Victory at all costs

November 2, 2012

The brutal finale of Sri Lanka’s civil war recounted with tragic imagery that raises the need for a fuller reckoning

As Sri Lanka’s increasingly desperate rebel army retreated northwards, one family caught up in the latter stages of the island’s 26-year civil war mounted its own struggle for survival.

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Fearful that their 17-year-old daughter would be taken as a child soldier, the parents hid her in an oil drum buried in their garden, with instructions to emerge only at night. Yet, unable to bear the heat, she emerged once during the day and was spotted by a neighbour, a fellow Tamil who, distraught that her own child had already been taken off to fight, reported the family to the militia. Soldiers turned up that night to take the girl; they returned three months later with her body, draped in the Tamil flag.

There are many other tragic examples in Frances Harrison’s powerful Still Counting the Dead, which describes the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s civil war through a dozen personal portraits. Observers including a doctor, a journalist and a rebel commander see their lives grimly converge, trapped amid thousands on a small stretch of beach where, in May 2009, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were wiped out and their charismatic leader killed.

That victory ended a war that had pitted the island’s mostly Hindu minority Tamils against the largely Buddhist and Christian Sinhalese. But while the outcome was conclusive, the truth of what happened has yet to emerge in full – part of the reason Harrison returned to a country from which she had reported for the BBC between 2000 and 2004.

Sri Lanka’s conflict was marked by atrocities on both sides. The Tiger rebels murdered thousands, pioneering suicide bombing as a tool of war and plucking ever more children to fight. Yet it is the role of the government that most concerns Harrison. She is angered, too, by the international bodies that largely stood by as President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s troops won the day at huge human cost.

A UN panel has cited evidence of six categories of war crimes committed by his forces, alongside two by the rebels, in those last months of fighting that killed as many as 40,000 people – a figure Harrison suggests could be higher still. Sri Lanka’s leaders say there has been a proper investigation of such claims but many observers disagree, a view backed up this year by a resolution from the UN’s Human Rights Council.

Harrison recounts desperate scenes, as women’s saris became prized as material from which to fashion sandbags for makeshift bunkers. Doctors struggled to treat the injured and dying while hospitals and three state-designated safe zones were shelled by government troops, sometimes seemingly deliberately.

Some of her portraits provide glimpses into the operation of the war itself, as with the chapter on her relationship with “Puli”, a thoughtful rebel spokesman with whom she had regular Skype and satellite phone calls even as the fighting reached its climax.

“Mostly Puli wanted to escape the butchery,” she writes, “to talk about the heavy snow that lay on the ground that winter in England, the books he’d read and my mundane domestic life.” In common with many of the Tigers’ most senior leadership, he was killed on the war’s final day.

Ultimately, it is hard to read this book and not agree with the need for a fuller reckoning. But the conflict raises other issues too, not least over the best way to end a civil war.

The island is now relatively peaceful. Some look at this unflinchingly and say that the costs were worth it. There are even academics who support the conclusion that civil wars are more likely to end for good after a crushing military finale than through a negotiated solution that leaves both sides in place but fails to fix underlying problems.

Even so, the appalling scenes recounted here provide the sharpest possible rebuke to those who might feel comfortable with the idea of a peace won in this way. More to the point, they raise doubts as to whether the Tamil and Sinhalese populations are likely to be able to move forward until both have faced up to their shared history.

“The wounds go very deep,” as one of those featured here, a nun, notes. “All those memories are buried in the people.”

James Crabtree is the FT’s Mumbai bureau chief

Can There Be “Collateral Benefits” To The Erosion Of Democracy?

By Emil van der Poorten -November 4, 2012

Emil van der Poorten

The title of this column might seem like a strange juxtaposition of terminology but I hope the rationale for it will become apparent as the reader goes through the body of this short submission.

I have recently been assailed by some, on whose intelligence (and motivation) I do not seek to cast aspersions, about my alleged lack of fairness and objectivity in not recognizing the good work being done by certain prominent members of our ruling junta who are, at the same time, acknowledged as seriously undermining democracy such as it is in Sri Lanka.

For instance, they have sought to impress upon me the need to recognize the enormous value of the beautification of Colombo and its environs and the effort, equivalent to Mussolini’s efforts to drain the Pontine Marshes, directed at the low-lying area around Battaramulla  and the Parliament.  Any suggestion that the issues of the destruction of democratic freedoms, elements of ethnic cleansing, the selling off (literally) of large swathes of prime real estate in our capital city etc. are related to these very initiatives is met with the argument that the ejection of families with legal title to their habitations in Slave Island cannot and must not be juxtaposed against what happens around Battaramulla and the Jayewardenepura complex.  I am accused of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater when I choose to place all the initiatives of one group of ultra-powerful people in the same basket and say that one has – if seeking to bring any morality to the exercise – to decide whether one is for or against those responsible for the entirety of what is happening. My response is, simply, “Do you think, you should support a group or individual guilty of plainly undemocratic and dictatorial conduct because they might have done something “collaterally constructive” as part of the same initiative?”

