Matale Mass Grave: A Nation Without A Conscience? By Emil van der Poorten -April 13, 2013  Emil van der Poorten The discovery of a mass grave, adjacent to the Matale hospital, with theremains of about 200 human beings in it, dating back to the late-nineteen eighties does not appear to have provoked the kind of consternation that it should have in any country with even a pretence to democratic practice leave alone a constantly-invoked adherence to all that is humane within Buddhist philosophy. I think back to that time in Sri Lanka’s history which I was, thankfully spared experiencing, when I was a member of Amnesty International and received a copy of their annual report on Sri Lanka which stated that, by their calculation, there had been in excess of 60,000 “disappearances” in the south-west quarter of Sri Lanka alone during the second JVP insurrection. This, they stated, did not include “extra-judicial executions” permitted by prevailing law, and battle-field casualties. An astounding figure considering that those “disappearances” did not include, literally, a body count of those similarly “disappeared” or killed in other parts of the country including those in which a different insurrection raged! The word “horrendous” is probably over-used in this day and age but its application to these circumstances appears more than justified. In a land where gossip has always reigned supreme and it is virtually impossible to keep any kind of secret, how could the burial of 200 bodies, presumably all of whom hailed from villages in the area, have been kept under wraps for very nearly a quarter century? Apart from the matter of humane conduct in combat, this is what bemuses me the most. But when I got to thinking about this kind of thing, my thoughts went back to the first (Che Guevara) insurrection of 1971 when, probably on a smaller scale, the “upholders of law and order” were more than suspected of indulging in similar practices. While the numbers were not anywhere close to those of the late 1980s, the horror of it all was not far behind. I remember being told by a planter colleague who managed one of the few company-owned plantations in the N. W. Province, that the “forces of law and order” had lined up a large number of young men, on the lip of a large pit that they (the young men) had excavated prior to mowing them down into the mass grave where they were then buried. More close to home, a Che Guevarist insurgent from the Kegalle district, for reasons too lengthy to detail here, chose to seek my help in order to surrender to the security services. He arrived on my doorstep one evening during a time of dusk to dawn curfew and would only consent to surrendering to the army. Again, for reasons that do not lend themselves to recounting in a composition of this length, I was able to arrange for an army patrol to visit our rather remote residence. When that army patrol arrived and the officer in command had interrogated the man, he believed the man’s involvement in the insurrection had been peripheral and that he should have little fear of surrendering and being subject to due process of law. One catch here though was the fact that the army patrol, under orders existing at that time, had to hand the man over to the primary police station in the province and my army officer friend assured me that under cover of darkness, the prisoner would probably be beaten to death and then “tired” at the top of an adjacent hill, as was the practice then. In the circumstances, my wife and I were left with little (moral) choice but to keep the fugitive under our roof – a criminal offence at the time – and take him into the army unit in the self-same provincial capital the next morning. We did. After a sleepless night, for obvious reasons, and a nerve-wracking drive past the local police station the next morning we delivered the man to the army unit. The good news is that the fugitive served time and is, a senior citizen, leading a life in retirement in a place far away from his village of origin with no one – including the wife he married, after incarceration – aware of his deep, dark secret! This narrative should prove, if proof be needed, that it was the Bandaranaike regime that initiated the practice of “disappearances” and the “unorthodox” disposal of bodies. And it wasn’t only in this large centre that bodies were being disposed of away from the public’s gaze. On one occasion when I was in the process of picking up the mail from the post office which was on the opposite side of the road to the local police station, my wife inquired from a post office employee what the awful smell she was getting was. He pointed to a plume of smoke rising from behind a six-foot hedge and, in pantomime, described the shooting that had