UNP urges Police to prevent Packer violating SL laws

by Zacki Jabbar-November 11, 2013, 10:11 pm 

With the Australian Casino magnate James Packer due to address the Commonwealth Business Forum in Colombo today, the UNP yesterday urged the Police to prevent him from committing an offence by establishing an illegal Casino in Sri Lanka.

Three of the party’s MPs, Harsha de Silva, Ajith P. Perera and Ruwan Wijewardena, speaking to the media, after lodging a complaint at Police Headquarters, said that they had requested the police to take appropriate action to ensure Packer did not commit anything illegal.

"The Casino King is due to arrive any moment. He would be violating our laws by establishing an illegal gaming centre. So, we have requested the Police in writing to act fast in enforcing the law," they said.

Describing the government’s contention that Packer had got a licence transferred from a local casino owner as a fabrication, Dr. de Silva challenged it to produce the relevant document and nominate anyone for a public debate on the issue..

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had assured the Mahanayakes and other religious leaders that no new gaming permits would be issued, but how one could issue or even transfer something that did not exist, he queried.

The MP noted that according to the Casino Business Regulation Act of 2010, no gaming centre could operate without a license after January 1, 2013 or function outside an area demarcated for the purpose. Doing business without a valid permit would result in a jail term upon conviction, he argued.

A Casino licence, the MP noted, went into around 100 pages in most countries, including in Australia and not anyone could get it due to the very stringent regulations involved.

The government had taken cover under the Betting and Gaming Levy Act of 1988, which imposed an annual levy on gaming operations. The levy had been amended many times and finally in April this year it was fixed at Rs. 100 million, Dr. de Silva pointed out.

Conspiracy begins to expel premier!

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

Plans are presently being made to expel Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne from the post and to make several changes in positions after CHOGM, government’s internal sources say.

As the first step, the Presidential Media Unit has begun an underhand campaign on the instructions of the president to level false accusations against premier Jayaratne. Accordingly, it had planted two articles – one in yesterday’s (11) ‘Divaina’ titled ‘Letter from PM’s offices to Customs regarding heroin container’ and the other in ‘Sunday Times’ on the previous day (10) under the heading ‘Biggest ever heroin haul: Sensational letter from PM’s office’.

Rajapaksas well know that they cannot make Mr. Jayaratne, the seniormost living SLFPer, to dance to their tunes, and are plotting to appoint Prof. G.L. Peiris in his position, as he is a puppet of a character who will embrace any pile of garbage willingly. As we reported previously, MP Namal Rajapaksa has proposed the name of Prof. Peiris to the president to be the prime minister. (Using GL as bait Namal attempts at premiership!)That will allow MP Namal Rajapaksa to carryout dealings in the premiership unofficially.

PB demands 2% for a meeting to discuss projects!

Details

 

Created On Tuesday, 12 November 2013 12:41

Category: General

Finance ministry and treasury 

secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara is getting his closest friend Nilrusha Peiris to charge a two per cent commission from every foreign company that wants to meet with him to discuss projects. The treasury secretary has said publicly that he was doing so in order to avoid time wasters.

Nilrusha Peiris is one time coordinating secretary to the late minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle. Recently, he infamously came into mention due to a tender scam at the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) which is under minister Dinesh Gunawardena. Even after the contractors were shortlisted for the Anuradhapura South water supply projects, secretary Jayasundara had ordered the NWSDB to allow tenders by China International Mechanical Engineering Corporation (CIMEC).

CIMEC has accordingly made a bid by going out of the proper tender procedure. The local agent for this Chinese company is Nilrusha Peiris. Although the NWSDB functions under minister Gunawardena, it is the finance secretary who runs its financial activities and tenders. That is because the secretary of the ministry is a henchman of his and had worked under him at the treasury. The deputy minister in charge is Nirupama Rajapaksa, a sister-in-law of the president. Her husband, businessman Thiru Nadesan receives many tenders of the NWSDB through the coutesy of Dr. Jayasundara. The coordinator for all these nefarious activities is its working director Gamini Gunaratne alias ‘Batta.’

