Exclusive Expose: Serious Corruption Allegations Against Bribery Commissioner Jayantha Wickramaratne Hidden At Bribery Commission By Influence

May 30, 2013 

Confirmed information obtained exclusively by The Colombo Telegraph points to two investigations pending against former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Jayantha Wickramaratne at the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery & Corruption (commonly called ‘Bribery Commission’) being suppressed and covered up.

Jayantha Wickramaratne with Secretary to the Ministry of Difence

Two investigations bearing internal file Nos. 1571/2009 and 1574/2009 relate to Wickramaratne and  certain corrupt procurements made by him,  for the “Deyata Kirula” Exhibition held in 2009 at the BMICH, Colombo.

The Colombo Telegraph is reliably informed that the serious allegations that caused the files to be opened are not being acted on, due to undue influence exerted through powerful persons in the ruling regime to sweep these matters under the carpet.

Wickramaratne was widely considered a ‘hatchet man’ for the regime during his time as IGP. Reliable sources also said his wife, Anoma Goonetilleke, a lawyer also lost her standing within the legal profession for failing to stand up for the independence of the legal profession and the judiciary. In this way, they are both considered unquestioning loyalists of the ruling regime.

The members of the Bribery Commission are not independent, after the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. They are chosen by the Executive President, Mahinda Rajapaksa without any effective checks or balances. Many allegations have been made that the Commission is merely a tool of the Rajapaksa regime to harass political opponents or those seen as standing in the way of what the regime wants to do.

Former Presidential Candidate, former General Sarath Fonseka and Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake have both been hauled before the Commission. At the same time, the above two files relating to Wickramaratne are gathering dust.

Doctors & staff at Karapitiya on strike THURSDAY, 30 MAY 2013  Medical staff including doctors of Karapitiya Hospital engages in a strike action since today (30th) morning protesting against an attack from thugs on hospital employees who had attempted to prevent a group from entering hospital without permission. The Deputy Director if the Hospital Dr. Jayampathy Senanayake said the strike action was taken as police or authorities do not take any action despite such attacks and threats are carried out by thugs and other interested parties. Only emergency and essential services are carried out in the hospital. This government is not ours now – UPFA provincial minister THURSDAY, 30 MAY 2013  What exists today is a government that has a majority of UNP Parliamentarians and those who have crossed over to the government to strengthen the hands of the President says the Minister of Fisheries and Cooperative of the Southern Provincial Council Rohanapriya Upul. He says the government has to gratify those who have come from the UNP but those of the SLFP have not been looked after. Mr. Rohanapriya Upul made these observations at a media conference held in Provincial Ministry of Fisheries yesterday (29th). Dr. Jayalath Jayawardane passes away THURSDAY, 30 MAY 2013 The Main opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena passed away on Wednesday after a brief illness in Sigapore. He was 59. The Gampaha District parliamentarian was receiving treatment at hospital in Singapore at the time of his death. In April 2012, Dr. Jayawardena was admitted to East Surrey Hospital after being found unconscious at the Gatwick Airport in London. Specialist doctors at East Surrey hospital have recommended heart surgery for Dr. Jayawardena. Dr. Jayawardena, a medical doctor by profession was elected to the Parliament from the United National Party in 1994. Dr Jayalath Jayawardana was born in 1953 and obtained his MBBS Medical Degree from the Medical Faculty of the University of Colombo.  He has also obtained several Postgraduate degrees from the USA, Russia, etc., He has been the Personal Medical Doctor to the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa and to his family. Dr Jayalath Jayawardana had shown a keen interest in social service since his young days and has been a volunteer of the Sri Lanka Red Cross and several Non-Governmental Organizations during his University days. He was elected to Parliament in 1994 and has been serving as a Parliamentarian for the last 15 years. He was the Minister of Rehabilitation, Resettlement & Refugees from 2002 to 2004. Dr Jayawardana is well known as a very enthusiastic, dynamic and active Parliamentarian.

How Canada Became The Odd Man Out In Sri Lanka

By Martin Collacott -May 30, 2013 

Martin Collacott

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird has announced that he will not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka this November because of that country’s sub-par human rights record. No other members of the Commonwealth, including Britain, Australia and New Zealand, have followed Canada’s example.

There is no question that Sri Lanka has a poor human rights record — one that might have been expected to improve after the long civil war ended in 2009, but which did not. Judges have been threatened and impeached, and many journalists murdered or driven from the country. There is little tolerance for criticism of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government from any quarter.