preceded the necessity for the rudimentary, tire-fuelled pyre. It has been suggested, over and over again, that the late 1980’s set the tone for what has happened during and after the “Eelam war.” Not so. It is nigh on half a century since extra-judicial executions were first legitimized in this country. Isn’t it time to try to change course from this murderous insanity? Isn’t the single biggest question, “When faced with forensic evidence which, even at the preliminary stages appears irrefutable, what are we going to do about this?” Does this not present a very real opportunity to begin to come to terms with those terrible past travesties of justice, purge ourselves of their residue and take the steps that are ESSENTIAL to ensure that this does not continue to occur? While those questions are obviously rhetorical, the real question, immediate and urgent, is “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THE MATALE BODIES AND WHEN WHICH DOESN’T CONSTITUTE YET ANOTHER COVER UP?* * The (inevitable) Presidential Commission of Inquiry has been appointed as I write this and I suggest it will be consigned to the same container that all its predecessors now occupy, sent there by no other than He Who Commissioned the Report. CPC owes Rs 450 B to State banks By a Staff Reporter-2013-04-13  The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) owes a staggering Rs 450 billion to the State banks of Sri Lanka, and the banks are facing severe financial difficulties as a result. The massive debt is said to be a direct consequence of gross mismanagement of CPC affairs. Highly placed sources, speaking to Ceylon Today, revealed that in the year 2012 alone, the CPC had suffered losses amounting to Rs 94 billion. Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya (JSS) Petroleum Branch General Secretary, Ananda Palitha, alleged that due to the pressure exerted by the employees and the media, the latest renewal of the CPC’s agreement with Petro Vietnam (PV) Oil Company incorporates a ‘monthly average’ payment plan, rather than the ‘five-day average’ payment plan, which was used before. This, he said, has greatly reduced the scope for corruption, which had, by 31 March, resulted in losses amounting to three billion rupees to the CPC. “Both the monthly and five-day average plans are legal, but the monthly average plan, which is used at present, does not allow corruption. With the five-day average plan, the PV Oil Company could have chosen to appoint five days within the month, which correspond to the highest fuel prices within the world market, the CPC suffered losses of Rs 3 billion as a result of this agreement in the past,” he pointed out. Palitha, who earlier accused the former management of instrumenting the corruption behind the previous agreement, said an independent committee should be appointed to investigate the matter. When Ceylon Today questioned CPC Managing Director, Susantha Silva, about these allegations, he said, “The CPC owes Rs 400 billion to two State banks in Sri Lanka, and there are two main reasons for this. A lot of effort is being put towards salvaging the CPC from this situation at the moment.” Elaborating on huge debt he said, “More than Rs 100 billion of this amount is due to giving fuel on loan to various entities in Sri Lanka, with more than 50% of this money being owed to us by the power sector of Sri Lanka. In addition to this, SriLankan Airlines owes us Rs 32 billion and Mihin Lanka owes us a further Rs 5 billion. They haven’t started paying us back, but seem to have the funds to spearhead other projects.” He said the provision of fuel at subsidized rates to the CEB accounted for Rs 260 billion of the debt. “For many years now, the CPC has lost Rs 35 per litre of fuel given to the CEB, as a subsidy. Roughly Rs 100 million was lost by the CPC per day because of this. In 2009, the loss was Rs 11 billion, Rs 26 billion in 2010, Rs 94 billion in 2011 and Rs 89 billion in 2012. When the Treasury stopped paying us this deficit sum of money in 2007, the CPC lost over Rs 260 billion as a result of subsidies,” he claimed. He said Rs 40-50 billion was present as stocks within the CPC, which together with the Rs 100 billion debts owed to the CPC by the CEB, SriLankan Airlines, Mihin Lanka and other entities and the Rs 260 billion the CPC has lost over the years due to subsidies, roughly amount to the Rs 400 billion owed by the CPC to State banks, Silva said. When questioned as to the nature of the agreement with the PV Oil Company, he said it had been drawn up by a Technical Evaluation Committee, a Special Standing Cabinet Approved Procurement Committee and finally a Cabinet sub Committee. “Before commenting on the integrity of this agreement, I must first evaluate it,” he said.