C. R. De Silva – An Appreciation

By Ravi Perera -November 12, 2013 

Ravi Perera

C.R. De Silva

It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of CR De Silva President’s Counsel and former Attorney General.

From his days at Royal he was better known as “Bulla”, of Rugby fame. Bulla was then living down Park Road and although older occasionally joined us for a game of soft ball cricket at the Colts grounds which in the early 1970s was an open ground lined with lush rain trees, very unlike the walled-in, unfriendly monstrosity we have there now.

I lost touch with “Bulla” for some years and met him again only when I joined the Attorney Generals Department as a State Counsel in the early 1980’s. At the time he was an “Acting Senior State Counsel” supervising the Western Province. Then the Colombo High Courts were situated at the old Queens Club building down Buller’s Road .It was a very pleasant setting with a park like environment. During this period Bulla came for two special prosecutions to the Buller’s Road High Court. The first case was before High Court Judge Hon. Lakshman Weerasekera in which a senior officer of the Examinations Department was charged with having fudged examinations results of a student(s) with the intention of favouring him/ them in gaining entry to the university. The accused person was defended by senior lawyer Ranjith Abeysuriya, a much respected professional. As a novice I could not have asked for a better introduction to the hallowed traditions of the legal profession. All three, the Judge, prosecutor and the defense attorney, in their search for a just verdict, did not deviate in the slightest from the straight and narrow path set by an exacting profession. If I remember right the accused person was found guilty and sentenced to a jail term.Read More

Typhoon Haiyan: Philippines destruction 'absolute bedlam'

video

''We are so very hungry and thirsty'' one survivor told the BBC's Jon Donnison in Tacloban

The head of the Red Cross in the Philippines has described the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan as "absolute bedlam".Officials estimate up to 10,000 people have died in Tacloban city and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced.

Rescue efforts are being hindered by damage to roads and airports.

Aerial footage shows devastation in Tanauan, Tacloban and Cebu-video

Among the hardest hit places was the city of Tacloban, where the ferocity of the storm waves swept this ship ashore.

Typhoon Haiyan Philippines Destruction 'Absolute Bedlam' by nelvely

'Under Rajapakse, militarisation of Sri Lanka taking place'

November 11, 2013 13:59 IST

     Next

'The Tamils in military occupied areas are being denied the Right to Livelihood and Right to Life.'

'How can India allow the Sri Lankan government to forget that there are over 80,000 war widows? Many of them are maimed, living in inhuman conditions and unable to earn a living. What concerns Tamils in Sri Lanka concerns the Tamils in India,' says Dr Gabriele Dietrich, a grassroot activist and a naturalised Indian citizen.

From November 15 to 17, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, CHOGM, will be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

However, many human rights organisations have demanded the cancellation of the 53-nation summit because they feel CHOGM portrays that normalcy had returned to Sri Lanka.

These groups are of the view that the Sri Lankan government has got away with war crimes in the 30 years of strife and civil war in the country and are opposed to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Under pressure from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and DMK leader K Karunanidhi, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will not travel to Colombo for CHOGM, the second prime minister after Canada's Stephen Harper to boycott the meeting.

One strong voice in favour of Tamils is Dr Gabriele Dietrich, a grassroot activist and professor in social analysis and feminist theology. The German-born Dietrich has been a naturalised Indian citizen since 1990.

In a candid interview with Neeta Kolhatkar, Dietrich, 70, expressed her displeasure of Indian intelligence agencies's divide and rule policy with Tamil groups and the Government of India's allegiance to the Sri Lankan government.

She is disappointed that the Indian government has not demanded that President Rajapakse be tried for war crimes.

Professor Dietrich, how serious is the condition in the Tamil-populated areas of Sri Lanka?

Are the Tamils living under army rule and how severe is their condition?

The strife has been continuing for over 30 years. What concerns Tamils in Sri Lanka concerns Tamils in India.

In 2009, the war was supposedly over and we have seen the enormous loss of human life. Calling it genocide or war, these are just semantic terms.

