MaRa stooges show their ‘colors’ in one day : 6 sodomy charges against Assist. Mayor; another chairman has assault charges
(Lanka-e-News-18.Aug.2013, 11.00PM While the MaRa regime is scheduled to hold elections in three provinces and canvassing for votes in favor of its provincial council candidate leaders , already the disgraceful and dastardly activities of two of those leaders have come to light : R K S Tissa alias Tissa Seneviratne , the assistant Mayor of Nuwara eliya municipal council is a most infamous child rapist. Over a period of time this scoundrel had sodomized 6 young boys in the age range between 7 to 12 years. These innocent poor boys in the prime of their lives had fallen prey to the sadistic lust of this Rajapakse camp scoundrel.

Tissa Seneviratne is the son of former Mayor Bandula Seneviratne and functions as the co ordinating secretary to Transport Minister C B Ratnayake . 45 year old Tissa is a sodomy fanatic.

Though the victims of sodomy were produced yesterday (16) before the Nuwara eliya magistrate Sampath Hewawasam , this sadistic culprit had still not been arrested. He had been summoned to the police and released after questioning even though these are crimes where even the magistrate has no powers to grant bail.

The other MaRa regime stooge is Dinesh Gunaratne, the chairman of Aranayake local body. This hooligan had arrived with a group on the 15 th night and brutally assaulted E P Janak Gunaratne residing at Thunthiripitiya , Ussapitiya. The victim of the assault is now admitted to the Kegalle surgical hospital.

Although a complaint has been lodged with the Aranayake police , the rowdy local body chairman had still not been arrested.

If such leaders of the MaRa are to be voted into power at elections , either the people who vote for them must be insane or sans the capacity of thinking.

Eight year old raped and killed

By Premalal Rathnayake - Kappitipola-Monday, 19 Aug 2013

An eight year old girl has been brutally raped and killed in the Ellegama area in Diyatalawa.

The child who is a resident of the Ellegama area had been kidnapped by a 40 year old yesterday and had later been brutally raped and killed. The suspect who is a father of one had fled the area following the incident.

The Diyatalawa Police are carrying out further investigations into the incident. (Ceylon Today Online)

Army Officer suspended for transporting cannabis

Monday, 19 Aug 2013

The Military Spokesman says the Army officer who was arrested in Anuradhapura while transporting Cannabis has been suspended from service with immediate effect. (Info Dept)

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7 Monks tried to visit Europe country arrested

[ Monday, 19 August 2013, 08:41.57 AM GMT +05:30 ]

Officers of Immigration and Emigration department arrested 7 Bangladeshi Buddhist clergies tired to visit Europe with forge documents.

These monks were at Temple in Rajagiriya, Colombo. Among these 7 monks two have obtained SriLankan citizenship. Officials have taken steps to deport from the island and also their names were included in the black list. Army officer attacks police constable [ Monday, 19 August 2013, 02:54.04 PM GMT +05:30 ] Colombo magistrate Thilina Gamage ordered army officer to pay Rs.25,000/- compensation towards police constable today. Army officer W.G.Wasantha Bandara from Henguranketta attacked police constable named Thanuka Ruwan serving at Kollupitiya police station while on duty near the Gangarama temple.

Volcano eruption in Japan coats nearby city with layer of ash

JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Smoke rises from the 1,117-metre Mount Sakurajima at Kagoshima city in Japan's southern island of Kyushu.

The Toronto Star

By: Mari Yamaguchi The Associated Press, Published on Mon Aug 19 2013

TOKYO—Residents in a southern Japanese city were busy washing ash off the streets Monday after a nearby volcano spewed a record-high smoke plume into the sky.

Ash wafted as high as 5 kilometres above the Sakurajima volcano in the southern city of Kagoshima on Sunday afternoon, forming its highest plume since the Japan Meteorological Agency started keeping records in 2006. Lava flowed about 1 kilometre from the fissure, and several huge volcanic rocks rolled down the mountainside.

Though the eruption was more massive than usual, residents of the city of about 600,000 are used to hearing from their 1,117-metre neighbour. Kagoshima officials said in a statement that this was Sakurajima’s 500th eruption this year alone.

Residents wore masks and raincoats and used umbrellas to shield themselves from the falling ash. Drivers turned on their headlights in the dull evening gloom, and railway service in the city was halted temporarily so ash could be removed from the tracks.

