Sunday, December 29, 2013

Nava Sama Samaja Party, 36th Anniversary meeting will be held at New Town Hall Colombo 7

Sunday, 29 December 2013

NSSP was formed to fight

against class collaboration and coalition governments that went against fundamentals of Marxism. Opportunist policies of old leadership shifted youth towards terrorist actions both in the south as well as in the north.

The need of common struggles against corrupt and dictatorial governments was used by opportunist to go into coalition governments promising welfare, democracy and socialism. However class collaboration in the past period failed to bring any benefit to the people while dissipating the mass support of the left.

NSSP from inception practiced united front tactic without falling in to the trap of class collaboration and coalition governments. We entered in to common struggles with the SLFP and the UNP at times of necessity. We shared common public platforms with Ms Sirimao Bandaranayke, Ms Chandrika Kumaranatunge to face reactionary policies of the UNP. However that did not bar us forming a united front with Mr. JR Jayewardene to face the terror unleashed against those who defended devolution of power, equality of languages and citizenship for up country Tamils. We pursue the same consistent policy of common struggle against the fascist styled policies of the present government. At the same time we have launched theoretical struggles against pseudo Buddhist idealism, racism and post modernism. Thus we have won the respect of the advanced working class and the enlightened sections of oppressed masses. We have won international fame as a committed section of the Fourth International.

We shall march for ward cherishing the teaching of our teachers Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

Dr Vickramabahu Karunarathne.
www.nssp.info
tp 0777875758
contributions:
NAVA SAMA SAMAJA PARTY, 17BARRACKS LANE, COLOMBO 2

A/C NO: 8004893301,
COMMERCIAL BANK OF CEYLON LIMITED swift code CCEYLKLX

contributions to vickramabahu: BANK OF CEYLON A/C NO 0000306345 swift code BCEYLKLX

FR petition to be filed against 2014 Budget

Sunday, 29 December 2013

The All Ceylon Farmers' Federation is to file a fundamental rights (FR) petition against the government’s 2014 Budget.

The petition is to be filed over the farmers’ pension scheme proposed by the President in the budget for 2014.

The Federation is to file the FR petition against increasing the minimum age to receive pension benefits up to 63 years and for the failure to allocate funds to pay the arrears from November 2011 to pay the farmers’ pensions.

The farmers’ pension scheme has been defaulted since November 2011.

Chinese investor now the biggest shareholder of Blue Diamonds

December 28, 2013, 5:31 pm

A Chinese national here on vacation had within a fortnight bought into Blue Diamonds Jewellery Worldwide PLC becoming the company’s single largest shareholder.

Capital Trust Securities Limited, a Colombo based broking house, made a disclosure to the Colombo Stock Exchange on Friday regarding the purchase of nearly 8.5 million voting shares of Blue Diamonds by Mr. Xia Liquiang last Tuesday.

There was no word on the investor and his background and very little was known on whether he was making a pitch for control of the company which once owned one of the biggest diamond processing factories in the world.

It was then controlled by the Ceylinco – Seylan Group of Mr. Lalith Kotelawela.

With this acquisition the investor who did the transaction on the internet has increased his shareholding in the company to nearly 18.5 million shares amounting to 17.88% of Blue Diamonds voting ordinary shares.

Liquiang who has acquired his total stake in the company within a period of two weeks paying Rs.3.50 to Rs.3.60 per share which is above the Rs.2 net asset value per Blue Diamond share.

Analysts said that although Blue Diamonds is a loss-making company with accumulated losses in its books, it had a value as a listed entity as it could be used as a vehicle for other businesses contemplated by an investor.

Also some analysts see possibilities in its jewellery manufacturing business.

During the first half of the current financial year, Blue Diamond’s turnover was down 41% to Rs.29 million and it closed the first half of the current year with a loss of Rs.5.8 million against a loss of Rs.9 million a year earlier.

Blue Diamonds eliminated accumulated losses of over Rs.900 million in its books for the year ended March 31, 2011 through a capital reduction strategy but continued to carry a retained loss of Rs.59.6 million at the close of the year ended March 31, 2013.