Whatever happened to the concept of moral imperative?  Or has that concept simply disappeared from the religiosity of a nation whose publicists never tire of extolling its virtues as some kind of “land of the master race, inhabited by those who can do no wrong?”

What I am most bemused by is what I see as the rationalization of malicious conduct by seeking to find a “redeeming feature” in the narrative.

There have been “redeeming features” in the history of practically every repressive regime.  Does one need to catalogue the “collateral constructions” of Stalin and his Five Year Plan, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot’s attempt to re-direct the history of an ancient Cambodian civilization, Hitler’s attempt to cleanse the world of those he claimed were genetically inferior?  The list could go on.  And pardon me if I am not prepared to countenance any of that because, in half a century Mao created change that meant China no longer had annual famines, Pol Pot raised a new awareness of the quality of life in rural Cambodia, or Stalin ensured a social and economic equality for the vast majority of the Soviet Union’s citizens something which disappeared after the Iron Curtain was rent asunder, or because Hitler built autobahns and  was responsible for the creation of the world’s first “People’s car.”

My concern is that, perhaps unwittingly, this push for “fairness” in evaluation of behaviour of this kind is a justification for putting one’s own ethical and moral principles on the back burner in order to survive and continue what is seen as an acceptable or tolerable way of life.  One constant I observe in this group of people is the fact that they are certainly not knocking at poverty’s door and that they lead a life of relative ease and comfort which they, probably and very justifiably, claim to have achieved by pulling themselves up by their proverbial “bootstraps.”

The scenario I have just described is certainly understandable and seems to have its roots in the reaction of a larger part of the Sri Lankan nation to the violence and disruption that has been its lot for the larger part of our country’s post-independence history, where a whole nation tired of violence without end and, seeing no light at the end of that particular tunnel, want an end to strife and a return to “order,” whatever that is!  But, for that very reason, I would submit that what is our status quo ante is not deserving of defence by anyone who realizes that this country is well on its way to becoming that which is the antithesis of democratic governance and that state of affairs is not going to produce what is fondly hoped for!

What is the alternative?

Every faith and philosophy opposes hypocrisy and cant and it should certainly be a “no brainer” for anyone who believes that the overall conduct of a person or a group should ultimately determine whether they are deserving of support and encouragement or require opposition.  It is unacceptable and unrealistic to accept such behavior by falling back on the “curate’s egg” description that it is “good in parts!”

Changes of government and the re-establishment of democracy in a nation do not necessarily have to begin with revolt in the streets or an “Arab Spring.”  It certainly begins with the acceptance of the fact that you cannot have your cake and eat it too and that, at some point, you have an obligation, as an thinking human being, to show which side of this particular fence you choose to occupy!  To quote, unfortunately, the very people who are in the business of suppressing democratic freedoms and never tire of chanting their particular mantram: “There is no middle ground in this business because you are either for us or against us!”

British historian questions ‘parliamentary freedom’ in Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia

‘Respect Gandhi If You Will, Don’t Sentimentalise Him’

British historian questions ‘parliamentary freedom’ in Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 November 2012, 15:15 GMT]
Reputed British Marxist scholar specialised in intellectual history, Perry Anderson, interviewed by Indian magazine Outlook, opined that as regards ‘parliamentary freedom’, Jamaica and Mauritius fared better than Sri Lanka, India and Malaysia, citing respectively, disenfranchisement of Tamils, Kashmiris, and the lack of freedom during polls. He was responding to columnist Praful Bidwai who asked whether Indian democracy was a ‘unique achievement’, better than SL where “a state of war and emergency has prevailed for decades, with effective disenfranchisement of the Tamils” and Malaysia that has a “corrupt Lebanese-style ethnic power-sharing system”. Prof. Anderson’s observations were further elucidated by an Indian academic researcher writing to TamilNet that the disenfranchisement of the Eezham Tamils is a structural necessity of genocidal and unitary Sri Lanka. 

Prof. Anderson, currently professor of history at the University of California, was interviewed by Mr. Bidwai for the November 12 issue of Outlook, regarding his latest book ‘The Indian Ideology’.

The British scholar’s recent book is a critique of the dominant ideology created by modern India that eulogises the Indian formulation of ‘nation-state’. The book deeply analises the negative role played by the politics of the Congress party of both the pre and post Indian independence eras.

