Sri Lanka: Security forces continue arresting Tamil youth

By our correspondent 
14 December 2012

The Sri Lankan military and the police continued their arrests of Tamil youth and Jaffna University students in the war-ravaged north over the past week, detaining many under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Detainees can be held for 90 days without trial under the PTA and the defence secretary can extend the incarceration. Police can also use confessions extracted under torture as evidence against detainees.

The harassment started on November 27 when a group of university students attempted to commemorate victims of the government’s war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was militarily defeated in May 2009.

The police and military raided the university, attacked the students and ransacked a women’s hostel. The next day, the army brutally suppressed a student protest march against the anti-democratic assault. The military later arrested four student leaders following allegations by the Sri Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization, a pro-government paramilitary group, of a petrol bomb attack on its office near the campus.

Seven more students were later taken into custody by the police force’s notorious Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) and transported to Vavuniya. According to students, those arrested were tortured. The seven were released last Friday, following national protests by university students and strike action by Jaffna university teachers.

However, four student leaders—V. Bavanandan, P. Darshanan, Kanakasundaram Jenamejeyan, and Shanmugam Solomon—have been sent to Welikanda detention camp, where hundreds of alleged LTTE suspects are incarcerated.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told a protest in Kilinochchi last week that more than 45 Tamil youth had been taken into custody since November 29. Coordinator of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission Jaffna Branch, T. Kanagaraj, told the media Tuesday that the organisation had received 27 complaints thus far from parents in Jaffna and Kilinochchi.

Police have issued contradictory reports about the number of arrests. Police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody told the media that 10 people had been arrested by Wednesday last week. TID director Chandra Wakista, however, told the BBC that “20 to 25 have been detained.”

Among those arrested are youth recently released from military detention camps, following so-called rehabilitation, i.e., brainwashing. Around 300,000 Tamils were incarcerated in military-controlled camps following the LTTE’s defeat. Another 11,000 youth were detained at secret locations as LTTE suspects.

Although many prisoners have been freed following protests in Sri Lanka and internationally, they are under constant military surveillance. Hundreds remain in detention, accused of being “hard core” LTTE members and an estimated 800 political prisoners are incarcerated in southern Sri Lankan prisons. Some of them have been held for almost 10 years, without charge.

While the military has withdrawn from Jaffna University, Jaffna army commander Mahinda Hathurusinghe said the troops would stay off the campus only if politicians did not enter it. This is a direct attack on fundamental democratic right of students to engage in political activities. According to some workers, intelligence officers have been deployed within the university premises.

Jaffna University Teachers Association members decided to remain on strike until all students are released. A letter from academic staff to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse stated: “The arrested students are facing dangerous situation. The military officers are trying to suppress the political problems by using the military power. The students were arrested on false reasons.”

The brutal assault on Jaffna students exposes the Rajapakse government’s claims that civilian rule has been established in the north. Colombo has deepened its military occupation of the Northern Province to suppress increasing discontent over the curbing of democratic rights, and rising unemployment and poverty among workers and rural masses. Jaffna University students have been a target of the military and the police because they have opposed the suppression of democratic rights, the privatisation of university education and the lack of education facilities.

The military and police claim that their assaults on Tamil youth are justified by a so-called resurgence of the LTTE. This is a fraud, aimed at whipping up anti-Tamil communalism. This long-standing political weapon of the ruling class to divide the working class has been renewed because of mounting economic and political problems facing the Sri Lankan government.

During recent weeks important sections of the working class have begun protesting over attacks on living conditions and social rights.

Demonstrations against the youth arrests have been held in Jaffna and Kilinochhi by Tamil capitalist parties and groups, including the TNA and Tamil National People Front, along with the Democratic Peoples Front and pseudo-left organisations, such as the Nava Sama Samaja Party and United Socialist Party.

While these organisations have condemned the attacks on university students and demanded the release of the detained youth, they have used the protests to appeal to the UN and the major foreign powers. Among the slogans shouted at the demonstrations were “International community, don’t keep mum anymore” and “UNHRC intervene and rescue Jaffna students.”

