheevu district,who have been forced to flee the war, have accused the military of blocking resettlement by grabbing their ancestral land. ‘A huge military base has been built in our village and the Government of Sri Lanka has no intention of resettling us in Keppapulavu,’ their petition says. They have expressed fear that their rations will be discontinued in order to force them to comply with been removed to a transit camp. TNPF leader Ponnambalam has told the UN High Commissioner Pillai that the war displaced ‘are not going to be allowed to return to their original lands in Keappapulavu as the military has begun to build their permanent base in the area that covers the entire village’.

‘Short term diplomatic goals’

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has highlighted the plight of hundreds of thousands of war displaced yet to be resettled in their original homelands. Tamil parliamentarian M Sumanthiran informed Sri Lanka’s Parliament in October last year that over 2,00,000 war displaced removed from the Menik Farm have been forced to live in transit camps or with host families. His findings have not been challenged by authorities.

TNPF leader Ponnambalam says that the Sri Lankan government wants to publicly display that it has closed down the Chettikulam camp before the UNHRC sessions in Geneva in November. The UNHRC is expected to review Sri Lanka’s human rights in its November session.

“I am sure you would agree with me that the people can't be used as pawns by the Government to attain its short term diplomatic goals,” the TNPF leader has told the UN human rights chief Navi Pillai.

FUTA Ended Strike: What Will Happen To The 6% Of GDP For Education Campaign?

By Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri -October 13, 2012

Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri

After one hundred days of continuous strike action during which FUTA was able to generate a tremendous public debate on education, the FUTA Executive Committee having met 11^th October, 2012, decided to suspend its strike action as of 12^th October, 2012 taking into consideration views expressed by a majority of sister unions.

The government’s response to the 100 day FUTA trade union action has been in the form of a cabinet note, letter issued by the Secretary to the Treasuryand a joint statement regarding the agreements reached by the two parties.  While noting the proposed policy initiatives suggested by the government in response to the demands made by FUTA, it is our view that these do not completely address the very serious and critical issues raised by FUTA during its trade union action.

The FUTA is especially disappointed that the government has failed to make a specific commitment with regard to the 6% of GDP for education campaign.  After three months of continuous trade union action, during which FUTA was able to mobilize tremendous support for increasing allocation for education from among members of the public, trade unions, civil society organizations and political parties, the government’s response is limited to what has been stated in the Note to Cabinet presented by Ministers Basil Rajapakseand S.B. Dissanayake on 12^th September 2012.  While FUTA notes that the government has accepted in principle to allocate more funding for education in line with international benchmarks in the cabinet note, it is disappointing that the government has failed to specify a road map as to how it plans to increase allocations for education.

While several initiatives have been suggested with regard to respecting university autonomy and academic freedom, whether these suggestions will translate into specific initiatives and bring about a change of attitude among those who have been responsible for the erosion of university autonomy and academic freedom remains to be seen.  FUTA, while welcoming these initiatives, will be closely monitoring how meaningfully they develop in the future.

Further, the government’s response to our demand in regard to the salaries of academics made in order to address the issue of recruiting and retaining qualified staff is currently only in the form of an assurance and is devoid of any specifics or modalities. By letter dated 9^th October, 2012, the Secretary to the Treasury has undertaken to address the demand, in consultation with FUTA, within the next five years starting with the 2013 budget.

It appears that the government is unwilling at this juncture to provide specific solutions to the issues we raised, through our arduous campaign of hundred days. In view of that reality, continuing with the trade union action was thought futile by a majority of our sister unions, especially given the immense hardship caused to students. However, the membership remains defiant in its commitment to achieving its demands in the long term.

We will continue to monitor whether the government follows up on the assurances that have been made and we retain the right to take appropriate trade union action if these assurances are not fulfilled.  With regard to the 6% of GDP for Education campaign, the FUTA intends to continue its campaign collaboratively with other like-minded unions and civil society organizations, mindful that the campaign is no longer a mere FUTA campaign but a national campaign which we will continue to lead.

FUTA takes enormous pride in that it was able to sustain the trade union action for so long despite severe hardship faced by its membership through our unwavering commitment to a higher cause. We are equally proud that that we were able to build such a broad platform in support of our campaign.  We stand tall as we were able as a trade union, to go beyond narrow professional interests and campaign on issues of social importance. The experiences of the last 100 days have served as a tremendous factor in reawakening the academic community to be mindful of its social responsibilities.  This reawakening will serve us well in the months ahead of us as we continue to struggle for our demands.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who supported our campaign in various ways.  We express our appreciation for the role of the all religious dignitaries in attempting to mediate between FUTA and the government, especially when discussions had come to a halt.  Our gratitude is also due to all the retired academics, including former Vice-Chancellors who supported our cause and expressed public support for our campaigns as well as the solidarity shown by academics around the world. We are especially thankful to our fellow trade unions, other civil society organisations and conscientious public representatives who joined our campaign with conviction and determination.  To all the media organisations and media personnel who covered our campaigns, and who provided us the space to tell our side of the story at a time when our access to the media was severely constrained too we express our appreciation.  To our students, who stood by us and supported us at such tremendous cost, we can only say that this fight was for you and for future students.  You continue to inspire us to remain in this profession.  We remember with sadness and deep respect the two students who lost their lives while participating in a protest campaign.