The Blue Diamonds share, both voting and non-voting, is speculatively traded, mostly by retailers, on the CSE. The low price of the share is attractive to such traders.

Nelson Mandela: The World Leader And His Legacy – OpEd

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

December 28, 2013

Nelson Mandela, who is respected as the father of the nation in South Africa, died on December 5, 2013. He was the most popular world leader of our time and revered by many heads of states. Like many human rights activists, I have been a great admirer of him. I remember that I participated in protests and demonstrations in the USA that were organized by the Third World Coalition and CISPES (Committee In Support for the People of El Salvador) as a student in the Apartheid Days demanding that the USA and the western world divest from the apartheid South Africa. I remember my attending a lecture given by Bishop Desmond Tutu (a Nobel Laureate) at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in the mid-1980s.

Nelson Mandela The World Leader And His Legacy – OpEd by nelvely

The U.S. Sprint from Freedom to Totalitarianism and Beyond

As must appear self-evident to both historians and astute observers by now, the United States, in its history, has had a rather facile and at times acrimonious relationship to the idea of domestic democracy (If this is not self-evident, see Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, along withFailed States. For a specific analysis of this observation applied to the USA Patriot Act, see my A User’s Guide to the USA Patriot Act). What is seldom noticed, however, is the speed with which the U.S. has moved from a liberal democracy to, at best, an authoritarian government.

To demonstrate this rapid movement in U.S. government, we will use as a base Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” address to Congress, on January 6, 1941. By all rights, and regardless of FDR’s real intent (some say it was to garner support for U.S. involvement in WWII), very few would doubt that his elucidated four freedoms form an important base for understanding liberal democracy. Here are FDR’s own words, quoted at length:

The U.S. Sprint From Freedom to Totalitarianism and Beyond by nelvely

Aleppo suffers 'barrel bomb' attack that kills dozens

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

A barrel bomb attack on rebel quarters of Aleppo has killed at 25 in the latest atrocity visited on the city by the Syrian regime

A little girl is rescued from under the rubble of a collapsed building in the Maysar neighbourhood of Aleppo following a reported air strike Photo: REUTERS

By Nav Pall-28 Dec 2013

A Syrian army air strike on a vegetable market in the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 25 people on Saturday, a monitoring group said, continuing a campaign of improvised "barrel bombs" that has drawn international condemnation.

A video posted on the Internet by local activist group Insaan Rights Watch showed residents pulling mangled corpses out of scorched and twisted car frames.

One road hit by the strike was covered with debris from nearby buildings and was lined with bodies, as young men shouted for cars to help transport the wounded. The content of the video could not be independently verified.

Hundreds of people have been killed by air raids around the city of Aleppo in recent weeks, scores of them women and children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.

On Saturday, the Observatory said 25 people, at least four of them children, were killed by barrel bombing that also destroyed part of a hospital. It said the death toll was likely to rise as dozens more were wounded in the attack.

^{Residents search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building (REUTERS)}

Syrian authorities say they are battling rebels controlling large portions of the city, once Syria's business hub.

Human rights groups and the United States have condemned the use of the improvised bombs - oil drums or cylinders which are packed with explosives and metal fragments, often rolled out of an aircraft's cargo bay. They say it is an indiscriminate form of bombardment.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been regaining territory southeast of Aleppo in recent weeks and have made gains in suburbs around the capital Damascus as well.

At least 80 people were killed on Christmas Eve during an army aerial attack using barrel bombs, according to activists. The air raid was a follow up to an attack from 23 December which targeted Aleppo’s Masaken Hanano neighbourhood.

The move is likely an attempt to strengthen Assad's position against the opposition ahead of planned peace negotiations in Geneva next month.

An army ambush in the Qalamoun mountains north of the capital killed at least 60 people on Friday. The Observatory said the dead were rebels. But the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella group representing the opposition abroad, said the dead were civilians.

