Monday, November 19, 2012

Publishing Reports after Reports will not stop the continuing structural genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka

admin | Friday, November 16th, 2012 | Comments Off

“Events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond… during the final stages of the conflict and its aftermath, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of civilians” according to the UN internal review panel.
The British Tamils Forum has been continuously calling for an International Independent Investigation into the conduct of the war in Sri Lanka for the past three years. But the international institutions and the UN member states have been ignoring this call at great expense to the Tamil people who had survived the war.

Raj Vakesan, the Political Advocacy team leader of British Tamils Forum commented, “We are in the 4th year after the bloody end to the Civil War in Sri Lanka. During and after this war numerous crimes against the Tamil people were committed by the Sri Lankan state and these crimes continue to be committed with absolute impunity”. He further questioned, “How can we know the “intent” of these crimes without an international independent investigation?”

He further reminded that the UN has the responsibility to investigate War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and the Crime of Genocide under the 60/1- 2005 World Summit Outcome to which Sri Lanka is also a signatory.

The United Nations is still failing in its mandate to protect civilians in Sri Lanka; the current situation need immediate intervention to stop the ongoing structural Genocide. Having massacred more than 40,000 within a few weeks leading to the end of the war, the Sri Lankan state has now embarked on depleting the Tamil population even further by starving the remaining Tamil people to death. Taking away their livelihoods in farming and fishing the Tamil people are deprived of the fundamental right to life.
Those who dare to resist these crimes against humanity are forcefully disappeared by the Sri Lankan “white van” death squads.

The daily boat loads of Tamil people leaving the shores of the island should be a clear indicator of the extent of persecution the Tamil people are subjected to by the Sri Lankan State.
The recent World Tamil Conference in London has called upon the member states of the United Nations to urgently set up an International Independent Investigation into the complete conduct of the Sri Lankan State.
However critical this UN internal review report is, it has come too late for the tens of thousands who were massacred under the UN watch despite the loudest and continuous alarm bells rung across the world capitals, by the relatives of those who perished. However, what is more alarming presently is the continuing inaction by the international community to arrest the deteriorating situation faced by the Tamil people. What is of utmost importance is an immediate establishment of an international investigative mechanism to send a very clear signal to the Sri Lankan regime that the international community will not stand by any longer allowing the State to continue its programme of Tamil Genocide. Another report in another six months time will be too late for those who would have perished in the hands of the Sri Lankan regime or while trying to flee the island.

We call upon the International Community to immediately establish an International Independent Investigation into the complete conduct of the Sri Lankan State against the Tamil Nation to investigate war crimes; crimes against humanity and crime of genocide committed and continue to be committed against the Tamil People.

Posted in BTF Press Release

Israel's War on Gaza Enters Day 6

Two women and a child have already been killed in an Israeli air raid on Gaza City today.

Little girls in Gaza where numerous children have already been killed by Israel today.

Little girls in Gaza where numerous children have already been killed by Israel over the past six days.

Nov-19-2012(TEHRAN Press TV) - The besieged Gaza Strip is being hit by Israeli airstrikes for the sixth consecutive day, with rising civilian casualties among the Palestinians due to the Israeli attacks.

Almost 15 Palestinians were killed in the latest airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Monday, raising the death toll from the Israeli aggression since Wednesday to at least 94.

The Israeli military says it has attacked the Gaza Strip 1,350 times since Wednesday.

The city of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip has been targeted in the recent Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli drones have bombarded the Ministry of Youth and Sports, as well as a stadium in Gaza.

Two people were killed and several others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. A Palestinian girl is reported to be in critical condition.

Reports indicate that fresh Israeli airstrikes have targeted eastern and western Gaza.

Two women and a child were killed in the air raids on Gaza City on Monday.

Three members of a family were also killed in an Israeli strike on Dair al-Balah.

Meanwhile, three rockets fired by resistance fighters in Gaza hit the Israeli regional council of Eshkol and five others hit Ashkelon.

Also on Monday, Izzeddin Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, attacked Israel’s Re’em military camp with missiles.

An explosion was also heard in the Israeli town of Eilat, situated at the northern tip of the Red Sea. The Israeli military announced that the town had been hit by a Palestinian rocket.

Gazan rockets also hit the cities of Be’er Sheva and Gan Yavne.