Canada has the largest Sri Lankan Tamil community outside of South Asia, and many of its members seek to raise awareness of the fact that the government in Colombo is repressive and that Tamils in Sri Lanka are persecuted. This helps explain why Stephen Harper’s government feels the need to express its displeasure with Sri Lanka’s poor commitment to human rights.

Many Tamils living in Canada came here as refugees. Indeed, in one year alone (2003), Canada accepted far more Tamil refugee claimants than all the other countries in the world combined. Some of these refugees had ties to the Tamil Tigers military and terrorist group that was then fighting against Sri Lanka’s government.

The voting power of these Tamils distorted Canadian policy: Liberal governments repeatedly ignored CSIS recommendations that the Tamil Tigers be designated as a terrorist organization, even though Britain and the United States had done so. As a result, the Tigers were able to use Canada as one of their principal bases for fundraising — a situation that may well have contributed to prolonging the conflict and carnage in Sri Lanka.

Even after the Conservatives took office in 2006, and wasted no time in adding the Tamil Tigers to the official national list of terrorist groups, Tiger supporters continued to exercise considerable influence within the Liberal Party of Canada. At the Liberals’ December 2006 leadership convention, for example, a block of delegates pressing to have the Tigers removed from the terrorist list played a key role in the selection of the new leader.

The failure for many years of countries such as Canada to curtail Tamil Tiger activities is, in all likelihood, a factor in Sri Lanka’s continuing indifference to international entreaties to improve its human rights record: Having turned a blind eye to the Tamil Tigers for so many years, we no longer have credibility in lecturing Sri Lanka over its post-war policies.

As for calls for an international investigation into the massacre of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces in the closing stages of the civil war, this is another area where the Sri Lanka government feels it is not being treated fairly.

While there is considerable evidence that such large-scale killings took place, many occurred in large measure because the Tigers chose to use their own population as human shields. The fact that there are no longer identifiable high-level Tiger leaders around to blame for their contribution to these massacres no doubt does little to encourage the Sri Lankan government to expose itself to what it believes will be a very one-sided investigation.

No doubt Britain, Australia and New Zealand share Canada’s concern over the poor state of human rights in Sri Lanka. The fact that Canada alone chose not to send its foreign minister to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, however, may be more the result of domestic Canadian considerations — such as increasing political support among Tamil voters — than anything else.

*Martin Collacott was the Canadian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka when the civil war there began in earnest in 1983. He now lives in Vancouver. This article is first appeared in the National Post

Sri Lanka missing world’s biggest trade party and it’s in her backyard

WEDNESDAY, 29 MAY 2013 

Once upon a time, Sri Lanka was at the forefront of South Asian trade liberalisation. Beginning in 1989, Sri Lanka made large reductions in import duties and by 2001, Sri Lanka’s average applied import duty was down to 9.1 percent compared to India’s 32 percent and Pakistan’s 20 percent.

Sri Lanka was also the prime mover in South Asian trade agreements with the Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 2000. It would have also been the first in South Asia to enter a trade agreement covering services and investment had it stuck with the 2004 deadline set by the Joint Study Group for the Indo-Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
All along economic analysts smiled upon these developments. Sri Lanka was seen as a beneficiary of its boldness.

Sri Lanka has changed direction
But that was the past. The times have changed and so have the economists (what came first?).
Sri Lanka still has the lowest average import duty in South Asia but the effective protection has been increasing. Ad hoc levies such as the special commodity levy, port and airport levy and import cess have been on the rise in the last decade.
The gaps are also narrowing. In 2011, the average import duty of Sri Lanka stood at 10.2 (higher than 2001 levels), India at 12.6 percent and Pakistan at 13.9 percent.
If that seems little bit odd, here is where it becomes downright puzzling. Free trade agreements with Asian countries have been dancing up in the last 10 years and Sri Lanka has been missing at the party.

World’s trade agreement party has moved to Asia
By the beginning of 2013, there were 546 World Trade Organisation (WTO)-notified trade agreements, of which 354 were in force and others being negotiated.  In the last 10 years, with nearly 100 operational agreements and another 150 under negotiations, Asia has surged to account for nearly half of the global trade agreements (see figure 2).



This proliferation of trade agreements is driven both by Asian economies trying to tap each other’s markets, as well as non-Asian economies, attempting to expand in Asia’s large and fast growing consumer markets. This means, Asia is fast closing in on the developed countries in terms of its share in global trade. By 2012, just six Asian countries accounted for nearly a quarter of global trade (see table 1).



