Systemic disappearances qualify as crimes against humanity in ICC, says Boyle
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 December 2012, 22:46 GMT]
The enforced disappearances of human beings that are widespread and systematic, such as the abductions of Tamils in the NorthEast including the midnight abduction of 28-year-old Mrs Soundararajan Sivamalar in Uduvil, Jaffna, on Christmas eve by Sri Lanka's Terrorism Division, are a Crime against Humanity under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Professor Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law said. "So if Gotobhaya travels to an ICC Member State, it might be possible to get him prosecuted in the visiting country under its domestic implementing legislation for the Rome Statute," Boyle said. 

Spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group said, "While we are fighting to overturn the protection given to the primary genocidaire, Mahinda Rajapakse, by the United States Department of State under the extra-legal and discretionary application of the doctrine of Head of State Immunity, we will not have a similar issue with sibling Gotabhaya Rajakapakse, when he travels to a ICC signatory state," TAG said. 

Boyle added, "under the ICC Rome Statute, it is a requirement that member states enact domestic implementing legislation making ICC Rome Statute Crimes domestic crimes as well. Hence it might be possible to prosecute Gotobaya under these domestic ICC Crimes even if the ICC does not have jurisdiction. 

"This is how the objectors scared President Bush out of traveling to Switzerland by demanding his prosecution if he showed up there under their domestic implementing legislation for the ICC even though the USA is not a party to the Rome Statute," Boyle added.

• ICC-Australia's Implementing Legislation

Most of Europe now has domestic implementing legislation for the ICC. International Criminal Court Act No. 41, 2002 facilitates compliance by Australia with obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and for related purposes.

WikiLeaks: US On LTTE’s Invocation Of The ‘Eritrea’ Mantra

By Colombo Telegraph –December 27, 2012 

“The popular perception of the Sri Lankan government as anti-Tamil is reinforced by the apparently random manner in which the army lobs artillery shells into Jaffna. The Reuters correspondent recounted two such incidents which occurred during the week he has in Jaffna. In one case a shell landed in a crowded fish market, killing two civilians and wounded seventeen. Two days before, a woman and her two children were injured when a round fell on their house while they were sleeping. ‘I can’t understand why they do this,’ the Reuters man said, ‘because the LTTE doesn’t even have camps in the areas being shelled.’” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.

A Leaked US diplomatic cable, dated June 17, 1994, updated the Secretary of State regarding the LTTE’s civil administration structure. The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The cable subject was “Life Under The LTTE”.

The Embassy wrote; “LTTE Spokesman Anton Balasinghamtold the visiting journalists that the Tigers’ see newly-independent Eritrea as the model for their own independence struggle. By setting up civil administration in areas under their control and working towards economic self-sufficiency, the Tigers hope to achieve de facto sovereignty. When the Reuters correspondent pointed out to him that the central government was still running schools, staffing hospitals and distributing food in the north, Balasingham reportedly said shrugged and said ‘We can’t do that, so we let the government to do it.’”

Placing a comment the US embassy wrote; “The LTTE frequent invocation of the ‘Eritrea’ mantra conveniently leaves out the fact that Eritrea achieved its independence because the central government in Addis Ababa collapsed; the Sri Lankan government is unlikely to follow suit. Nonetheless, the burgeoning Tiger civil administration indicates that the LTTE is steadily working to make ‘Tamil Eelam’ is a fact.”

Read the cable below for further details;

UNP alleges UPFA ploy to deceive flood victims

Claims Rs 100 mn represents only 13.7 pc of total requirement

By Shamindra Ferdinando-December 26, 2012

Close on the heels of UNP Deputy Leader and MP Sajith Premadasa’s call for adequate compensation for those affected by recent floods, UNP National List MP Dr. Harsha Silva yesterday alleged that the allocation of Rs. 100 million as compensation for houses damaged and destroyed meant the majority of the victims wouldn’t receive any financial assistance at all.

The MP accused the government of trying to hoodwink flood victims, while urging the relevant ministries and the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) to examine the needs of the disaster victims without further delay. The government should make a realistic assessment of their needs and take tangible measures to provide them with relief, he added.