Red alert sirens have gone off in the Israeli city of Sha'ar HaNegev and in Be'er Sheva, Bnei Shim'on and the Eshkol regional council, as Palestinian resistance fighter fire retaliatory missiles into Israel.

Israeli TV has announced that Israel's Iron Dome missile shield has intercepted only 310 out of 1,000 Palestinian rockets fired into Israel.

Civil Defence Force appointed to end up illegal activities

Monday, 19 November 2012
Eastern Province IGP Poojitha Jayasundara stated Police depart should maintain friendly relationship with people which would help people keep trust on our department.

Addressing the civil defence force meeting at the Klakuda police division yesterday IGP went on to say, Under the leadership of Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa we have appointed Civil Defence Force which would help police to maintain close relationship with people in the area.
It’s our duty completely end up the child abuses, robberies, murders as we defeated terrorism in this country. People arrive to the police station were accompanied by an individual maintains close relationship with the police officer.
This special meeting was organized by the Kalkuda division IGP P.V.Y.Samarasinghe. Grama Seva officials of the Kalkuda police division, religious leaders, school principals and several others were also present at this meeting.

The UN’s ‘grave failure’ in Sri Lanka demands an answer

FRANCES HARRISON

The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Nov. 19 2012, 7:00 AM EST

It’s been called Ban Ki-moon’s Rwanda moment: a little-reported war three years ago on a tiny Indian Ocean island where tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered, waiting for the United Nations to come and rescue them.

What happened in Sri Lanka in 2009 has come back to haunt the UN with the leak of an internal inquiry commissioned by the Secretary-General. The independent report concluded that the UN’s own conduct during the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war marked a “grave failure.” There was damning criticism of senior staff, who “simply did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility.”

Would the entire report have seen the light of day if a draft hadn’t been leaked to the BBC? A reluctant UN in New York had to publish the document, but chose to do so without its powerful executive summary that set the conflict in the context of post-9/11 global attitudes to terrorism that tragically skewed the reporting of the bloodshed. Internal communications show senior UN officials struggling to portray the proscribed terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers, as the ones primarily to blame for the killings.

But the latest UN report documents how UN staff members were in possession of reliable information that showed that the Sri Lankan government was responsible for the majority of deaths. And that two-thirds of the killings were inside safe zones unilaterally declared by the Sri Lankan government purportedly to protect civilians. This was information senior UN managers decided not to share with diplomats when they briefed them.

Four months before the end of the war, the UN received incontrovertible evidence of war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government from its own staff. Two international employees, including a former military officer, were caught up in an attack on a civilian safe zone while delivering aid. At 3 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2009, the UN team reported to headquarters that “the decapitated body of the 18-year-old daughter we had spoken to earlier in the evening landed at the entrance to our bunker. One WFP [World Food Program] driver was hit in the back of the head with shrapnel. … The scene at first light was devastating; within 20m of our location lay 7 dead & 15 seriously injured. 1 dead infant was in a tree under which the family had sheltered and the 2nd decapitated infant was hanging from the wire perimeter fence.”

They continued to come under a virtually uninterrupted barrage of artillery fire from government lines. In the morning, they had to clear human body parts off their vehicle.

Surprisingly, the UN did not allow its staff to tell the world what they’d seen. Instead, the resident co-ordinator wrote privately to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saying all the shelling came from the government lines and urging them to protect civilians, but adding: “The LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] bears responsibility for this as they have not permitted civilians the choice of departing and likely have fired from areas in the no-fire zone.”

That January food convoy proved to be the last time the UN went into the war zone. Some brave lower-level staff members set up a task force in Colombo to collect and verify casualty data. Information was coming out by telephone from Tamil doctors, priests, NGO workers and local UN employees held hostage by the Tigers. The UN team compiled casualty lists but only verified a death if there were three independent sources. In this way, the UN confirmed nearly 8,000 civilian deaths before it became impossible in late April for people under heavy fire to leave their bunkers to verify information. The UN’s report now says it was a rigorous methodology following best practice.