Sri Lanka is sitting out of party
Once a prime mover in terms of trade agreements, Sri Lanka is now getting left behind in Asia. It is only doing better than those classified as least developed countries (LDCs) in South Asia (see figure 1).
Since 2005, India has signed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with Singapore, ASEAN, South Korea, Japan and Malaysia. Many more are being negotiated. Overall, India has 13 agreements that are operational and 21 under negotiation. But the Indo-Lanka CEPA is on the backburner without a deadline.

Not having fun with trade
The puzzle deepens. Not only is Sri Lanka lagging behind in trade agreements, it is not getting much out of the agreements it has either.
Sri Lanka has five trade agreements that are operational and three agreements under negotiation. All of them are with Asian countries including India, South Korea and even China (see table 2).
Yet, the exports to these countries, other than India, are rather small. For example, as a percentage of total exports, Pakistan accounts for just 0.8 percent, Bangladesh 0.6 percent, Maldives and South Korea just 0.5 percent each and China 1.2 percent.
Even more discouraging to Sri Lanka is the fact that it imports heavily from Asia and exports so little (see table 3). Among the top ten countries from which Sri Lanka imports, eight are Asian countries and they account for 57 percent of total imports. But only 13 percent of Sri Lankan exports reach these same markets leading to a trade deficit with them that can be as high as US $ 10 billion.



Why is Sri Lanka missing out?  
There are two reasons why existing agreements have not delivered.
First is low coverage and limited depth of concessions of existing agreements (other than the agreement with India). APTA’s product coverage in which South Korea and China are members is poor and the preferential margin is low. The GSTP is even more restrictive than APTA both in terms of product coverage and concession levels. SAFTA has very long tariff phase out periods for LDCs and relatively large negative lists (see table 2).
Second, Sri Lanka’s trade agreements are still restricted to trade in goods. All recent agreements signed by both developed and developing countries go beyond trade in goods to cover a number of other areas such as services, investment, competition, intellectual property, etc. For example, to date, there are 117 agreements notified to the WTO covering both trade in goods and services.

Time to take stock
There can be good reasons to not liberalise trade. For instance, it can be important to protect vulnerable farming sectors and develop nascent industries. But there is no evidence that Sri Lanka’s direction change in trade liberalisation is resulting in such positive benefits. Sri Lanka has gone from prime mover in Asia to a laggard in trade agreements. Its export access to Asia (except India) is anaemic relative to its imports. What is the policy direction for trade and what are the positive benefits being pursued? The data says that it is time to take stock and re-evaluate.

(Verité Research provides strategic analysis and advice for governments and the private sector in Asia)

The Choice Ahead

By Dayan Jayatilleka -May 30, 2013

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

Yugoslavia was a sister country of Sri Lanka; a fellow founder of the Non Aligned Movement in that country’s capital Belgrade in 1961. Yugoslavia no longer exists. The breakup of that country resulted from a chain reaction that commenced with the dramatic change of the Yugoslav Constitution promulgated by the sagacious socialist Marshal Tito and the drastic reduction of the powers of the autonomous province of Kosovo followed by the dissolution of the Kosovo assembly in 1990. Sri Lanka must not proceed down the same path which leads over a precipice.

The country stands at a crossroads. A parliamentary victory for the JHU bill will complete the negative process which commenced with Sinhala Only in 1956 and the distortion in 1972 of the laudable shift to a Republic with mono-linguistic and mono-religious hegemony. If ’56 and ’72 were paving stones for the Tamil Eelam project, the passage of the JHU bill to abolish the 13^th amendment will complete the process of the legitimisation of secessionism.

A victory for the JHU will also cast a pall over the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and guarantee Sri Lanka’s defeat at the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014. It will embarrass our allies Russia and China and drive South Africa and much of the Non-Aligned Movement away from us. It will irreversibly discredit and radically isolate the country and the Sinhalese, regionally and internationally. In short, in terms of Sri Lanka’s national interest, it will be the single most self-destructive act this parliament could perform.

Conversely, a defeat of the JHU bill will enable Sri Lanka to put the stigma of majoritarian extremism behind it. Such a victory will be the necessary complement of the military victory of May 18^th 2009 and the diplomatic victory of May 27-28, 2009.  Having militarily defeated the secessionist minoritarian fascism of the LTTE, Sri Lanka has a chance to defeat majoritarian extremism of the JHU-NFF-BBS politically.