We may have ended our strike, but our campaign to enhance and protect the public funded education system in this country is far from over.

*Dr Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, President/FUTA

Russia to liberate the world from US occupation

AlJazeeraEnglish has uploaded Inside Syria - Syria-Turkish-Russia relations set to fray. As flights are now suspended the fallout between Turkey, Syria and Russia seems imminent. Hazem Sika speaks to Fadi Hakura, Bassam Imadi & Vyacheslav. Inside Syria - Syria-Turkish-Russia relations set to fray

Russia to liberate the world from US occupation

SATURDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2012

A State Duma deputy, the head of the Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship of the Russian State Duma, Yevgeny Fyodorov, told Pravda.Ru of his impressions from visiting the APEC summit in Vladivostok. According to him, the meeting showed that the U.S. gradually loses absolute power in the world economy and politics. The power and influence of other countries, such as Russia and China, grows against such a background.

State Duma deputy, the head of the Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship of the Russian State Duma Yevgeny Fyodorov:

"APEC is a very interesting and important event, although it seems to be an ordinary one. The leaders get together and discuss important issues, but in reality it is the key event in today's global scenario. With the onset of the global economic crisis, with political and economic turbulence, the APEC is a key event in terms of the demonstration of new vectors of unity of the international community outside the United States.

It is clear that it is not a split - everyone still plays by American rules, but the countries already demonstrate their independence in economic policy. I was there and saw how angry Mrs. Hillary Clinton was when she came from China, where several Chinese leaders - especially those who are to become top officials of China next year - did not even want to meet her. In China, Clinton was told no when she wanted to take on mediator's functions in resolving China's territorial disputes with Asian countries.

She also heard no in response to her requirement to set the yuan rate. It is an annual requirement of the United States to China to set the yuan rate for political reasons to pump resources and opportunities from China to the U.S. It is an additional form of tribute from China, which China had to deal with every year for political motives. Nowadays, the U.S. was refused. The world is changing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly expressed his attitude to the dollar as the world reserve currency. In fact, he offered the countries of the world to start building a large number of regional currencies as an alternative to the reserve system of the dollar. This is a strong step and a strong move, including the initiative to switch to mutual payments. He also said that Russia and China had already switched to the system and he urged other countries to follow the example. This shows that the world begins to change fundamentally, and Russia's role at this point is to become the leader in changing the world. I would say that Putin as the leader of the national liberation movement in Russia, demonstrated himself at the event as a leader and provider of ideas for the world national liberation movement against the system of occupation, which was formed after 1991 not only about Russia but also China and many other countries.

From this point of view, it is the key and turning meeting of the leaders of world's largest economies, which creates conditions to reformat the entire economic system of the world - moving away from the U.S. Do not forget that the U.S. consumes a half the world's GDP, despite the fact that there is only 4.5 percent of the population living there. In other words, they eat ten times as much as compared to the citizens of all other countries. And they eat at the expense of China, Russia, India, Brazil - all other countries.

Today, the world begins to unite against the colonizer - USA. For the time being, it is a conceptual and preparatory process, but it takes place. In this regard, I would call the preliminary results of the meeting in the Far East the meeting of the future members of the world national liberation movement to free the world from the U.S. occupation.

Courtesy - Pravda

Krishna urges Lankan Tamil delegates to resume talks

Foreign minister S M Krishna again called for early resumption of talks for political reconciliation in Sri Lanka in a meeting with a seven-member delegation of the Tamil National Alliance led by R Sampanthan.

THE TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: Foreign minister S M Krishnaagain called for early resumption of talks for political reconciliation in Sri Lanka in a meeting with a seven-member delegation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by R Sampanthan. The TNA had pulled out of talks in January after the Lankan government came up with the proposal that further negotiations be carried out through a Parliament Select Committee (PSC).

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has himself declared that the talks - of which 18 rounds had taken place before January — will remain suspended until TNA joins PSC. India took up the issue with the Lankans during Rajapaksa's recent visit here insisting that talks must resume while describing TNA as a credible alliance.

The delegation also called on PM Manmohan Singh. Sampanthan conveyed to both the leaders that the TNA would consider joining the PSC on finding a political solution provided the Rajapaksa government gives a firm assurance that they would not be "cheated again".

Terming the meeting with Singh and Krishna as "extremely good", he said the TNA told Singh that the party was committed to achieving a political solution but would want an assurance from the Sri Lankan government that the "negativity" would be removed.