An Honest Reckoning Of A Tormented Past

By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -April 13, 2013

Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena

Those who murmured of ‘collateral damage’ and looked the other way when civilians were mowed down during the last days of the Wanni conflict in May 2009 certainly share a common callousness with those who shrugged their shoulders when previous governments of a different colour killed the ‘Southern terrorists’ of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) with all the ruthlessness at its command, more than two and a half decades ago.

Decades of innocent blood spilt

In a large measure, these may even belong to the same social group, never mind the shocking imperviousness to innocent blood spilt and quite belying the inherently contradictory stances of professing themselves to be devout Buddhists.

Never mind also the cardinal principle that an elected government must be held to higher standards than a terrorist or insurgent group. The one overriding rationale is that even as barbaric and as bloody as the Sri Lankan State may be, it must be protected at all costs. So after decades of blood spilt of all ethnicities in this country, is it any wonder that this country still remains agonized? Without a honest reckoning of its tormented past, can there be any real peace for its people in the future?

For decades, this column had been emphasizing that the cry for justice in Sri Lanka is not exclusively limited to members of one ethnicity, however much lobbyists on one side of the ethnic divide may try to make out. This point was powerfully underscored by recent happenings regarding the chance discovery of 154 skeletonslast year in the Matale District. As commented upon in these column spaces last month, there is a common element of impunity and a common cry for justice in respect of all these enforced disappearances of the past few decades. And it is that commonality that needs to be centered within the accountability debate concerning Sri Lanka, both within these shores and beyond, (see The Killing of Children and Sri Lanka’s Bloody Legacies, March 3rd 2013).

Undeniably unpalatable truths

This week, family members of those who disappeared (predominantly of Sinhala ethnicity), during the brutal state crackdown in that area, asked for justice from the government as forensic inquiries conclusively established evidence of brutal torture. Several skeletons had gruesome evidence of severed heads and limbs and in one instance, a skull had been sawn; in others, a wire had been used to give electric shock and hoops of thorns were discovered with skeletal remains.
Rightly, the JVP has dismissed the suggestion of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry with scorn and asked for a properly expedited judicial inquiry into the discovery of this crime scene, pointing out moreover that the Commanding Officer of the government troops in that area at that time was none other than the currentDefence Secretary, the President’s brother. We are then confronted with the undeniably unpalatable truth that, at the very time that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was campaigning in Geneva as an enthusiastic opposition parliamentarian regarding the fate of the Sinhala ‘disappeared’, his own brother was in charge of a counter terror brigade that now stands accused of complicity in those very same horrific disappearances.

Applicable legal norms

Many years back. Wijesuriya and Another vs the State (77 NLR, 25) concerned one of the very first prosecutions of state agents for acts of degradation committed under the supposed authority of military law. In Wijesuriya’s Case, two army soldiers were prosecuted for the attempted murder of a suspected insurgent held in army custody after she had been arrested by the police. The accused claimed that the shooting occurred during combat where the first accused who first shot at her, was only carrying out the order of his superior officer to destroy (‘bump off’) the deceased.

The prosecution urged the court to hold that, whether there was a period of combat during the incident or a state of actual war, in either case, there could be no justification for the shooting of a prisoner who was held in custody. The Court of Criminal Appeal (the highest court at the time) agreed with this submission. It pointed out (unanimously) that no soldier could obey an order of his superior when such order is manifestly and obviously illegal and then plead mistake of fact in good faith. Provisions of international humanitarian law were referred to, in particular, the treatment of prisoners under the Geneva Conventions which had been ratified and accepted by Sri Lanka at that time.

The Court’s denunciation of terms such as “in combat”, “in the field”, “prisoners of war”, and “military necessity” which were sought to be used by counsel appearing for the accused to justify the brutal acts committed by them, was notable. It rejected the argument that when a state of emergency is called, the ordinary civil law of the land is pro tanto suspended, thus entitling the military to engage in whatever acts of brutality in pursuance or supposed pursuance under emergency powers conferred on them. The Court unanimously affirmed the convictions of the accused and by a majority, affirmed their sentences.

An era of abandonment of principles 

That was then. Now, we are in quite a different era which has disregarded those principles openly. Yet the point is also our own cynicism on these matters. So when the JVP asks for a credible inquiry, we resort instead to the nonchalant query as to what inquiry is possible for those killed by the JVP during that time?

Such cynics should be reminded yet again that the government’s blatant committing of atrocities needs to be treated quite differently to the barbarities committed by terror groups from the North, east or South as the case may be. When we abandon that crucial distinction, we abandon also the notion that Sri Lanka is a democratic country. Worse, we open ourselves to a dangerous obliteration of basic Rule of Law safeguards. In actual fact, it is precisely at this forsaken state that this country is in now, where even the façade of law and constitutionalism has been ripped away.

Further, to be perfectly clear, there is little point in raising alarm cries regarding the deterioration of ordinary law and order while being unforgivably blasé regarding extraordinary crimes committed during extraordinary times. If we proceed down this path of casually dismissing past atrocities with no need for retributive penal punishments or even genuine restorative justice akin to Truth Commissions in other countries, we must also by necessary implication not be outraged when our police remain militarized and politicized, with the personal security of an ordinary individual at risk at any point of the day. There is a visible nexus from one manner of abandonment of the Rule of Law to the other. One cannot separate the normal from the abnormal any longer.

