‘Elders’ urge Burma to address religious strife

By AP News Sep 26, 2013 

YANGON, Burma (AP) — Jimmy Carter and two other former world leaders who are part of a group known as “The Elders” wrapped up a visit to Burma on Thursday with calls to address spiraling Buddhist-led violence against minority Muslims.

“No one can afford to ignore these senseless, destructive, repeated acts of brutality,” the group said in a press release.

“This is a very serious problem for the world community,” the former U.S. president said, adding how it is tackled by the new quasi-civilian government will be a “key test as to whether Burma is going to honor international standards of human rights.”

Former US President Jimmy Carter talks to journalists during a press conference in Yangon Thursday. Pic: AP.

They also praised Burma’s transition from a half-century of military dictatorship to a budding democracy, pointing to the release of thousands of political prisoners, cease-fire agreements with many of the country’s armed ethnic groups and an end to censorship.

They said it was “remarkable” how far the country had come in just two years.

But newfound freedoms of expression have also exposed deep-seated hatred in the predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million, initially against ethnic minority Muslims known as Rohingyas, and then to Muslims in general, leading to some of the worst sectarian violence the country has seen in decades.

At least 240 people have been killed and other 140,000 forced to flee their homes, most of them Muslims.

“Burma still has a long way to go,” said Carter, president from 1977-81. He was joined on the trip by Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway.

“It could take decades to overcome the ingrained prejudices promoted by extremist voices in parts of the country,” the Elders said in their statement. “This will require far-reaching cultural changes in all parts of society, including through changes in the education curriculum.”

They held private meetings with President Thein Sein and other high-level governmental officials, legislators, religious leaders and civil society groups.

Nelson Mandela founded the 13-member group known as “The Elders” in 2007 to work toward peace and human rights.

Commonwealth giving Sri Lanka carte blanche for human rights abuses

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

Sri Lanka will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November.

© Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images

Sri Lanka’s disturbing human rights record means it should be barred from hosting a key Commonwealth summit in November or chairing the organization, Amnesty International said ahead of a key meeting of Commonwealth foreign ministers today.

The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group - made up of foreign ministers and Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma, who gather to address violations of the Commonwealth’s fundamental values, including human rights - is meeting in New York today.

“Today’s meeting is an opportunity for the Commonwealth to show some real leadership on human rights. The organization has been shamefully silent so far about Sri Lanka’s human rights crisis– including the persistent lack of justice for past crimes and ongoing attacks on human rights defenders and other activists,” said Polly Truscott, Amnesty International’s Deputy Asia- Pacific Director.

“Instead of giving Sri Lanka carte blanche for human rights violations, Commonwealth leaders should be supporting calls for an independent and international investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, and condemning reprisals against civil society still taking place.”

Today’s meeting comes less than two months ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, after which Sri Lanka is set to serve as the Commonwealth’s Chair for two years.

“Allowing Sri Lanka to host CHOGM and then chair the Commonwealth would give the country a seal of approval that it does not deserve. The Commonwealth must think twice before allowing such a blow to its own credibility,” said Truscott.

“As Chair, Sri Lanka would be charged with helping the Secretary-General address violations of human rights in other Commonwealth countries – it’s difficult to think of a bigger irony.”

There are credible allegations that the Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tigers armed group committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the armed conflict ending in 2009. But Sri Lanka has resisted calls for an international and impartial investigation into the conflict, while its own domestic efforts have been wholly ineffective.

Since the war’s end, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has steered his country in what the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as “an increasingly authoritarian direction”. The government has concentrated powers in its own hands and led an assault on dissent, harassing and attacking critics including journalists, human rights defenders and opposition politicians.

“Despite repeated demands from the UN and others, the Sri Lankan government has not stopped violating people’s rights. There’s a huge risk of increased reprisals against activists and others in November around CHOGM. Sri Lanka is not a safe pair of hands for the Commonwealth,” said Truscott.

Official Video Of The Lasantha Wickrematunge Memorial Event

September 27, 2013 

Official video of the Lasantha Wickrematunge Memorial Lecture organized by Sri Lankans Without Borders and the South Asian Journalists Association on September 21, 2013 at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. For more information about the event, please visit www.slwb.ca/lasantha.