Commenting on Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera’s recent declaration that Rs. 100 million would be paid as compensation for houses destroyed and damaged by floods, MP Silva challenged his parliamentary colleague to explain how he intended to divide the allocation among the victims. Now that Minister Amaraweera had promised Rs. 100,000 each for the houses destroyed by floods and Rs. 50,000 each for damaged ones, he obviously didn’t have the required funds to pay compensation, Dr. de Silva said. "The latest report issued by Amaraweera’s ministry, dated Dec. 24, 2012, identifies 3,269 houses as fully damaged and 8,053 as partially damaged. If one does the arithmetic this works out to about Rs. 730 million; that is 327 million for the fully damaged houses and 403 million for the partially damaged houses. The amount allocated is only a mere 13.7 per cent of what is needed. Or, in other words, the maximum payment for a fully damaged house will be Rs. 13,700 and for a partially damaged house Rs. 6,850."

MP Silva said that the government should explain how a destitute family could build a house for Rs. 100,000. Even a low cost one-bed-roomed 400 sq. ft house would cost between Rs. 300,000 to Rs. 600,000 excluding labour costs, he added. Even a mud hut with a thatched roof may cost more than the government allocation, the MP alleged.

Therefore, even going by the lowest estimate of Rs. 300,000 for a new house and Rs. 150,000 for a repairable house, and assuming own and community labour, the minister should seek Rs. 2.2 billion as an urgent allocation for the task at hand, the MP said.

The government should know its priorities, the MP said, lambasting the SLFP-led ruling coalition for squandering public funds on image building exercises, whereas those who really needed state assistance were denied funds. The MP pointed out that the government today proudly talked about conquering space at a great expense to the taxpayer, while the floods victims were crying out for assistance. The MP alleged that the government had enough funds to send one VVIP to space within the next seven years but it seemed to be reluctant to help those affected by floods.

Commenting on the housing needs of the war affected, the UNPer said: "After the conclusion of the conflict the estimate was for 129,000 new houses in the war ravaged Northern Province, with another 41,000 houses needing extensive repairs. But, according to the latest reports of the United Nations country office, only 21,000 houses had been built and another 6,070 under construction, almost all using donor funding including from the government of India. This is a national shame."

Tamil protesters urge Oz to end cricketing ties with Lanka over human rights violations

Sydney, Wed, 26 Dec 2012

Sydney, Dec 26 (ANI): Tamil protesters, who demonstrated outside the MCG for the start of the Boxing Day Test, have urged Australia to end cricketing ties with Sri Lanka over the mass scale human right violations in the country.

As the Boxing Day Test provided the chance for President Mahinda Rajapaksa to continue to wash his dirty image, offering more spin for the government than anything the MCG wicket could offer, according to the protesters.

Protest organiser and former England cricketer Trevor Grant claimed that Australia didn't tour Zimbabwe in 2007 mainly for security reasons, but then President John Howard had branded Zimbabwe President, Robert Mugabe, a grubby dictator.

Grant added that there is lot of difference between the treatment of Sri Lanka and of Zimbabwe because Lanka is a small country, and there is low awareness in this country about the problem, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Grant also branded political condition in Sri Lanka as a military dictatorship and pointed out towards the UN report after the war in 2009 that said the Rajapaksa regime needed to be investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The protesters, numbering about 150, called for those arriving for the Test to be aware of the situation in Sri Lanka and to reconsider going inside.

The protesters said the Sri Lankan side was more closely associated with the politics of the country they were from than other cricket teams around the world

Grant also claimed that Australia should not play cricket with Sri Lanka till the time Rajapaksa agrees for an independent inquiry in the massive human right violations against the Tamils in the war-torn country. (ANI)