Pitiably, we are at this stage of complete abandonment, four years following the end of conflict. We should look not only at our politicians but also at ourselves and ask the question ‘Why?”

12 April 1968: “The country has lost not just Dr King but the King”

BY ALAN BRIEN PUBLISHED 04 APRIL 2013 

Martin Luther King Jr calls after encountering a white mob in Alabama. Photo: Getty.

Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated forty-five years ago today. Here, Alan Brien reports from a grief-stricken New York.

The only cheerful faces I have seen here since the assassination of Martin Luther King last Thursday have been those of the Negro looters on television. Colour is a great romanticiser of electronic images, painting tragedy as melodrama, tinting actuality with the pastel shades of Hollywood farce. Vietnam has almost vanished from the screens these last few days with its ketchup blood and dry-ice smoke, recalling inappropriate images of John Wayne wading novocaine-faced through the swamps of Iwo Jima. Now the long-distance camera eyes sprout on stalks in the riot areas of America's own cities, and many sequences we watch might almost be from some innocent, whimsical, indulgent, black-face musical of the Forties like Cabin in the Sky. The impulse-shoppers of the slums, celebrating an impromptu, out-of-season Christmas, could be observed queueing in an orderly fashion, like wartime civilians in Britain, outside broken-open shops. The fantasies of the commercials, where goodies rain down from Heaven and gadgets magically furnish empty rooms, were being acted out for real. The kind of easily portable wealth that professional criminals would search out - cash, jewellery, watches, etc - seemed often ignored. One woman staggered under the weight of a monster carton of Kleenex. A man almost danced down the street pushing a cumbrous dressing table with a huge mirror - and waved to the watching millions at home as he went. Another sat among the splintered glass, sparkling like tinsel in the TV spotlights, sensibly trying on a liberated pair of banana-yellow boots for comfort and style.

At first, the police stood by in most places, simply directing the traffic in flood-lit robbery as the exploited expropriated a little of the surplus profit of the exploiters - only to be gently rebuked by the New York Times next day for such un-American priority for people over things. Later, sniping and fire-bombing broke out and the law reasserted its traditional role. In Manhattan, rumour was full of tongues, pandering to that guilty thrill in anticipating the apocalypse which is one of the deep excitements of modern metropolitans. Reports of besieged suburbs, hijacked buses, mutinying schools and marching mobs leapt from lip to lip. The true facts, available instantly on such radio stations as WINS, which broadcast an uninterrupted flow of news around the clock, were barely more credible as the astonishing weekend began.

The curfew in the nation's capital retreated to 4pm on Saturday - earlier than that in Saigon. More regular troops were deployed to protect Washington than Khe Sanh. New York is the only American city I know at all well. I have spent an annual working holiday here every year since 1961. Each time I arrive I feel an intensifying weight of violence in the air which presses down on the visitor like the atmosphere of Venus on an exploring astronaut. The electric crackle of static which arcs from the hand to the doorknob or the lift buzzer - and makes many an unwary tourist imagine his coronary has caught up with him at last - seems to symbolise the bottled aggression stored in these human batteries. In the past, my friends here have vied with each other, whether expatriates or natives, in telling tales of life in the asphalt jungle - mad taxi-drivers who kidnapped passengers to tell them the story of their lives, sadistic vandals terrorising an entire subway carriage for an hour's journey, six-year-old children threatened by knife-carrying nine-year-olds on the fringes of the Park, lessons invaded by drug-addicts, alcoholics and sex perverts. My reaction has been shock and fear and a desire not to believe. Their's has been a rather callous bravado - like sixth-formers putting the wind up a cissy new boy.

Now, this week, I am the one who has always expected this hell to break loose. Looking from the outside across the Atlantic, like many Britons, I have seen the storm cones hoisted for a hurricane. Since the killing of President Kennedy and Malcolm X, it seemed inevitable that more sacrificial victims would follow in time. It is the residents who cannot believe their eyes and ears and implore you to tell them that what is happening is impossible. For once, the old liberal cliché about everybody being guilty for the crime of one psychopath seems, if not true, at least universally believed to be true. There is a widespread desire to canonise Martin Luther King, a great and good man fit to stand alongside Gandhi or Danilo Dolci, into a saint and martyr unrivalled in history. Each man loves the thing he kills and the civil rights leader is rapidly becoming an immortal. His reputation escalates from hour to hour. A Negro leader described him as the noblest human of our century. A rabbi called him the Black Moses. The Pope's comparison of him to Christ crucified seems to almost nobody even a trifle hyperbolic.

