Violence against women is not acceptable and can be prevented

FOR THE 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN, FROM 25 NOVEMBER TO 10 DECEMBER, #ORANGEURWORLD WITH ACTIONS TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS!

UNDP calls for renewed efforts to end gender-based violence

21 Nov 2013

Every year, at least two million women and girls are trafficked into prostitution, forced slavery, and servitude. Up to 60 percent of women experience some form of physical or sexual abuse during their lifetime. 
On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is calling for renewed efforts to end violence against women. 
“Gender-based violence hurts women, their families and their countries, and it reinforces inequalities between men and women throughout the world. Marital rape is still not considered a criminal offense in more than 35 countries. More than 603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime. 
“This is not acceptable: better laws and their enforcement are needed,” said Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.  She called for law enforcement and judicial systems to work together with governments, civil society and international partners to tackle the root causes of violence against women, support victims, and bring perpetrators to justice. 
Gender-based discrimination remains the single most widespread driver of inequalities in today’s world. This is captured in UNDP’s new Regional Human Development Report (HDR) 2013-2014  Citizen Security with a Human Face: evidence and proposals for Latin America,which sets out that gender-based violence contributes to insecurity in Latin America and is a persistent threat and obstacle to human development, public health and human rights. 
According to the report, almost all the assessed countries in the region recorded increases of domestic violence, rape and female murders. Among UNDP-surveyed inmates who had committed sexual offenses, between 75 percent and 90 percent reported knowing their victims before the crime and between 20 percent and 40 percent were family members. 
While the evidence linking gender-based violence and poverty grows, so does a global call to include men's voices in the solution to violence against women. A recent UN study carried out in the Asia Pacific region found that of the 10,000 men surveyed, nearly half reported using physical and/or sexual violence against a female partner. 
Although the study's dire findings reaffirm how widespread the problem remains, it also identified that the majority of factors associated with men's use of violence against women can be changed. The study recommends that development interventions should address social norms related to the acceptability of violence and dominant gender stereotypes, as well as focusing on ending impunity for perpetrators. 
This same message is set out in the report A Million Voices: The World We Want, which synthesizes the results of an unprecedented global consultation involving over a million people across all countries and backgrounds on what the world’s future development agenda should look like. It states that the current Millennium Development Goals framework, which reaches its deadline in 2015, is silent on violence against women and girls, even though one of the eight goals is on gender. 
Any future development agenda, the report states, must have a strong focus on gender-based inequalities and gender-based violence, without which the world will be neither able to address the drivers of conflict and violence nor guarantee accelerated and sustainable development. 
UNDP works with countries around the world on initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, including in crisis countries where rape and sexual assault are used as a tool of war. It reaffirms its commitment to end gender-based violence and calls for increased efforts to tackle specific patterns of violence in development and crisis contexts, working with women’s organizations as well as men and boys.

93 schoolgirls, teachers molested on Patna train
November 25, 2013

Women are not safe, individually or in groups, in India. This is exactly what 93 schoolgirls travelling on a train from Patna to Dhanbad found out on Sunday.

The girls and their three women teachers from Carmel School in Dhanbad and Digwadih in Jharkhand, were molested on board a train when they were returning from Patna after attending a two-day environmental camp. 

Their ordeal, which lasted for nearly four hours, began on Saturday at 10 pm when the group reached Patna railway station  and found that their reserved seats on the Ganga Damodar Express had been occupied by a large group of men who claimed to be examinees of the railway recruitment exam.

The men refused to vacate the seats and just after 11.40pm, when the train left Patna junction, the men began harassing and molesting the girls.

The teachers who tried to stop them and protect the girls were reportedly assaulted by the men. Their ordeal ended at the Koderma station, four hours later, when the men got off.

The teachers are expected to lodge a police complaint on Monday.

The tail wags the dog: Israel publicly upbraids the US on Iran

NOVEMBER 21, 2013

Israel has gotten so used to the United States being totally subservient to it that it seems incapable of tolerating the slightest deviation from its diktats by Washington.

For a country that swallows up some eight million dollars a day of American taxpayers’ money, one might expect some self-restraint, at least in symbolic gratitude for the largesse it receives from its increasingly economically desperate benefactors. But no.