"Prime Minister said India would never backtrack from its position that Tamils in Sri Lanka should lead a life of dignity and self respect in a peaceful environment. He told us that India is fully with Sri Lankan Tamils and would continue to engage with TNA," Sampanthan said. 

“If you tell anyone, we will kill you and your husband”

            2012            






       

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“If you tell anyone, we will kill you and your husband”

Posted 02/10/2012 by 4refugeewomen

Frances Harrison, author of Still Counting the Dead, explains how Sri Lankan refugee women are living in fear.

All I had was an address in East London. The interview was set up by a series of lawyers and priests and I still don’t know the woman’s real name. We sat in a tiny back room of a terraced house and she told me, a complete stranger, the story that she’d never told her mother or husband. Then, understandably, she never wanted to see me again.

Manimolly, as I’ve called her, is a Sri Lankan Tamil who has sought asylum in Britain. Growing up in the capital Colombo, the civil war between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the predominantly Sinhalese army was just a distant backdrop to her early life. Her family was  from the Tamil minority, but she didn’t come from the conflict areas and she was about as apolitical as it’s possible to be in such a situation.

Yet her entire life crashed one day in May 2010, a year after the guns had gone silent and Sri Lanka was supposed to be at peace.  Policemen came to Manimolly’s house, looking for her husband who was travelling for his work. He came from a family connected to the Tamil Tiger rebels and the police wanted to question him. They dragged Manimolly screaming into the waiting van, leaving her sixteen month old baby with her mother. They beat her and interrogated her, but Manimolly didn’t mind that as much as what happened after midnight. She was taken to a residential house to identify some suspects and then locked in a room. Next door she could hear the policemen getting increasingly drunk and singing in Sinhala.

Two police officers raped Manimolly, handcuffing her to a chair. They didn’t know she was forty days pregnant at the time and she started bleeding heavily. “If you say anything or tell anyone we will kill your husband and kill you. Nothing happened here. Do you understand?’ the men warned as they drove her back to the police station. There the Sinhala police women just brought sanitary towels to mop up all the blood, unsurprised by Manimolly’s condition. Two young girls sharing the same cell had clearly been through the same treatment.

Manimolly was released when her husband surrendered himself to the police. They then tortured him, instead. Manimolly tried to kill herself  - twice. She stopped looking after her baby. Her family guessed what had happened to her. The stigma in Tamil society against rape is so intense that, shockingly, suicide is often considered the only honourable way out for a woman. This shame creates a second form of abuse for survivors. Manimolly was extremely fearful that someone in the Tamil community in London might find out she’d been raped because then, she said, they’d all gossip about her. She only agreed to see me if I was alone  – there were strict instructions not to bring a translator, even a female one.

As we spoke, Manimolly’s husband tactfully took their toddler out of the house to buy sweets. He knew what we were discussing and supported her decision to speak out, but she has never spoken even to him about it.  Manimolly says she is still frightened of every man she sees, and still doesn’t want her own husband to touch her.

Manimolly and her husband sold everything they had to come to London on student visas. Once here they claimed asylum. Back home the Sri Lankan police have continued to visit their house and even detained Manimolly’s elderly father-in-law for three months when they couldn’t find her husband.

The Sri Lankan government and their supporters argue that it’s safe in Sri Lanka since the war ended in 2009, and that only those who have a background of political activity or armed struggle are at risk. Manimolly’s case unfortunately shows how the wider violence against Tamils has not stopped.

At the end of the war, horrifying photographs and videos appeared online of dead, half naked, bound Tamil women, their breasts exposed. They were female rebels and the comments on the videos by the soldiers strongly suggested sexual violence. But it’s not only the defeated rebels who’ve encountered rape. It’s housewives like Manimolly, grandmothers, female aid workers, wives of humanitarian workers – women who are gradually finding their way abroad in the hope of safety and anonymity.

Unfortunately, safety is hard to find even if they make their way to the UK. They may be refused asylum even if they have evidence of persecution. Recent research by the Refugee Council found that a third of the women accessing one of their  projects were Sri Lankan, that nearly all had been tortured and raped, but that nearly half had been refused asylum in the UK. Freedom from Torture and Human Rights Watch have documented that failed asylum seekers who are removed to Sri Lanka may be tortured on arrival.

These women therefore live with uncertainty, fearing they could be deported  back to Sri Lanka. They recount their traumatic experiences to lawyers and immigration officials, but keep them secret from their extended families and friends. Some women even fear going to counseling organisations lest they meet other Tamils who will automatically know why they’re there. It’s a very lonely life.

Frances Harrison is a former BBC foreign correspondent. Her book of survivors’ stories from the end of the Sri Lankan war,Still Counting the Dead, is published by Portobello Books on 4 October.  

Frances Harrison’s ‘Still Counting the Dead’: “If You Tell Anyone, We Will Kill You And Your Husband”