Tamil Guardian 26 December 2012     Several hundred Australians gathered outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground to protest against Sri Lanka’s cricket tour of Australia, calling on cricketing authorities to boycott the country. Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Boycott Sri Lanka” hundreds of Australians assembled outside the MCG ground while Australia took on Sri Lanka on Day one of the traditional Boxing Day Test Match. Armed with red and yellow balloons, banners and thousands of leaflets (see here), protestors fanned out across every entrance to the stadium. In addition, a truck adorned with a sign saying "Cricket can't hide Tamil genocide" had been circling the venue and around Melbourne’s bustling central business district. Former cricket writer for The Age and boycott advocate Trevor Grant told reporters, “In 2007 Australia didn’t go on tour [to Zimbabwe] mainly for security reasons, but John Howard called Mugabe a grubby dictator and said that cricket would give him the oxygen that he didn’t deserve. There is very much a disparity between the treatment of Sri Lanka and of Zimbabwe.” “What we are asking for is Cricket Australia and the Australian government to halt future matches and torus against Sri Lanka until the Rajapaksa regime agrees to an independent investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and stops the persecution of Tamils which is sending refugees to Australia.”   Speaking at the protest, Grant said, “We gave out 7000 leaflets in two hours and had brilliant banners, covering about 10 diffferent locations. We had a truck with an A-frame displaying "Cricket can't hide Tamil genocide" signs driving around the CBD. We were able to make strong speeches --on a brilliantly-loud and clear PA -- that thousands of cricket-goers could not ignore as they queued to get in to the ground.” “We have laid the foundation for making Tamil persecution a significant issue in the minds of Australians. We plan to come out again during January when Sri Lanka play in the one day and 20/20 matches. We also plan to keep up the pressure via global links whenever Sri Lanka play cricket around the world. It's now been done inEngland and Australian on successive Sri Lankan cricket tours.” "We also have to think about CHOGM next year in Sri Lanka. Slithering snake-in-the-grass Bob Carr announced on his recent trip to Colombo that Australia would help Rajapaksa with advice on how to run CHOGM. Excuse me, while I reach for the sick bag." A representative from the Tamil Refugee Council also spoke saying, "Currently, there are endless accounts of sexual assaults by Sinhalese troops, these have dominated accounts of human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government.Tamils in North and East have lost their land, they have no real place to call home. Much of the areas they once called home have now been taken over by the military.Sri Lankan Army occupying Tamil Eelam has not even let the University students alone, arresting them under terrorism laws. While these abuses are taking place in the North and East, Mahinda Rajapakse, his brothers, his family and his supporters uses cricket to launder its image. We as cricket lovers should not allow this. We should not allow any regime brazenly abusing human rights with impunity, a role in international sport. We as cricket lovers, should not allow Rajapakse and his supporters to use cricket to get away with war crimes and crimes against humanity." Also see our earlier posts: Australian calls to boycott Sri Lankan cricket grow (11 December 2012) Boycott of cricket tour debated on Australian radio (13 December 2012) Boycott Sri Lanka cricket campaign gains more supporters (23 December 2012)

The Palestinian long road to statehood insufficient for Tamil Sovereignty
[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 December 2012, 06:55 GMT]
Twenty-four long years after the Palestine Liberation Organization renounced violence and voted to create the State of Palestine, United Nations recognition of Palestine remains limited to “non-member, observer” status. Governing an international order premised on the military superiority and economic interests of powerful states, the United Nations has been proved structurally incapable of defending oppressed nations. That the developments in the Palestinian movement should elicit interest from Eezham Tamil activists is the opinion of Tamil political observers who have been following the Palestinian struggle, who further contend that the time the Palestinians had in reaching to the current position is not an asset in the case of the Eezham Tamils who face an internationally ignored structural, protracted genocide in their homeland. 

In its vote on November 29, the United Nations officially recognized the State of Palestine by an overwhelming margin of 138-9. The Palestinian resolution re-iterates many previous UN resolutions– including Israel’s retreat to pre-1967 borders favouring a “contiguous” state of Palestine, and the right of return for refugees. Clearly, implementing these measures is necessary to guarantee meaningful sovereignty. Though outvoted in the General Assembly, Israel still fails to respect these international decisions - while continuing to deny that it violates international law. 

Liberal international relations theorists believe that statehood is achieved through mutual recognition by other states. Such inter-state relationships have not, however, produced Palestinian sovereignty. Palestine's primary gain from this vote is that it now holds the legal status necessary to file suit against Israel at The Hague. Nabil Shaath, senior Palestinian official, has threatened war-crimes charges based on Israeli settlement construction – mere days after winning the UN vote. Colonization of Palestinian land continues nonetheless. Life for Palestinians has not changed as a result of formal statehood recognition.

As Eezham Tamils have learned, especially after 2009, international mechanisms of justice are difficult to enforce for the only credible means of enforcement is military intervention. Israel flouts international convention with such impunity because it possesses a monopoly of violence, both internally as an oppressor state, and externally as a regional superpower. 

Neither the United Nations nor allies of the Palestinian cause possess the military means or the moral courage to militarily defend Palestinians. Despite repeated formal condemnation of Israel's actions toward Palestine, the United Nations failed to undertake even token action against Sri Lanka’s genocidal war on the Tamil nation and continues to remain hesitant to protect Tamils from ongoing structural genocide and colonization of the territory of Tamil Eezham.