In the run-up to the parliamentary battle, is a dual debate in Sri Lankan politics. The Sinhala polity is divided between on the one hand, those who wish to abolish the 13^th amendment or delete land and police powers from it and on the other, those who see fit to proceed, however reluctantly, with elections to the Northern Provincial Council without attempting any drastic truncation of the powers devolved upon it. The Tamil polity is divided between, on the one hand, those who are keen to contest the Northern PC election and regard the 13^thamendment as worthy of defence, and on the other, those who regard the 13^th amendment as hardly worth the paper it is written on.

What is missing in the picture is any drawing together and mutual reinforcement between the moderates or pragmatists on both sides of the ethnic divide who defend, however reluctantly, the provincial council and the prospect of elections to it in September.

What is also missing is the engagement of the intelligentsia, especially civil society intelligentsia, in either supporting the Sinhala moderates in this important battle or in building a bridge between the Sinhala and Tamil moderates in defence of the existing system of devolution of power to the provinces.

The lack of a structured dialogue between the Sinhala and Tamil parliamentary moderates across Government and Opposition lines, deprives each other of vital support and partnership.

That, taken together with the absence of engagement in the ongoing battle by the intelligentsia prevents the construction or reconstitution of a zone of moderate opinion in polity and society.

The battle over the 13^th amendment provides an enormous opportunity in the battle of ideas, because the arguments adduced in favour of abolition or gutting are symptomatic of the most retrogressive notions within our society ranging from the conservative to the militarist, the neoconservative to the racist. Grappling with and combating these ideas provides a fine opportunity for asserting the values of reason, democracy and pluralism.

Why then isn’t the battle being joined? The answer is political and ideological sectarianism. There are important precedents. When SWRD Bandaranaike was striving to defend the pact with Chelvanayakam, the powerful, union-based left was absent from the fray. Had it thrown its weight behind SWRD, the history of this country may have been significantly different and better.

Contemporary sectarianism takes two forms. The first is that the 13^th amendment doesn’t deserve defending because the Tamil people need and deserve something considerably beyond it. The second is that the hole is on Mahinda Rajapaksa’s side of the boat, or that he is patently insincere and merely playing ‘good cop’ to the far right’s ‘bad cop’.

The first argument is easily dispensed with. The TNA should contest the election even if the council is gutted of most of its powers, just as one should not abandon even the skeleton of a house that is one’s patrimony simply because someone has made off with its roof.

The second argument, even if true is irrelevant. The opportunity for a politico-ideological battle against neo-conservatism, racism and ethno-religious fascism is far too important to be contingent upon a reading of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s politics, let alone speculation about his psyche.

Resistance against the JHU’s counter-reform bill provides the only opportunity that has arisen in years, for the SLFP parliamentary group to defeat the parties of the extremist fringe which have ideologically dominated the UPFA administration and distorted its discourse.

If however, the bad guys win, the centre of gravity of Sri Lankan politics and society will shift still further to the right. It may even impact upon the choice of candidacy. If the neo-con project with its totalitarian notion of national security succeeds, the present dispensation will appear in a roseate afterglow as an era of tolerance and democracy.

The battle to defeat the JHU-NFF-BBS attack on provincial devolution is thus utterly decisive. Against such a backdrop, only an aficionado of black humour would appreciate as I do, an invitation I received in the mail for a conclave at which the best and the brightest of Sri Lanka’s cosmopolitan intelligentsia are scheduled to discuss and debate such exquisite irrelevancies as “The Past in the Future: the ethical future of the archive in the Dotcom age”, “Ethical Reconstruction: Primitive Accumulation in the Apparel Sector?”, “Philanthrocapitalism, Philanthronationalism: the ethics of corporate gifts in post-conflict Sri Lanka” and “On Heterophobic and Heterophilic Casteism and anti-Casteism”. Where the topic is relevant, such as “Diplomacy at the UN Human Rights Council”, the sole designated presenter is Yolanda Foster of Amnesty International (which exclusivity is no fault of either Ms Foster or AI).

No Gramscian ‘organic intellectual’ stuff or words for a Modern Prince, here. If these are the good guys and gals and this is their discourse, no wonder the bad guys are way ahead: they have the advantage of being organic and sounding ‘national popular’.

Ranil unveils Third Republican Constitution proposal

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent-May 30, 2013
The country’s main opposition and single largest political party the United National Party (UNP) yesterday unveiled its plans for a third republican constitution that envisages the abolition of the presidency, the establishment of a new constitutional court, power devolution, anti-crossover legislation and stringent anti-corruption laws and fiscal oversight mechanisms.