The fact is, under the Rajapakse rule, we can see a complete militarisation of Sri Lanka taking place. A complete internal occupation has taken place in north and eastern areas and not just Eelam as is often understood.

The Tamils in military occupied areas are being denied the Right to Livelihood and Right to Life. For me, this is of highest concern. The Sinhalese army is using an excuse that there are land mines in these areas.

How can India allow the Sri Lankan government to forget that there are over 80,000 war widows? Many of them are maimed, living in inhuman conditions and unable to earn a living.

Their houses have been taken over by the Sinhalese army. In fact, Navaneetham Pillai, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, visited these areas for over a week. Ms Pillai showed that despite many efforts to create new infrastructures and to restore tolerable living conditions, the sufferings of people in the camps, the pain of large scale disappearances and the lot of about 80,000 war widows have not been attended to.

This was the first time any international representative visited these areas. We want the government to boycott CHOGM, because it is time the Indian government stood up for their citizens. It is time the Sri Lankan government is made to pay for their excesses.

No Fire Zone: The truth is out about Sri Lanka, despite official efforts to stop it

The government of Sri Lanka have gone to extraordinary lengths to attack us

CALLUM MACRAE-Monday 11 November 2013
On Saturday afternoon the Prime Minister sent a tweet that read: “Been watching  @NoFireZoneMovie. Chilling documentary on Sri Lanka. Serious questions to put to @PresRajapaksa next week.”

No Fire Zone is the feature documentary I directed, which contains carefully authenticated video evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the last few months of the Sri Lankan civil war. Both sides in that war committed crimes, although the most of those who died did so as a result of shelling by forces under the ultimate command of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
By including President Rajapaksa’s Twitter address in his tweet, David Cameron in effect sent it directly to him (I’m not sure if this isn’t the first example of diplomacy by tweet) while yesterday the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh announced – under huge domestic pressure from Tamil Nadu, partly as a result of our film – that he would join the Canadian Prime Minister in boycotting the summit.
That’s one side of the response to No Fire Zone. The other is that the government of Sri Lanka have gone to extraordinary lengths to attack us. I have now directed three films looking at the last few months of the civil war, the first two commissioned by Channel 4, while No Fire Zone – which was cited by the UN and saw the team nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize – went out on the channel last week.
Since its release the Sri Lankan government has gone to extraordinary lengths to silence the film which chronicles how, just four years ago, the Sri Lankan government announced a series of grotesquely misnamed ‘No Fire Zones’, encouraged hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians to gather there – and then systematically shelled them. Perhaps – as one UN report suggested– 70,000 civilians died. At the end of the war, government forces committed a series of grotesque war crimes – and filmed themselves doing so – including the execution of bound, blindfolded prisoners and the apparent systematic sexual abuse and execution of female Tamil Tiger fighters.
Sri Lankan government supporters made over 100 complaints about our TV coverage to Ofcom. After lengthy investigations every complaint was rejected.
Around the world the Sri Lankan government has tried to stop the film being shown; they protested over screenings in the UN and the European parliament and they are accused of putting pressure on the Malaysian government to stop a screening. It went ahead anyway but was raided by the Censorship Board and the police.
Just this weekend we have heard that every journalist arriving for the CHOGM will be given a 222-page book entitled Corrupted Journalism: Channel 4 and Sri Lanka which we understand rehashes many of the complaints rejected by Ofcom.
So far Sri Lankan attempts to silence the film have failed. The truth is, albeit belatedly, getting out. 

SHOCKING THREATS TO CIVIL SOCIETY IN SRI LANKA – SAYS NEW REPORT

SHOCKING THREATS TO CIVIL SOCIETY IN SRI LANKA – SAYS NEW REPORT

11 November 2013

A new report finds shocking threats to civil society in Sri Lanka amidst growing protests about the Commonwealth’s decision to host its Summit there despite strong criticism of the country’s human rights abuses.

Based on interviews with a diverse range of civil society leaders and research on the conditions affecting citizen participation, CIVICUS and the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Sri Lanka (CPA), document a litany of threats to civil society in Sri Lanka.