Officials said no injuries or damage was reported from the volcano, which is about 10 kilometres east of the city.

By Monday morning, the air was clearer as masked residents sprinkled water and swept up the ash. The city was mobilizing garbage trucks and water sprinklers to clean up.

“The smoke was a bit dramatic, but we are kind of used to it,” said a city official who requested anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.

JMA says there are no signs of a larger eruption but similar activity may continue. It was maintaining an earlier warning that people not venture near the volcano itself.

Japan is on the “Ring of Fire,” the seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean, and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Death toll hits 50 in Philippines ferry accident

A cluster of life rafts float near the cargo ship Sulpicio Express Siete with its damaged bow a day after it collided with a passenger ferry off the waters of Talisay city, Cebu province in central Philippines. Pic: AP.

By AP News Aug 19, 2013 

“The sea was very calm and we could already see the lights at the pier,” Pestillos told The Associated Press on Sunday by telephone.

“Then very suddenly … there was a loud bang, then the grating sound of metal being peeled off,” he said.

Coast guard officials said at least 50 died and 70 were missing in the deadly collision 570 kilometers (350 miles) south of Manila. Hampered by a thunderstorm and strong currents, divers temporarily halted their search Monday.

Frequent storms, badly maintained vessels and weak enforcement of safety regulations have been blamed for many past accidents at sea in the Phillipines, including in 1987 when the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III said 750 passengers and crew of the Thomas Aquinas were rescued. There were no signs of additional survivors late Sunday, though Davide told reporters he had not given up hope.

Pestillos, one of several people praised for saving others in the accident, said he distributed life jackets and launched life rafts before creating his own flotation device by tying three life jackets to his navy service rifle.

As the ferry sank, Pestillos said he fell into water that reeked of oil and was hit by a falling life boat. He said he gave his homemade flotation device to a woman who needed it to stay afloat.

He said he lost sight of her when he went to help seven others, including two toddlers, toward an overturned life boat.

Pestillos said rescuers found his rifle still tied to the life jackets, but it was not clear what happened to the woman.

“I’m really praying that she also made it to the shore alive,” he said.

Cebu coast guard chief Commodore William Melad said records of hospitals, rescuers and the ferry owner indicate that 754 passengers and 116 crew were aboard the ferry when the accident occurred.

Coast guard deputy chief Rear Adm. Luis Tuason said some of the missing could still be trapped in the sunken ferry, which has been leaking oil.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Abaya said the cargo ship was leaving the Cebu pier when it smashed into the ferry’s right side near the rear. He said the ferry was arriving from southern Agusan del Sur province and making a brief stop in Cebu before proceeding to Manila.

Outbound and incoming ships are assigned separate routes in the narrow channel leading to the busy Cebu pier. It is not known if one of the vessels strayed into the wrong lane, coast guard officials said.

“There was probably a non-observance of rules,” Melad told reporters in Cebu on Sunday, but he said the investigation will start after the search and rescue work ends.

30 Years Ago: How ICTs Are Changing Sri Lanka

• by Groundviews
• - on 08/18/2013

To remember Black July, Groundviews brought together leading documentary filmmakers, photographers, activists, theorists and designers, in Sri Lanka and abroad, to focus on just how deeply the anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983 shaped our imagination, lives, society and polity.

The project is called 30 Years Ago and details of it can be read here.

The Picture Press was commissioned by Groundviews to interrogate the use, access to and perceptions of mobile, Internet and web technologies in our lives. The idea to do this feature was anchored to the following paragraph byRajan Hoole (writing on Black July),

30 Years Ago How ICTs Are Changing Sri Lanka by nelvely

Opposition Unity And The Return Of The Uncle Nephew Party

By Dayan Jayatilleka -August 18, 2013 

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

The jury is no longer out on the UNP-led protest rally in Colombo last week and what it revealed about the state of that party. The Sunday Times(Colombo), the newspaper least sympathetic to the government, most hostile to the UNP’s dissidents and the most charitable to the existing opposition leadership carried this definitive assessment in the column by its Political Editor.