But that wasn’t what senior UN officials said at the time. When the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethm Pillay, struggled to use the UN’s casualty figures to speak out about potential war crimes by the Sri Lankan government, internal UN communications reveal that Mr. Ban’s then chef de cabinet, Vijay Nambiar, implored her to tone down her statement. Other UN diplomats are cited in the report trying to wriggle out of accepting the casualty data their own staff prepared, undermining it by questioning its reliability. Never mind that these figures were much more carefully checked than death tolls cited for Syria or Afghanistan. Or, for that matter, the general death toll the UN always cites in official documents of 100,000 killed in Sri Lanka during the whole course of the war.

The report’s executive summary that was removed before publication rightly said: “Some have argued many deaths could have been averted had the Security Council and the Secretariat, backed by the UN country team, spoken out loudly early on, notably by publicizing casualty numbers.”

As the author of a book of survivors’ stories from the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka, I found this dry bureaucratic UN report surprisingly upsetting. I have sat through days of interviews with people who struggled to tell me the full horror of what they’d experienced in those months. A Catholic nun whispered her story for hours as if the evil she’d confronted couldn’t be spoken out loud. A farmer’s wife now in Ireland shook so severely that her chair and the curtain behind her vibrated as she told how, during lulls in the shelling, they’d climbed out of the ditches in which they hid and buried their neighbours’ body parts. Worse still was watching a mother sob herself to exhaustion after she told me how she feared her teenaged daughter had been raped and killed after surrendering to the army. She said she wished the girl had been blown up in front of her because at least she’d have known what happened.

These stories are repeated thousands of times. Another UN report said a death toll of 40,000 in just five months was credible; this inquiry says it could even be 70,000. The suffering during the last phase of Sri Lanka’s war was unprecedented, even by the cruel standards of decades of conflict in that country. The UN Secretary-General needs to appoint an international war-crimes investigation to set the record straight – and, for that, he needs the backing of member states.

Frances Harrison, a former BBC correspondent in Sri Lanka, is the author ofStill Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka’s Hidden War (published in Canada by House of Anansi).

Maintaining a balance in Asia

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY-Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012

NEW DELHI — At a time when Asia's power dynamics remain fluid, with new military capabilities and resurgent border disputes challenging regional stability, U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are embarking on separate Asian tours that culminate with their participation in the East Asia Summit meeting in Phnom Penh. Singh's Tokyo visit seeks to cement a rapidly growing relationship between Japan and India — two natural allies — while Obama's historic visit to Myanmar promises to aid India's "Look East" policy by marking a formal end to a 24-year U.S. policy of punitively isolating a country that is the Indian gateway to Southeast Asia.

By undertaking an Asian tour shortly after his re-election, Obama has signaled that Asia will move up in importance in his second-term agenda. His previously announced "pivot" toward Asia actually chimes with India's "Look East" policy, which has graduated to an "Act East" policy, with the original economic logic of "Look East" giving way to a geopolitical logic.

The thrust of the new "Act East" policy — unveiled with the United States' blessings — is to contribute to building a stable balance of power in Asia by re-establishing India's historically close ties with countries to its east. India, in fact, has little choice but to look east because when it looks west, it sees only trouble. The entire belt to India's west from Pakistan to Syria is a contiguous arc of instability, volatility and extremism. A "Look East" policy allows India to join the economic dynamism that characterizes Southeast and East Asia.

It is in the east again that Indian and U.S. interests now converge significantly. The fundamental shift in the U.S. policy on Myanmar eliminates an important constraint on India's closer engagement with continental Southeast Asia.

India's new strategic ties with countries as varied as Japan, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam are important moves on the grand Asian chessboard to increase its geopolitical leeway. The U.S., for its part, has strengthened and expanded its security arrangements in Asia in recent years by making the most of the growing regional concerns over China's increasingly muscular approach on territorial and maritime disputes.

Both the U.S. and India have deepened their ties with Japan, which has a $5.5 trillion economy, impressive high-technology skills and Asia's largest naval fleet. The first serious Japan-India naval exercise was held five months ago involving a search-and-rescue operation.

India and Japan, despite their messy domestic politics and endemic scandals, actually boast the fastest-growing bilateral relationship in Asia today. Since they unveiled a "strategic and global partnership" in 2006, their engagement has grown dramatically. A free-trade agreement between the two countries entered into force last year. Their 2008 security declaration was modeled on Japan's 2007 defense-cooperation accord with Australia — the only other country with which Japan, a U.S. military ally, has a security-cooperation arrangement. The India-Japan security declaration, in turn, spawned a similar India-Australia accord in 2009.