Ranil Unveils Third Republican Constitution Proposal by nelvely

Why The 13th Amendment Is Necessary

By R.M.B Senanayake -May 30, 2013

R.M.B. Senanayake

The Government seems to be bent on amending the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The JHU 19th Amendment wants to repeal the entire chapter in the 13th Amendment titled Chapter XVIIA which sets up the Provincial Councils. In short it wants to abolish Provincial Councils.

The Government seems to want only to repeal the police powers and the Land powers given to the Provincial Councils and to amend the clause which requires the approval of the all the Provincial Councils to any proposed laws which affect the functions or the Provincial Councils. It wants to change such required approval of the Provincial Councils to read as a majority of the Provincial Councils and not to all the Councils.

But any unilateral changes in the 13th Amendment will only open the way to the whole ethnic issue including the right to secession. The 13th Amendment was the result of an agreement between the leaders of the Sinhalese and the leaders of the Tamils. Prabakaran who wanted only Eelam was pressurized by the Indian government to agree to the Provincial Councils.  The TNA and the other Tamil parties are no longer demanding Eelam although they ask for 13 plus. Now by unilaterally changing the 13th Amendment we will free both the Indian government and the Tamil leadership to canvass for an alternative solution to the Ethnic problem including Eelam.

The grievance of the Tamil people was that they had no voice in the governance of their areas of habitation and that there was discrimination by the Sinhalese dominated central government both in the allocation of funds as well as the allocation of jobs in the public service and in the use of the Tamil language. The  Tamil people in the two Tamil majority provinces had almost no say in the decisions that affected and shaped their lives when the whole country was governed from the Center and decisions made at the Center were made by Sinhalese officials and Sinhalese politicians.

Bilingualism with English as the link language is neither economical nor practical. It is not practical since the official language is the language of record and one can’t keep records in two languages in a practical manner. The only economic  and practical solution in my opinion is to make Tamil the official language in the North and East and devolve as many day to day activities of the State public services  to the Provincial Councils and use English as the link language of communication between the Center and the Tamil speaking Provincial Councils.

So the rationale of  the 13th idea in the Amendment  was  to create two levels of government so as to empower majority Tamil provinces to manage their affairs particularly in matters of local development including the police function and land alienation.

These provinces are constitutionally empowered to make laws through an elected Provincial Council and they were administered through a Chief Minister and a Cabinet of Ministers drawn from the Provincial Council, supported by a provincial public service. The Provincial Councils have legislative competences (both exclusive and concurrent) on most of the local service delivery matters including agriculture, education, community development, housing, health services. There is also a system of local government to facilitate popular participation in governance. In addition there is to be a developed administrative structure in the form of provincial administration, similar to the former ‘kachcheri’ but under the Provincial Council.

The Provincial Councils seek to empower the local communities to be responsible for the local governance. This would address the fears of ethnic dominance which have been expressed by the Tamils by removing some powers and resources from the centre to the provinces.

Since the 13th Amendment was passed there have been radical changes in the Constitution by way of the 18th Amendment. It has removed virtually all the checks and balances on executive power thereby putting to rest the notion of constitutionalism- limited government.

Executive power however has continued to be legitimized ostensibly through the Constitution. The Executive however is very conscious of the need to trace back the exercise of its absolute authority to the original democratic Constitution despite the fact that the values of that constitution are no longer having any impact on the exercise of executive power today.

But the Executive Presidency doesn’t like any dilution of power to the Provincial Councils. As long as the ruling political party controls these Provincial Councils the writ of the Executive President will hold even among these Councils. But this dominance through a political party will not work in the Northern Provincial Council. So the present regime wants to re-centralize power. The Divineguma Law was another law to monopolize political power in the ruling party, by-passing  the Provincial Council system with power and authority flowing directly from the Central Government Ministry straight through to the field officials avoiding the Provincial Council hierarchy.

Under the regime political competition has been muzzled as witnessed in the recent questioning of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation officials for a seminar on how to strengthen the Opposition political party. Civil society too is increasingly intimidated, co-opted or banned from carrying out certain activities like the promotion of human rights by the state. Over time the state seeks to occupy the entire public sphere crowding out both political actors and the civil society.