In fact, the arrogance and hubris of the Israelis has reached the point where they feel totally at ease to publicly upbraid their American protectors for being disobedient.

“Jerusalem is ‘unpleasantly surprised’ that, as of Thursday afternoon [21 November], the Obama administration had not unequivocally condemned vicious anti-Israel statements made Wednesday morning by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” a senior Israeli official told the Times of Israel.

The official, Hilik Bar, who is deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, was commenting on some truths uttered by Khamenei the previous day, when he said that Israel was doomed to fail and characterized it as the “sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region”.

In a statement that beggars belief, Bar demanded that US Secretary of State John Kerry and European leaders “issue condemnations in the strongest possible terms” – and “sooner rather than later”.

“I was disappointed to hear no strong condemnation nor any official censure whatsoever by the United States, the European countries, nor the EU itself.” he whinged.

However, it would seem that the Obama administration had had enough. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a top White House official warned on 20 November that Israel’s demand that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear capacity in exchange for sanctions relief would likely lead to war.

Given a choice between “total capitulation” and advancing toward a nuclear weapon, Iran would choose the weapon, the unnamed official said, adding that the Israeli position would “close the door on diplomacy” and “essentially lead to war”.

It’s taken it a long time, but at last the Obama administration is showing some backbone in its relations with the rabid dog of the Middle East. How long it can sustain this modicum of courage in the face of Zionist-lobby bullying and blackmail, and whether Obama would allow the Zionist pimp in Paris to scupper a historic chance for reconciliation with Iran, is anybody’s guess.

GL in 44 CHOGM trips in five months

By Ravi Ladduwahetty -Monday, 25 Nov 2013

External Affairs Minister, Prof. G.L. Peiris, has visited 44 countries in five months to urge Heads of Governments of Commonwealth nations to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Sri Lanka from 15-17 November, the opposition charged yesterday.

"This is an absurd situation where Minister Peiris has visited 44 of the 54 Commonwealth countries, busting Rs 150 million, as only 21 of them arrived in Sri Lanka," United National Party (UNP) Colombo District MP, Ravi Karunanayake, charged. He also said Prof. Peiris commenced his foreign jaunts after Geneva resolution in March, which also included countries that supported Sri Lanka against the resolution.

Karunanayake added the visits were an absurd waste of public funds where Rs 150 million was spent to cover the air travel and hotel accommodation expenses of the minister and the delegation that accompanied him. However, he noted that the sum spent on the travels was miniscule in the light of the Rs 15.8 billion cumulative expenditure incurred for the entire summit with little or no tangible benefits.

He added the waste is reflected in 33 heads of government not coming to Sri Lanka for the event and also in the light of little or no investments coming this way since the closure of the Summit.

"The government could not get neighbouring India and the Maldives and also Mauritius, which was to host the next Summit, to visit. There were also no major businessmen from the Commonwealth Business Forum other than the Chinese delegation," he claimed.

Karunanayake also queried as to how Sri Lanka can attract foreign investments across the world, when it can barely attract Indian and Pakistani investments under the Free Trade Agreements that Sri Lanka has with those countries.

Despite repeated attempts to contact Minister Prof. Peiris and Deputy Minister Neomal Perera proved futile. Ministry Secretary, Karunatilleke Amunugama, said only one invitation was handed over, but the others were sent to the respective heads of governments through the Sri Lankan High Commissions in those countries.

The Discontents Of A Foreign Policy, Made-In-Medamulana

By Tisaranee Gunasekara -November 24, 2013 

“Hail the Great Leader of the Commonwealth” - The wording on hoardings celebrating the Rajapaksa Commonwealth-Chairmanship

In 2012, Mahinda Rajapaksa asked India to send the Kapilawastu relics to Sri Lanka for a public exposition. A new round of provincial elections was being planned and the regime wanted to use the relics to bolster its Sinhala-Buddhist credentials.

After the 1995 exposition in Thailand, India had decided not to send the Kapilawastu relics out again, because of their ‘delicate nature’. But when Colombo made its request, Delhi complied: “making an exception, the Government of India decided to send them to Sri Lanka”[i].