It is an awe-inspiring and rather unnerving sight to see the mass media of American opinion-making (what one British journalist unkindly calls “The Bullshit Machine”) firing on all cylinders to a single theme. Dr King's picture is in every shop window, in every paper and magazine, punctuating almost every programme on TV. The US flag, and this is a nation of flag-fliers, is everywhere at half-mast, sometimes upside down (the sign of a nation in distress). Public events which might seem tactlessly light-hearted, such as the Oscar awards, are postponed or cancelled. Radio announcers assure you that you will hear nothing frivolous all day on their channel. The country has lost not just Dr King but the King. These words and images have done more to damp down riot than all the police and troops. Any Negro anywhere is treated by whites as if he were personally a close relative of the murdered man. How long this spontaneous unity in mourning will last, no can tell. But it is an America I have never seen before.

Syria: Aerial Attacks Strike Civilians

59 Unlawful Attacks Documented in Northern Syria

APRIL 10, 2013

(Aleppo) – The Syrian Air Force has repeatedly carried out indiscriminate, and in some cases deliberate, air strikes against civilians. These attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war), and people who commit such violations with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes.

The 80-page report, “Death from the Skies: Deliberate and Indiscriminate Air Strikes on Civilians,” is based on visits to 50 sites of government air strikes in opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo, Idlib, and Latakia governorates, and more than 140 interviews with witnesses and victims. The air strikes Human Rights Watch documented killed at least 152 civilians. According to a network of local Syrian activists, air strikes have killed more than 4,300 civilians across Syria since July 2012.

“In village after village, we found a civilian population terrified by their country’s own air force,” said Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch emergencies researcher who visited the sites and interviewed many of the victims and witnesses. “These illegal air strikes killed and injured many civilians and sowed a path of destruction, fear, and displacement.”

Media reports, YouTube videos, and information from opposition activists show that the Syrian government has conducted air strikes all over Syria on a daily basis since July 2012.

Through the on-site investigations and interviews, Human Rights Watch gathered information that indicates government forces  deliberately targeted four bakeries where civilians were waiting in breadlines a total of eight times,  and hit other bakeries with artillery attacks. Repeated aerial attacks on two hospitals in the areas Human Rights Watch visited strongly suggest that the government also deliberately targeted these facilities. At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visits to the two hospitals they had been attacked a total of seven times.

In addition to the attacks on the bakeries and hospitals, Human Rights Watch concluded in 44 other cases that air strikes were unlawful under the laws of war. Syrian forces used means and methods of warfare, such as unguided bombs dropped by high-flying helicopters, that under the circumstances could not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and thus were indiscriminate.

In the strikes Human Rights Watch investigated, despite high civilian casualties, damage to opposition headquarters and other possible military structures was minimal. As far as Human Rights Watch could establish, there were no casualties among opposition fighters.

For example, a jet dropped two bombs on the town of Akhtarin in northern Aleppo at around 1 p.m. on November 7, 2012, destroying three houses and killing seven civilians, including five children. The strike injured another five children, all under 5.  Human Rights Watch identified a possible military target in the vicinity, a building about 50 meters away that was used by opposition fighters at the time. This building was only lightly damaged in a subsequent attack, however.

A neighbor who rushed to the site after the attack told a Human Rights Watch researcher who visited the area:

It was tragic. The buildings had turned into a heap of rubble. We started pulling people out using just our hands and shovels. A cupboard and a wall had fallen on the children. They were still alive when we found them, but they died before we could take them to their uncle’s house. There is no clinic or medical center here.

In addition to the attacks on bakeries and hospitals, some attacks documented by Human Rights Watch, particularly those in which there was no evidence of a valid military target in the vicinity, may have deliberately targeted civilians, but more information is needed to reach that conclusion, Human Rights Watch said.

The government’s use of unlawful means of attack has also included cluster munitions, weapons that have been banned by most nations because of their indiscriminate nature. Human Rights Watch hasdocumented government use of more than 150 cluster bombs in 119 locations since October 2012. Human Rights Watch also documented that the government used incendiary weapons, which should, at a minimum, be banned in populated areas.

