MP’s brother among suspects nabbed for robbery

SUNDAY, 06 OCTOBER 2013 

The brother of a Galle district parliamentarian and three others were arrested by the  Habaraduwa police for their alleged involvement in a series of robberies in the south.

A soldier and two army deserters were the others in the gang.  Police said the gang was responsible for robberies in the Ambalangoda, Ahangama, Akmeemana, Weligama, Poddala , Habaraduwa and Galle areas. During investigations police recovered 21 gold chains allegedly robbed by them.

A senior police official said the modus operandi of the gang was to paste a sticker with forged registration number on the number plate of the motorcycle used for a robbery and to remove it immediately after fleeing the scene. (D.G Sugathapala)

Batticaloa Prison inmate climbs roof, commences fast

[ Sunday, 06 October 2013, 12:05.59 PM GMT +05:30 ]

An inmate of the Batticaloa Prison has commenced a fast after climbing on to a roof.

Prisons Media Spokesperson Gamini Kulatunga said that the inmate in question had commenced this fast protesting the decision made to transfer him to the Polonnaruwa Prison. The Media Spokesperson said that he was convicted of several charges including having bombs in his posession.

The tragedy of Sri Lanka Banking sector -A inside story

(Lanka-e-News -05.Oct.2013, 11.30PM) The President, the Treasury Secretary, the Central Bank Governor, the present Peoples’ Bank Chairperson, Gamini Senarath and the former Ceylon Bank Employees Union (CBEU)’s President, Shaa [the present Chairperson of Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL) ] - have managed to successfully split the CBEU. Now the Union’s Peoples’ Bank (PB) branch and National Savings Bank (NSB) branch are one group and the other group is led my it’s Bank of Ceylon branch. The former is trying to legally oust the latter from the parent union’s leadership and right now, this matter is before the courts. They did this with a view to paving the way for scuttling the Collective Bargaining Process that is well-entrenched in the country’s banking industry and also to achieve the MR regime’s grand plan: privatization of state-owned banks.

 

Incidentally, the so-called Collective Agreement that is now in place was signed by the Peoples’ Bank/NSB faction on the part of the CBEU, while Gamini Senarath signed it on behalf of the employers, thus sidelining the Bank of Ceylon which is the largest CBEU branch, in terms of members.

So, you have to put this new development in to context to get a clear picture. The context is the regime’s grand strategy of Chinafication of state banks: selling them off to China. The regime has already encroached on the private banks – the HNB, Commercial Bank & Sampath Bank etc, using the Employees’ Provident Fund and Employees’ Trust Fund.

Meanwhile, the Americans have strategically purchased the lion’s share of bonds issued by both the state and private banks. But it’s still not known exactly who bought the recently issued $-designated NSB bonds to the tune of US$ 750 Million. Maybe, black money of the ruling family too has found its way into NSB, through a bogus foreign-registered company.

The latest development is that they are going to oust the current General Manager of NSB - Hennayake Bandara - by not granting him his last service extension and bring in a crony of the ruling family in his place. It’s widely speculated that again Gamini Senarath, PB Jayasundara, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, the MBSL Chairperson, Shaa and the NSB branch of the CBEU are there in the equation. In this melee, NSB’s Astrologer Working Director, Sumanadasa Abeygunawardea, is trying to fish in troubled waters, as it were, by trying to oust his personal enemy - the NSB Chairperson Ms. W A Nalani - who is said to be a university batch mate of P B Jayasundara. Incidentally, this Nalani too has joined this clique to oust the NSB GM.

While these shenanigans are going on at NSB’s top/Corporate Management levels to oust its current GM Hennayake Bandara, that bank is slowly crashing. With all state banks slowly but surely collapsing in the face of pressures exerted by the twin factors of ever widening fiscal deficit and the negative balance of payments position, these banks are expected to keep the state financially afloat. So, the MR regime has no other alternative but to raise taxes and borrow US Dollars from external sources to keep up the appearance of soundness of the country’s financial in the short term, until the next presidential election.