“…Barely hours after the Magistrate’s order, a crowd of some 2,000 gathered for the protest…The organisers of the event had expected to muster a crowd of at least 5,000 from Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara areas. The lower turnout to an event led by the country’s main opposition to protest the army killings at Weliweriya on August 1 – a fortnight ago, and other burning issues affecting the people, does not speak well for the grand old party. It perhaps would have made a difference if behind-the-scene moves to rope in both the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and its breakaway Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) succeeded. Both were to turn down covert overtures made. However, former General Sarath Fonseka’s Democratic Party was not asked.

…Going by the UNP’s own estimate of mustering a 5,000 crowd, not the best for the main opposition, the question that begs answer is whether the Police Department, recently beefed up with all the anti-riot paraphernalia could not have coped with it. Egregious enough, it is even more absurd when it ends up with a turnout of only some 2,000. Senior Police officials, who do not wish to be named, concede that there had been occasions when trade union events outside the Fort Railway Station have drawn crowds much higher than this number.” (‘As Pillay comes, Govt. faces more HR issues’, ST, Aug 18, 2013)

This upcoming week the UNP is supposed to sign an agreement with several Opposition parties. The common program is already in circulation. It is fairly decent one except for the opening point which is the abolition of the presidency and its substitution by an executive Prime Minister responsible to parliament—the very situation in which the most disastrous legislation was passed in 1956 and 1972. But that is not my main point. The entire exercise is politically pathetic.                         Read More

TNA’s woman candidate in NPC elections seeks appointment with Navi Pillay

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 August 2013, 01:17 GMT]
“As a representative of the kith and kin who have been struggling for four years without knowing the whereabouts of thousands of family members who had surrendered to the Sri Lankan military in the final hours after the Sri Lanka Army had promised a general amnesty, and as the only woman taking part in the provincial council elections in Jaffna district representing the interests of war widows, I am looking forward for an appointment with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanetham Pillay, who is scheduled to visit the island soon,” said Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan, the wife of Ezhilan, the former Trincomalee Political Head of the LTTE and a mother of three girls, when addressing the press at Jaffna Press Club on Friday on her participation at the forthcoming Provincial Council elections in the Jaffna district. 



“We are the eyewitnesses of the war. We have been waging several protests to know the whereabouts of our family members. We have even gone to the LLRC and witnessed there. Nothing has happened so far. Now, after four years, we have decided to strengthen the political voice and are looking forward to secure an appointment with the visiting Human Rights Commissioner with the hope that we would be able to put forward all our problems within the allocated time to Ms Navanetham Pillay,” she said adding the appointment is yet to be confirmed. 



Apart from the political discussions on whether the PC system is something one should endorse or not, thousands of war widows are in need of political voice from someone who could represent their interests better than anyone else as she is one of the victims, Ananthi told media. 

Admitting that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had done little in the past except making some statements and the individual assistance provided by a few parliamentarians such as Mr Sritharan, Ananthi urged the people to strengthen the voice of the victims themselves by electing her as their political representative through the opportunity provided in the provincial elections. 

Responding to a question of the recent episode of alleged rape by Sri Lankan military in Poonakri, Ananthi said: “We are aware of much of the abuses that doesn’t come out in media as well as those what we learn in media. We should, as a society, learn to resist the systematic and brutal violence being committed against women”. 

Sri Lankan TID investigators visited her and registered details of her family members after her candidature in the NPC elections had become public, she further told media. 

LTTE Cadres Who Surrendered To The Army: Where Are They?

By Veluppillai Thangavelu -August 18, 2013 |

Veluppillai Thangavelu

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its latest report has slammed the Sri Lankan government for failure to make real progress in holding accountable those responsible for the execution style slaying of 17 aid workers on August 4, 2006 despite renewed international calls for action. Seven years have elapsed but the perpetrators responsible for the death of 17 aid workers have not been brought to justice. And this in a country which boasts about 2,300 years old Buddhist civilization and Buddhist values!

On August 4, 2006, gunmen executed 17 Sri Lankan aid workers – 16 ethnic Tamils, four of them women, and a Muslim – with the Paris-based international humanitarian agency Action Contre La Faim (Action against Hunger, ACF) in their office compound in the town of Muttur in eastern Trincomalee district. The killings occurred after several-days battle between the army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for control of the town. The ACF team had been providing assistance to survivors of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) has published detailed findings on the Muttur killings based on accounts from witnesses and weapons analysis that implicate the Sri Lankan army  in the area at the time. The group reported that two police constables and naval Special Forces commandos were alleged to be directly responsible and that senior police and justice officials were linked to an alleged cover-up.