Read the full report here

The report - Sri Lanka’s Harassed Civil Society - finds:

Sri Lanka Report SRI LANKA’S HARASSED by nelvely

• The right to express democratic dissent is seriously imperilled, with many civil society activists facing harassment, intimidation and violence.  
• Abduction and assassination remain a constant threat for prominent journalists, activists and dissidents, with little effort by the authorities to investigate such attacks.
•  Peaceful protests have been disrupted by security forces.
• Senior officials and state-owned media have issued inappropriate and threatening statements against civil society leaders and organisations.
• The legal environment for non-governmental organisations is restrictive, with administrative and regulatory obstacles impeding their effective operation.
•  Civil society organisations are being subjected to increasing surveillance and official control, especially in the Northern Province.
• The ability of civil society organisations to find funding from overseas and work with international partners is severely hampered.

The report is published days before Commonwealth leaders arrive in Sri Lanka for the leaders Summit. It points out the hypocrisy of the Commonwealth, which claims that a free and vibrant civil society is a fundamental value of the 54-member association, hosting its flagship meeting in a country in which conditions are so bad.

“The space for CSOs to operate in Sri Lanka is under threat now more than ever. The governmental restrictions and attacks on civic space present a grave challenge to governance and reconciliation for the people of Sri Lanka post-2009. As our research demonstrates the aggressive suppression of CSOs through intimidatory tactics is of huge concern for the future of democracy in our country”, said Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the CPA.

“It is a shame that the Commonwealth has chosen to meet in a country in which one if its so-called core values is under such serious threat. We urge those leaders who have decided to attend the summit to push for urgent action from the Sri Lankan authorities to improve the situation immediately”, said CIVICUS Secretary-General, Dr Danny Sriskandarajah. 

The report offers a series of recommendations to improve the environment for civil society in Sri Lanka. CIVICUS and CPA call on the Government of Sri Lanka to stop impeding and interfering in the ability of civil society to operate freely, to lift restrictions on freedom of expression, and to promptly investigate all cases of attacks on journalists and activists and bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

ENDS

CHOGM 2013 In Sri Lanka, Dilemma Faced By Member Countries

By G.K. Nathan -November 11, 2013 

Dr. G K Nathan

The biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will be held in Sri Lanka from 15^th to 17^th November 2013. Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa made repeated attempts after the end of conflict on 18^thMay 2009 to hold CHOGM in Sri Lanka and to show to the world normalcy has returned to the country, even though the Tamil homeland in the North East Sri Lanka is under military occupation, denying fundamental rights. The first attempt was at CHOGM2009 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; the second attempt was at CHOGM2011 in Perth, where it was decided to hold CHOGM2013 in Sri Lanka.  The  favourable decisions was made in the hope that lapse of four year period, after the end of conflict in May 2009, would be long enough to heal the wounds between the Sinhala and the Tamil Nations. On the contrary the key members of the Commonwealth of Nations (the Commonwealth) have reservations about the progress claimed to have been made between the Sinhala and Tamil Nations after the 26 years long Sinhala-Tamil military conflict ended. The underlying reason of inequity between the Sinhala and the Tamil Nations, which started immediately after Independence from the Colonial power the UK in 1948, remains unresolved, which led to military conflict between the two Nations. During this four year period more and more evidence has emerged about war crimes and crimes against humanity and the expectation of the Commonwealth that four year period between the end of conflict and scheduled CHOGM2013 in Sri Lanka is long enough to establish accountability for the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity leading to reconciliation has not been met. Screening of shorter version of the film, No Fire Zone produced by Callum Macrae, as a documentary on the UK Channel 4 shown this month “No Fire Zone” puts the onus on the Heads of Commonwealth of Nations to change the direction Sri Lanka is heading, ignoring the Commonwealth charter which also upholds the International Bill of Human Rights. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, as the Commander-in-chief of the Sri Lanka armed forces, has the responsibility and the final authority to act against persons on available evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the public arena. He is in denial that war crimes and crimes against humanity occurred, but claims that he liberated the Tamil Nation with “zero casualty”. International human rights organizations and media in Australia, Canada, India and the UK are challenging the credential of President Rajapaksa to hold CHOGM2013 in Sri Lanka and assume the Commonwealth chair-in-office for the next two years? The great dilemma for the Commonwealth Heads of Government to be or not to be at CHOGM2013 in Sri Lanka is the result of United Nation initiated inquiries and investigative report from others..