To suggest that the UN and the major powers, including the US, UK and India, would defend the democratic rights of the Tamil people is a political lie. These countries fully backed the war, including the bloody military offensive that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Tamils. The US and its allies raised the human rights violations of the Sri Lankan government only to advance their interests in the region.

For their part, the Tamil capitalist parties, with the backing of the fake “lefts”, are attempting to reach a power-sharing accommodation with Colombo for the joint exploitation of working class and poor.

The anti-Tamil repression in the north is a warning to the entire working class. The Rajapakse government is preparing serious attacks against all sections of the working class and the rural masses as they come forward to defend jobs and living standards, in opposition to the International Monetary Fund austerity measures being imposed. Only an independent movement of the working class, uniting across Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim ethnic lines, rallying the poor and basing itself on the political fight for a Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Eelam, can end the military occupation in the north and east and defeat the government’s attacks.

Land allocation for permanent camps in Vavuniya. Land allotted for police station

Tuesday , 18 December 2012

Vavuniya district land allocation development committee has given authorization to provide lands for the military and police to construct permanent camps in Kanagarayankulam and Puliyankulam localities.

 

This decision was taken at the district development committee meeting held on last Sunday at the Vavuniya District Secretariat headed by Government Agent Bandula Harichandra.

 

5 acres of land in Puliyankulam was allocated to the police and 5 acres of land was approved to the 27th regiment attached to the forces.

 

Meanwhile two acres of land to the police at Kanagarayankulam and 7 acres of land allocation to the 56th division of the forces were sanctioned.

 

 

Meanwhile half acres of land in Puliyankulam to the Health Department, half acre land at Katkulam junction to preliminary Health Centre, one acre land at Nayina Madu locality for the Veterinary  Center, 11 acres of land in A9 road for the construction of a school, 5 acres of land at Nayirnamadu for the construction of Ayurveda hospital, one and half acres of land at Muthumaari Town area for a cultural center, quarter acre of land at Nedunkerni to construct the  divisional hospital, 20 perch of land at Mannankulam, Kollaru locality for the construction of a Corporative Society, 35 acres of lands at Parasankulam for the construction of a  Indian housing project, 15 acres of land at Mudaliyar kulam, 42 acres land at Thandikulam  and 120 acres of land for paddy cultivations.

 

District land distribution planning committee Secretary S.Muralitharan, Divisional Secretary, Department Heads and Secretaries including many attended.

Australian FM challenged on Sri Lanka visit amid rights abuses

Lee Rhiannon

Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s decision to strengthen Australia’s military and intelligence cooperation with the Sri Lankan government at a time when there are increasing reports of human rights abuses has been criticised by Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon.

“I urge Minister Carr to acquaint himself with reports out of Sri Lanka that on 12 December, 17 Tamil women were admitted to a hospital in Northern Sri Lanka. There is concern that these women had been sexually abused and brutalised by the Sri Lankan military" she said in a statement issued on Monday.

“The reports I have received indicate that the women were recently recruited into the Sri Lankan army and some were unconscious when admitted to hospital. All were immediately isolated from other patients and I have been informed that a parliamentarian from the Tamil National Alliance was denied access to the women" the statement further said.

Sexual abuse

Last week Greens Leader Christine Milne last week urged Minister Carr to speak with Sri Lankan officials during his visit about ongoing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, including persistent discrimination, torture, disappearances and abductions.

“Sexual abuse and torture of Tamil women by the Sri Lankan Military has been widely documented by the British media, the Tamil National Alliance and human rights groups" said the Green Senator.

Quoting a statement released by a collective of 11 women's groups from Sri Lanka’s North and East which alleged that the Sri Lankan military have been forcibly recruiting Tamil women, Senator Rhiannon has pointed out that such reports come against the backdrop of the recent detention of students at Jaffna University, some of whom have been reportedly tortured by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Department (TID).

“Australia’s standing as a country committed to promoting peace and protecting human rights is at risk if Minister Carr seeks to strengthen military ties while turning a blind eye to ongoing abuses in Sri Lanka”, she said.