Singh's Tokyo visit will likely set the stage for building closer bilateral security cooperation in the wider Indo-Pacific region, marked by the confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. At a time when India is reflecting on the lessons of its rout by the invading Chinese forces 50 years ago—the only foreign war communist China has won—Japan has been concerned by a new war of attrition China has launched by sending patrol ships daily to the waters around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands group that Beijing claims.

This physical assertiveness, which coincidentally began around the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Chinese military attack on India, followed often violent anti-Japanese protests in China in September and a continuing informal boycott of Japanese goods that has led to a sharp fall in Japan's exports.

India and Japan are set to sign a formal agreement for the joint development of rare-earth minerals in India. This will be the latest of several such international agreements since China used its monopoly on rare-earths production to cut off such exports to Japan and restrict sales to Western countries in 2010, prompting the U.S., the European Union and Japan to file a World Trade Organization complaint alleging that Beijing was using that monopoly as a weapon. Thanks to the various new agreements, production of these critical minerals is expanding at plants outside China, undercutting the Chinese monopoly.

At a time when Asia is troubled by growing security challenges, trilateral U.S.-India-Japan security consultations and cooperation are also taking place. These three democratic powers recently held their third round of security consultations in New Delhi, after similar meetings earlier in Washington and Tokyo.

These consultations are just one sign of their shift from emphasizing shared values to seeking to trilaterally protect shared interests. Their trilateral cooperation could lead to trilateral coordination, with a potentially positive impact on Asian security and stability.

The U.S. has conducted more joint defense exercises with India than with any other country. Japan has twice joined the annual U.S.-India Malabar naval exercises, and may do so again next year. U.S. defense sales to India, meanwhile, are booming, with America emerging as the largest arms seller to India. But now Japan could bag its first defense contract with India: In response to the Indian Navy's global request for information for nine amphibious search-and-rescue aircraft, Japan has offered to sell its ShinMaywa US-2, which can land on and take off from water.

More broadly, the nascent trilateral security cooperation may signal moves to form an entente among the three leading democracies of the Asia-Pacific, along the lines of the pre-World War I Franco-British-Russian "Triple Entente," which was designed to meet the challenge posed by the rise of an increasingly assertive Germany. The present steps, however, are still tentative, and meaningful trilateral security collaboration can emerge only in response to important shifts in the U.S., Japanese and Indian strategic policies, including a readiness to build trilateral military interoperability.

Such an entente's geopolitical utility, however, is likely to transcend its military value. A geopolitical entente, for example, can help strengthen maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region — the world's leading trade and energy seaway — and contribute to building a stable Asian power equilibrium.

A fast-rising Asia has become the defining fulcrum of global geopolitical change. Asian policies and challenges now help to shape the international security and economic environment. Yet Asia, paradoxically, is bearing the greatest impact of such shifts, as underscored by the resurgence of Cold War-era territorial and maritime disputes.

A constellation of powers linked by interlocking bilateral, trilateral, and possibly even quadrilateral strategic cooperation has thus become critical to help institute power stability in Asia and to ensure a peaceful maritime domain, including unimpeded freedom of navigation.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of "Water: Asia's New Battlefield" (Georgetown University Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Bernard Schwartz Award.

Applying And Receiving An Interest-Free Motor Vehicle Loan Will Damage BBC’s Credibility Says The Former Head

By Colombo Telegraph -November 18, 2012

“I see this interest-free motor vehicle loan as a sort of a ‘bribe’. I don’t think it’s appropriate at all for a BBC journalist to take this. Obviously it will damage their credibility.” says former head of the BBC Sinhala Service Vasantha Raja.

Vasantha Raja

He made the above remarks when asked how he saw the issue of BBC World Service employers applying and receiving an interest-free motor vehicle loan from the Sri Lankan Government.

BBC World Service Journalists Chandana Keerthi Bandaraand its Colombo reporter Elmo Fernando have been granted Rs. 1,200,000/- each as interest free loans from state banks to purchase cars or vans. The Treasury will grant the interest due to the state banks for the interest free loan amount of Rs.1,200,000/-.