The obligation to minimize harm to the civilian population applies to all parties to a conflict. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other Syrian armed opposition groups did not take all feasible measures to avoid deploying forces and structures such as headquarters in or near densely populated areas. However, an attacking party is not relieved from the obligation to take into account the risk to civilians from an attack on the grounds that the defending party has located military targets within or near populated areas.

Human Rights Watch was able to visit only sites in opposition-controlled areas in northern Syria because the government has denied Human Rights Watch access to the rest of the country. While further investigation is needed, interviews with witnesses and victims of air strikes in other parts of the country indicate that a similar pattern of unlawful attacks have taken place there.

Human Rights Watch believes this report should galvanize international efforts to end deliberate, indiscriminate, and disproportionate air strikes and other attacks on civilians, including all use of cluster munitions, ballistic missiles, incendiary weapons, and explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas. The information we have gathered should also assist those seeking to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

In addition, Human Rights Watch calls on governments and companies to immediately stop selling or supplying weapons, ammunition, and material to Syria, given compelling evidence that the Syrian government is committing crimes against humanity, until Syria stops committing these crimes. The international community should in particular press Iraq to verify that no arms from Russia or Iran for Syria are passing through its territory, and to that end allow independent, third-party monitors to inspect convoys and airplanes crossing Iraqi land or airspace and bound for Syria.

“The Security Council, largely due to the Russian and Chinese veto, has failed to take any meaningful steps to help protect civilians in Syria,” Solvang said. “But that should not stop concerned governments from stepping up their own efforts to press the Syrian government to end these violations.”

North Korea must end its 'belligerent approach', says Obama

Pentagon plays down intelligence report that regime might have a nuclear missile but says it is prepared for worst

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Justin McCurry in Tokyo

 Friday 12 April 2013 

Link to video: Barack Obama urges North Korea to end 'belligerent approach'

Barack Obama has called on North Korea to end what he described as its "belligerent approach" as US intelligence officials concluded for the first time that the country has a nuclear weapon small enough to be carried on a missile.

The US president made his first public comments on the crisis as a congressional hearing was told of the Pentagon's latest intelligence assessment on North Korea. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report said it concluded "with moderate confidence that the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles". But it said the missiles would not be reliable.

The Pentagon later sought to row back from the DIA assessment read out in Congress, saying that North Korea's had not yet fully tested a nuclear weapon.

US military commanders have been preparing for North Korea to launch a missile after a new round of United Nations sanctions were imposed last month.

The US has threatened to shoot down any North Korean missiles but it might only do so if the missile appears to be targeted at a US territory or one of its allies such as South Korea or Japan. If the missile is headed out to sea the US might try to avoid further escalation by letting it take its course.

Pentagon spokesman George Little refused to say what the US response would be. "We are prepared to respond to any missile threat," he said.

Little later issued a statement saying: "In today's House armed services committee hearing on the department of defence budget, a member of the committee read an unclassified passage in a classified report on North Korea's nuclear capabilities.

"While I cannot speak to all the details of a report that is classified in its entirety, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage. The United States continues to closely monitor the North Korean nuclear programme and calls upon North Korea to honour its international obligations."

South Korea's defence ministry also cast doubt on the finding that North Korea could make a nuclear warhead small enough to go on a missile. "Our military's assessment is that the North has not yet miniaturised," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said in Seoul on Friday morning.

"North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests but there is doubt whether it is at the stage where they can reduce the weight and miniaturise to mount on a missile."

Obama, speaking to reporters after he met UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon at the White House, said: "We both agreed that now's the time for North Korea to end the kind of belligerent approach that they've been taking and to try to lower temperatures.

"Nobody wants to see a conflict on the Korean peninsula. But it's important for North Korea, like every other country in the world, to observe the basic rules and norms that are set forth, including a wide variety of UN resolutions."

He added that the US would take all necessary steps to protect its people.

The Obama administration remains of the view that North Korea's actions and rhetoric over the last month are bluster and that there is no serious threat yet.

The DIA assessment was revealed by Congressman Doug Lamborn during a congressional hearing. He said the part of the assessment dealing with North Korea had been declassified.

Lamborn, reading from the report, which was produced last month, said: "DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles. However, the reliability will be low."

The revelation came after a Pentagon briefing at which the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, refused to say whether North Korea was capable of building a nuclear weapon that could fit on a missile, arguing that the information was classified.