Photo: Sharmila Logeswaram

“Tamil women forced to marry Sri Lankan army personnel”

Take up the issue with Sri Lanka, Karunanidhi tells Centre

CHENNAI, December 18, 2012

Alleging that Tamil women in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts in northern Sri Lanka were being forced to marry Sri Lankan Army personnel, DMK leader M. Karunanidhi on Monday asked the Union government to ascertain the facts and take it up with the neighbouring country.

In a statement, Mr. Karunanidhi said students of Jaffna University were arrested and tortured in prison by the Army for observing “heroes’ day” recently.

“The mere mention of the name Yazh (short for Yazhppanam or Jaffna) provokes the Sinhalese. Tamil scholars were attacked in the Jaffna World Tamil Conference and the Jaffna University library was burnt down,” he said and wanted India’s intervention to stop the incidents.

MGR memorial

Responding to the State government’s explanation to the High Court that the structure erected in front of MGR memorial was not the “Two Leaves” symbol of the AIADMK, Mr. Karunanidhi wondered if it was not the party’s symbol why the government unveiled it in a hurry, even without printing an invitation.

“Of course they did not say it was the symbol of the DMK,” he quipped.

Mr. Karunanidhi said that though one year had passed since the fire broke out in a building in the Ezhilagam complex, nothing had moved despite the fact the tenders were called for seven months ago for reconstruction.

TNA Wants Full Access To Women Recruits

By Raisa Wickrematunge-Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) says it has been given limited access to the women who had allegedly been forcibly recruited into the military recently.
The Women’s Action Network (WAN) released a statement last week condemning the recruitment of some 109 women from Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu to the army. The women were recruited but told that they would only be doing a little clerical work, perhaps with the local Grama Niladhari official and promised Rs. 30,000 a month, the WAN reported.
Upon realising that they were meant to join the military for a training course in Sinhala and English (subsequent to a military function that was held on November 16) several of the women had panicked and said they did not wish to join, but were told they could not return home until after the function.  Six women were released due to the efforts made by their families, the WAN report said. TNA MP Suresh Premachandran told The Sunday Leader that a further 13 women had also wanted to leave, but had been prevented from doing so.
They had been brought to the Kilinochchi hospital and admitted into a separate ward, which was then guarded by military personnel, Premachandran said.
“Upon being questioned the military had said the issue was minor and the women were only homesick. They were being given counselling and would return to the training session,” Premachandran said.
The army however insisted that the Tamil girls in the north are not being forced to join the army and that those recruited have access to their families.
Army spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said that that reports to the effect that the Northern Commander had gone from house to house and forcibly recruited girls were false.
“As outlined earlier the recruitment process was a pure voluntary recruitment which was open to all female citizens living in the north who are of that age group with required qualifications,” the army spokesman said. The spokesman said that the army was among the first State agencies which had taken cognizance of the LLRC Report and in order to implement the LLRC recommendations it was decided to recruit Tamils, both male and female, from the North to the Army.
“We have plans to recruit males as well and very shortly they will be recruited. We thought of giving priority to women because the very existence of Tamil female soldiers in the Army would be an ante-dote to false propaganda against the Army. Precisely for this reason, the LTTE rump domiciled abroad and other interested parties are making a hue and cry on this issue. They seem to worry that the success of this process would mark the end of their campaign for false propaganda,” he said.

Sri Lanka Media Freedom a Neglected Dimension of Post-War Politics

Sri Lanka Media Freedom a Neglected Dimension of Post-War Politics

( December 18, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Consultations carried out by the IFJ and its partners in recent months, suggest that media freedom is a neglected dimension in Sri Lanka’s post-war politics. Within the wider landscape of diminishing hopes, marked by the fading of early optimism of a peace dividend accruing from the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in May 2009, the country’s media practitioners continue to face formidable difficulties. Overt measures of coercion are less conspicuous than during the war years. But there are fears that free speech is falling victim in a media environment in which political and financial power is deployed to silence dissent.