*Lasantha’s portrait by Wasantha Srinath Kurukulasuriya

The Indispensable World

by Tisaranee Gunasekara-Thursday, September 26, 2013

“Suppose, per impossible, there had been international human rights conventions in force…. How could Torquemada have fared? Or Calvin….? Or the Vatican and its Inquisition?..... How would the United States have fared in connection with slavery?”- AC Grayling (Towards the light of Liberty)

( September 26, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is becoming a habit – this discovery of uncounted ballot-papers, discarded in some obscure corner, post-election. The first time was after the Presidential election, when 67 ballot-papers were discovered, marked for Gen. Fonseka and abandoned in a ditch. Initially the government claimed that these were photocopies, and hinted at an ‘Opposition/International conspiracy’.

The Indispensable World by nelvely

A Reconciliation Slipping Away

• by Dinouk Colombage
• - on 09/26/2013 

• 
  As with every war the silencing of the guns or the signing of a treaty are often only a small step in a long journey of reconciliation. The true progress in rebuilding a society or country fractured through years of conflict can only happen when the people of that country are able to heal within themselves.
  

  

  

  

A Reconciliation Slipping Away by nelvely

Blak July: Remarks & Testimonies In Retrospect

By Rajan Hoole -September 26, 2013 

Rajan Hoole

Sri Lanka’s Black July – Part 30

We have thus found that alternative explanations, which hold the general violence of July 1983, and the prison massacres, to have occurred spontaneously without a core of advance planning, are defective in every respect. As to the planning, we have further the testimony of Tamil UNPer Mr. Ganeshalingam, former Mayor of Colombo. The following is an extract from Victor Ivan’s article, “The best laid plans of government men…” in the Counterpoint of July 1993:

“The next question I put to him was whether Mr. Cyril Mathew had no connection with the incidents of July 1983.

His reply was that not only Cyril Mathew but all the main leaders of the Government at the time had a hand in it and that those incidents were planned and implemented by the Government.Read More

To be continued..

Part one - Sri Lanka’s Black July: Borella, 24th Evening

Part two - Sri Lanka’s Black July: What Really Happened At Kanatte?

Part three - Black July: ‘Api Suddha Kara’ – JR’s Failure To Declare Curfew

Part four - Sri Lanka’s Black July: The Cover Up

Part five -  30th July 1983: The Second Naxalite Plot

Part six  - Black July: The Testimony Of Lionel Bopage, Then General Secretary Of The JVP

Part seven - Black July: Thondaman & Muttetuwegama

Part eight - What Was Behind Tiger Friday – 29th July? -The Significance Of The Pettah

Part nine - Tamil Merchants In The Pettah – Post July 1983

Part ten –  Sri Lanka’s Black July: A Family’s Tragedy In Colombo

Part eleven -  Sri Lanka’s Black July: The Question Of Numbers

Part twelve –  Welikade Prison Massacres: The First Massacre: 25th July 1983

Part thirteen –  Welikade Prison Massacres: Testimonies Given At The Magistrate’s Inquest

Part fourteen -  Circumstances Leading To The Magistrate’s Inquest

Part fifteen - Welikade Prison: The Second Massacre: 27th July 1983

Part sixteen - Welikade Prison Massacres: Chief Jailor Observed Army Commandos Coming In

Part seventeen - Welikade Prison Massacres: Postscript

Part eighteen - July 1983: Planned By The State Or Spontaneous Mob Action?

Part nineteen - July 1983: Ranil Wickremasinghe Followed Cyril Mathew

Part twenty - Events Of 24th July – The Eve Of The Holocaust: Who Wanted A Military Funeral?

Part twenty one –  Events Of 24th July: What Were The Army’s Orders?

Part twenty two - Black July: Further Evidence Of Advance Planning

Part twenty three - Black July: The JSS Goon Squad Regime

Part twenty four - Institutional Implications Of The JSS And Black July

Part twenty five - Black July: Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gonalwela Sunil And The Kelaniya University

Part twenty six - Black July: Army Hathurusinghe Prevented Police From Assisting Prison Victims Under Attack

Part twenty seven - Black July: Justice Of Peace Gonawela Sunil And The Killings In Prison

Part twenty eight - Prison Massacre And The Alitalia Hijacker Sepala Ekanayake

Part twenty nine –  Black July: Further Indirect Evidence Of State Involvement

*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power  - Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To be continued..