The Outlook asked Prof. Anderson: “You bracket India with Malaysia and Sri Lanka as other countries that have held regular elections since independence. But polls in Malaysia have always been rigged within a corrupt Lebanese-style ethnic power-sharing system; there is no independent electoral commission. In Sri Lanka, a state of war and emergency has prevailed for decades, with effective disenfranchisement of the Tamils. So isn’t Indian democracy a unique achievement within the Third World after all?”

Prof Anderson responded: “It is unique, as I have written, by reason of the size and poverty of its electorate. But too often this is taken in a vainglorious, rather than comparative spirit. In most of the Union, polls are indeed freer than in Malaysia; but there is also far more torture, and the lot of the least advantaged is much worse. Tamils have indeed been long disenfranchised in Sri Lanka, but the same can be said, for similar reasons of Kashmiris; if these form a far smaller proportion of the population, it is also true that Sri Lanka has a much longer record of political alternation in government than India. Jamaica or Mauritius would score higher than any of this trio as examples of parliamentary freedom.”
* * *Bringing out the interview to the notice of TamilNet readers, an Indian academic researcher came out with the following observations:

The acknowledgement of a protracted state of emergency and war in the island of Sri Lanka by both the interviewer and Prof. Anderson is laudable. But what is of even more interest is the recognition of “effective disenfranchisement” of the Tamils.

In a simple sense, ‘disenfranchisement’ is the denial of the right to vote to a person or to a people. In a broader sense, it also includes making a person’s or a people’s vote meaningless. It also brings into its ambit legal, quasi-legal or illegal means used to coerce a people either from voting or from exercising their votes in a manner beneficial to their interests.

After decades of persecution, systemic discrimination, colonization of Tamil tradition homelands and state sponsored pogroms which were carried out with a genocidal intent, the Eezham Tamils in the island gave popular mandate for their self-determination as a nation in the historic Vaddukkodai resolution of 1976.

Soon following this, the Sri Lankan state enacted the 6th amendment to its constitution which stated in its article 157A that “No person shall, directly or indirectly, in or outside Sri Lanka, support, espouse, promote, finance, encourage or advocate the establishment of a separate State within the territory of Sri Lanka.” The other clauses of this article made any person or organization demanding self-determination as beyond the frameworks of ‘civic rights’.

Combined with these was the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1979 that was made permanent ever since 1982, which gave arbitrary powers to the Sri Lankan forces to detain and ‘interrogate’ anyone suspected of being against the Sri Lankan state.

What these legal measures in effect did was to disenfranchise the entire Eezham Tamil nation that voted for self-determination, placed it beyond civic rights, and gave Sri Lankan forces to exercise their powers as and how they saw fit. And the Sri Lankan government was free by the constitutional mechanism of the unitary state to use the police, army and paramilitaries for genocide against the Eezham Tamil nation that was effectively disenfranchised.

The majoritarian Sinhala state’s genocidal designs were thwarted for a brief period with the de facto state of the Eezham Tamils, led by Pirapaharan’s LTTE. In the short time where they gained civil rights under that apparatus, the Eezham Tamils gave their popular support to the de facto state. The Tamil Sovereignty Cognition succinctly mentions that “People nominated by the de facto state winning the elections in 2004 show the endorsement of Eelam Tamils to the de facto state that came into being by Earned Sovereignty.”

However, this Earned Sovereignty was brutally denied by a globally abetted genocidal war as counterinsurgency which was waged on the Eezham Tamil nation by the GoSL. After this, the Eezham Tamils were again left as disenfranchised people in unitary Sri Lanka that has gagged them, constitutionally and also by means of force, both as individuals and as organizations from stating their demand for Tamil Eelam.

Eezham Tamils, the Tamil diaspora, and the Tamil Nadu Tamils should also study here the continuing role of the global system of injustice that is contributing to this ‘effective disenfranchisement’ of an entire nation. The manoeuvres of various establishments to cajole activist groups in the diaspora to not use the politically powerful demands of referendum, concepts of historical, earned and remedial sovereignty, are becoming obvious. These establishments also drop a blindfold over their failures to prevent the genocidal war when it was happening or to recognize the legitimate right of the Eezham Tamil nation to self-determination.

Alan Keenan of the ICG tells now that the charges of genocide need to be investigated but that demand for separation is contextually unwise because of the “virulent opposition that it would provoke among the Sinhalese”. One is tempted to ask what position did ICG and other establishments take on the demand for separation when the “virulent opposition” was manifesting itself as a genocidal war leading up to 2009.

It would be no exaggeration to state now that the countries that abetted the war, the countries and establishments that failed to recognize the historical and earned sovereignty of the Eezham Tamils when the Tamils had their de facto state, all played their own parts, some large some small, in the structural, protracted genocide that is unfolding.