Clickhere to read the full report

Unidentified group trailing behind a Website Editor resident in UK

(Lanka-e-News -15.Dec.2012, 11.30PM Our news providing source had confirmed that an unidentified group is trailing behind a Website Editor resident in the UK . It is the objective of this group to somehow silence this Editor of the website which has been labeled as a mudslinging website and banned in Sri Lanka . This group had gone to the UK after garnering information for a long time , and it is believed based on information that there are two males and a female in that group. This group had left for UK about two weeks ago. In order to silence this Editor , assistance of several residents in Britain have been enlisted , according to our source providing news . -Courtesy Janarala newspaper – 14 th Dec. 2012 Another source of information reporting in relation to this same news stated that the website that is being hounded had in the past published news on the Rajapakse family ailments , which had triggered the wrath and fury of the Rajapakse family members. In this connection , there had been a discussion in the Ministry of a grade 8 qualified Minister .

One of the Ministers who is in the medical profession had told at the discussion , ‘already arrangements have been made to give him the treatment ’ . This blabbering Minister had blurted out , ‘it will be similar to the killing of the LTTE leader in France’ At the time when that murder occurred , there arose suspicions that our State intelligence service was linked to it. Courtesy – SL X News 14 th Dec. 2102.

President tells Mano to advice students on the differences between the struggles of LTTE and JVP

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

Struggle of JVP was an insurgency that did not demand the division of the country but the struggle of LTTE. President wanted DPF leader Mano Ganesan to explain this fact to the Jaffna University students who had alleged to have commemorated the later.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa made the above view responding to Ganesan’s appeal to the President to directly intervene in the matter of the Jaffna University students and prevent the country from slipping back into the old abyss of disunity.

The conversation occurred yesterday when President Rajapaksa telephoned to wish DPF leader Ganesan on his birthday which fell on Monday 17th.

Ganesan said that the President admitted that he has not been fully briefed about the Jaffna university issue since that minister of higher education S. B. Dissanayake is not in the country at the moment. President has assured Ganesan that he would direct minister Dissanayake to intervene in the Jaffna university students row once he returns home shortly.

Ganesan said that both JVP and LTTE took up arms against the state of Sri Lanka. JVP did not demand separation but wanted whole of Sri Lanka through armed struggle in 1971 and 1989. It amounts to separation or even more. During the rebellion JVP cadres formed their own administration in certain pockets in the southern parts of the country in 1989. They even conducted kangaroo court proceedings during their days. Can JVP cadre turned minister Vimal Weerawansa deny this?

We are a democratic party. Taking up arms against the elected state and the people is not acceptable to us. Separation is not acceptable to us. But we respect the rights of the people to commemorate the dead of both south and north.

Therefore the known difference to us is that JVP fighters were not Tamils and LTTE cadres are Tamils.

Today the Jaffna university student issue is no longer an issue of the higher education ministry. It has taken different turns after the arrests of the students. Thus, it has effectively become a matter that should be handled by the President as the defense minister. But however, Ganesan said that, President responded him by saying that the issue has been inflated by political elements and therefore he will still direct the higher education minister to handle it.

President has also said during the telephone conversation that he looks forward to solve the national question during the period of TNA leader Sampanthan.

Direct Lalith Weeratunga To Refrain From Processing Any Documents Purporting To Appoint An Acting CJ: Full Text Of Elmore’s New Petition

By Colombo Telegraph -December 18, 2012 

“Direct the Secretary, Ministry of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and  I.G.P, N.K. Illangakoon, to take all steps necessary to ensure that the Chief Justice and all other members of the Judiciary will be able to carry out their lawful duties as Judicial Officers, pending final determination of this matter” Elmore Perera urges in a petition to the Supreme Court.