After facing decades of systemic oppression, both Eezham Tamils and Palestinians had arrived at a conclusion that military self-defence must be undertaken on their own account, in an asymmetrical fashion. The International Community of Establishments then labelled these efforts "terrorism", granting the moral high ground to the oppressor state, while criminalizing recourse to the means which liberation from a military occupation requires. 

Although moral condemnations and humanitarian appeals may emerge from certain quarters, calls for proper behaviour "on both sides" have objectively benefited the stronger party who does not lay down its arms, who does not respect the wishes of the oppressed national groups, and who receives no incentive to do so from any section of the international community.

Thus, the extent to which leadership of the liberation struggle accommodates the interests of the international community is often directly proportional to its failure to defend the aspirations of the oppressed nation. Despite international applause garnered from statehood recognition, the Palestinian Authority continues to lose ground among Palestinians. Though formally representing the West Bank and Gaza, the PA does not presently hold electoral influence in Gaza, while its hold on the West Bank weakens. 

An Israeli YNet News column, dated December 9, states that "The recent Palestinian success in the UN, the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the achievements noted by Hamas during Operation Pillar of Defense have prompted greater agitation in the West Bank, and the IDF is concerned that the area may soon reach a boiling point. According to [Israel security agency] Shin Bet data, the unrest in the area is ripe for the development of the kind of infrastructure that could potentially support a third intifada – prolonged and violent unrest the likes of which Israel had to deal with in 1987 and 2000."

The threat of another Intifada reflects the clash between the national aspirations of Palestinians on one hand, and the extent to which the PA has bowed to American and Israeli pressure on the other. The two courses of action are irreconcilable because Palestinian national interests, and those of the powers governing the international system, are mutually detrimental.

This lesson applies equally to Eezham Tamils. A strategy of lobbyism and accommodation to world powers objectively subsumes the national objective into a flow of power that is inimical to the emergence of an independent and truly sovereign state. 

There are other options for international solidarity. The "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" campaign (modelled after a similar strategy deployed against the South African apartheid regime), has proven useful to the Palestinian cause as a means of applying moral pressure and some limited economic sanctions against the Israeli state. Like the UN's resolutions, however, "BDS" also has severe limitations in its effectiveness. 

So far, the government of South Africa is the only state to formally employ this tactic against Israel. Lacking the support of powerful actors, the BDS campaign cannot be a concerted strategy against Israeli occupation - it remains an incoherent, piecemeal attack against a powerful, well-organized opponent whose position is bolstered by the United States. The BDS campaign is loosely coordinated and relies largely on moral pressure on investors who benefit financially from their ongoing relationships, rather than a solidly-organized grouping of forces who have no economic interests in common with the state of Israel.

As with Sri Lanka, Israel enjoys the support of powerful backers, while its detractors lack the capacity to oppose it. If campaigns like BDS can succeed, it will be because they have been adopted by well-organized civil-society actors who coordinate tightly among each other. In truth, such support can only come from among people who are in a similar structural position within the global hierarchy of nations. A lack of solidarity among oppressed nations means that they may be played against each other in a game of "divide and conquer." 

The government of Sri Lanka, ironically, voted in favour of Palestine's bid. Statements of friendship from Sri Lankan President Rajapakse to the Palestinians were reciprocated by President of the Palestine-Sri Lanka Friendship and Cooperation Society Mahmoud Abdullah. Yet just as the Sri Lankan state used Israeli jets and tactical advice against the LTTE, so recently Israel mulled the “Sri Lanka option”, best expressed by Ariel Sharon’s son Gilad in the words: “Flatten all of Gaza.” 

Reality thus exposes the rhetoric of “friendship" as hypocritical. Friendly relations between Palestine and Sri Lanka deny Eezham Tamils the political space to form an alliance with Palestine based on shared interests and a common experience of national oppression. They also discredit the Palestinian cause in the eyes of many Eezham Tamils who unfortunately fail to distinguish between the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, but justifiably expect solidarity to be reciprocal.

But can the Eezham Tamil nation endure the time limits involved in the lengthy process of international recognition as in the case of the Palestinians, is a question that Tamil activists pose. After the internationally coordinated destruction of the de facto state that had shielded them from genocidal oppression, an accelerated rate of colonization of the Tamil homeland, devastation of the Eezham Tamil population by military and structural methods, and the absence of meaningful international support, all create a scenario where the Eezham Tamils in the homeland currently do not have the capacity to resist a protracted genocide. 