New Delhi mission in Jaffna launches war crimes defender’s poetry projection

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 September 2013, 13:14 GMT]
New Delhi’s Deputy High Commission in Jaffna will be launching on Monday an anthology of poetry, “Mirrored Images”, compiled by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, said a press note from the diplomatic mission on Wednesday. Prof Rajiva Wijesinha has gone on record on several occasions in internationally defending the Rajapaksa regime from war crimes accusations. He was often seen coming out with blatant denials of the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan State. The National Book Trust of India entrusted the editorship of the book to Prof Wijesinha and according to him, the anthology “contributes to the development of a common Sri Lankan identity.” The anthology was first released by New Delhi’s External affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, followed by Colombo’s missions in Canada. 

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights of Sri Lanka, was in the forefront as spokesperson engaged in denying the war crimes committed by the genocidal State. In 2010, he was a candidate in Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA alliance and was appointed as a national list member of Sri Lanka's Parliament. In 2011, he was also appointed as adviser on Reconciliation to Mahinda Rajapaksa.

To get legitimacy in Jaffna for what the New Delhi-Colombo partners are aiming at, New Delhi’s Deputy High Commission in Jaffna is harping on the name of Prof. Chelva Kanaganayagam who had contributed to the publication and the names of some Tamil poets in Jaffna, who have come forward to recite Tamil poetry at the function, said literary circles in Jaffna commenting on the Deputy High Commission press note. 

What is further disturbing is the artificial and erroneous Tamil found in the press note of New Delhi’s Deputy High commission in Jaffna, the literary circles added.

• Book Launch “Mirrored Images” by Rajiva Wijesinha at the Consulate General of India, Jaffna

Press_Release_Mirrored_Images-English-Book Launch “Mirrored Images” by Rajiva Wijesinha at the by nelvely

Khurshid to meet Wigneswaran

September 25, 2013

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will have talks with the Chief Minister elect of the Northern Province C.V Wigneswaran when the former visits Sri Lanka early next month.

The New Indian Express reported that within two weeks of Tamil National Alliance romping home in the historic Northern Provincial elections in Sri Lanka , External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will be visiting the island nation early next month.

This will be Khurshid’s first visit to Colombo as the External Affairs Minister which will come at a critical time following provincial elections which is seen as opening a critical window of opportunity to achieve reconciliation through devolution of power.

Sources said Khurshid will visit Sri Lanka on October 7 and 8 during which he will meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his counterpart G L Peiris and other senior Lankan leaders from across the political spectrum. He is also likely to meet a delegation of Tamil National Alliance, including the newly-elected Northern Province Chief Minister.

The previous visit by an Indian External Affairs Minister was by S M Krishna, who visited the island in January 2012. Whereas, the last high-level Indian visit was by National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon in July this year.

Sources said Khurshid’s visit to Colombo is part of his plan to visit various South Asian capitals on a priority basis. He has already visited Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Maldives is currently out of bounds due to the internal situation, while Pakistan is too much of a political ‘hot potato’.

The Indian fishermen issue is certainly expected to be discussed and there has been clear indication from Tamil Nadu government that it has given green light for fishermen of India and Sri Lanka to meet each other. However, India is not likely to give any indication whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will participate in the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in November.

EU hails TNA win at polls

September 26, 2013

The Chair of the EU Parliament’s South Asia Delegation today hailed the win by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) at the Northern polls saying it creates an opportunity to build trust between the national government and the leading provincial party in order to move the political reconciliation process forward.

Chair of Parliament’s South Asia Delegation Jean Lambert said that being the first election held for decades in a part of the country which has suffered so much from the conflict, the elections to the Northern Provincial Council bear special significance.

“These elections appear to genuinely reflect the will of the 68% of registered voters who took part to the poll, despite sporadic reports of violence and intimidation, which we hope will be duly investigated. The success of the Tamil National Alliance creates an opportunity to build trust between the national government and the leading provincial party in order to move the political reconciliation process forward,” she said.

On behalf of the South Asia Delegation she also congratulated Chief Ministerial candidate C.V Wigneswaran and wished him well in assuming his important responsibilities for the betterment of the people of the Northern Province.

“I hope and trust that within the framework of the Sri Lankan Constitution, national and provincial authorities will cooperate fully to that end,” she added. (Colombo Gazette)

Healing Sri Lanka begins with a new deal for Tamils: Editorial

EDITORIALS

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Tamil woman leaves a polling station in the northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna after voting Saturday.