Elmore Perera

Elmore Perera urges; declare that the Petitioner’s fundamental right to a fair trial by a competent Court guaranteed by Article 13(3) of the Constitution, his fundamental right to be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty by a competent Court guaranteed by Article 13(5), and his fundamental right to apply to the Supreme Court for a remedy in terms of Article 126 of the Constitution in respect of an infringement or imminent infringement of a fundamental right as guaranteed by Article 17 of the Constitution have been infringed or such infringement is imminent, as a result of the unlawful acts aforementioned, of the PSC members; quash Standing Order No. 78A set out in P1 as being inconsistent with Articles  3, 4 and 74(1)(ii) of the Constitution; direct the Speaker  to refrain from proceeding with any further action in respect of the unlawful trial conducted by members of the PSC in terms of Standing Order 78A, pending final determination of this matter; request/urge/direct the Chief Justice to refrain from taking any further cognisance of the  unlawful trial  conducted by PSC in terms of Standing Order 78A, or of any further acts arising therefrom, pending final determination of this matter; direct Secretary to the President, Lalith Weeratunga to refrain from processing any documents purporting to appoint any individual as Acting Chief Justice or as Chief Justice to replace the present Chief Justice, pending final determination of this matter.

We publish below the full text of the petition;

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF SRI LANKA 

                                                            In the matter of an Application under

Article 126 of the Constitution

Elmore  M. Perera,

144, Vipulasena Mawatha.

Colombo 10                                                           Petitioner

S.C. Application                                Vs.

No. 692/2012 (FR)                                                        Read More

The farcical impeachment proceeding

The farcical impeachment proceeding

Absolutely no “law’s delay” in finding the chief justice guilty on an impeachment motion that the movers signed but never read

( December 18, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Shakespeare in one of his mature tragedies, Hamlet makes the law's delay one of the ills of life which led Hamlet to think of suicide. In true democracies the principal end of all human systems of government has been repeatedly asserted to be in the dispensation of justice certainly the adjustment of the rights of humans as against others, the prompt acquittal of those wrongfully accused and/or the conviction of the guilty as being matters of immense interest. Law's delays are in most advanced countries inevitable except in countries like China and Russia lacking in human rights.

In the case of the proceedings against the Chief Justice Ms Shirani Bandaranayake s done with such unholy haste and urgency not because of any apparent serious lapse on her part but because she rubbed on the wrong side of a member of the Rajapaksa dynasty, Basil Rajapaksa by a ruling thwarting their aspirations to control rural development through a Bill with archaic provisions to replace provincial councils and to do away with any prospect of any devolution of power to the minorities through the 13th amendment to the constitution which was hitherto bandied about so long to deceive the international community, especially India, that sponsored it in 1987. In fact in his budget speech, Mahinda Rajapksa revealing his hidden agenda revealed: "A change in the prevailing Provincial Council system is necessary to make devolution more meaningful to our people....." our people meaning the Sinhalese. The change envisaged would centralize power in the minister widely known as "ten percent" and would have enabled him to make millions by way of commissions. Having amassed immense wealth quite in disproportion to any other usual manner in a climate of absolutely unparalleled corruption, unchallenged criminality and absolute political power regarded invincible being compensation for having defeated Tamil militancy, with the Sinhalese masses fed on racist anti Tamil rhetoric, it has now become necessary to consolidate their political power, their wealth and immunity by the elimination of the only remaining obstacle, an independent judiciary, though of sorts.

As a consequence, the chief justice has had to face the farcical impeachment proceedings, a comedy of errors concluded with such expedition and unholy haste marking the end of the last vestige of any semblance of democracy in Sri Lanka. In this slapstick comedy the principal clown is not minister Mervyn Silva, Weerawansa or Rambukwella but Mahinda Rajapaksa the president himself. Like the devil citing scripture he goes about the country pontificating to the ignorant masses, unfortunately the majority in Sri Lanka, that he will not brook any dishonesty or corruption in any section of the services.