The international system follows the dictum that "might is the supreme right." It has failed both Palestinians and Tamils; but with far more deadly consequences for Tamils. In both the Palestinian and the Tamil cases, creating viable independent states would significantly disrupt the present economic and military geopolitical framework, through which "friendly" powers maintain their present interests. Nations wishing to emerge into this system must either accept the mandate of these powers, or develop an effective international counter-power of their own.

Sri Lanka’s military victory cannot substitute political reintegration
27 DEC, 2012, 04.59AM IST, GEN ASHOK K MEHTA,ET BUREAU 

Tamil Nadu politics willy nilly is once again on the verge of rocking India-Sri Lanka relations at a time when Colombo is basking in the glory of its spectacular military victory in 2009.

Tamil Nadu politics willy nilly is once again on the verge of rocking India-Sri Lanka relations at a time when Colombo is basking in the glory of its spectacularmilitary victory in 2009 when New Delhi and Chennai had acquiesced to a military solution.

The military has legitimised President Mahinda Rajapaksa's overwhelming majority rule both at the centre and in the provinces with the opposition reduced to a non-entity and kingmakers Sri Lanka Muslim Congress made irrelevant except in the Eastern province where it was wooed by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the ruling alliance to form the government.

The military success has transformed soldiers into national heroes and Sri Lanka one of the safest countries in the world. Three years on, all the 3,00,000 Internally Displaced Persons are resettled, 5,000 sq km of area demined, 1,80,000 acres of cultivable paddy land recovered and $2.5 billion committed for development of the North.

Of the 12,000 former LTTE combatants who surrendered or were captured, only 383 have not been rehabilitated due to delay in their deradicalisation programme. Following demilitarisation of the LTTE, the North has been consciously demilitarised by relocating 28 infantry battalions to the South and East, altogether some 21,000 soldiers taken out.

Similarly, high security zones in the North, especially around Palaly Airfield, have been shrunk. Central Bank of Sri Lanka governor Ajit Cabral is singing praises of the military for reduction in inflation and returning the country to an 8% growth path though currently it has dipped to just above 6%.

But this is compensated by the spectacular growth of 27% in the North with reconstruction prospects soaring on account of renewed business and investor sentiment and influx of tourism alongside a spurt in livelihood and vocational avenues for the rehabilitated.

For the first time in 30 years, the North will have an opportunity to grow and thrive if the current mood and investment continue. At the Army-organised Colombo conference in August this year about post-war recovery, Governor Cabral waxed eloquent about Sri Lanka's peace dividend, quoting extensively from Ruchir Sharma's bestseller, Breakout Nations.

Sharma has predicted that with the civil war over, Sri Lanka is irreversibly poised to join the breakout countries, destined to sustain high growth rates. By 2014, Sri Lanka is likely to overtake India registering the highest growth rate in the region. The process of mending shattered relationships between the two communities will ensure economic reconciliation.

One of the trusted aides of President Rajapaksa, Cabral is the brain behind reviving economic activity in the North. He said: "When we opened banking facilities in containers in the North, people excavated their cash which was so dirty that we had to resort to 'money laundering'.

Yet, for Sri Lanka, to really break out political reconciliation including power-sharing and accountability will be vital to sustain the euphoria of the military triumph.

Diplomats paint one-sided picture of Sri Lanka

The Commonwealth must take a stand over rampant abuses.

Bruce HaighBruce Haigh-December 28, 2012

Opinion

Writing in the Weekend Australian on December 15-16, the Sri Lankan consul-general in Sydney, Bandula Jayasekara, gives a very one-sided defence of the Sri Lankan persecution of dissenters, including Tamils. It is interesting that Jayasekara is being put forward as the Sri Lankan representative in Australia to defend the indefensible, an acknowledgement that the Sri Lankan high commissioner, Thisara Samarasinghe, has singularly failed to get his message across.

Jayasekara begins by saying, ''There is a misconception among some Australians regarding the issue of Sri Lankan asylum seekers because of a misinformation campaign carried out by parties with vested interests.'' Australians are quite used to weighing the facts, they saw through the propaganda of the South African apartheid regime, the lies over East Timor and weapons of mass destruction and it is only a matter of time before the truth will out on the treatment of Tamils and the political enemies of the corrupt Rajapaksa regime.

The Sri Lankan flag has a sword-bearing Sinhalese lion. Attempts, after independence, to adopt a flag with neutral symbols were rejected by the Sinhalese majority. Instead two ribbons were added to represent minority Tamils and Muslims. With the advent of the civil war the Tamils adopted a tiger as their symbol and the Sinhalese army, the lion.