The ‘Tamil issue’ is an irremovable factor in Indo-Lanka relations but its importance is not a constant. Publicly, Delhi will always pay lip service to ‘Tamil interests’. But in actuality, the ‘Tamil Nadu factor’ becomes significant only during election seasons. In between, Delhi tends to accord more priority to appeasing Colombo (to keep it out of Beijing’s orbit and to promote Indian business interests) than to satisfying Tamil Nadu.

But such variations and nuances are beyond the comprehension of the Rajapaksas. Thus they turned PM Singh’s presence at the Colombo Commonwealth into a public tug-of-war between Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. They failed to appreciate that given the proximity of elections and the challenge posed by the Modi-factor, the Congress Party would not want to take any risks with the Tamil Nadu votes.

In today’s world even the sole super power cannot ignore global public opinion or expect uncritical and unconditional support, ad infinitum. The Rajapaksas, lacking in both material and moral force, think that they can ignore global opinion and have their way, with impunity. They regard international relations through the same distorting ‘us vs. them’ prism they use in national politics. Either you support us unconditionally under all circumstances or you are our enemy is becoming the Siblings’ approach even in the international arena.

An independent and sovereign country cannot permit the world to decide its agenda. However a rational government, in fashioning its agenda, cannot ignore the concerns of the international community nor act totally at variance with these concerns. If a country is financially dependent on external sources, as Sri Lanka is, political autarky becomes even more unaffordable. Such a country should try to take a sober view of its problems, prospects and options and come up with the most optimum compromise possible, by balancing varying and conflicting interests, instead of allowing the megalomania of its leaders to chart not just its national but also its international course.

The Chinese Card                                                   Read More

Breaking The Silence Journal: UCL 23 November 2013 The ‘#BreaktheSilence’ campaign continued as students from the University College London (UCL) held their exhibition detailing the history of human rights violations and war crimes in Sri Lanka on Monday. Running an exposition in the busy North Cloisters section of UCL, they campaigned with the goal to raise awareness amongst the student body and to gather support for the growing demand for an independent international investigation into the country’s actions during the last months of the ethnic conflict.

Breaking the Silence Journal UCL by nelvely

Rajiv Gandhi assassination case: ‘Perarivalan's statement not recorded verbatim’

 Sunday, November 24, 2013

Chennai: A former CBI officer involved in the investigation in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case has purportedly said he had not recorded verbatim the statement of A G Perarivalan, a death convict in the case.

A documentary, produced by a group of individuals and People's Movement Against Death Penalty (PMADP), quotes former IPS officer S P Thiyagarajan as saying he had not recorded the part where Perarivalan had told him he was not aware why he was asked to purchase the batteries. 

Perarivalan alias Arivu was sentenced to death for buying battery cells to make the belt bomb used to kill the former Prime Minister during an election rally at Sriperumbudur here in May 1991. 

Perarivalan and two other death row convicts in the case, Murugan and Santhan, have challenged the rejection of their mercy pleas by then President Pratibha Patil. 

"What pricks me is Arivu said he did not know why they asked him to buy this (battery); he said that. But while recording that statement I did not record this statement that he did not know (about the batteries). Investigation was in progress, so I did not write it. Though strictly speaking, law expects you to record the statement verbatim. But in practice we don't do that," Thiagarajan, tasked with recording the statement of the accused in the case, said. 

The statement was taken "superficially" and they jumped to a conclusion as if Perarivalan was aware of the plot to kill Gandhi, he said. 

The retired Kerala cadre officer's remarks come 22 years after the assassination of Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber. 

"I always felt a little uneasy in Arivu's case. The confessional statement has not been appreciated the way it should have been appreciated," he said. 

He added that wireless intercepts between key accused Sivarasan and LTTE leader 'Pottu' Amman reveal that the former had not disclosed the plot to anyone. 

Thiyagarajan said he made the latest revelations in "good conscience." 

"I thought it was my duty to get in touch with Arivu and his advocates and bring out the true import of the confessional statement so that if possible, even at this last minute, we can try and save a precious human life," he said. 

Earlier in February, former Supreme Court Judge K T Thomas who had confirmed the death sentence of the accused had said it would be "constitutionally incorrect" to hang them as the convicts have spent 22 years in jail without a "review" of their case. 