In the absence of any dissenting voice completely muffled, the masses are constantly fed with stories slandering Ms Bandaranayake coming up with fables provided by the state media deifying the Rajapaksa clan. The document impeaching Bandaranayake was signed in the blank by the nearly 115 government parliamentarians and the subject matter inserted therein, subsequently, so that except those in the Parliamentary select committee (PSC), none other had read the impeachment notice before they signed it. They signed the blank document because they were ordered to do so. Those in the Rajapaksa clan eligible to sign had advisedly refrained from subscribing to the contents by not signing. Now in the face of the opposition and Bandaranake's justifiable defiance, the President in his characteristic fashion in wriggling out of this impasse says that he himself has not read the contents of the impeachment and that a review should be held to clear his own conscience, as if his conscience is of paramount consideration in this whole episode. Perhaps, he wishes to have a good night's sleep at the expense of that of those adversely affected. The whole episode is in fact not a comedy but in fact a comic tragedy with Rajapaksa emerging like the proverbial emperor once again with no clothes on.

Four opposition members of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) delegated to hear this matter had withdrawn. Some government members of the PSC, arising out of their own feeling of inferiority had abused Bandaranayake, tantamount to sadism not giving the respect that should at least be given to a woman not to mention the head of the judiciary. She was not allowed the basic right of her lawyers cross examining witnesses and the proceedings were not to be in the public domain which forced her to walk out of the proceedings in disgust. Some witnesses were in fact were examined after she had left the proceedings. The PSC having examined the oral and written evidence against the Chief Justice Dr Shirani Bandaranayake is said to have found her guilty of three out of the five charges investigated among the 14 charges brought against her in the impeachment motion.

President Rajapaksa in the meantime getting cold feet is said to have contacted the counsel for Bandaranayake to get her to resign and that he would give her another job. We understand that Bandaranaike is not hankering after positions especially one offered by Rajapaksa with her primary aim being vindicating her stand.

We are not claiming to be competent to pass judgment on Ms Bandaranayake's conduct but we certainly take umbrage at the manner in which the head of the judiciary is being treated and on undermining of the principles of the rule of law of which she is custodian. In the very least the manner in which she is being treated is a violation of her rights as a human being.

The constitutions of 1972 and 1978 successively compelled the judicial officers to defend and uphold the constitution quite contrary to judicial office and against judicial conscience with executive action thereafter eroding the position of the chief justice and the judges of the Supreme Court.

Further, every day that Sarath Silva a former chief justice held office for 10 years from the year 2000 to 2010, the office of the chief justice was undermined and degraded on a daily basis. He publicly and unashamedly claimed that President Rajapaksa owed his position to him in that Rajapaksa would not have become the President of Sri Lanka being able to contest the 2005 Presidential election and come to power if the Supreme Court bench headed by him had not cleared Mahinda Rajapaksa of allegations of misappropriation of Tsunami funds. We have no reason, whatsoever, to doubt his claim. Apparently he believes that he did a favour to Mahinda Rajapaksa to be reciprocated. In the ensuing culture enabled by the constitution of 1978 where the chief justice had to constantly act to please the president at every turn believing that the Chief justice had to act at their pleasure made the position of Bandaranayake quite unenviable and untenable. Unfortunately this is the position that the concepts of the rule of law and the separation of powers have descended to with no redemption in sight.

Theatrics Of The Impeachment Drama

Ajit Rupasinghe

By Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe –December 18, 2012 

The impeachment of the Chief Justice is an expression of a political vendetta by the Rajapakse regime. It is a ‘gut’ reaction by a rabid bourgeois dictatorship that has got accustomed to unquestioning loyalty and abject servility by each and all to its absolute hegemonic domain. It is symptomatic of a megalomaniacal drive for absolute, undivided, omnipotent power. Beyond the psychological-maniacal dimension is the need to preserve and perpetuate the dynastic-hegemonic rule at all costs, since the manifold crimes of the Rajapakse regime are such that it will incur the pitiless wrath and fury of the masses, even unlike a woman scorned. It must, at all costs, hold on to the reigns of absolute power.

There is a deafening cry from bourgeois liberal opposition forces, joined by some social democratic trends in “Left” disguise combined, to stall the impeachment process and to exonerate the Chief Justice, in the name of protecting the ‘Rule of Law’, the ‘Independence of the Judiciary, and the doctrine of the ‘Separation of Powers’.  The whole debate has centered on the ‘constitutionality’ and legality  of the impeachment process, in an effort to restore democratic governance. At best, the argument of the opposition is that the Rajapakse Regime has crossed the red line and the dreaded dreadnought has to be stopped.