And now, these establishments want to thrust half-baked approaches like ‘try internal solution first, consider external solutions later’ onto Eezham Tamil activists. In effect, they want the Tamils to accept the constitutional disenfranchisement in the unitary Sri Lankan state, but bring about only a regime change giving maybe this or that concession.

This again brings to the other observation of Prof. Anderson that “Sri Lanka has a much longer record of political alternation in government than India”. Hoping that it wasn’t said as a positive remark, it needs to be pointed out again from a tortuous history that no matter what political alternation or political alteration happen in unitary Sri Lanka, genocide of the Eezham Tamils has only changed hands. The Sri Lankan structure cannot function otherwise.

Lanka A Global Swing State

The Sunday Times Editorial -November 4, 2012

Sinha Ratnatunga - Editor Sunday Times

In the coming week, two of the world’s largest nation-powers, China and the United States of America (US), pick their leaders; China for the next decade, and the US for the next four years.China’s ruling Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee will confirm within the new ‘forbidden city’ in Beijing, and behind closed doors, its next President and Prime Minister. Away from the prying eyes of the multitude, the 1.35 billion citizens it claims to represent, this select band will announce after the National Party Congress the names of the coterie who will run China’s mighty military machine and its juggernaut economy.

The Chinese people will have to grin and bear this choreographed change of guard. In decisively sharp contrast, the American people will cast their vote for a President (and a Government) of their choice after months of strenuous campaigns, live TV debates and town hall meetings based largely on issues that face the country. It is a gruelling but transparent exercise shaming China’s secretive ‘consensus by conclave’ election.

Whatever the modus operandi in picking their leaders, the significance of these elections is not lost on the rest of the world, including Sri Lanka. It is all the more important that these changes are taking place at a time when there is a marked shift in emphasis by Sri Lanka from the West to East; while the US is lecturing Sri Lanka on human rights and pumping in little money, China asks no questions and is expected to proffer US$ 10 billion (Rupees 1.3 trillion) up to 2015 as investments, loans and aid to Sri Lanka.

First to the US. Incumbent President Barack Obama is clearly the darling of the world. He has, notwithstanding his authorisation of drone attacks over Pakistan, managed to lessen the view of much of the world of the US as a satanic state. A socially conscious leader, President Obama introduced universal medical care in America which five previous Presidents could not achieve. He brought back the US troops from Iraq and is bringing them back from Afghanistan and as far as the American people were concerned, had al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden killed. However, domestic issues, and a sense of dashed hopes overriding the high expectations from a super-star have raised questions about his performance with some 40 million American still unemployed.

The respected New Yorker magazine endorsing President Obama had this to say; “Romney (President Obama’s challenger Mitt Romney) has embraced the values and priorities of a Republican Party that has grown increasingly reactionary and rigid in the social vision. It is a party dominated by those who despise government and see no value in public efforts aimed at ameliorating the immense and rapidly increasing inequalities in American society”.

What’s in all this for Sri Lanka? It was under President Obama’s watch that the US spearheaded a resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last March. But this stance on human rights issues clearly has a bipartisan approach in the US. Obama’s Sri Lanka policy is pushed by the likes of Samantha Power and Susan Rice – and Hillary Clinton. Her new Ambassador in Colombo is also tough on HR issues – with an Asian smile. The Tamil Diaspora is active in the US while our mission is no match for it.

China’s growing influence over Sri Lanka will cast a long shadow but will not be sufficient to “soften” US policy on HR issues whoever assumes office. Analysts believe Obama 2 will take an even tougher approach, while Romney 1 will continue policy – with an even lesser tolerance on Iran sanctions that is already crippling Sri Lankan oil supplies. Romney 1 will also take a more critical view of China worldwide.

In a sense, Sri Lanka’s rapid drift to the Chinese orbit would make the Chinese elections more meaningful even if they, like the Chinese people, know next to nothing of what’s happening. Chinese interests in Sri Lanka have taken a quantum leap in recent years. A Financial Times correspondent visiting the south last week wrote that Sri Lanka had three official languages, but he noticed a fourth – Chinese — in signboards pointing the way to loads of workers from that country immersed in development projects in the area.

He wrote, “Sri Lanka has emerged as not just a global test case of how to spur growth after a conflict, but also a closely watched swing state where the US and India are vying with China for influence”. Like all foreign nations, China’s interest in Sri Lanka is not entirely altruistic, rather very much part of the former’s geo-strategic interests. The Rajapaksa Government seems to be happily in a revolving door policy with Beijing; just ask for help, and get it, repeatedly – from war weaponry to construction projects. It is of the firm belief that a militarily and economically surging China will be its ultimate ‘safety net’ in a turbulent modern world.