V R Krishna Iyer, who heads PMADP, appealed in the documentary against executing anyone in this case, saying "whenever there is a suspicion, please don't execute." 

PTI

First Published: Sunday, November 24, 2013, 19:40

Putting the Lankan state on notice post CHOGM

Sunday, November 24, 2013

As the nation catches its breath following an extravagantly useless Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2013 (CHOGM), the only way in which Sri Lanka can avoid evident international pitfalls ahead is to put our internal democratic systems in order.

TRC another procrastinating tactic

It is time and more that we stopped wasting energy protesting double standards followed by Western nations where accountability for human rights abuses is concerned. Such fierce gnashing of teeth in regard to historical as well as present injustices may raise some hurrahs and may certainly be justified. But justification matters little when measured against the harsh realities of international realpolitik. That much is evident.

And the way ahead is not through the appointment of a South African style Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as reported recently. This move speaks to an increasing desperation of the government in finding yet another way to procrastinate and delay, to not deal with the inevitable and let go its authoritarian hold on power.

The TRC was suited to South Africa in a particular post-apartheid context under the visionary leadership of Nelson Mandela. It was meticulously planned and carefully executed by the country’s leading clergy, judicial figures and public personalities of unimpeachable integrity. Importantly this was accompanied by a gradual crafting of workable democratic structures, an advanced Bill of Rights and a proudly independent South African judiciary.

The TRC was not conceived out of the blue as it were and dropped down into the country as an excuse to avoid dealing with the general democratic process of government while everything remained dysfunctional elsewhere. It was peculiar to South Africa. Similar models have not worked elsewhere, even in the African region as we have well seen. Where Sri Lanka is concerned, suggesting a TRC without any conception of what this actually means but as another procrastinating tactic seems so childishly simplistic that it truly beggars belief.

No practical implementation of LLRC report

And we hear talk of a TRC even as the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which is the Rajapaksa Presidency’s loudly boasted ‘homegrown’ Commission, remains shamefully bypassed in large measure. During CHOGM, glib excuses were advanced by government spokesmen that there had been fifty percent implementation of LLRC recommendations. This is patently untrue. The deterioration of the Rule of Law was a core focus of the LLRC report. We have not seen the government’s adherence to that LLRC focus so far. On the contrary, the ‘soft’ recommendations of the LLRC have been reluctantly implemented while its ‘hardcore’ recommendations that go to the dismantling of this Presidency’s authoritarian and militaristic power structure remains glossed over.

One classic example is the cosmetic creation of a new Ministry of Law and Order under which the Department of the Police has been placed. However, to all intents and purposes, the militarization of the police continues, the secretary to this so-called new ministry is a former army man and the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence who is the President’s brother, evidently continues to exercise command responsibility in regard to the police.

The enactment of a Witness and Victim Protection law where the police are apparently given the task of protecting victims even though the police themselves are very often the very source of the threat is another example. Meanwhile, we do not hear even a whisper regarding the enactment of a Right to Information (RTI) law. The government’s fear of an RTI Law being wielded as a formidable weapon to expose its monumental corruption is crystal clear.

Reversing post-war militarization of the State

It is ironic that even while diplomats boasted on international news channels during CHOGM that the emergency regime in Sri Lanka has been withdrawn, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) continues to be in force and is used against dissenters and critics of the government. One recent example was the detention orders issued against Muslim politician Azath Salley including one ridiculous charge that he had been ‘humiliating the government.’ Here as in several other instances, the power of the Presidential pardon was used to take the case out of the consideration of the court and into the province of presidential or monarchical magnanimity.

Over and above everything else however, Sri Lanka’s judicial and legal processes must be freed from executive control. The judiciary itself must engage in vibrant protection of civil liberties of the Sri Lankan people, similar to what the Sri Lankan Supreme Court was during the mid 1990′s, before the disastrous Silva decade. This country has had entrenched traditions of judicial stubbornness in resisting government abuse even though the constitutional framework did not permit a sweeping exercise of judicial powers as much as, for example, the Indian Supreme Court. Despite past ravages, there are brave and good judges still in this country. They must be allowed to exercise their judicial role without fear of consequences from the political branch and the destructive consequences of the 2012-2013 witch-hunt impeachment of a sitting Chief Justice must be reversed.