The Tamil National Alliance won a solid victory over the weekend in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-majority Northern Province, giving it the credibility to lobby for political devolution and for sufficient funds to rebuild the shattered region.

The Toronto Star

Sri Lanka’s Tamil heartland has finally regained its political voice, four years after a brutal civil war that tore apart the island. And its first priority speaks volumes: It is to help “war widows, orphans and the disabled,” the region’s chief minister-designate C.V. Wigneswaran says. The fighting claimed 80,000 lives or more, and left a lifetime of pain in its wake.

This is a critical milestone for Sri Lanka and its 20 million people, as the Star’s Rosie DiManno has been reporting from the Tamil-majority Northern Province. And it is one the large Tamil diaspora in Canada can celebrate.

The Tamil National Alliance won a solid victory Saturday in areas ravaged by 25 years of civil war, taking 30 of 38 seats on the advisory provincial council with a healthy 68-per-cent turnout. That gives the council the credibility to lobby for more political autonomy, funding and civil rights. The status quo will no longer do.

While the result is a rebuff for Sri Lankan President President Mahinda Rajapaksa, it is also a win for democracy in a country that is dominated by 13 million Sinhalese but which has a strong Tamil minority of 3 million. It offers the prospect of the much-needed national reconciliation that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has been urging. Wigneswaran, a former Supreme Court justice and a moderate, hopes to strike up a constructive partnership with the central government after years of Tamil Tiger insurgency, military occupation and debilitating direct federal rule.

Tamils yearn for the day when their homeland is not ruled from Colombo, through an appointed governor who dominates the advisory council. They envisage a new power-sharing deal. “We are for an undivided Sri Lanka, where there is a certain amount of (Tamil) self-rule under the federal constitution,” says Wigneswaran. That modest demand — a far cry from the secession for which the Tigers fought until they were destroyed – now enjoys the support of most voters. And Rajapaksa would be wise to heed it.

Since the end of the fighting Rajapaksa has been criticized by the United Nations, Canada and others for failing to fully probe what the UN calls “credible allegations” of war crimes, for obdurately refusing to devolve any substantial power, and for militarizing the north. That tough line will be harder to sustain after this election.

Sri Lanka’s constitution provides for power-sharing with provincial councils, and the TNA election platform calls for demilitarization, repatriation of internal refugees, redevelopment, and more local autonomy over land use, law and order, health and education, resources and finances. There is nothing radical in this. Tamils have long been promised “substantive” autonomy, plus stronger minority rights and a fair share of jobs in the civil service and military.

Now that Colombo has a democratic, moderate Tamil political partner, the time has come to make good on those promises.

Sharma Preventing Navi From Addressing CMAG

September 26, 2013 

Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma is engaged in last ditch efforts to prevent UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay from addressing the powerful Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) meeting in New York tomorrow, the Colombo Telegraph is now able to reveal.

An explicit request has been made to the Commonwealth Secretary General in writing by Canada, backed several other members of the CMAG to request a briefing by Pillay when the grouping meets on the sidelines of UN General Assembly on September 27, Western diplomatic sources told Colombo Telegraph.

However the sources said no response has been forthcoming from Secretary General Sharma to the request, that is reportedly also backed by Bangladesh which is the current chair of CMAG and was previously very supportive of Sri Lanka.

Ms. Pillay’s office confirmed that no such request has been made to her Geneva or New York offices from any Commonwealth organisations thus far.

CMAG does not have an office or administrative structure and is dependent on Commonwealth Secretariat arrange agendas and schedule meetings on behalf of the grouping.

At CMAG’s last meeting in April, Secretary General Sharma was instrumental in ensuring Sri Lanka was not included in the agenda and Sri Lanka was only taken up briefly under ‘other business’. It was to this April CMAG meeting that Sharma refrained from divulging the contents of two legal opinions on the Shirani Bandaranayake impeachment. As exclusively revealed by Colombo Telegraph, at least one of the two reports was wholly critical of the impeachment and said in no uncertain terms that the impeachment was both legally flawed and in contravention of Commonwealth values and principles.

Even at the eleventh hour, come CMAG members are still engaged in attempts to get the Pillay briefing during the New York meeting tomorrow.

Secretary General met President Mahinda Rajapaksa in New York on Tuesday.