Coming back to NSB, well, all 7 members of the bank’s Director Board were summoned to the treasury for an emergency meeting by P B Jayasundara for an emergency meeting, yesterday (04) afternoon, and at this meeting they had decided, among other things, to make individual Deputy General Managers including the Additional General Manager to report to the Board of Directors about the measures they have so far taken to rescue the bank from slow collapse, instead of trying to make the GM/CEO the fall-guy.

So now the GM/CEO will stay on till December 2014, when he reaches 60 -the mandatory retirement age. Trouble is brewing in both the Peoples’ Bank and Bank of Ceylon as well and so, the regime is hell bent on breaking the united collective strength of the bank employees, in order to pave the way for letting in private capital in the form of equity through the stock exchange or private placements.

Sri Lanka dictates what Nepal should watch

By Dilrukshi Handunnetti-Sunday, 06 Oct 2013

An ongoing regional film festival showcasing documentaries focusing on South Asia suffered a severe setback on Thursday (3), when organizers announced that the Sri Lankan Government had pressured Nepali authorities to ban the screening of three films on Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Dictates What Nepal Should Watch by nelvely

China moves 417,000 peopl

Typhoon Fitow expected to make landfall early Monday

The Associated Press Posted: Oct 06, 2013 

Pedestrians hold their umbrellas against powerful gusts of wind as Typhoon Fitow approaches in Taipei, Taiwan. (Chiang Ying-ying/Associated Press)

Hundreds of thousands of people in southeast China were evacuated and fishing vessels called back to shore on Sunday because of an approaching typhoon, authorities said.

Typhoon Fitow is expected to make landfall early Monday between Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, according to the National Meteorological Center.

• Interactive: hurricanes and typhoons

Provincial authorities said that by noon Sunday more than 65,000 boats had returned to port or moved to safer areas. Zhejiang's provincial government said 289,000 people had been evacuated from fishing boats and coastal areas. Fujian's government said 128,000 boat workers and dwellers had been evacuated, including 7,000 elderly people and children who were on fishing rafts.

The typhoon will bring heavy or torrential rain to five provinces, Shanghai and Taiwan over the next three days, the meteorological center said. Some coastal areas may see rainfall of 250 millimetres (9.84 inches), it said.

Another typhoon was blowing east of the northernmost Philippine province of Batanes on Sunday with sustained winds of 130 km/h and gusts of 160 km/h, but was too far out in the ocean to affect any part of the country.

Typhoon Danas may blow toward southern Japan later this week if it does not change direction, according to the Philippine weather agency.

No substitute for devolution of powers in Sri Lanka

After the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) swept the historic provincial council (PC) elections, optimism was quickly tempered by a number of developments.

An indication of the schism that exists in Sri Lanka was that even the swearing-in ceremony of the chief minister designate of the Northern Province, CV Wigneswaran, slipped into a controversy. After the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) swept the historic provincial council (PC) elections, optimism was quickly tempered by a number of developments. One of the demands of the TNA, for instance — as part of its objective to raise the issue of militarisation of the Tamil areas — was removal of the Governor of the Northern Province, an ex-major general. The TNA refused to be sworn into government by him, and asked President Rajapaksa to administer the oath in Jaffna. After deliberations, Wigneswaran might now take the oath in Colombo, on Monday. Just before this issue was raised, the Supreme Court ruled that the new PCs would not have control over land, which the government iterated, saying land and police matters were a Central concern. 

This was a blow to the idea of the devolution of powers, part of the India-backed 13th Amendment, supposed to be the basis of the resolution of the ethnic issue in Sri Lanka. Colombo seeks to whittle down the powers the TNA can have, saying the real agenda is a return to secessionism. The TNA, which raised eyebrows by its not-so-subtle invocations of LTTE-style rhetoric during campaigning, still stresses they want talks on the devolution of powers within a unified Sri Lanka. 

The good thing, of course, is that this tussle between two stringent nationalisms has shifted onto a political terrain — that is the big takeaway from the provincial polls — post the last phase of the murderous war. But, by definition, the larger responsibility rests with Colombo. Dialogue, restraint and accommodation alone can ensure peace.