Promise of dire consequences post CHOGM

Where the criminal justice system is concerned, the office of the Attorney General needs to be restored to at least a modicum of independent functioning. Patchwork indictments in respect of extraordinary human rights violations that should have been properly investigated and prosecuted with perpetrators punished years ago will not suffice.

But in all probability – and barring an ecstatic miracle – none of these will happen. And the consequences for Sri Lanka, in terms of being outlawed from the community of nations despite our gleaming expressways and rising city skylines, are dire indeed. CHOGM made that perfectly plain, even to the palpable idiots in our midst.

Whither Justice? The Proposal For A South African Style TRC In Sri Lanka

By Niran Anketell -November 24, 2013 

Niran Anketell

As the dust settles on the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo, the press has reported that Sri Lanka may be considering the establishment of a South Africa style Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the assistance of the Commonwealth and the South African government.

As a preliminary observation, however, it is important to note that contemporarySri Lanka and post-apartheid South Africa have vastly different political and social contexts. The South African TRC (SA TRC) model and amnesties were worked out after a formal transfer of power from the regime responsible for the vast majority of crimes under apartheid to the leaders of the liberation struggle. Moreover the dominant religious belief system in South Africa—where Christian rituals of repentance and forgiveness have significant theological resonance—is fundamentally different to the religious beliefs of the majority of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim victims.

Nevertheless, the SA TRC continues to possess an enduring appeal for Colombo based—as opposed to North and East based—civil society NGOs. Very few, if any, conversations on reconciliation and transitional justice within Colombo civil society networks conclude without references to the SA TRC as the paradigmatic case of the ideal transitional justice model. The Sri Lankan government has also sought to draw parallels between its own attitude to post-conflict justice reflected in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, and the SA TRC.

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Memories Of The Wanni; The Vaddas And The Vanniyas

By Darshanie Ratnawalli -November 24, 2013 

Darshanie Ratnawalli

I will call him Jayaseelan because I can’t recall his name (Preposterous but bear with me). Jayaseelan is a Tamil speaking Vadda who is an ex-LTTE fighter. Sometime after 2009, Sunday Divaina had done a story on Jayaseelan. It had captured a retrospective inner conflict going on within the man. Jayaseelan confessed to asking himself the question, “I am a Vadda. Why did I fight for a separate Tamil state?” However, that was not what made the story stick in my mind. Jayaseelan had a grandfather who, while recounting the history of their community in the area, had let drop, almost casually, that they were Bandara Vannia’s[i] people.

Sharing the Wanni like they did the Vaddas and Vanniyas intermingled in interesting ways. They married each other, transformed into each other, and became “ruler” and the “ruled over” to each other in unidirectional ways with the Vanniyas ruling over bands of Vaddas. They even came to resemble each other in ways that caused certain 19^th century British administrators to suspect a relationship[ii] (S. Fowler, Diary of 3^rd May 1887).

In Sinhala consciousness of living memory the term “wanniya” (closed vowel) is a geographic term inalienably bound-up with “wanaya” and “wanantharaya” (meaning forest). “Wanni wanantharaya”, “wanni mukalana”, “hadda wanniya”, “heethala wanniya” are colloquial Sinhalese usages carrying strong subliminal associations of the Vadda. The Vaddas are of course carriers of the name “wanniyalettho”, the present Vadi chieftain being “Uruwarige Wanniyalettho”.

For Sri Lanka, the period between the 13^th and 17^th centuries was a time of resurgence and recovery. In-migrations were orchestrated from Bengal and diverse parts of South India. There were irrigation works to restore and de populated regions to reclaim. “The involvement of the Sinhala-dominated states in this process of in-migration is demonstrated in several sources.”- (Roberts: 2004, p72). South India, the source of most of these in-migrations was a land which had a well established Vanniya tradition. The earliest references to the Vanniya in South India predate Lankan references and go back to the 11^th century inscriptions of the Colas. The earliest South Indian mention is the word “vanniya parru” occurring in the “inscription No. 556 of 1919, which appears to belong to the time of Rajaraja I (985-1014)”.-(Indrapala, 1970[iii]). “Vanniya-parru” means vanniya holding (ibid) and seems to find a corresponding echo in the Sinhalese term “vanni peruven” found in “Vanni Bandara Vitti Potak: Rate Attange Niti kandaya”. This manuscript, (Or 6606-182) in the Hugh Nevill Collection contains the Sinhalese folk historical tradition about the arrival of first immigrant group in the wanni region of Lanka and says that these seven “malavara” chieftains came from Kumara-valiyen (princely clan) ); Bndara-valiyen (from the families of dignitaries); and from Vanni-Peruven (Vanni class of Vanni land).-(D.G.B 1996[iv]).