GR tears into US Embassy over PC polls statement

By Shamindra Ferdinando-September 25, 2013,

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday alleged that the US Embassy in Colombo was pursuing a political agenda extremely detrimental to Sri Lanka’s interests.

Although the government was doing everything in its power to restore democracy following three decades of war, the US embassy was all out ot undermine it, Defence Secretary Rajapaksa said. He was responding to a US statment issued in the immediate aftermath of Provincial Council elections in the Central, North Western and Northern regions.

The US Embassy said: "A process free of violence and intimidation in the Northern Province is required for greater civilian administration and to help further the reconciliation process four years after the war. These elections provided a starting point for that process. Democracy is not simply about elections, however, and more must be done to ensure that Sri Lankans of all communities can live with peace and dignity that they deserve."

The Defence Secretary said he hadn’t ever come across an assertion which was as unfair as the one that democracy was not simply about elections. "We are a multi-party country. As all know, even at the height of the war, Sri Lanka conducted elections. It is nothing but unfair to blame the UPFA merely because those in the South backed by the US Embassy here cannot win elections at any level."

The Defence Secretary said that some bankrupt political parties, too, had echoed the US Embassy.

Recalling America’s and some European countries’ criticism of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution which did away with the presidential term limit, the Defence Secretary pointed out the recent overwhelming victory achieved by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to secure an unprecedented third term. Would anyone dare challenge the German Chancellor’s right to lead the country for a third term having won the people’s mandate, the Defence Secretary asked.

The Defence Secretary said Sri Lanka had lost over 6,000 officers and men fighting the LTTE during eelam war IV. Of them, over 3,000had sacrificed their lives on the northern and Vanni fronts from March 2007-May 2009.

The Defence Secretary said that Western powers had kept mum when the LTTE and its proxies ordered Tamil speaking people to boycott the presidential election on Nov. 17, 2005."The TNA would still have been a prisoner and a TNA-run NPC would never have become a reality if Prabhakaran had survived the war."

The first ever Northern Provincial Council polls were meant to facilitate the post-war national reconciliation process, the Defence Secretary said, stressing that it would be a serious mistake to misinterpret the TNA’s overwhelming victory at last Saturday polls to promote separatist sentiments.

VIDEO: LAND POWERS VESTED WITH CENTRAL GOVT, NOT PCS - SC

September 26, 2013 

The Supreme Court today determined that land powers are vested with the Central Government and not with the Provincial Councils. 

The ruling was given by the three-member bench of the Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice Mohan Peiris, Justice Sri Pavan and Justice Eva Wanasundara after considering an appeal filed by the Ministry of Plantation Industries.

Despite the bench delivering independent decision on the case, all three agreed that according to the 13th Amendment that land powers were vested with the Central Government.

SC Bench Picked By De Facto CJ Mohan Pieris Puts Off Shirani B impeachment And His Own De Facto Appointment Challenges

September 26, 2013 

Several cases challenging the controversial ouster of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake and putting in of Mohan Pieris to perform the functions of the Chief Justice were due to be taken up today (26.09.2013).

Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake

The special bench tasked with the job of hearing the case is made up of Justices Saleem Marsoof, Chandra Ekanayake, Sathya Hettige, S. Eva Wanasundara and Rohini Marasinghe. However, only four of these judges sat today. Marsoof was absent. Therefore the cases were all postponed for 23.10.2013 when other cases relating to these issues are being taken up.

According to reliable sources close to the government, the plan is to somehow try and give some appearance of legality to the controversial actions of the Rajapaksa regime that are being challenged in time for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Colombo in mid-November.

UNP Taking Stock After Humiliating Polls Defeat

September 27, 2013 

The main opposition United National Party is once again taking stock following its disastrous defeat in the recently concluded provincial elections, party insiders say.

The UNP defeat has resulted once more in a clamour for its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to step down and make way for change.

UNP MP Harin Fernando told a news conference today that the leadership was seriously considering proposals for change put forward by several factions within the party.

Speculation is rife that the UNP may seek to field parliamentarians Karu Jayasuriya, Sajith Premadasa and Harin Fernando as its chief minister candidates at the upcoming Western, Southern and Uva  provincial elections to give the party a fighting chance.

However anti Ranil factions within the UNP warn that the plan maybe another strategy by the party leader to neutralize the three MPs.

Meanwhile plans are afoot  to also reappointJayasuriya to the party’s working committee at its next meeting in early October it is learnt.