Sri Lanka: If This Is Not Genocide, Then What Is It?

By Brian Senewiratne -October 5, 2013 

Dr. Brian Senewiratne

Accountability for Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka!

For some inexplicable reason, there still seems to be a problem with the term ‘Genocide’. The word has been clearly defined in the UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention).

It as adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 (coincidentally almost the same time that the newly independent Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then, had just decitizenised a million Plantation Tamils, one seventh of the population at that time, in one of the worst acts of political barbarism anywhere in the world. That was when I, a 16 year old schoolboy, decided to get involved because what was done was simply unacceptable and a disastrous start for a newly independent country).

The Genocide Convention came into effect in January 1951 (by which time the Plantation Tamils had not only been decitizenised, but disenfranchised as well).

Resolution 260, Article 2, states:

“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a)  Killing members of the group;

(b)  Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c)  Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d)  Imposing measures to prevent births within the group

(e)  Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The Sri Lankan government has done all of these to the ethnic Sri Lanka Tamils who live in the North and East. The requirements to constitute ‘Genocide’ have been met.

The official definition and a popular misconception                  Read More     

NPC CM to be sworn in before President

by Sulochana Ramiah Mohan-Saturday, 05 Oct 2013

While the newly-elected Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), C.V. Wigneswaran, is expected to be sworn in before President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday, 7 October, fissures have erupted within the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) over the decision.

TNA Spokesperson, Suresh Premachandran, said the decision to have a swearing in ceremony was taken by TNA Leader, R. Sampanthan, and the TNA delegation that met the President yesterday.

Thereafter, the TNA Provincial Councillors of the NPC will be sworn in before Chief Minister Wigneswaran on 11 October in Jaffna, he said.However, Ceylon Today reliably learns, the Alliance had initially planned for the Chief Minister to be sworn in by a Justice of the Peace (JP) in Jaffna, but had changed its decision in favour of holding a ceremony at Temple Trees, after the meeting with the President.

Premachandran defended the change of plan, saying the TNA needs to work with the government.
“The NPC is part of the government,” he said.

Meanwhile, two newly-elected TNA members of the NPC, on the condition of anonymity told Ceylon Today, that they have been quizzed by the party supporters over the latest development.

Several of the TNA supporters have noted that there is a provision in the Provincial Councils Act No 42 of 1987 that the Chief Minister can be sworn in before a Justice of the Peace.

“The TNA should have first asked the people for their preference as they have been elected to serve the people. However, the TNA leaders have kept the others in the dark. We just heard the news over the radio about the oath taking ceremony and we are puzzled,” said one disgruntled Provincial Council member, who polled a record number of preferential votes.

Funded But Faulted – “Social Integration” Has No Takers In North-East

By Kusal Perera -October 5, 2013

Kusal Perera

This attempts to position the National Policy Framework for Social Integration (NPFSI) named “Access for every one” (Savivara) within politics of post war Sri Lanka that Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara proudly exhibits as his National Languages and Social Integration Ministry’s most formidable contribution for reconciliation. The whole programme was funded by the German government through its GIZ administered Facilitating Initiatives for Social Cohesion and Transformation (FLICT) that was initially called Fund for Local Initiatives on Conflict Transformation. Having met Minister Nanayakkara, UNHR High Commissioner Navi Pillai sounded satisfied, there is some positive work done under that ministry.

I personally believe, not only Minister Nanayakkara, but politician Vasudeva has also been proved a fake, under the Rajapaksa regime. The September 21^st NPC elections voted overwhelmingly for the TNA manifesto and now with the EPC adopting a resolution asking for all powers under the 13 Amendment, it is proof Northern and Eastern, Tamil and Muslim people see nothing convincing in this government’s post war reconciliation and social integration. Which means, Nanayakkara’s ministry created NPFSI adds nothing to this regime’s “reconciliation”. This ministry simply can not expect the Tamils and the Muslims to trust their “Access” programme for social integration, when the Minister himself goes to Jaffna to tell the Tamil people what Gotabhaya says from Colombo. The NPC will not be given land and police powers said Minister Nanayakkara, addressing a press conference in Jafffna, while on an election campaign trail in the North.