Quoting the Secretary of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information Charitha Herath, the Colombo Telegraph reported yesterday that the BBC World Service Journalist Chandana Keerthi Bandara’s application for an interest-free motor vehicle loan has not been rejected and like others, is on a waiting list. BBC’s Colombo reporter Elmo Fernando has been granted the loan last week.

UN 'failed to protect Sri Lanka refugees'

The UN is promising to learn from its mistakes, after a scathing internal report accused the world body of failing to protect civilians during Sri Lanka's civil war.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the final months of fighting between government forces and the Tamil Tigers.
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from New York.

Full Story>>>

WikiLeaks: Mahinda Confident That He Can Manipulate The JVP, We Hope He’s Right – US

By Colombo Telegraph -November 19, 2012

“Rajapakse, more energetic and articulate than we’ve seen him, is supremely confident that he can control and manipulate the JVP to suit his electoral purposes. We hope he’s right. The problem is that he seems oblivious to our point that ‘words matter’ and that interested international partners (and, presumably, the LTTE) cannot help but read his pact with the JVP as a renunciation of the peace process and economic reform, even when viewed through the prism of electoral opportunism. Our counsel that ‘words matter’ seemed to fall on deaf ears but we will continue to make it. At several points during the conversation Rajapakse also made clear his resentment of the Bandaranaikes, the manner in which they have treated him, and their presumption, as he sees it, that the SLFP is family property.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.

Rajapaksa and the US Ambassador Lunstead

A Leaked “CONFIDENTIAL” US diplomatic cable, dated September 12, 2005, updated the Secretary of State on Sri Lanka’s presidential election 2005. The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The cable was signed by the US Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead. The cable details a US meeting with Prime Minister and the Presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Under the subheading “Trust Me” the ambassador wrote “Rajapakse concluded discussion of his pact with the JVP by stating, ‘I will deliver the goods. I come from the village and got here the hard way. Trust me. The peace process will continue.’ The Ambassador said he appreciated the words of reassurance but reiterated his suggestion that the PM make similar public assurances, especially to the international community.”

“The Ambassador noted that the economic tenets of the JVP agreement seemed to endorse major steps backwards on economic reform and privatization. Rajapakse dismissed such concerns, noting that the agreement ‘endorses globalization’ and only finds fault with privatization of key government entities. Asked about the agreement’s endorsement of a ‘non-aligned’ foreign policy, Rajapakse sputtered a bit about the need for Sri Lanka to ‘not be aligned exclusively with any foreign country.’ The Ambassador noted that the JVP’s role models included Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Il, all representing countries that had done nothing to further Sri Lanka’s development. The PM laughed off the Ambassador’s comments, noting that the JVP, following a trip by several of its leaders to Japan, is “now more interested in Japan as a model.” Jeffrey Lunstead further wrote.

Read the cable below for further details;

SRI LANKA: The Supreme Court should resign before the executive destroys the judiciary as a separate branch of governance through the persecution of the Chief Justice

November 19, 2012

The political attack on the Chief Justice, which is in retaliation to some independent judgements given by the Supreme Court, is quite clearly an attempt to stop the Supreme Court judges doing what they are mandated to do. It is not just an attack on one person; it is an attack on the entire Supreme Court and, in fact, on the entire judiciary, on the very notions of the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers. To suppress the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers is to undo the judicial role and to reduce the judges to the same status as other government servants. Under these circumstances the only way to assert their unique mandate as members of the judiciary who belong to a separate and independent branch of the government is to let the government know that they will all resign unless the government immediately stops the persecution of the Chief Justice by way of the impeachment attempt.

Rarely in history does an institution like the judiciary face the option to be or not to be.

If the Supreme Court judges remain in office despite their mandate being fundamentally challenged and reduced it would mean that they would have opted not 'to be'. Their character, their mandate and their position would be fundamentally altered despite them retaining their jobs.

However, if they let the government know that if this persecution of the Chief Justice by of the impeachment attempt does not stop forthwith they will resign, then it is taking the option 'to be'.

The people will clearly get the message about the proportion of the threat that the judiciary is faced with. That it is the will of the judges to retain their position of independence as members of a separate branch of governance rather than to cow down to the obstinate will of the executive.

If the people see the will of the Supreme Court expressed so clearly they will rally round their Supreme Court, clearly understanding that it is their right for justice dispensed by independent judges that is at stake. The people will not let the judiciary sink if the judges themselves are willing to fight for the right to preserve their independence. If the people do not see that will expressed firmly, they will feel discouraged and let down.