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Geneva: March 2014 is not looking good

From the sidelines By Lasanda Kurukulasuriya-Sunday, November 24, 2013

The UN General Assembly has elected 14 new members to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and assuming there will be a third resolution brought against Sri Lanka in March 2014, it’s not looking good.

A rough count of how voting on such a resolution would go in the 47 member Council, based on the previous votes in 2012 and 2013, suggests that 23 members are likely to vote against Sri Lanka and 13 for, while six will abstain and five remain unpredictable. Sri Lanka will need to launch an intense diplomatic effort with special attention to African and Latin American states if it hopes to alter this equation by then. States representing the global South are the country’s natural allies. Besides they form the majority in the HRC where seats are assigned on the basis of ‘equitable geographical distribution,’ with 13 seats for Africa, 13 for Asia-Pacific, and eight for Latin America.

On Nov 12 a General Assembly vote, in keeping with the practice of annually electing one third of the Council, gave membership to Algeria, China, Cuba, France, Maldives (re-elected), Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Macedonia, United Kingdom and Vietnam. Their term will run for three years from Jan 2014. Of these countries while it may be anticipated that China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Cuba will add to the number that supported Sri Lanka in March this year (by voting against a hostile resolution), a similar number of votes will be lost with outgoing members Ecuador, Mauritania, Qatar, Thailand and Uganda. This means there is no change in the tally of 13 likely to vote for Sri Lanka in 2014.

Six outgoing members that voted against Sri Lanka in March are Guatemala, Libya, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Spain and Switzerland. Four new members France, the UK, Mexico and Macedonia are likely to support an anti-Sri Lanka resolution, and bring the total against in 2014 to 23 — two less than in 2013. Those who abstained remain — Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Japan and Kazakhstan. Gabon did not vote, and new members whose position is unknown are Algeria, Morocco, Namibia and South Africa. In 2009 South Africa supported Sri Lanka.

It’s worth recollecting the dynamics that worked in favour of Sri Lanka at the HRC special session in Geneva 26-27 May 2009, soon after the war’s end, when a Swiss-EU draft resolution brought against the country was defeated, and Sri Lanka’s counter resolution adopted with an incredible majority of nearly two thirds (29), with only 12 against. India was among the most outspoken in its support of the Sri Lankan resolution. India’s retreat from that stance is attributed to its domestic electoral compulsions that have come into play since then. New Delhi is concerned about Colombo’s tardiness in reaching lasting political accord with the Tamils.

Do the other reversals point to failures in diplomacy? Brazil, which supported Sri Lanka in 2009, voted against us this year. Argentina and Republic of Korea which had abstained in 2009, also voted against, while Burkina Faso which had backed Sri Lanka in 2009, abstained in 2012 and 2013. While the numbers count for obvious reasons, the need to win the support of democracies like India, Brazil and South Africa assumes importance in order to wrest the moral high ground from the West. This would buttress the strength of Sri Lanka’s communist friends like China, Russia and Cuba. Cuba’s ambassador Juan Antonio Fernandes Palacios was among the most vocal advocates of the 2009 resolution and made a strong statement calling on the Council to support it, that was also critical of the EU’s draft.

The backdrop to the highly charged environment in which the 2009 special session took place is detailed by Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN at the time, in his book ‘Long war, cold peace.’ With the Tigers’ defeat imminent, the EU Parliament was pushing for an HRC resolution to stall the military offensive and resume negotiations with the terrorist separatist Tigers. The Sri Lankan team together with its friends in the Non Aligned Movement “fought a bitter rearguard action to prevent the 16 signatures requisite for the holding a special session and managed to hold it back while the war was on. …. The EU was one signature short for 10 days but shortly after the war was over on the 18th-19th May, the last signature was obtained.” The special session was held on 26-27 May 2009, and the rest is history.