Administration officials know there is much more public scepticism about such intelligence claims after assessments about Iraq's weapons capabilities proved so wrong.

The revelation at this juncture will be viewed with suspicion by some anti-war groups who will wonder if, as with Iraq, it is part of a process to demonise North Korea ahead of military action.

But there appear to be no senior figures inside the Obama administration pressing for military intervention in North Korea to bring about regime change. The policy at present remains "strategic patience", with officials content to settle for containment.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is heading to the region on Thursday for talks with South Korea, Japan and China.

Earlier, in Washington, Mark Fitzpatrick, a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, argued that while "strategic patience" was an answer for the present "artificial" crisis, in the long term the aim should be regime change and the reunification of North and South Korea.

He did not anticipate North Korea willingly trading away "big bang" weapons – the only significant achievement of which it could boast.

Fitzpatrick argued in favour of broadcasting direct to people in North Korea, targeting the finances of the ruling elite and highlighting its human rights record.

"The answer to the question: is regime change the answer? Yes," Fitzpatrick said. "But it is not obviously an immediate answer to the current situation. North Korea's actions and statement, however, reinforce the conclusion that there is only one happy ending to this long-running tragedy: unification of the Korea as a democratic, free-enterprise based republic."

Video: Police And BBS Block Anti-BBS Vigil In Colombo

By Tharindu Wickremasinghe -April 12, 2013 

Police and Bodu Bala Sena representatives blocked a peaceful candlelit vigil planned outside the BBS Headquarters to denounce hate speech and anti-minority campaigns by the monk led organisation at the Thummulla Junction in Colombo earlier this evening.

At least five demonstrators were taken in by police for questioning and released by the end of the evening.

Police dispersed the crowd before the vigil was begun, after strong protests were registered by Bodu Bala Sena representatives and monks who had stepped into the fray.

Long before 7 p.m. when the candlelit vigil was scheduled to begin, a battalion of Police and riot Squad personnel arrived on the scene. Security was beefed up and a row of Police Personnel stood guard before the entrance of the Sambuddha Jayanthi Mandiraya while five demonstrators from the crowd were arrested by the Police.

Meanwhile, Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) Executive Committee member, Dilantha Withanage who stepped out of the Sambuddha Jayanthi building, started accusing the organisers of the vigil of distorting the national anthem and called for their arrest pointing at a chant sheet circulated by the ‘Buddhist Questioning Bodhu Bala Sena’ to be recited at the vigil.

“None of the demonstrators gathered here today are Buddhists; I can say that with certainty because I have not seen any of these people in temples,” he said.

Asked on what charges the demonstrators were arrest, police at the scene responded that they were not compelled to give reasons. A female demonstrator was also man-handled by a Police official at the site. Although the Police kept demanding that the demonstrators clear the site, a few of them remained before the Sambuddha Jayanthi Building, asking the Police personnel as to why they are not allowed to stage the vigil. In response, a top Police official at the site stated, “Buddhism should be given prime position among the religions in this country.  This country is ablaze with tension because of this issue. Therefore, if you wish to continue the protest, please do so at Galle Face but not here. . .”

Dispersed demonstrators then re-assembled near Gower Street opposite Police Park but the vigil was disrupted once more after members and supporters of the BBS arrived at the spot and demanded the candles be doused immediately. “If you are Buddhists light lamps, not candles,” BBS Executive Committee member Dilantha Withanage shouted at the peaceful activists. Withanage and the BBS monks accused the protestors of being attached to NGOs and propagating an agenda to destroy Buddhism in the country.  They refused to leave the premises until the demonstrators called off the event and dispersed from the area.

Eventually, the five persons arrested were brought back to Gower Street and upon obtaining statements, were released.

The candlelit vigil scheduled for 7 p.m. outside the Sambuddha Jayanthi Mandiraya that houses the BBS headquarters was organized by a Facebook group calling itself Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena. Police repeatedly asked those gathered for the vigil to give up the names of the organisers but the group’s administrators remained anonymous. Crowds of demonstrators told police to arrest everyone since the demonstrators did not recognize a leader. The Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena group called on peaceful activists to join them to stage a peaceful candlelit vigil for one hour against hatred propagated by certain Buddhist monks during which they would chant to remind Bhikkus about Buddha’s words on Right Speech.