The cynics may argue that if the Supreme Court resigns the executive will replace them with others. In this, as always, the cynics fail to see the movement of history. Whenever judges have expressed their firm will to defend and to stand by the norms and standards of their profession and to defend the independence of the judiciary at the risk of losing their own jobs, nowhere have the judges been let down by the people.

In the history of Sri Lanka in recent decades it is some judges who have betrayed the people, not the people who have betrayed the judges.

For example, in 1972, by way of a new constitution, judicial review was removed and the supremacy of parliament replaced the supremacy of the law. If the Supreme Court had then challenged the coalition government that pursued that course the government would not have been in a position to so seriously damage the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. Similarly, despite the four/fifths majority of the UNP government, if the judiciary had stood up against the obnoxious provisions of this constitution, then the power of the executive presidency could have been subdued at that point itself. Even later, when the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was proposed, if the judiciary had stood its ground and opposed the suppression of the 17th Amendment and also the extension of the powers of the president contrary to the well known traditions of constitutionalism throughout the world, the people would not be facing the monstrous attack on their rights by the power that is exercised without restraint.

Perhaps at this final moment the Supreme Court can undo many of its own mistakes in the past and help the people to reassert their sovereignty against tyranny.

It is on the sovereignty of the people alone that the power and the independence of the judiciary rest. Therefore there is the obligation of the judiciary to defend that sovereignty at whatever cost to themselves. If the prosecution against the Chief Justice succeeds, it is the sovereignty of the people that will suffer a serious setback.

At this crucial moment the judiciary should not cow down to tyranny. They should, by taking a risk themselves, provide the opportunity for the people to intervene decisively in protecting democracy.

Mr. Bijo Francis,
Interim Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission

Mangala Defends CJ While UK Mulls A CHOGAM Boycott

By Harim Peiris -November 19, 2012

Harim Peiris

The speed of the Rajapakse regime’s impeachment against the Chief Justicewas so swift, at the political speed of a duty free Lamborghini, that the defense against this unrestrained assault on democratic fundamentals in Sri Lanka was slow in coming.

However, starting things off where it should were the lawyers for the Chief Justice who produced a comprehensive and stinging refutation of the main charges against her, that of large sums of money in her account. The explanation which was also quite easily established and readily proved was something likely to be quite common in Sri Lanka, an overseas based family member remitting money for the purchase of an asset in Sri Lanka, in the CJ’s case, her sister sending funds for the purchase of an apartment in Colombo. Her lawyers reiterated what the CJ’s young son in his Face book profile first clearly indicated, the Chief Justice was not going to be intimidated and go quietly; she was going to fight this tooth and nail.

The main weakness in the CJ’s defense is really a political one, namely Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe’s unwillingness to mount a serious challenge to the Rajapakse regime on any issue, just ask FUTA. One actually wonders, if Ranil does consolidate his own power within the UNP, whether the situation would change. That of course is the hope for some push back on authoritarianism in Sri Lanka. The way for Ranil to consolidate his power, is not still more manipulation of the much maligned UNP constitution, but rather a political accommodation of his detractors and rivals within the Party and especially his charismatic young deputy leader Sajith Premadasa. Ranil should realize that even his own loyalists in the UNP Working Committee, who so overwhelmingly voted for him as party leader turned around and voted for Sajith Premadasa as deputy leader, clearly indicating their desire that the two work together. They also recognize quite astutely that all Ranil’s weaknesses are complemented by Sajith’s strengths. This desire of the UNP Working Committee hasn’t changed but it hasn’t worked because Ranil has instead tried soft peddling opposition to the government, leaving the door open for the political assault on the Chief Justice.

Mangala Samaraweera, a former campaign manager and foreign minister for President Rajapakse and now an opposition front bencher, UNP media coordinator and fierce critic of the Rajapakse regime came out swinging in defense of an independent judiciary, safeguards and guarantees for the integrity of the officer of the Chief Justice. Using the occasion of the second reading of the budget in Parliament, the UNP front bencher built on the political arguments consistently made on the issue by the UNP deputy leader Sajith Premadasa, who from early on had consistently advocated strong political resistance to the assault on the judiciary.