Jayasekara would have us believe that Tamils fought (as terrorists) to divide Sri Lanka. What he conveniently fails to mention is that what occurred was a civil war fought because the Sinhalese refused to share power on the departure of the British. Tamil protest eventually turned Sinhalese exclusionary policies into genocide, which erupted in a blood bath in Colombo in 1983.

Many fled to the north and were subsequently forced to defend themselves from the army. The Sinhalese fear and hate the Tamils, hence the belief that Tamils are reorganising overseas for another civil war. It may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy if the Sinhalese continue to deny their rights.

Jayasekara makes a series of unsubstantiated claims, among them that the ''pro-LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) lobby wants to enter Australia, having penetrated into Canada and Britain. Its long term plan is to have a voice in Australian politics, so as to lobby and tilt the balance in its favour … it believes it is important to create that base in Australia …'' Jayasekara does not say what the LTTE hopes to gain by doing this.

He claims that, ''As the former consul general to Toronto in Canada, I have experienced first-hand how these groups interrupted the daily lives of Canadians with their violent methods'' and they ''may breed terrorism on Australian soil''. Perhaps he might like to detail the harassment of Tamils in Australia by Sinhalese, some of them security operatives. He claims LTTE groups control people smuggling operations for profit. I would have thought that if they are operating out of Sri Lanka they would be well and truly behind bars by now.

What Jayasakera does not mention is Sri Lanka's appalling human rights record, where young Tamils have been abducted and murdered. Forty Sri Lankan journalists have been murdered over the past 10 years for reporting state-sponsored corruption and abuse of human rights.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs is well aware of the nature of government in Sri Lanka. However the Australian government has been prepared to gloss over these abuses and in its own treatment of Tamil asylum seekers has now transgressed accepted human rights.

In September 2012, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, warned that he may refuse to attend the November 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, unless the Rajapaksa government addresses allegations of Sinhalese atrocities during the closing stages of the civil war.

In a matter continuing while the Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, was in Colombo over the weekend of December 15-16, Canadian senator Hugh Segal and the Commonwealth Secretariat in London expressed grave concern at the impending impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, Shirani Bandaranayake.

The Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the Commonwealth Legal Education Association and the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association issued a statement saying, in part, ''By virtue of its membership of the Commonwealth, Sri Lanka is committed to the shared fundamental principles, at the core of which is a shared belief in and adherence to democratic principles including an independent judiciary … The consistent and serious violation of these could well result in a country's membership being questioned.''

In early December the Indian newspaper The Hindu said that ''Just 19 months after Bandaranayake was appointed … the fate of the 43rd chief justice appeared to have been sealed following a ruling she gave to a bill introduced in Parliament by the Economic Development Minister, Basil Rajapaska, one of the many presidential siblings controlling the levers of power.

''In early November, when 117 parliamentarians handed over an impeachment motion against the chief justice to the Speaker of the legislature (Chamal Rajapaksa, another sibling), the process that followed affirmed how heavy were the odds stacked against Bandaranayake.'' The Hindu noted that such was the haste that due process and legal consistency had been given the flick and the government controlled media had already judged the chief justice guilty.

Jayasekara seeks to deceive because, with hubris and ignorance, he thinks we know little beyond what he writes. He should take pause and think again.

>> Bruce Haigh is a political commentator and retired diplomat who served in Sri Lanka and on the Refugee Review Tribunal.

Bandula Jayasekara Thinks We Know Little Beyond What He Writes

*Bruce Haigh is a political commentator and retired diplomat who served in Sri Lanka and on the Refugee Review Tribunal. This article is first appeared in the Age, Australia under the title  Diplomats paint one-sided picture of Sri Lanka.December 27, 2012 

Sri Lanka top judge laments state media's "slander campaign"

December 26, 2012

Lawyers of Sri Lanka's top judge Shirani Bandaranayake today accused the government of running "an organized series of programmes" in state electronic media targeting the Chief Justice, the Judiciary and leading lawyers.

They said said government spin doctors are involved in these "baseless propaganda programmes".

"It is abundantly clear that these are not isolated attacks but meticulously orchestrated attacks coerced and carried out at the behest of highest in authority.

"These are clearly intended to pressurise the Chief Justice to summarily resign, because the Government is well aware that the entire impeachment process is irregular and the Chief Justice cannot be lawfully removed from office", a statement said.