Unfinished role of United Nation in Sri Lanka                                  Read More

Double standards in the Commonwealth?

As Indian and Canadian leaders stay away from a summit in Sri Lanka, we ask if this will damage the bloc's credibility.

11 Nov 2013

A controversial Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka has been dealt a double blow.

Officials in India - which is the biggest member of the 53 nation bloc - said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would not be attending the meeting this week, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also confirmed that he would stay away.

Sri Lanka has been accused of failing to address accusations of human rights abuses in the civil war against Tamil separatists, and of committing more violations since then.

I think [Manmohan Singh's move] is the right decision taken for the wrong reasons. It has been taken for domestic reasons because both of the major parties in the southern state of Tamil Nadu made it known that they would take offence if the prime minister visited there, and [because of] the national elections due anytime early next year ... But it is the right decision because it is a question of deciding what [the] Commonwealth group of countries is really all about.

KC Singh, former Indian diplomat 

"Canada was disturbed by ongoing reports of intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances and allegations of extrajudicial killings," Harper said last month.

Sri Lanka's civil war was waged in the north and east of the country for more than 26 years. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, wanted to create an independent state but they were finally defeated in May 2009. It was the events of the final few months of the conflict that have raised specific concerns.

The United Nations says both sides committed atrocities against civilians, and called for an investigation into possible war crimes. The Sri Lankan government is accused of attacking civilian areas - something the government denies.

The UN believes 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the closing stages of the war, with 70,000 people unaccounted for. 

The Commonwealth of Nations is a loose association of former British colonies, including a few other countries. It was founded in 1931 and spans six of the seven continents, with an estimated population in excess of two billion.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is the bloc's official head.

Over the years, several countries have been suspended from the Commonwealth for what were considered serious or persistent violations.

Nigeria was excluded from 1995 until 1999 for executing activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. The military coup by Pervez Musharraf saw Pakistan suspended from 1999 until 2004.

Zimbabwe pulled out in 2003 after being suspended because of Robert Mugabe's electoral and land reforms. Fiji's membership has variously lapsed or been suspended since declaring itself a Republic in 1987, and following a series of coups.

And just last month, The Gambia withdrew in the face of human rights criticism, branding the Commonwealth a neo-colonial institution.

So, given these precedents, should Sri Lanka have been suspended? And are Commonwealth nations guilty of hypocrisy?

To discuss this, Inside Story, with presenter Jane Dutton, is joined by guests: KC Singh, a former Indian diplomat and strategic affairs expert; Alan Keenan, the Sri Lanka project director for the International Crisis Group; and Kalinga Seneviratne, a Sri Lankan journalist, broadcaster and researcher.

"If you look at the Indian government's position on Sri Lanka over the last three or four years, it has slowly been getting tougher. They voted twice at the UN Human Rights Council in support of US-sponsored resolutions that were highly critical of the Sri Lankan government - for both refusing to investigate the allegations about possible war crimes at the end of the war, but also at the deterioration of democratic governance and human rights protections as we speak. They clearly have been sending very strong messages privately to the government so this [move] I think is consistent with what is an increasingly firm line from India on a range of issues in Sri Lanka." Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka's project director for the International Crisis Group

Sri Lanka detains Australia, New Zealand lawmakers over human rights abuses probe

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will skip the Colombo CHOGM summit over the alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka. (AFP photo)

AFP | Nov 10, 2013, 05.57

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan immigration authorities on Sunday briefly detained an Australian and a New Zealand politician on a fact-finding mission into alleged human rights abuses, officials said. 

The move came days before the country hosts a Commonwealth summit, amid pressure on visiting leaders to boycott the event over alleged war crimes. 

Immigration officials held Australian senatorLee Rhiannon and New Zealand MP Jan Logieshortly before they were to hold a press conference about their mission, an opposition Sri Lankan lawmaker said. 