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka, for the first time in over two decades summoned an extraordinary general meeting, to discuss the assault on the judiciary by the government. Bar Association Chairman and UNP Parliamentarian Wijeydasa Rajapakse presided over a gathering of over one thousand lawyers who were fairly unanimous in their opposition to the impeachment and passed a motion urging the President and Speaker to reconsider the Government decision and also in the alternate to ensure strict procedural safeguards and the integrity of the process. Government members including Cabinet Members present at the meeting were noticeable by their stoic silence as their impeachment initiative was universally condemned by their fellow lawyers.

There is strong merit in the legal argument that Parliament exercising judicial functions is ultra vires the Constitution. Before Sri Lanka’s 1972 republican constitution, final appellate jurisdiction rested with the Privy Council in the UK. When the House of Lord’s acts in a judicial capacity, it is only the Law Lords and not the other lords, spiritual and temporal that sit on such deliberations. Sri Lanka’s republican constitution vested the judicial power of the people, exercised by Parliament through the Courts, the apex of which is the Supreme Court. Parliament does not directly exercise judicial power except in the specific and limited case of its own rights and privileges.

Joining the international chorus calling the Rajapakse Administration to some sanity and urging judicial independence was the United Nations (UN) through the Office of its Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriella Knaul who reminded the regime that “irremovability of judges is one of the main pillars guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary”. While not reported in the press one can be certain that visiting US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dr.Alyssa Ayres would have reiterated US concerns on the impeachment expressed by the US PRUN in Geneva at the UPR recently.

There is also informed political speculation, that besides the Divineguma Bill, the other domestic legislative imperative for the Administration, is the guttering of the 13^th amendment to the constitution and the current Chief Justice and the ruling on Divineguma would prevent that. Hence CJ Bandaranayake must be sent home before the 13^th amendment is guttered.

While the government presses on gung ho, seeking to impeach the Chief Justice, gutter the 13^th Amendment thereby centralize power and restrict freedoms further, the UK House of Commons today gave the first indications that it was seriously considering joining the Canadian Prime Minister in a boycott of CHOGAM to be hosted by Sri Lanka next year. India’s Congress Party facing a tough re-election battle in a general election due early in 2014 if not earlier and with the Tamil Nadu votes and support being essentially a swing state for power at the Center, would hardly consider a photo opportunity of its Prime Minister at CHOGAM, with a 13^th Amendment guttering President Rajapakse, a vote winner in Tamil Nadu.

The Rajapakse regime is likely to succeed in its single minded effort to get rid of Chief Justice Bandaranaike. However this would occur only with significant and possibly irreparable collateral damage to its credibility and legitimacy, both domestically and internationally.

*Harim Peiris served as Presidential Spokesman from 2001-2005

SRI LANKA: A heavy price will have to be paid for losing the judiciary as a separate branch of governance

November 19, 2012

The late Mr. A.C. Soyza (Bunty), a well-known criminal lawyer and the president of the Bar Association, was retained by a group of young, radical leftists, who had been charged for their political work. During the consultations in prepartion for the trial, Mr. Soyza used to chat with these young radicals. One of these young persons told Mr. Soyza, "You lawyers are doing all this work only for money, no?" Then Mr. Soyza told these young people, "One day, when there are no lawyers, you will understand the value of lawyers."

In some cultures, there is no deep understanding of the value of liberty and what it means to lose it.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made a similar observation after great catastrophes had been faced in Russia, in the following words:

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."
-- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Many Sri Lankans, with great shock, have now begun to realize that something that they never thought of is going to happen. One of the most valued things in the country, despite the tremendous limitations it had, was the independence of the judiciary. It is finally going to be lost. The judiciary as an independent branch of governance will cease to exist.

All kinds of ifs about how this could have been prevented are of little use now. Sri Lanka, which has witnessed some of the worst kinds of human rights violations, such as mass-scale forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, rampant torture, illegal arrest and detention and unbelievable levels of corruption, extreme rise in crime and every form of abuse of power, will soon realize that what they have already suffered is nothing compared to what is to come.

It is only when the independence of the judiciary is lost that everyone, including those who are causing this loss, will begin to realize under what horrors they will have to live when there is no institution to protect the basic liberties.

Yes, as the late Mr. Bunty Soyza said, it is only when we lose these things that we will begin to realize what we have lost.