Apart from how the people would trust such a minister in this regime, the issue of how such a politician conceptualises his social integration programme is very much in question. His political perception of the unresolved political conflict, seems no different to that of the rabid Sinhala campaigners in the Rajapaksa government, who believe what has already been done as “development” in the North and East, is what “reconciliation” means and is adequate. The absence of any serious understanding of the political conflict, is quite evident and stands out very conspicuously in the NPFSI.        Read More

Sri Lanka urged to protect Muslims

Saturday, October 05, 2013 

NEW YORK: The government is downplaying and protecting the groups who spread hatred and violence against minorities, particularly Muslims in Sri Lanka, the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay told a UN Human Rights assembly.

In her statement at the 24th United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva, Pillay said that she was “alarmed” at the recent surge in incitement of hatred and violence against religious minorities. She added that attacks on churches and mosques, and “the lack of swift action against the perpetrators” were disturbing.

Since her visit to Sri Lanka last month, the UN Human Rights chief said she has received a compilation of 227 incidents of religious attacks, threats, incitement to hatred against Muslims alone that were recorded between January and July 2013. The details will be shared with the government of Sri Lanka, said Pillay. “There have been numerous other attacks or incitement against Christians and Hindus as well,” she said in her address at the Human Rights Council.

“Regrettably, government interlocutors seemed to downplay this issue or even put the blame on minority communities themselves, and (we) heard disturbing accounts of state patronage or protection given to extremist groups,” Pillay said in her report.

Pillay told the Human Rights council that while she welcomes President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s comments on the need for religious tolerance since her visit to Sri Lanka, he needs to maintain a zero tolerance rate for religious intolerance.

“I urge him (president Rajapaksa) and the government to send the strongest possible signal of zero tolerance for such acts by ensuring that those responsible, who are in many cases easily identifiable, are punished,” said Pillay.

Pillay was in Sri Lanka on a week-long fact finding mission in September, at the end of which she said that Sri Lanka was heading towards a dictatorial rule.

At the ongoing UNHRC, the High Commissioner also followed up on a number of other human rights concerns expressed by the Human Rights Council.

In response to Pillay’s report, Sri Lanka said that its government has at no time downplayed allegations of attacks against minorities, and “strongly rejects accusations of state patronage or protection given to extremist groups.”

Addressing the council, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha said that Pillay’s “generalisations lack credibility.”

Requesting specific information on such allegations, Aryasinha said that Sri Lanka is planning to criminalise ‘hate speech’. Under the proposed law those found guilty will be liable to imprisonment for a period not less than five years and not exceeding 20 years, said the Aryasinha.

Religious violence, particularly targeting Muslims has been escalating in the Buddhist majority island since the past year.

Several Buddhist organisations, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or the Buddhist Task Force, continue to incite the Buddhist community against Muslims with public hate speeches.

The government has been accused of not punishing the perpetrators most of whom are Buddhist monks.

Over the past year, a wave of attacks on mosques and Muslim establishments have been escalating, causing concern among the minority which makes up just 10 per cent of the population.

India still undecided on CHOGM

October 4, 2013

India is yet to decide on its participation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka, an Indian Minister said.

To a query on the opposition in Tamil Nadu against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s participation in the Commonwealth Heads of Gov­er­nment Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled to be held in Col­ombo next month, Union minister of state V. Naray­an­asamy said, “the Prime Minister will take a call on that.”

He also said that Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will visit Sri Lanka on October 7 to hold discussions with President Mahinda Raja­paksa and senior officials on halting the recurring attacks and arrests of Indian fishermen, the Deccan Chronicle reported.

He would also raise the issue of freeing the arrested fishermen besides handing over their boats and nets belonging to them. Naray­an­asamy told reporters in Chennai that the discussions with Sri Lanka would pave the way for a permanent solution. “The fishermen along with their properties would return home soon,” he said.

You Never Know What’s Under The Garments: Political Cross-Dressing The New Fad

By Kumar David -October 6, 2013

Prof Kumar David

Methinks this world is oddly made

And everything’s amiss.