Chinese foreign policy is not subject to the vagaries of which individual is in office. The Chinese Communist Party is a collective body that decides policy by consensus. In that sense, there is little to worry of any swings and roundabouts in China’s Sri Lanka policy in the future. The worry would be, if at all, of Sri Lanka’s dependence on China in the coming years under whatever dispensation in Beijing and the compromises Colombo will have to make for this, all too cosy relationship.

Fresh onslaught on Lanka

Sri Lanka came under scrutiny once again before the international community at the UN in Geneva this week. As expected, the US took a broad swipe at Sri Lanka concentrating its fire on judicial independence, while China asked that Sri Lanka be given space to work out its own solutions.

In the backdrop of this (please see our news story) a former senior UNDP staffer, Charles Petrie, a controversial British national and former Resident Representative in Burma who was booted out by the country’s military junta only to return now with political reform in that country, is heading a panel that will submit a report on the performance, or the lack of it, of UN staff in Sri Lanka during the last stages of the war against the LTTE in 2009.

Once the report is out, it is going to once again bring into focus the Darusman report commissioned by the UN Secretary General – a report that was very critical of the Sri Lankan Government. Already, former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has commented on the report saying, “Petrie’s report is not a pretty picture about the UN in Sri Lanka”. How does he know the contents of a report yet to be released? Does the Government or our mission in New York have advance intelligence on this report, which Mr. Evans seems to have? A legitimate question would be the credibility of Mr. Petrie’s independence working with the Norwegian ‘conflict resolution industry’.

All this smacks of yet another attempt by the international community to gang up on Sri Lanka. Is the Government ready for this fresh onslaught?

The final nail in the coffin of the judiciary

Sunday, November 04, 2012

For those of us who prefer to take refuge in comfortable illusions that this Presidency only hides a velvet hand in an iron glove (to mischievously twist that proverbial saying around), the motion of impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka presented by 117 government MPs to the Speaker this week should dispel all such arrant foolishness.

Government’s intention in subordinating the judiciary
Whether the government goes ahead with the impeachment or not, let it be clearly said that the final nail in the metaphorical coffin of the institution of the judiciary in Sri Lanka is already hammered in. The fact that such a motion could have been brought at a time when a Supreme Court decision on the Divineguma Bill is due to be read out in Parliament, unequivocally spells out the government’s intention in subordinating the judiciary to its complete and utter control.

There is moreover a perceptible element of going beyond all norms of decency as exemplified in the scurrilous letter tabled by a government MP in the House last week which put the personal conduct of Sri Lanka’s first woman Chief Justice in issue without any formal verification or substantiation. Is this the purpose for which parliamentary privilege has been conferred upon these so called peoples’ representatives? What outrage is this? It may well be warned that henceforth, any judicial officer would be liable to be attacked in this manner if such abuse of parliamentary privilege is allowed to go unremarked and without collective protest.

Indeed, this incident is similar to the country being informed by none other than the President himself, of a complaint purportedly made by a lady judicial officer against the Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), which complaint was in fact later denied by that judicial officer in the relevant inquiry. These are both equally shameful attempts to degrade judicial officers in an attempt to cow them into submission.

Public mystified as to precise charges against Chief Justice
Unlike in the case of the aborted impeachment motions against former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva brought by the opposition during 2001-2004, the contents of which related to several counts of documented judicial misconduct that were in the public domain long before they were actually brought to Parliament, here the public is kept in the dark as to what the charges against the incumbent Chief Justice are.

All that we are told by the Media Minister this week is that the Chief Justice has ‘challenged the supremacy of Parliament.’ By logical inference, we are then supposed to link this objection to the fact that the Supreme Court had quite properly, in the initial Determination on the Divineguma Bill, insisted that the government seek the approval of all Provincial Councils prior to bringing it before Parliament? On that same logic, the Supreme Court will then stand accused of that same charge each and every time that it rules that a Bill is inconsistent with the Constitution. One may as well then do away with the Constitution once and for all.

Or is it the fact that one petition in the initial challenge to the Divineguma Bill had been sent to the Secretary General of Parliament and not to the Speaker in terms of Article 121 of the Constitution? Are these fit matters to base an impeachment of the highest judicial officer of the country? This question is self explanatory surely.