"They were accused of breaching visa conditions, but they had 'special projects visas' to be in Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission," Tamil lawmaker MA Sumanthiran told AFP. 

An immigration official confirmed the pair were detained briefly at their hotel room for questioning, but declined to give details. 

The Australian high commission (embassy) said the senator had been questioned about an alleged breach of her visa conditions but was later released. 

"We understand that they are on their way back home according to their travel plans," a high commission official said. 

Sumanthiran of the Tamil National Alliance said the pair had been questioned because the government was "paranoid" about foreigners looking into the country's dismal rights record. 

"Publicly, the government says anyone can come here and see for themselves, but actually they don't want the world to know what is happening here," he said. 

He said the two were eventually freed because they were scheduled anyway to leave the country on Sunday. 

The pair had travelled to the island's former northern war zone to look into cases of human rights abuses, four years after government forces crushed Tamil rebels to end a decades-long separatist war. 

The move came less than two weeks after Sri Lanka kicked out two Australian media rights activists who were meeting local rights activists. 

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already said he will not attend the November 15-17 Comonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also skip the summit over the alleged war crimes by Colombo, a government source said in New Delhi on Sunday. 

Sri Lanka faced censure at the UN Human Rights Council over its failure to probe allegations that up to 40,000 civilians were killed by its troops in the final months of the battle with Tamil rebels in 2009, charges the country has denied

David Cameron, a boycott is the only way you can help the Tamil people

Kana Nirmalan, British Tamils Forum (BTF) Tamil Guardian 11 November 2013  A few days from now David Cameron will arrive in Colombo to shake hands with a man who presided over the killing of at least 40,000 Tamil civilians and whose government continues to perpetrate shocking cases of rape, torture and mutilation – when the doors open on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka. As he sits down to watch the opening ceremony, the Prime Minister will not be able ignore the absence of two of his most prominent counterparts – the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Both are boycotting the event.

Facing widespread and mounting criticism for not taking a similar stand, David Cameron met members of the Tamil community, including us, last Thursday to discuss our calls for a boycott. Despite our scepticism at the government’s sudden interest in listening to our views, we took this opportunity to put our case directly to the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, it was clear from the start that he had already firmly made up his mind; throughout the meeting he sought only to persuade us that his attendance would be in the Tamil people’s best interests.

Let us be clear why we – along with many, many others – call for this boycott.

This boycott is not just about fairness – although we are stung by the Commonwealth’s decision to reward a state that has, with complete impunity, killed tens of thousands of Tamils and tortured, raped and disappeared countless more.

This boycott is not just about standing up for human rights and democracy – although as firm believers in these ideals we cannot help but despair that the Commonwealth, an organisation set up to embody democracy and human rights, is hiring itself out to a regime that embodies their antithesis.


And this boycott certainly is not about “ducking the difficult discussions”, as David Cameron put it [in an op-ed published in the Tamil Guardian on Thursday], although the irony is not lost on us that the Prime Minister has, both in the past and on the current issue of CHOGM, ducked many difficult discussions in order to smooth the UK’s diplomatic and economic relations with Sri Lanka.

This boycott is for one crucial reason: to stop Sri Lanka exploiting the Commonwealth of Nations to shield itself from mounting international pressure against its persecution of the Tamil people.

There is no doubt that this is precisely what Sri Lanka has already been doing in the run-up to CHOGM. For some months now, the Commonwealth Secretariat has been a lone voice of praise in a sea of international criticism over Sri Lanka’s human rights record. In recent days, Sri Lanka has been busy distributing propaganda to international journalists covering CHOGM to discredit Channel 4 News – an organisation that has worked meticulously to collect and broadcast evidence of Sri Lanka’s war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Tamils. Sri Lanka extensively uses the kitemark of its CHOGM-host status to market its tourism industry abroad.

As CHOGM opens this week and Mahinda Rajapaksa assumes his two-year chairmanship of the Commonwealth of Nations, does our Prime Minister honestly believe that Sri Lanka will not squeeze every drop of propaganda it can from its newly exalted position on the international stage, to deflect attention away from its past and present abuses?