A sharp perceptive atheist said

His mind on higher things

Its official now, Jesuit Pope Francis says “Who am I to judge what these chaps may have been up to long ago?” So, aging Josephians, Benedictines and Peterites can sigh in relief. Nor need vintage Jesuits of celebrity status shrivel till indemnified by the Statute of Limitations. New fads have caught on in the political domain as well; driven by necessity, as rusted formulae die. Political cross-dressing is in vogue, at home and abroad: Mahinda versus Ranil, pray who is right and who is left (both puns intended); is Communist China a capitalist oxymoron; is Tony Blair a misbegotten Blatcherite toad; what happened to Obama radicalism and IMF neo-liberalism? No one, any longer, is what they are thought to be, nor manifest what they claim to proclaim. Everyone cross-dresses, not in degree alone but in pith and marrow. This is no smart-ass comment; it is deserving of considerable reflection.

Red-blooded socialists Bahu and Siritunga are in bed with Ranil; Mahinda’s UPFA, not past expiry-date UNP, is the living incubus of Lankan capitalism; Harsha, the UNP’s in-house economic bass unaha, rails against the IMF with a verve and nerve that Bahu and Siri can no longer muster. JR, we learnt, was a trigger happy and ruthless autocrat; now Mahinda is autocrat, Gotha ruthless avenger. Aren’t leftists in the UNP-led opposition taking their cue from Mahinda devotee Vasudeva and spent cartridges Tissa and DEW? Don’t take offence if you are a disciple of any of these worthies, running them down is not my point. The point is that boundaries are smudged, programmes obscured, differences muddled and the urgency of immediacy (not necessarily expediency) propels decisions. Are these gentlemen all wrong, or are the categories of thought of yesteryear that rule our lazy minds, outdated? The truth is that it’s a bit of each; but before that, let’s look at the big wide world.

Cross-dressing to partner state-capitalism               Read More

Journalists complain to police about threat

Saturday, 05 October 2013 

Two journalists have lodged a complaint at the Kilinochchi Police on the threat to their safety after covering the recently concluded Northern Provincial Council elections.

Hiru TV Kilinochchi reporter Ananda Fernando and Swarnawahini Kilinochchi reporter C.S. Kodikara have reportedly told the police that they had taken accommodation in a room at a house in Jayanthi Road, Kilinochchi when they were covering the events of the Northern Provincial Council election.

However, the two journalists have returned to Colombo on 22nd September after the elections.

It was then that they were informed by the property-owner that an intrusion had taken place in search of them, the following day, at about 1:55 a.m.

It was reported that a group of unidentified individuals had come to the house asking for the two journalists and the property owner, a woman, had prevented the attempt to break through the locked gates saying that she would call the police and complain for the safety of her family.

The gang had reportedly asked the owner to bring out the journalists. However, when she had threatened to call the police, the gang had left the place.

The two journalists have also been informed by the property owner that on the following night at about 11 p.m., an unidentified gang in three motor cycles had loitered in the neighbourhood.

The journalists have then complained to the police.

The Deliberate Deceit Of The Self-Proclaimed “Independent” English Language Media In Sri Lanka

By Emil van der Poorten -October 6, 2013 |

Emil van der Poorten

Another contributor to Colombo Telegraph, Kusal Perera, and I have differed on what we consider to be the “self-censorship” practiced by the Sri Lankan media.  I subscribe to the belief that those elements of the media not owned by or absolutely controlled by the government are self-censoring to the point of irrelevance and Kusal interprets the term “self-censorship” differently.

However, I don’t expect that either he or any writer to the media who is not, literally, bought and paid for by the forces that are running this country with the authority of an iron heel coupled with a mailed fist, will (or CAN) dispute what I am about to document and the fact that it is DELIBERATELY misleading journalism, the motive for which should be obvious to anyone of even limited intelligence.

The web edition of the Daily Mirror of Saturday, September 28^th has an article titled “UNHR Council divided over SL” which I can only assume appeared in its print edition as well.  The link is here for anyone wishing to verify what I have to say in what follows.