Apart from political and social control, the state also may be uninhibited in following policies favoring certain groups or parties or communities while undermining others through policy and legislation. In keeping with dominant economic model of the regime the state considers itself the main agent of development. This model advocates comprehensive centralized exercise of power as in the former Communist States. The desire of the ruling party and president to centralize and monopolize power is primarily driven by the need to exercise unlimited control over state resources in order to dispense patronage to political supporters (both individuals and ethnic communities).The monopolization of political power by the ruling party has helped to co-opt the minority political parties like the Muslim Congress or the Ceylon Workers Congress to be co-opted to the government. But the removal of limits on the exercise of executive power to dispense patronage inevitably lead to problems in such coalitions. The system of allocation of resources and development opportunities to individuals and different parts of the country on the basis of political patronage instead of objective criteria will be undermined if there is devolution of power and allocation of resources of the State through an independent Finance Commission. Hitherto the Finance Commission has been a mere figurehead as the allocation of resources to the Provincial Councils is done by the Ministry of Economic Development.

The system of political patronage in appointments promotions has excluded many people who voted or supported the Opposition or were from the ethnic minorities from government services creating a feeling of marginalization among them.  It is this strong feeling of exclusion that has led to the perception that one had to have one of one’s kind in a key political public office for him to access government services and opportunities.

Inefficiency of government under centralization

Under the present system of centralized government there is often need for constant communication between the officers at the Capital and its implementation officers on the ground. This back and forth communication in which field officers must constantly refer matters to the Capital for decision making creates serious inefficiency in the system thus undermining development. Locating decision- making and planning in the centre while implementation takes place in the field undermines co-ordination as the various technical departments operate independently and also refer matters to the centre independently without adequate consultation among each other. Horizontal co-operation in the field is thus undermined by the need to defer to a faraway superior in decision- making. The MTV regularly spotlights numerous failures of government in the field despite the government having spent money. Rope bridges collapse, irrigation channels are not cleared, dams are not repaired and sluices decayed but all these repairs have to be carried out by central government field officers and there is no monitoring of their failures by the central government officials in the capital.

Centralized administration also undermines accountability as the field officers can easily shift the blame for their defective implementation or misuse of resources to their superiors at the centre. The identities of the responsible officers at the centre are normally vague. Decentralization overcomes these challenges by getting the field officers to report to a regionally based superior be it the Pradesiya Sabha or the Provincial Council. Centralization excludes the citizen from decision-making in planning and implementation as well as the field officers. Centralized systems presuppose that the citizen has no ability to effectively contribute to developmental matters. It ignores the fact that the citizen is more aware of their needs, is more interested to support the development programmes in their area and that opportunities for popular participation are necessary in order to develop democratic culture. Centralization denies the local population a genuine platform for participation as the public officers at the centre are far removed from the citizens and not bound by the views or suggestions made to field officers who know the ground situation better. By this we mean that the era where hospitals, schools and other facilities were built, without the requisite operational resources to enable there utilization must come to an end.The effectiveness and efficiency with which public services are provided to support inclusive growth, economic innovation and competitiveness and maintaining quality public services will be key to the success of the country. Public services have been defined as any of the common, everyday services provided by national and local governments with the aim of improving social welfare.

UN Judge Rules In Long-Running Investigator's Case

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 29, 2013 2:32 PM

GENEVA (AP) — After nine years of legal wrangling, former U.N. investigator Caroline Hunt-Matthes has won a judgment that she was unfairly punished for documenting a woman's rape case in Sri Lanka a decade ago.

Hunt-Matthes told The Associated Press on Wednesday the long-running case is "a consummate story of abuse of power" by U.N.'s oversight unit.

The twin rulings by U.N. Dispute Tribunal Judge Coral Shaw in Nairobi, which were issued late Tuesday, are highly critical of the U.N.'s accountability system. They follow a hearing earlier this year in Geneva on Hunt-Matthes' complaints filed against the United Nations dating to 2004.

They say Hunt-Matthes, who had been consistently rated an exceptional employee, lost her job at the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees because of retaliation and suffered other damages after she collected evidence in 2003 that an agency employee had raped a refugee in Sri Lanka.

The U.N. staffer, an administrator in the agency's Sri Lanka office, was reprimanded and left the refugee agency after the rape was reported. A review of the case by the U.N.'s legal team substantiated the rape. The victim, a teenager who cleaned the offices of the refugee agency in Sri Lanka, was fired after reporting the rape.

"There can be no doubt about the serious stress and reputational damage caused to" Hunt-Matthes, the judge wrote. "In addition, she has borne the disappointment of retaliation against her by formerly respected colleagues for identifying and insisting on an investigation into misconduct she genuinely believed was occurring."