This argument conveniently forgets that every form of bourgeois state is but the exercise of the ‘naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (Lenin) ’ dressed up at times in the cloth of bourgeois democracy and alternatively exercised in the form of open fascist rule, as the situation demands. Two armed insurgencies by Sinhala youth in the South and the war of national liberation of the Tamil nation have been drowned in rivers of blood by this bourgeois state, which is claimed to be a ‘five star’ democracy. This is not to mention the daily, routine exercise of terror, abduction, and torture, and the accumulated crimes against Nature and Humanity.

Whether it be the Executive, Judiciary or the Legislature, these tentacles of the bourgeois dictatorship have never defended the rights and freedoms of the people in any fundamental sense. These separate organs of state power have served to promote the illusion of democratic freedom, while preserving and perpetuating the ‘naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’. How is that known murderers, rapists, drug lords and war lords, big-time corrupt racketeers, the very scum of the earth, have continued to thrive, while social activists, progressive media institutions and personnel, and revolutionaries have been systematically hounded and killed? Why is that workers, peasants, fishermen, students and any and all genuine opposition forces been terrorized and killed with impunity? How is it that these institutions of democratic governance and the State itself had legally sanctioned the war of genocide against the Tamil Nation and continues to legally sanction  the brutal military occupation and political subjugation?

This very same Chief Justice and the Supreme Court legalized the 18^th Amendment- as an urgent bill-, which crowned the Rajapakse dynasty and gave it a free license to dominate and rule in ‘perpetuity’. Why did she approve of the “Appropriations Bill” as an urgent bill. This CJ denied the constitutionally enshrined right of the workers to strike and protest, denied the right of Rosen Chanaka murdered in cold blood by the State, to a dignified funeral,  denied the writ application against the militarization and politicization of universities? Where does the Supreme Court stand on the blatant massacre of prisoners at Welikada? How come Julampitiye Amare, a reputed war lord and killer roam free? Where are the institutions of democratic governance and the ‘rule of law’ prevail in the face of gross and astronomical corruption and abuse of power? How come degenerate citizens, known  adulterers, the very scum of the Earth,  occupy the position of Chief Justice, as in the recent past?  The judiciary has never been independent. It is an essential and organic part of the rotting and tottering system of neo-colonial fascist bourgeois dictatorship.

Of course, and by all means, the abusive and vindictive assault against the Chief Justice should be exposed in its own right. All those who cherish decency would deplore the level to which the Rajapakse Regime has sunk. This resistance should be situated in the context of moving to  overthrow the Rajapakse regime. That is a call of history. But to try to replace it with yet another version of the ‘naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’, which has long since lost its right to exist, is an unpardonable  crime against the people. Those who align themselves with Ranil Wickremasinghe, the butcher of Batalanda and the UNP led Opposition, shall be  equally complicit of the crimes committed, and they shall be held accountable in the tribunal of history.  And so shall the likes of sycophantic, careerists and bootlicking parasites such as  Victor Ivan  and others. The path to freedom lies in mobilizing the exploited and oppressed masses, under the leadership of the proletariat,  as the only unified and invincible force that can bring down the system of imperialist/neo-colonial domination and take the leap forward towards a new era of universal freedom.

*Surendra – Secretary: Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist

SRI LANKA: Lawyers Collective urges protection for lawyers

December 18, 2012

The Lawyers Collective strongly condemns the assassination attempt on attorney-at-law Gunaratne Wanninayake and urges the Government to take all possible measures to prevent further such attacks. He is the convener of the Free March movement, a constituent group of the Lawyers Collective.

The Lawyers Collective views with grave concern the continuing trend in instigating adverse public opinion on lawyers and judges by the Government and its propaganda machinery which have been extensively and maliciously criticizing the lawyers and judges. Since the impeachment motion was moved in Parliament, they have been particularly targeting the lawyer activists in the network of the Lawyers Collective. The continuous verbal abuses on the lawyers in some of the state run media exposes lawyers for physical attacks.