‘What is the purpose of today’s vigil? To remind the Bhikkhus of Sri Lanka about the Buddha’s words on Right Speech. For wrong speech, speech which generates hate and creates enemies is extremely dangerous, and the Buddha spoke against wrong speech. Today well known Bhikkhus are holding rallies and sermons where they speak in language inspiring hate, anger, falsehoods, dividing friends, using foul, obscene words. Buddhist laymen following these monks, in turn use foul hateful speech, which then leads to violence. This is not what the Buddha wanted of his Bhikkhus and lay disciples,’ the group said on their Facebook page.

Pix by Lakna Paranamanna

Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) Executive Committee member, Dilantha Withanage

Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) Executive Committee member, Dilantha Withanage

For fun! a tribute to President Rajapaksha

Thursday , 11 April 2013

Alliance challenges government, whether election for north can be held before June.

Government notifies that it would completely reject the Geneva resolution, and Tamil National Alliance queried whether it will reject the assurances given to the international sector that it would hold the northern election before September month.

Alliance parliament member M.A.Sumenthiran said, the international sector should be more attentive to the activity of the government. If government has the courage and confidence let it conduct the northern election before June month, Sumenthiran challenged.

A media briefing was held in Colombo, and Sumenthiran made the above statement.

Opposition party leader Ranil Wickramasinghe queried in parliament two days back and External Affairs Minister Prof.G.L.Peiris responding to it, explicitly said, they are completely rejecting the resolution implemented at the United Nation Human Rights Council this time.

The implementation of Reconciliation Commission report and holding the northern election before forthcoming September month, recommendations were made in the resolution, hence he queried whether government is rejecting this?

In the settlement of racial crisis, government has given many assurances to India, United America, United National Council including international sector.  However government is rejecting everything.

Minister G.L.Peiris said, this special assurance given to the international society cannot be implemented. He says all the assurances will be functioned by deviating; hence the international society should be more attentive concerning this.

Assurance were given of holding the northern election “saying next year”  and now four years have lapsed. If northern election is held, it is certain that the government will be defeated, and government does not desire to accept defeat, hence it is postponing the election.

This is a perfect opportunity to assess whether government has the support of the northern people and the stance of Tamil people concerning a settlement to the racial crisis, and to what extent the Tamil people support the Tamil National Alliance.

Sumenthiran MP challenged the government and said, if it has the courage and confidence let it hold the northern election before the month of June.

Ultimatum to President

By W. Siri Ananda-2013-04-12 If President Mahinda Rajapaksa does not agree to abolish the Executive Presidency, a broad front will be formed and a common candidate will be presented to contest the next presidential election, the National Association for a Just Society (NAJS) said. Chief Incumbent of the Kotte Naga Viharaya, Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thera said after winning the presidential election, all powers held by the Executive Presidency will be handed over to Parliament within a period of 120 days. "A special meeting regarding this matter will be held on 18 April at 4:00 p.m. at the National Library, and leaders of all political parties and trade unions will be invited," the Ven. Thera said. He also said government constituent party leaders, including Leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), Prof. Tissa Vitarana, Communist Party Leader D.E.W. Gunasekara, United National Party (UNP) strongmen, Ravi Karunanayake and Dr. Jayalath Jayawardane, some members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Leader of the Democratic People's Front (DPF), Mano Ganesan and many other prominent figures in politics and academics fields have met and shown their support towards the proposal. Furthermore, Ven. Sobhitha Thera, together with other members of the NAJS made a courtesy visit to the Chief Incumbents of the Asgiriya and Malwatte Chapters as well as Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, who showed strong support towards the abolition of the Executive Presidency. Rohana Seneviratne Wins Saraswati Sanskrit Prize 2012 Rohana Seneviratne, lecturer in Sanskrit at the Department of Classical Languages of the University of Peradeniya and currently a doctoral student in Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, UK won the prestigious Saraswati Sanskrit Prize 2012. This is the first time a Sri Lankan won this award. The Saraswati Sanskrit Prize is a biannual award instituted in 2008 by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in India together with the Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia (Classical Indology), University of Heidelberg in Germany to recognize the contribution of students in Europe in promoting the understanding of Sanskrit and to foster deeper appreciation of the Indian heritage. At the official award ceremony held in New Delhi on 25th March 2013, Seneviratne received his prize from Dr. Karan Singh, president of the ICCR and titular Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. The prize also included a 10 day visit to India with all hospitality from the ICCR.