Incorrect interpretation of the Constitution                                 Read More

Sunday Leader Censored Tisaranee Gunasekara’s Column

By Colombo Telegraph -November 4, 2012

The Sunday Leader has edited Tisaranee Gunasekara‘s weekly column without discussing with her.Her column has been altered beyond recognition and all reference to the Rajapaksas have been axed. She sent the following email to the Editor Sakuntala Perera and the Chairman Lal Wickrematunge; 

Dear Shakunthala/Lal,
I usually do not read my own articles in print. But since the ownership of the Leader changed hands, I have been doing so, knowing that on some Sunday the new management will move to censor my comments on the Rajapaksas.
That Sunday has come. My column has been altered beyond recognition and all reference to the Rajapaksas have been axed.
As you both know, I have been writing to the Leader without asking or accepting any payment. For me, it has been a labour of love, to use a much used phrase. My only condition was that my articles be published uncensored; and that if changes have to be made, they are done after discussing with me.
That agreement has been broken. Shaku, I understand the constraints under which you operate, but I wish you had the courtesy to keep me informed before you took a pick axe of Rajapaksa provenance to my article!
The only condition under which I will continue to write is if what I write is published sans censoring.
I would be much appreciative if you could let me know, in writing, whether a commitment to our original agreement can continue or not.
I am sending the uncut version together with this letter to several websites. I would hate it if those few who still read the likes of me think that I too have been purchased by the Rajapaksas.
Thanks and regards
Tisaranee

You can read the cenosored and uncensored columns here

Related posts;

Sunday Leader Censored Emil van der Poorten’s Column

Frede Out And Saku In – Frederica Is Sacked, Not Resigned

Bowed And Afraid: The Sunday Leader To Apologize To Gota For Calling Former Editor “A Fucking Pig Who Eats Shit”

200,000 hit hard by tropical cyclone Nilam

Nadia Fazlulhaq and Aanya Wipulasena report

From Jaffna to Hambantota, the country is reeling from blows inflicted by torrential rains and gale-force winds. 

View(s): 791-Sunday, November 04, 2012

While hurricane Sandy was wreaking havoc on the East Coast of the US, tropical cyclone Nilam was hitting Sri Lanka hard with torrential rains and gale-force winds, claiming lives and destroying property. Eight people were killed and more than 200,000 persons affected islandwide.

Deaths by drowning, lightning, electrocution, falling trees and earthslips were reported from Jaffna, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Kegalle, Kalutara and Matara, said Disaster Management Centre (DMC) spokesman Sarath Lal Kumara.

Outbreaks of water-borne diseases are common after heavy rains and floods, and there’s a lurking danger of snake bite. Photo: Amila Gamage

Some 15,000 displaced persons are being accommodated in 99 evacuation centres spread over Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Nuwara Eliya, Gampaha, Colombo and Kalutara.

Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told the media on Thursday that the Ministry was “doing everything possible” to provide relief for those affected by the extreme weather conditions. He said Rs. 200 million has been set aside for emergency relief, and displaced persons are being provided with food, dry rations, drinking water and other essential items.

The tropical cyclone, which originated near the country’s northern coast, spread to the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and the Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Mannar districts.

The Meteorology Department has told fishing communities and the Sri Lanka Navy to expect strong winds and rough seas off the coast of Mannar, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa.

In Mullaitivu district, heavy rains and strong winds have affected 23,638 people in four Divisional Secretariats – Maritimepattu, Puthukkudiyiruppu, Oddusuddan, Manthai East and Tunukkai.
In Kilinochchi district, 4,446 persons in the Pachchilaipalli, Kandavalai, Poonakary and Karachchi DS divisions have been affected, and 654 houses have been damaged.

In Jaffna district, 17, 968 persons have been affected by floods in 14 divisional secretariat areas, including Kayts, Point Pedro and Uduvil. More than 1,700 people are being accommodated in temporary shelters. In Vavuniya, 610 houses have been damaged.

FLOODS

Gampaha was the worst affected by floods. More than 49,900 persons have been displaced. Areas especially hard hit are Biyagama, Mirigama, Kelaniya, Mahara and Wattala. The Kelani Ganga overflowed its banks causing floods; more than 6,800 Gampaha residents are being housed in evacuation centres.

Floods were also experienced in Colombo district, affecting 21,813 persons in Kaduwela, Ratmalana, Sri Jayawardhanapura Kotte, Thimbirigasyaya, Homagama, Kesbewa, Kolonnawa and Seethawaka. Roads were impassable and many houses in Colombo city were damaged by falling trees and branches.

In Kalutara district, where one person drowned and another was killed by lightning, up to 5,000 persons have been affected by rain.

LANDSLIDES

In Nuwara Eliya, scene of landslides and falling rocks and trees, more than 800 people – residents of Ambagamuwa, Walapane, Haguranketa, Kotmale and Nuwara Eliya – were affected by bad weather.

Central Province Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake declared Friday, November 2, a holiday for all schools in Nuwara Eliya.