In July 2007, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, established after the Muttur killings to investigate 16 major human rights cases, exonerated the army and navy in the massacre and instead blamed LTTE forces or Muslim militia. Families of ACF workers who testified before the commission blamed the army for the shooting.  The commission’s full report to President Rajapaksa has never been made public.

In March 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Sri Lanka, reiterating the concerns of a 2012 council resolution, which focused on the lack of accountability for human rights violations. The council called upon the Sri Lankan government to “conduct an independent and credible investigation” into alleged rights abuses and “take all necessary additional steps” to meet its legal obligations to ensure justice and accountability for all Sri Lankans.

According to James Ross, legal and policy director of HRW, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in apparent response to increasing international pressure, took long overdue steps by directing state lawyers and investigators to review the case and prepare a comprehensive list of witnesses. This was one of several recent moves by the government to adopt previously disregarded recommendations of its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) created in 2011 following the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.

The UN High commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka towards the end of this month and   HRW has repeated its call for the UN Secretary-General or other UN body to create an independent international investigation into violations by government forces and the LTTE. This investigation should make recommendations for the prosecution of those responsible for serious abuses during the armed conflict, including the ACF case.                         Read More

The TNA - in Tamil and English
17 August 2013
Following on from a recent visit to Canada with the TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, R. Sampanthan, addressed the Tamil diaspora in the UK this week, during two public events in London, hosted by the TNA-UK.



Urging the Tamil diaspora to support the TNA so that it may win an overwhelming victory in the polls, the TNA and the TNA-UK, urged the Tamil diaspora to provide financial support and to speak to their loved ones in the North and encourage them to defy government intimidation, and vote.

Taking multiple questions from the floor during the two public events, Sampanthan responded to them collectively at the end. See @TamilGuardian for live tweeting from the event.

A couple of his responses in Tamil to the diaspora are reproduced below, together with responses in English during an interview with the DailyMirror.lk last month:

Asked by a member of the audience as to whether the TNA would work more closely with diaspora groups, such as the TGTE:

1. Tamil Guardian @TamilGuardian

   Sampanthan on #lka govt bribes during NPC election: aware that motorcycles are being given in exchange for votes.

Tamil Guardian @TamilGuardian

Sampanthan on working with diaspora orgs: we are willing to talk to everyone, and listen to everyone, and we need to take decisions together

3:56 PM - 15 Aug 2013 from Harrow, London, United Kingdom

"I tell the diaspora when I go abroad, we know the ground situation. We know what our people need, our people have elected us, our people have *inaudible* their confidence in us. Therefore please leave it to us to make the decision. We are prepared to consult you. We are prepared to talk to you. We are prepared to listen to your advice, but do remember that the responsibility of making that ultimate decision is ours, not yours" (video part 1, 21:36)

Asked whether the TNA deemed the LTTE terrorists or freedom fighters:

Tamil Guardian @TamilGuardian

Sampanthan says the LTTE are freedom fighters as audience applauds

2:41 PM - 17 Aug 2013 from Newham, London, United Kingdom

"No I don't justify it ["terrorism unleashed by the LTTE on this country"] at all. I can't justify it. I don't justify it at all. You all say you did not condemn it at that point in time ..*frame cuts*.. I was also on the hit list of the LTTE, everybody knows. I was on the hit list of the LTTE long before Mahinda Rajapaksa was on the hit list of the LTTE. We don't at all approve of or condone several acts committed by the LTTE." (video part 2, 08:45)

CaFFE receives 129 complaints – Most assaults in Nikaweratiya, Kurunegala

Sunday, 18 August 2013 

Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) has received 129 complaints after nominations have been handed over. The highest number of incidents has been reported from Nikaweratiya and Bingiriya.

A large number of assaults, firing shots in the air, intimidations and attacks on party offices were reported from Kurunegala District last week. This is the result of a clash between two groups of United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA.) Incidents of serious assaults have also been reported from Delft, Jaffna, Naula, Matale and Wattegama, Kandy. There have been no election related incidents reported from Vavuniya, Mannar and Kilinochchi.