Bandaranayake, 54, country's first woman Chief Justice was found guilty by a parliamentary select committee in the government moved impeachment against her.

The trial was conducted ex-parte after she and her lawyers walked out accusing bias.

The impeachment process came after months of friction between the government and the chief justice.

The Rajapaksas Launch ‘Humanitarian Operation II’ Against The Judiciary

By Tisaranee Gunasekara -December 27, 2012

“Sentence first, verdict afterwards…”Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

With a single pronouncement, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has cleared the air of all false hopes, unreasonable expectations and rational imaginings. In his reply to the begging-letter by Ministers Tissa Witarana, DEW Gunasekera and Vasudeva Nanayakkara, the President has stated that the impeachment will go ahead, the Daily News reported on Christmas day. There will be no compromise or détente; not one step back or even aside. The impeachment will move forward inexorably, profaning everything in its path, spewing venom in its wake.

The state media and the Rajapaksa shock-troops (notably Ministers Wimal Weerawansa, Rajitha Senaratne and Mervyn Silva) are spending the holiday season in full combat-mode. Insults are being hurled not only at the Chief Justice but also at the judiciary and the Bar Association, plus anyone or anything seen as an impediment to the impeachment.

Let’s assume for a moment that the state’s derogatory cacophony is factual and that Shirani Bandaranayake, the chief justice handpicked by President Rajapaksa, is a seasoned criminal seeped in depravity. If so, it is not only Shirani Bandaranayake who should be impeached; Mahinda Rajapaksa, the man who elevated her to the august position of chief justice and the Fourth Citizen of the land, too must be impeached, for criminal insanity.

Only a man of unsound mind would have picked a woman of criminal persuasions to be the country’s chief justice.

If the President’s handpicked chief justice is a hardened criminal that is proof enough of the President’s unsoundness of mind and thus unfitness to govern. If the CJ’s rightful place is Welikada, the President who appointed her belongs in Angoda.

So, if the wild accusations of the state media and the UPFA ministers are accurate, only one conclusion is logically possible: not only the ‘criminal chief justice’ but also the ‘insane president’ must be impeached.

If Shirani Bandaranayake is removed but the president who appointed her remains, and appoints another chief justice, what guarantee do we have that the whole unseemly spectacle will not be repeated a few months from now? Unless the new chief justice is a Rajapaksa serf, not conjuncturally but structurally, a tool willing to do Rajapaksa bidding unreservedly, all the time (like the former AG Mohan Peiris who lied to the whole world, in Geneva, to save his masters) the regime will develop issues with him/her sooner rather than later. And another impeachment travesty will commence.

According to media reports, the President has asked all parties to come up with proposals for constitutional reforms. The rest of the script is easy to imagine. The Rajapaksas will pick those suggestions which will enhance their powers (while debasing the judiciary and the legislature still further) and ram the resultant constitutional changes through a compliant judiciary and a servile parliament. But before that Shirani Bandaranayake, that handpicked tool who developed a conscience and a backbone unexpectedly, must be got rid of and a new chief justice, who will give all the despotic constitutional changes the freest passage, put in her place.

The impeachment is the second ‘humanitarian operation’, for the advancement of the Rajapaksa-agenda. It too will be fought no-holds-barred, sans restraint. And if the President did not listen to the four Mahanayakes, he is unlikely to listen to the whining of ministers who owe their political existence to his charity. If anything can make the Rajapaksas rethink, it will be a boycott-threat of their Hambantota Commonwealth.

The President’s inflexible stance reveals why the regime is acting like a maddened rhino in a bone-china shop, from North to South. The real reason is not unmannerly ministers or bad advisers (though both types are ubiquitous); the real reason is the President and his Siblings. Mervyn Silva, Wimal Weerawansa and Rajitha Senarathne are not the disease but its symptoms. The real disease is the Rajapaksas, and their fanatical pursuit of total power.

Vellupillai Pirapaharan’s pathological maximalism rendered a political solution to the ethnic problem or a negotiated end to the war impossible. Not only did he want a Tiger Eelam under his sole suzerainty; he also wanted to win it on the battlefield, so that he could become the modern day equivalent of the great Tamil empire-builders of yore. The Rajapaksas have a hunger for power and a greed for glory equal to their vanquished opponent. They too are becoming increasingly hostile to reason, inimical to good sense and blind to enlightened self-interest. They too are becoming merchants of chaos, pushing the country from crisis to crisis to promote their political project and wreak vengeance on their opponents.