There was no immediate comment from U.N. officials.

Hunt-Matthes said she couldn't find work right away, and has been doing mostly part-time consulting and teaching since leaving the U.N. She's a lawyer by training but her career as an investigator was over.

The rulings, which can be appealed, award Hunt-Matthes a year's salary and benefits, legal costs, plus $58,000 for her damages and suffering — some caused by what the judge described as the incompetence and failings of the U.N. ethics office to protect her as a whistleblower after she carried out her duty to report misconduct by a U.N. staffer.

"Which translates into the fact that U.N. staff members are working in a very dangerous environment," Hunt-Matthes said. "If you want to stand up and speak the truth about something that's gone wrong, there's going to be no protection for you. So what does that mean for the U.N.?"

Homagama DJ arrested while taking a bribe of Rs. 3 lakhs: Remanded till 3rd

(Lanka-e-News-30.May.2013, 6.30PM) A senior officer of the Commission for bribery and corruption told Lanka e news that the Homagama district judge Sunil Abeysinghe was arrested by the Commission on 29th night at 11.00 when he was receiving a bribe of Rs. three lakhs. The district judge had taken this bribe to give a judgment partially in favor of a party on a case that was being heard by him.

The judge who had requested the party to come home to hand over the bribe had later told to come to a place in Hanwella town . Accordingly when he had arrived at the venue and was collecting the bribe , the judge had been arrested, the bribery commission official told Lanka e news. This is the first time a district judge was arrested when taking a bribe. 

Later report says this District court judge Sunil Abeysinghe and his security guard police officer were remanded till June 3rd by Colombo Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya this evening









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Judge remanded

THURSDAY, 30 MAY 2013 
Homagama District court judge Sunil Abeysinghe who is alleged to have solicited a bribe of Rs 300,000, was remanded till June 3rd by  Colombo Chief Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya this evening


The judge was arrested when he was about to accept the bribe from a businessman in order to induce him to deliver a judgment in his favour in a land dispute case.

He was brought to the Cinnamon Gardens Police Station after his arrest on a complaint made by the businessman. The judge was arrested on Wednesday night while he was in the house owned by the Hanwella businessman

The Bribery Commission was tipped off by the businessman and the officers said the arrest was made while the judge was on the verge of accepting the bribe offered by the businessman. ( Supun Dias and Indika Sri Aravinda)

‘Blue wave’ councilor abuses mother of two

THURSDAY, 30 MAY 2013 

Elpitiya Magistrate Kesara Samaradivakara yesterday (29th) remanded the UPFA Member for Karandeniya Pradeshiya Sabha Jayantha Suraweera until 12th June on charges of assaulting and later sexually abusing a mother of two.

The suspect, a 35 years old father of two and a resident of Kirimatiaywa at Urugasmansandiya, is a Member of the UPFA ruled Pradeshiya Sabha as well as an official of the Agrarian Services Center at Urugasmansandiya.

Suspect who was absconding after the crime was arrested by the police after several days and was presented before Court.

Recently, JVP Parliamentarian Sunil Handunneththi told in Parliament that a sex trend exists in the country at present and the situation further develops due to the involvement of local politicians of the government.

Mr. Kerry, I’m Perturbed And Saddened By Your Human Rights Report On Me

By Douglas Devananda -

Douglas Devananda

BMay 30, 2013

Mr. John F. KerrySecretary of State,

U. S. Department of State,

USA

Dear Sir,

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012 – Sri Lanka

I, Douglas Devananda, Member of Parliament and the Cabinet Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development in Sri Lanka wish to bring the following with regard to the contents in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012 under the caption Sri Lanka, which was transmitted by the Department of State to the United States Congress in April this year.

I am also the Secretary General of the Eelam Peoples’ Democratic Party, popularly known as EPDP, which is a recognized political party by the Commissioner of Elections of Sri Lanka. In the 1970s and 1980s I have been in the forefront of the struggle to win over the rights of the Tamils in the country. After the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, which paved the way for the 13^th amendment to the constitution and provided for the devolution of powers to the provinces, I fully endorsed it and along with several other Tamil Groups joined the Democratic Mainstream of politics in Sri Lanka.