Other districts affected by adverse weather conditions are Mannar, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Kegalle, Galle, Matara, Hambantota and Moneragala.

Scenes of flooding and devastation pour in from across the country. More than 15,000 peope have moved to temporary shelters. Photos: Indika Handuwala and Mangala Weerasekera

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“Skinning Cats” And Other Figures Of Speech

By Emil van der Poorten -November 4, 2012

Emil van der Poorten

The past five years has provided me with a political education that rivals that provided by the preceding five decades!

Apart from the “advice” about the necessity to abjure criticism of the current regime and more overt threats at high noon on the streets of cities, there have been warnings channeled through friends who steadfastly refused to reveal where they originated. Mind you, these were conveyed in good faith and were intended to be protective in nature.

I have increasingly heeded the advice of a much younger friend who has followed the lead of the prominent Czech writer and head of the post-Iron Curtain Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, in acting “As if…..” Sri Lanka was a democratic state. Even before I was aware of the late Mr. Havel’s virtual appropriation of that phrase and philosophy in pre-democratic Czechoslovakia, my own instincts, experience, politics and circumstances had me treading the same path, though not consciously, perhaps.

In the event that the foregoing needs more explanation, here goes:

It is my belief that when one is compelled to live under a regime such as that which has prevailed in Sri Lanka, particularly since the ascent of Mahinda Rajapaksa to the Presidency, it becomes very necessary that one stakes out their place in the scheme of things, irrespective of whether that position meets with the approval of a repressive regime or not. In an era of ‘disappearances’ and when the highways and, particularly, by-ways are seemingly full of white vans, this is considered suicidal in some quarters. However, not to stake out a position of integrity at a time of repression would, in my opinion, constitute a living death for a thinking, feeling human being. Quixotic? Perhaps, but certainly less unacceptable than the alternative which has been so readily embraced by so many, from exam-successful and thesis-writing PhDs to those who’ve come by those and similar qualifications by far less reputable means!                                                     Read More

Karunanidhi: India should press UN for referendum in Sri Lanka

It will enable Tamils in Northern, Eastern Provinces to determine their future

India should prevail upon the United Nations to have a referendum under its supervision to enable Tamils residing in Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka to determine their future, DMK president M. Karunanidhi said on Saturday.

Elaborating on the memorandum submitted by the DMK to the United Nations, based on the resolution adopted recently in the Tamil Eelam Supporters’ Organisation (TESO) conference, he said that the Centre would have understood the importance of the resolution.

DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin and Parliamentary party leader T.R. Baalu met the Deputy General Secretary of the UN Jan Eliasson who promised to look into the issues concerning Sri Lankan Tamils.

Asked about the thinking in the Union Government that it could not afford to interfere in the affairs of Sri Lanka as it was a sovereign country, Mr. Karunanidhi said that was why the TESO conference refrained from adopting a resolution in support of a separate ‘Tamil Eelam.’ “We want only a referendum and believe that it will benefit Sri Lankan Tamils and secure their rights.”

Mr. Karunanidhi, who is also the chairman of TESO, said the referendum was necessary to put an end to the “tears and blood” shed by the Sri Lankan Tamils and all the countries across the world should support the cause. India should use its influence to achieve the goal.

In his letter to the UN Deputy General Secretary, Mr. Karunanidhi stated that steps were needed for protecting the lives and rights of Sri Lankan Tamils as “there was no movement towards a mutually acceptable political solution and there were government-sponsored demographic manipulations aimed at eliminating Tamils from their homeland.”

Mr. Karunanidhi reiterated that India should not provide training to Sri Lankan Army.

When told that India continued to offer training despite his objections, he said the Centre would not provide training to the Sri Lankan Army in Tamil Nadu, but in other parts of the country. “Let me just say Tamil Nadu is also part of India.”

The DMK leader said as part of its campaign for a referendum, his party would mobilise international opinion.

Its leaders, including M.K. Stalin, T.R. Baalu, T.K.S. Elangovan and K.S. Radhakrishnan, would participate in a conference to be held in London.

To a question on the current debate on bringing political parties under the Right to Information Act, he said that the DMK would discuss the issue when it was required.

Gota visits South Africa under the cover of darkness -

Sunday, 04 November 2012

Two weeks ago, Defence Secretary Gota was in RSA on a secret visit, meeting senior government officials and military personnel. This visit was kept so hush hush that even the Indian establishment was surprised about the visit and its purpose.

Following this visit, a senior ministerial delegation comprising of SLFP/Government members Hon. Nimal Siripala de Silva, Hon. Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Hon. Neomal Perera, Hon. Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, Faizer Musthapa, Janaka Bandara were in RSA on 27 Oct for a week. Wait for more news on this...