David Cameron has a unique opportunity to stop Sri Lanka and save the Commonwealth. The UK’s absence – on top of India’s and Canada’s boycott – would fatally undermine Sri Lanka’s attempt to hijack this venerable institution. The Prime Minister could ensure that this year’s CHOGM goes down in history as an unfortunate aberration, giving the Commonwealth a chance to redeem its reputation. David Cameron can, precisely through his absence, thwart Sri Lanka’s plot to undermine international efforts to hold it to account for its abuses and crimes. On the other hand, David Cameron’s attendance would be an unmitigated victory for Sri Lanka’s violent and authoritarian government, which would undoubtedly prolong the suffering and pain of the oppressed Tamil people.

At the meeting, the Prime Minister spoke of “shining a spotlight” on Sri Lanka’s past and present human rights abuses, and promised to have “frank” discussions with the Sri Lankan government. These sentiments are simply too little too late. Many before him have tried to engage with Sri Lanka and others have done a wonderful job shining a spotlight on Sri Lanka’s abuses. Yet, these efforts on their own have brought little respite to the Tamil people. If he genuinely wants to help the Tamil people – David Cameron must now take far more robust action. Ensure that an international, independent inquiry takes place; prevent Sri Lanka procuring arms and aid to further oppress the Tamil people; and boycott an event Sri Lanka will use to cleanse its tarnished international image.

We applaud Canada and India for making a stand for Commonwealth values and the long-suffering Tamil people; it is still not too late for our Prime Minister to do the same.

4:34PM  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZilvNy_8JNB6

The People’s Forums Highlight Challenges For The Future

By Jehan Perera -November 11, 2013 |

Jehan Perera

The government has left nothing to chance where it concerns the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which is to commence in the next few days. It invested heavily in CHOGM both in term of its political and financial capital. The government expects the international perspective on Sri Lanka, its economic potential and peaceful climate, to undergo a drastic transformation for the better. In the immediate run-up to the Heads of Government summit, there were three other forums, the Business Forum in Colombo, the Youth Forum in Hambantota and the People’s Forum inHikkaduwa. In the past the People’s Forum was also known as the NGO Forum, but now it has been widened to include the whole of civil society.

The Role of Civil Society is one of the 16 paragraphs of the Commonwealth Charter which has also been signed by Sri Lanka. It states, “We recognise the important role that civil society plays in our communities and countries as partners in promoting and supporting Commonwealth values and principles, including the freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and in achieving development goals.” Since 1991, it has been the practice for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be accompanied by a Commonwealth People’s Forum that brings civil society leaders from across the Commonwealth to share their experiences with one another.

On this occasion the People’s Forum is to be held in Hikkaduwa. About 400 participants drawn in approximately equal numbers from foreign countries and Sri Lanka are presently attending this official event, which was ceremonially opened by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. It was evident that meticulous care had gone into the organizing of the People’s Forum. There was a fleet of newly purchased buses painted with the CHOGM symbol to transport the conference delegates to the opening ceremony which was in Galle. The venue was the old Dutch Hospital in the Galle Fort area, which had been re-furbished and reconstructed to be a world-class hospitality centre in a short space of a few months. The cultural aspects of the programme were tasteful and multi ethnic. All announcements were made in Sinhala, Tamil and English, and the dances and cultural items were representative of the different communities living in the country.

The enormous strides forward that Sri Lanka has made since the end of the war four years ago was one of the themes of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s address to the delegates at the People’s Forum. He said that “Sri Lanka is experiencing a time of change, of creativity, and expectations of a bright smiling future for all its citizens.” He showed his love for children by having them lead him to the stage and emphasized the future of the younger generations and the responsibility of the present leaders towards them. However, it was unfortunate that this measured speech of the President was followed by the background announcement that the President who had just spoken was the pragmatic leader who had brought peace to our motherland and was the “Father of the Nation.” This was out of place in a gathering of civil society leaders from across the globe who would invariably question the democratic spirit in such fawning utterances.

Accompanying Controversies                                        Read More