Since 1994 I have been elected as a Member of Parliament without a break by the Tamils and I have been a Cabinet Minister for the last 13 years under various heads of Government. Today I am in the rank of a longstanding Minister in the Cabinet. In the last general elections held in April 2010, I got the highest preference votes out of all the Tamil Members of Parliament elected to Parliament from the Northern and

Eastern Provinces in Sri Lanka. My party, EPDP, has three elected representation from Jaffna Electoral District out of nine elected representatives.

I am perturbed and saddened by the contents of the said report which inter-alia states as follows:

“Although the number of killings associated with progovernment paramilitary groups declined from previous years, there were persistent reports that the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), led by Minister of Social Services and Social Welfare Douglas Devananda, engaged in intimidation, extortion, corruption, and violence against civilians in Jaffna. For example, on March 4, EPDP member Kanthasuwamy Jagadeswaran sexually abused and killed 13-year-oldJesudasan Lakshini. On March 16, the Kayts Magistrate Court remanded Jagadeswaran to Jaffna Prison.”

“Unknown actors suspected of association with progovernment paramilitary groups committed killings and assaulted civilians. There were persistent reports of close ties between progovernment paramilitary groups such as the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) and government security forces. Whereas these groups served more of a military function during the war, often working in coordination with security forces, they increasingly took on the characteristics of criminal gangs as they sought to solidify their territory and revenue sources in the postwar environment.”

“ Nongovernmental Impact: Progovernment paramilitary groups and gangs affiliated with political parties inhibited freedom of expression, particularly in the north. Members of the EPDP reportedly were involved in harassment and intimidation of journalists in Jaffna.”

You have stated in the preface to the report that when you served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, your colleagues and you depended on these reports for an accurate assessment of human rights conditions around the world and that they are valuable to those in the State Department and other Federal Agencies who carry out U.S. foreign policy as well as to members of Congress, etc.

But such a valuable report for precise study refers to me as the “Minister of Social Services and Social Welfare”. I am the Minister for “Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development” since April 2010.This will give you an indication as to how reliable the information provided by your subordinates to you.

I also wish to draw your attention to an incident that you have used to corroborate your assertion that the party led by me, EPDP, is engaged in intimidation, extortion, corruption, and violence against civilians in Jaffna. You have cited the rape and murder of a 13 year old girl in March 2012 by a person in the name of Kanthasuwamy Jagadeswaran in Delft. You have categorically stated him as an EPDP member. I am hand delivering a copy of this letter to your Ambassador in Sri Lanka along with a certified copy of the 112 pages proceedings of the case in the Magistrate’s Courts in Kayts courts with regard to the rape and murder of Jesudasan Lakshini. This document contains the report of the police, the evidence led by the police and the proceedings in the magistrate’s courts. On perusal of this document you will find that neither Kanthasuwamy Jagadeswaran identified himself as an EPDP member nor the law enforcement authorities nor the evidence relevant to this case affirmed that the said suspect was a member of my party, EPDP. You have not only emphatically referred to him as an EPDP member but also cited this fabricated story as a case in point to substantiate the other unfounded allegations against me and my party.

I trust this fact will give you a clue to assess the reliability of the information furnished by your subordinates for the preparation of this report. Also I take this opportunity to request you to provide me with the evidence you have concerning the alleged allegations you have made against me and the party I lead, EPDP, in the report under reference.

The media has already caused irreparable damage and defamation to my standing and reputation by publishing the contents of this report.

Further, for the last few years your State Department as well as other various US authorities was giving false and unsubstantiated information or allegations totally discrediting the image of the party, EPDP, and me in spite of the fact that I have been continuously democratically elected to Parliament and function as a responsible Minister in Sri Lanka. Based on these false allegations leveled against my party and my activities most of your officers and diplomats have been persuaded to form a biased and adverse opinion regarding the EPDP and my political activities.

I regret to note that most of the diplomats or delegates from the US visiting Sri Lanka never attempted to seek our point of view or sought clarification regarding allegations leveled against our activities; instead they rely on the information furnished by parties who have vested political interest to tarnish our image and public support.

I am bringing these facts to your information with the firm conviction that you would take necessary steps to undo the irreparable damage caused to me by publishing the contents of the report referred to above. I am also forwarding copies of this letter to the Foreign Affairs Committees of the US Congress and to the media.

Yours sincerely,

Sgd.

Douglas Devananda, MP

Secretary General,  E.P.D.P.

Minister of Traditional Industries and

Small Enterprise Development.

Copy: 1. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

2. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs

            3. Ambassador for USA in Sri Lanka

Tr/DD/Da – 29.05.2013 – 09.22 a.m.