30 boats damaged by Sri Lankan naval personnel

Published: Sunday, Nov 4, 2012,

Sri Lankan naval personnel allegedly damaged 30 boats of Indian fishers who were near the International Maritime Boundary Line on Sunday, officials said.

No fisher was injured in the incident, they said.

The naval personnel allegedly surrounded the boats, pelted stones, threw bottles and iron pieces and damaged about 20 fishing nets, they said.

The fishers were also warned not to venture near Katchathivu, an islet ceded to Sri Lanka by India in 1974, they added.

The officials said about 2,000 fishers had put out to sea in the Palk Straits in 645 boats.

Body of TNA MP’s brother-in-law found

The body of the brother–in-law of TNA MP, Selvan Adekkalanathan has been found in the Nanu-Oya area.

The body of the victim, Sinnathurai Inthireswaran (53) had been identified by MP Adekkalanathan today although the body was found by the Police, on Thursday (1). The victim had gone missing on October 30 and the MP said a complaint was lodged at the Kotahena Police regarding the disappearance on October 30th itself.

Meanwhile, the Police stated the victim had been murdered as a result of a personal issue and added investigations have revealed the suspect was robbed prior to being murdered.

Body found in Nanu Oya identified as TNA MP’s brother-in-law

[ Saturday, 03 November 2012, 08:55.13 AM GMT +05:30 ]

The body discovered near a road in the Bangalahatha area in Nanu Oya last Wednesday has been identified as the brother-in-law of TNA parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan.

TNA MP and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) leader Adaikalanathan said that he identified the body today and that it was his brother-in-law, who had been missing since Tuesday (Oct 30). Sinnathurai Indreswaran, 53, was reported missing since October 30 after he had left his Kotahena residence for work at a jewelry store in Sea Street, Colombo. He had contacted him family only once after leaving home that day. Kotahena Police had informed Fort Police regarding the disappearance while an investigation had been launched. The following day (October 31) a unknown body was discovered in Bangalahatha, Nanu Oya while police said the person had died under suspicious circumstances. Nanu Oya Police contacted Fort Police to inform regarding the discovery and the body was identified by the TNA Vanni District MP today. Police suspect Indreswaran was abducted and murdered before his body was dumped in Nanu Oya.

Museum robber Kanegediya and DIG Anura makadiya are old close friends- rogue addresses DIG as ‘apey mahaththaya’ (My lord)
Saturday 3 of November 2012
(Lanka-e-News -03.Nov.2012, 11.30PM) Lansage Priyantha alias Kane gediya who has been held as a suspect in the museum robbery by DIG Anura Senanayake and the CID led by him is a long time close associate of Anura Senanayake and had also served for him as a tipster , based on police inside sources. 

Kane gediya had gone to jail on many occasions previously at Anura Senanayake’s behest. This Kane gediya addresses Senanayake as ‘apey mahaththaya’(My Lord), the same inside sources reveal. The relationship between Senanayake and Kane gediya is extremely close and is very evident before the police officers though the officers are concealing this relationship. Because of the fear that Kane gediya might conduct himself displaying this extreme closeness between him and Senanayake before courts , his production before courts is being postponed, sources say . 

Though the sordid media sections and its journalist coolies that get everything done through DIG Anura Senanayake are concocting stories that Kanegediya burgled the museum , nothing has been found in his possession to incriminate him in the burglary- not even a matchstick belonging to the museum, police sources say .

The most ludicrous and ridiculous story is that, Kane gediya when putting the stolen articles of the museum into his sack, whatever articles which he found difficult to thrust into the sack , he did it by crushing and beating them down. This stupid fairy tale was reported to the newspapers by a journalist coolie Gayan Kumara Weerasinghe. 

The police sources who are aware of the truth could not help laughing at this fairy tale of the journalist coolie . They added , neither Anura Senanayake nor his coolie journalist can do anything thoughtfully even when relating falsehoods. The police officer who is aware of the deceitful actions of Anura Senanayake and his coolie journalists asked , if burglars of the museum are to crush and break down the museum articles , how can they sell them ? Besides with what did they break them down?
The same officer after a hearty laugh over these lies of the DIG and the coolie journalists regretted that these two bunglers are worse than the burglars because they have no capacity to understand the stupidity of their own tales and actions, and do not know how to concoct even a false story. Both these morons don’t have the right side brain , the officer pointed out.

Meanwhile , Ven. Dr. Omalpe Sobitha Thero , the chairman of the JHU told media recently , the police behavior in relation to this grave national robbery is provoking doubt and suspicion. It is clear even to a kindergarten child that this story weaved by the police and the coolie media that it is a ‘one man show’ behind this monumental national robbery is an absolute lie, he emphasized.