TNA supporters arrested while pasting posters
by Our Vavuniya Correspondent-Sunday, 18 Aug 2013

A group of five Tamil National Alliance (TNA) supporters who were putting up posters in support of the alliance candidate, M.M. Rathan, in the Vavuniya District, were arrested in Kanakarayankulam. Sources said at the time of the arrest, they had around 700 posters, in bundles, in their possession. They were subsequently produced before the Vavuniya Magistrate who released them on bail, sources said.

According to the Vavuniya Police, the supporters had been putting up posters along the Vavuniya – Kanakarayankulam main road, and the police had arrested them for violating election laws. They had been travelling in a van, going from point to point pasting posters, police sources said.

Reportedly, the arrest had taken place at 4.00 p.m. on Wednesday (14), and they had been taken to the Kanakarayankulam Police Station where they had been interrogated for nearly three hours. They were later produced before the Vavuniya Magistrate and released on personal bail, while the van and the large bundle of posters had been taken into custody by the police.

The TNA candidate, Rathan, defending his supporters, said they were accompanying him in the Kanakarayankulam area when he was engaged in a door to door campaign and putting up posters without causing any problem to the public.

However, following a complaint made by the Army in Kanakarayankulam, the police had arrested his supporters and had placed them under custody.

Meanwhile, a special labour force has been deployed on the directive of the Elections Department in each police station in the three provinces where elections are scheduled to remove posters and cutouts that have been put up in support of the candidates contesting the elections.

The police in the North have also been put on alert over polls violations, sources said.

First incident of election related violence reported in Jaffna

Details

 

Created On Sunday, 18 August 2013 09:14

Category: General

ITAK supporters wounded

Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) verified the first incident of election related violence yesterday (August 17.)

Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) lodged a complaint that one of their candidates, V Kanagaratnam and his supporters were assaulted in the Delft Island on August 15 while campaigning.

Meeting CaFFE election observers in Mannar Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP S Adikkalanathan said that TNA candidate V Kanagaratnam and his supporters were staying at a house when they were attacked. The attackers have been identified as EPDP members; among those was Delft Pradesheeya Sabha chairman. The MP added that their supporters had been asked not to return to Delft.

Three TNA supporters were injured during the attack and were admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Adikkalanathan told CaFFE that Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) has been targeting Tamil National Alliance (TNA) candidates competing for the coming Provincial Council elections and that he expects these attacks to increase in the coming weeks. Meanwhile EPDP has stated that the party will conduct an investigation on the matter to verify TNA's claim.

This attack and the expectation of further violence hints that the campaign in Jaffna might take a violent turn as the election draws near. This incident adds to the fear psychosis created among opposition party candidates by being questioned by groups stating that they are from military intelligence.

CaFFE will issue a separate report on complaints received on intimidation of candidates.

CaFFE

Jaffna Election Violence: EPDP Attacks TNA Candidate Kanagaratnam And Supporters

August 18, 2013 

Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) verified the first incident of election related violence yesterday (August 17.) Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) lodged a complaint that one of their candidates, V Kanagaratnam and his supporters were assaulted in the Delft Island on August 15 while campaigning.

Meeting CaFFE election observers in Mannar Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP S Adikkalanathan said that TNA candidate V Kanagaratnam and his supporters were staying at a house when they were attacked. The attackers have been identified as EPDP members; among those was Delft Pradesheeya Sabha chairman. The MP added that their supporters had been asked not to return to Delft     Douglas Devananda - Leader EPDP.                       Read More

The heritage of land reform

 

Editorial-August 17, 2013

The front page lead story in yesterday’s The Island highlighted a report that superintendents of state-owned and managed estates are resigning for fear of arrest over the non-payment of EPF and ETF dues of their employees. It said that the Superintendent of Kumarawatte Estate in Moneragala had spent a night in the police lock-up before he was released following the intervention of the Ceylon Planters’ Society. This superintendent, fearing further harassment, had decided to throw in the towel and submitted his resignation. Another plantation manager in Pupuressa had also resigned fearing similar treatment, it is reported. It is well known that both the Janatha Estates Development Board (JEDB) and the Sri Lanka State Plantations Corporation (SLSPC), as well as Elkaduwa Plantations, due to cash flow constraints, have not been paying EPF and ETF dues of their employees running into hundreds of millions of rupees and has also been unable to pay the gratuities of retired workers placing managers and superintendents of these plantations at risk of prosecution. Given that these estates are state-owned properties, it is reasonable to assume that the labour department would be less anxious to wield the big stick than if the plantations were privately owned. But there must be a point at which the enforcement machinery is seen to be doing its job whoever be the owner.