Jayatilleka recalls that a lesson of Geneva May 2009 was Sri Lanka’s ability to “rally the broadest forces, construct coalitions, build alliances with those who stood for sovereignty and a multi-polar world, neutralize those vacillators in the middle, thus BALANCING OFF pressures on our national sovereignty from the Diaspora-driven, humanitarian interventionist’ powers.”
The former ambassador got little thanks for leading the team that pulled off this remarkable feat, he was recalled a few months later for reasons that remain unclear.

A hostile resolution adopted in the UN HRC in 2014 is likely to go beyond the language of 2012 and 2013, and could possibly bring sanctions and unwelcome interference in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. British Prime Minister David Cameron at CHOGM last Saturday threatened to use UK’s position in the rights body to call for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes. Such a development could have the long term effect of reversing the war victory, reducing the immense sacrifices made by Sri Lankan troops to naught. With so much at stake, and in the national interest, President Rajapaksa would do well to consider sending Jayatilleka back into the fray to redeem whatever remote chance there is of preempting such a damning outcome in March 2014.

Cameron Stole The CHOGM And The Budget Before A Crisis

By Ahilan Kadirgamar -November 24, 2013 |

Ahilan Kadirgamar

The 2014 Budget unveiled by the President is a Budget for everyone. It addresses infrastructure, health, education, business, banking, agriculture, fisheries, housing, pensions and anything and everything everyone wants. It is for this reason that it is confusing and difficult to criticise. What is the economic policy vision and strategy and what are the priorities in the Budget?

This article analyses the 2014 Budget as a continuation of the open economic policies since 1977, and particularly, a reinforcement of the accelerating neoliberal policy trajectory after the war ended in 2009. It discusses policy priorities by revealing the scale of investments in urban construction and infrastructure. It critiques the lack of redistribution and increasing inequalities promoted by tax policy. It analyses the process of financialisation supported by this Budget in order to understand the dynamics that could create an economic crisis.

Bowing to Pressures

The Rajapaksa regime has mastered electoral politics. And more, the regime has been able to take the wind out of every mounting struggle. Political parties are broken and their members are bought over. Militant struggles are appeased with hand outs. Even as the regime becomes more and more authoritarian and arrogant, it has not lost sense of the pulse on the ground. It is the Budget most of all that reflects the populist grounding of this regime.

Even as it has stolen the UNP’s neoliberal vision – thereby disarming the opposition of an economic critique – it has also appeased many of the trade unions and sections of the rural masses through hand outs. Indeed, the regime boasts the full spectrum of political parties under its fold from the Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist Right to the bankrupt Old Left. The regime works with the confidence that if it can buy parliamentarians for a pittance, it can buy the masses for even less. It expanded the Cabinet and provided ministries with little powers for patronage, and similarly, it has expanded the Budget with subsidies and hand-outs for the population. Just as political power has been entrenched within the authoritarian regime, wealth creation for the financial elite and the dispossession of the lower classes accelerate with the neoliberal transformation.

So, what is in the Budget that is attractive to the larger population? Public servants and pensioners are getting a cost of living allowance. The pension scheme for farmers, which was abandoned a few years ago, has been reinitiated, albeit with the age of qualification now at 63. University lecturers, who were credited with putting together the second longest strike in the history of the country last year, will be given a raise next year. Hostels are being built for university students and labs for secondary schools. There is going to be greater investment in healthcare, vocational training, SLTB buses and rural roads. The questionable major fertilizer subsidy will continue and even a subsidy for government field officers to purchase motorcycles.

Contrary to most claims, Government spending as a percentage of GDP is only 20 %, and compared to other countries, quite low. State sector salaries and allowances are Rs. 390 billion, pensions amount to Rs. 125 billion, fertilizer subsidy, pharmaceutical drugs and welfare transfers are Rs. 100 billion. The point here is that the populist measures that include salary increases and subsidies are not determining the trajectory of our economy.

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