The Rule of Law has deteriorated to such an extent that none of the law enforcement authorities are capable of investigating into or apprehending the attackers.

The Lawyers Collective urges the authorities to conduct an impartial investigation into the Wanninayake incident while assuring protection for lawyers, particularly those who stand up for independent judiciary.

Lawyers for Collective

The Impeachment Saga And Justice Leveson’s Report On British media

Charitha Ratwatte

December 18, 2012

The recent impeachment process conducted by the relevant tribunal was overshadowed by a parallel process of impeachment conducted by a section of the media. That rump of the media attempted to play the role, of prosecutor, witness, judge, jury and hangman all in one role.

The public were regaled by headline after headline, detailing the alleged misdeeds of the targeted individual, without any opportunity at all to make an objective assessment of the evidence, did the evidence emanate from an authorised source, was it genuine, was its veracity tested either by the cross examination of under solemn oath of the person making the allegation of evidentiary value, or if it was a document, by the Examiner of Questioned Documents. Details of matters which by law , could not be disclosed to the general public , unless under very special and controlled circumstances, such as bank account details, were the stuff of the front pages of these gutter newspapers and headlines of the radio and television.

Neither was the accused given an opportunity to present a defence. Though a so-called ban on reporting on the internal processes of the impeachment saga was reported to be in force, this was violated patently and blatantly by the gutter snipes concerned. Indeed the worldwide web and the internet was a great source of information for those who wished to learn of all aspects of the story as it unfolded and chose to analyse and filter and determine what the possible of an iota of truth, if at all, may be present in the overall fabric painted on the subject in the gutter media frenzy.

Farcical and comical

The episode by which the accused was supposedly presented with 1,000 odd pages of documents, which were not proved as genuine, in any sense of the word, nor were they established to emanate from a proper authorised source, and summarily ordered to virtually disprove them, within less than 24 hours, implying that if they could not be proved to be untrue within a certain timeframe, they would be deemed to be true and, the impeachment would proceed on the basis of them being truthful documents, since they could not be proved to be false! This is a farcical and comical reverse of the burden of proof.

Normally, in terms of the law of evidence and in any civilised environment, a person who produces a document before another and requests that it be relied upon as proof of any fact or circumstance, is under an obligation to prove, that it is a genuine document emanating from the source which legally should have the custody of documents of that nature and that the facts stated in the document are true. Here, the documents are dumped on the accused, which has no idea who has concocted them, or from where they have been produced, with no person claiming that they are true, and within a completely unreasonable timeframe, the accused is burdened with proving that the documents are untrue!

The accused and the legal team defending the accused then withdrew from the proceedings. It was reported that taunts and insults were hurled at the accused by another bunch of gutter snipes. The gutter media thereafter goes onto insist that since the accused withdrew from the proceedings unwilling to be a party to such a parody of injustice that it must be an admission of guilt!

That part of the tribunal which was not made of politicians in Government then withdrew from the proceedings, objecting to the lack of a fair procedure among other things. After both the accused, the defending legal team and the non Government members of the tribunal had withdrawn, the tribunal, which earlier declared that witnesses would not be called, suddenly, inexplicably, about faced, according to reports, and decided to call witnesses and record evidence.

These witnesses, supposedly 16 in all, which are reported to include a Supreme Court Judge, the Secretary to the President and the Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission, were safe from any possibility of their evidence being tested, but readers may rest assured that in the furtherance of natural justice, the rump of the tribunal members would have questioned them at length and in detail. The worthy witnesses themselves, mature, educated, experienced bodies, must have realised the nature of the mockery they were willing or unwilling participants. If and when the proceedings are made public, we will no doubt see a forensic cross-examination process recorded!

Another media report says that an offer of a suitably high appointment and negation of bribery charges cases against a certain individual were made to the accuser’s lawyers by a certain high level person, if the accused gives up the fight and throws in the towel. The result of the alleged plea bargaining attempt is not yet in the public domain.

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