Where the ETF (Employees Trust Fund) is concerned, the total payment is the employer’s liability; so also the gratuity. As for the EPF, there is both an employer’s and an employee’s contribution which is deducted from the worker’s wages. When these dues are not remitted despite being deducted from the checkroll wages, there is more than an element of robbery that comes into play. After all, a percentage of the worker’s earnings is deducted and not paid to the duly constituted authority responsible for his retirement benefits. One of the easiest ways of contending with cashflow difficulties is not to make EPF and ETF payments; and it is not only on plantations that this method is widely adopted. Nonpayment or late payment attracts penalties, but those come later. So it is easy enough to deal with instant problems of the lack of cash by not paying these dues. Also state agencies are often given special treatment, for good reasons and bad, for failing to meet their statutory responsibilities. That is why the CEB and SriLankan Airlines, just to mention two, did not have their deliveries from the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation stopped for non-payment of dues. Any other Silva or Perera would certainly have been treated differently.

The land reforms of the United Front government of Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike, that also included ministers from what is now commonly referred to as the `old left,’ were stampeded by the JVP insurrection of 1971 into embarking into an ill-thought program of alleviating land hunger in the country. In the event, private capitalists were replaced by less efficient state capitalism with the two monolithic plantation corporations, the JEDB and the SLSPC taking over the management of much of the country’s plantation economy. Other state agencies like the Coconut Cultivation Board and the National Livestock Development Board also took over some of large coconut estates with their owners left with 50-acre blocks. While the ownership of the plantations changed, there was no alleviation of land hunger which continued as before. Politicians like the late Minister Hector Kobbekaduwa felt deeply about the Kandyan peasants dispossessed of his land by the infamous Waste Lands Ordinance of the British who disposed of upcountry land to mostly British entrepreneurs for as little as 50 cents an acre to open first coffee and then tea plantations. Apart from the sociological damage caused by the alienation of common grazing and pastoral land, the denudation of forest covered mountains to plant cash crops created environmental consequences that continue to this day.

But the methods adopted by the UF government in dismantling the so-called `Plantation Raj’ was hardly the best. Supporters of ruling party politicians found rich picking in estates that were taken over with various political authorities extending patronage to fellow-travelers and supporters to make a killing. While there was an effort on the part of both the JEDB and the SLSPC to keep intact the systems that kept the foreign and locally-owned plantations ticking, what had previously been tax-paying entities became a liability on the state. That led to the privatization or ``people-isation’’ as President Premadasa imaginatively labeled it, of various state corporations and entities including the management of estates. Premadasa decreed that the ownership of the plantations will remain with the state with what was privatized being their management. Employees of the various privatized entities were gifted 10 percent of their equity which most of the beneficiaries subsequently sold. It would be an interesting exercise to find out how many worker shareholders remain in the share registers of the listed plantation companies – not many if at all!

The present problems facing the state-owned and managed plantation sector relates to those estates that fell within the purview of the JEDB, SLSPC and Elkaduwa that for various reasons were not handed over to the various Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) for various reasons. Many of these have proved unviable and unable to generate the resources to continue. Some of them, including those estates where the superintendents have become the hapless victims of their employers’ inability to meet statutory obligations, are in an unenviable situation. The minister in charge of some of these entities went public with the suggestion that valuable timber stands on these plantations be felled and sold off to meet their debts. While there must be sensible extraction and replenishment of timber resources, whether a forestry plan is in place in many of these estates is an open question. It is likely that much of the timber trees now proposed to be felled were in fact planted by the previous owners of such estates. Environmental concerns too have been expressed over the proposal. While the magic of private sector management if often repeated as a mantra, minority shareholders of some of the quoted RPCs are painfully aware that while they have received no dividends for years, their controlling shareholders skim off the cream by way of hefty management fees! Sadly few of them attend the annual general meetings of these companies to protest.