That item, running in excess of 1300 words, deliberately sets out to deceive any reader who does not check the basic information provided, particularly those who do not believe that a newspaper owned and controlled by the family of the Leader of the Opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe, would engage in reporting of a nature so deceitful that it might, arguably, put the government’s own Daily News to shame!

In my last column I referred to the fact that the most recent Columnist of the Year, as selected by The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Press Institute had sought asylum, permanent or temporary asylum _-depending on your source of information – “somewhere in North America.”  Canada’s most watched TV network, CTV, reported this on the 19^th of September and I don’t know whether even the paper for whichMandana now writes by email, The Sunday Leader, has reported what one might consider news of some importance, up to now.

 Read More

Mandana kicked out from "Leader"

Saturday, 05 October 2013 

''The Sunday Leader” newspaper has taken steps to immediately terminate the services of its Co-Editor Mandana Ismail Abeywickrema, and her husband Mr. Romesh Abeywickrema, the Editor of its Business Section.

Ms. Mandana along with her husband and their 12 year old daughter left the country on the 17th September at dawn. Later she told the media that she intends to stay abroad for a while due to the rising death threats leveled against herself and her family.

Both Ms. Mandana and her husband had had informed "The Sunday Leader" administration that they are going to go abroad for a while.

In response, "The Sunday Leader" administration had asked to produce their news reports and feature articles through the internet, Even though she is unable to be at offiice physically, the administration has even promised that they would be given their salaries as usual.

However, an official in "The Sunday Leader" told "Sri Lanka Mirror" that Ms. Mandana and her husband were notified yesterday (04) through E-mail that their services are no longer required,

Attempts made by "Sri Lanka Mirror" to contact Ms. Mandana in order to get more information regarding the matter, were unsuccessful.

On the 24th of August, an armed gang broke into Ms. Mandana's house and for nearly 3 hours they had rummaged through the house trying to locate a particular dossier. However, after the arrival of the police in the nick of time, a shootout followed between them and the thugs which resulted in the death of one intruder and the arrest of the rest.

After this incident, another unidentified gang had broken into her house once again on the 8th September and had stolen a computer.

"The Sunday Leader" which was founded by Late Mr. Lasantha Wickrematunge, was later bought by Asanga Seneviratne, the rugby coach of the President’s eldest son MP Namal Rajapaksa, after Mr. Wickrematunge's murder.

Disagreeing To Disagree Disagreeably

By Arjuna Seneviratne -October 6, 2013 

Arjuna Seneviratne

The madness of debating aid effectiveness and climate change

Let us temporarily set aside the never ending debates on what love is, what friendship is and whether religion has helped or damaged the world.

Apart from those, the two longest running debates n recent world history are the climate debate and the aid effectiveness debate. We have gone through 18 COPs, 2 Rio’s and a Kyoto on the climate debate and four HLF editions of the aid debate over the last two decades.  Not to mention the estimated 1.5 million other side-meets, side-events and side-shows at global, continental, regional, sub-regional, national, provincial and local levels.

These two discussions have a common reason for their existence and a natural congruence in the human responses to them. Both of these arose out of guilt for what the movers and shakers of the world had managed to do to this planet, its plants, its animals and its people over a period of 400 years. They meet, mesh and meld as a result of the fact that the same shudder-mongers believe that the two issues can be solved by flinging a bit of money around.

Anyone who has been involved in one of these would tell you they felt like they were being spun into a whirlpool while the said whirlpool was being simultaneously spun through a jet engine.

Now me? Well! I must have done some terrible karma in a past birth.

Through no direct fault of my own, I have been engaged in not one but both of these at a pretty high level (COPs, IPCCC on climate and the OECD on aid). Why a crazy, long haired nutjob would be allowed inside the august portals of the OECD HQ in Paris or be asked to back-seat formulate Sri Lankan strategies for a COP or contribute to an IPCCC requested communiqué is a mystery that is beyond my ability to comprehend. Yet, there you have it. I was whirlpooled into these debates and over nine long years I served a sentence for some heinous crime I know nothing of.                            Read More