The Patriotic Lie and the Racist Slip

Since the Rajapaksas equate themselves with the nation/state, they regard all those who oppose them, however democratically and peacefully, as traitors. Thus the regime’s repeated references to a ‘Hulftsdorf coup’; according to Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, “Local and foreign conspiratory forces are attempting to use the Supreme Court Complex in Hulftsdorf to achieve the objectives which the LTTE failed to achieve through military means… the anti-national forces once used the former Army Commander as a tool to gain their objectives and currently they are using the CJ’s Impeachment issue to attain their ulterior motives” (Daily News – 18.12.2012).

If the judges and lawyers protecting judicial independence are traitors, then any attack on them is ‘patriotic’. As ‘patriotic’ as attacking and arresting Jaffna university students and forcing some of them into ‘rehabilitation’, while mollycoddling Tiger finance-cum-procurement chief KP; as ‘patriotic’ as planning to do to the 13^th Amendment what was done to the 17^th Amendment. Because under Rajapaksa rule, only a Rajapaksa serf can be a true patriot, while any Rajapaksa opponent is a traitor, ipso facto.

Deplorable as this fallacious equation is, something even uglier, more toxic and more deadly is emerging from under the Rajapaksa mantle, as the impeachment heats up. UPFA ministers and state media have begun to use racism in their attack on the CJ and the judiciary. For instance, some of the state media outlets castigated the CJ for picking a ‘Tamil law firm’ to defend her. They argued that the CJ’s failure to pick a ‘Sinhala law firm’ exposes her as a Tiger stooge. In an article to the Sri Lanka Guardian, academic Thrishantha Nanayakkara pointed out that Minister Wimal Weerawansa “mentioned the ethnic background of the three judges in the Appeals Court that examined the defence of the Chief Justice…. Two of the judges being Tamil and the other being a Muslim (the ITN interviewer assisted here) was used as part of his argument that the defence action on the part of the Chief Justice was a coup with possible international links” (quoted inCeylon Today). These abhorrent attacks are not anomalies; they are an inevitable function of the Sinhala-racism which lurks just beneath the surface in Mahinda Chinthanaya.

The Rajapaksas are proving to the North and the South that democracy is a sham, and that any protest however peaceful, any dissent however legal will be regarded as a crime. That is not the way to peace or stability in a land which had suffered through one long war and two short albeit brutal insurgencies.

New battle in Sri Lanka

December 27, 2012

What is it with South Asia’s strongmen and top judges? Only five years ago General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan found he had bitten off more than he could chew when he tried to sack Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary. Now President Mahinda Rajapaksa wants Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice out, but like her Pakistani counterpart, Shirani Bandaranayake is determined to fight it out. The chances of her emerging victorious seem slim but the battle is sure to roil the country’s institutions, and put to test Sri Lanka’s Constitution like never before. The statute empowers the President to remove a judge after an impeachment motion is carried by a simple majority in Parliament. For Mr. Rajapaksa, whose United People’s Freedom Alliance enjoys a two-thirds majority, the numbers are not the problem. A resolution, which lists 14 charges of misconduct by the Chief Justice, and has been duly signed by one-third of the parliamentarians, will be debated in January. A parliamentary select committee has already pronounced her guilty of three charges. But instead of meekly stepping down, Ms Bandaranayake has challenged in the Court of Appeal the legal authority of a parliamentary committee to investigate the Chief Justice. Indicating that prima facie she has a case, the court has sent notices to the PSC members.

While not outright staying the impeachment process, the appeal court has advised Parliament from going ahead with it until the case is decided. In addition to the challenge to its authority, the parliamentary committee is also under fire for not following due process. The committee acted in violation of the rules of natural justice by not giving Ms Bandaranayake time to defend herself, as her petition alleges. The conduct of the committee members too was anything but parliamentary. They taunted the country’s first judge as a “mad woman” and used sexist words to address her. The stand-off has lent weight to the criticism that the Rajapaksa regime does not take well to dissent. While the truth behind the charges against the Chief Justice is to be established, what is known is that the Supreme Court had given several judgments this year that went against the government. The tipping point was the ruling against a Bill that undermined provincial authority. The Bill was challenged, among others, by the Tamil National Alliance as it went against the government’s promise of more autonomy to the Tamil region. It can only be hoped that the impeachment battle is sorted out without the weakening of institutions or of democratic and political processes — the last thing a country with an unresolved and urgent ethnic question needs.