Well over 100,000 people have been killed in the 2-1/2-year conflict,

which began as peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family

rule. A fierce security force crackdown sparked an armed insurgency

that has now spread civil war across most of Syria

Egypt: Terrorist Tag Politically Driven

Designation Criminalizes Virtually All Brotherhood Activities

The government’s decision on the Muslim Brotherhood follows over five months of government efforts to vilify the group. By rushing to point the finger at the Brotherhood without investigations or evidence, the government seems motivated solely by its desire to crush a major opposition movement.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director

DECEMBER 28, 2013

(New York) – The Egyptian government’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization appears to be aimed at expanding the crackdown on peaceful Brotherhood activities and imposing harsh sanctions on its supporters. The government should promptly reverse the decision and stop interfering with the Brotherhood’s health, education, and other peaceful activities.

Egypt Terrorist Tag Politically Driven by nelvely

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Israel launches fresh air strikes on Gaza

Three-year-old Palestinian girl killed during series of Israeli air strikes after Palestinian sniper kills Israeli.

Last updated: 24 Dec 2013 17:19

A three-year-old Palestinian girl was killed and at least six other people wounded in a series of Israeli air and tank strikes on the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.
Medics named the girl as Hala Abu Sabikha from the central Gaza Strip, noting "three other members of her family were wounded" on Tuesday.
Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said six people had been wounded in a series of strikes, which came in response to the shooting to death earlier of an Israeli repairing the security fence separating Gaza from Israel.
The Hamas interior ministry said Abu Sabikha and her family were injured in an air strike on a refugee camp in central Gaza.
It also said a person was moderately wounded in a tank shelling near the Karni crossing in northern Gaza and that there were two other air strikes on militant positions in northern Gaza, where no casualties were reported.
The Israeli army said aircraft, tanks and infantry "targeted terror sites in the Gaza Strip" in retaliation for the shooting of the Israeli.
"The sites targeted were a weapon-manufacturing facility and a terror infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip, a terror site and another terror infrastructure in the central Gaza Strip and a concealed rocket launcher in the northern Gaza Strip," an army statement said.

AlJazeera 101 East Video: Scars of Sri Lanka

Published on Dec 27, 2013

Despite government claims of peace, torture and abductions continue to be used to stifle ethnic and political dissent.

Tamil National Alliance to push for international probe into Sri Lanka war crimes

Sri Lanka is expected to face its third successive resolution criticising its human rights record at the UNHRC meet in March.

December 28, 2013
Colombo: Sri Lanka's main Tamil party has said it will push for an independent international probe into alleged war crimes committed during the final phase of the civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) legislator Suresh Premachandran said that his party would push their case when the UN Human Rights Council meets next March in Geneva.

The party would also brief the international and diplomatic communities on the need to conduct an independent investigation.

Reacting to the TNA's plan, government spokesman and Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella dismissed it as the TNA's separatist intent in the current post-conflict phase.

"This is nothing new from the TNA. They have always sided with the LTTE's separatist campaign," Rambukwella said.

"They must try to resolve problems within the country rather than going international against the state," he said.

Sri Lanka has been censured by two successive UNHRC resolutions which demanded speedier action to achieve reconciliation with the island's Tamil minority.

The resolutions, moved by the US and backed by India, urged Sri Lanka to show results in full implementation of recommendations of its own reconciliation arm, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

Sri Lanka is expected to face its third successive resolution criticising its human rights record at the UNHRC meet in March.

Tamils and the international community have brought pressure on Colombo for lack of implementation of the LLRC's advice accusing the government of dragging its feet.

The government however maintains that a considerable number of recommendations have already been implemented while some of them need more time for implementation.

A Political Alternative For New Year 2014

By Kusal Perera -December 28, 2013 |

Kusal Perara

What’s there to talk about 2013 ?

The only good thing is, in about 80 hours from now – mid day 28 December – this year would be over. There’s nothing nostalgic about it, except in personal and private terms. Politically, much expected Northern Provincial Council elections and the much favoured electoral victory for the TNA seems no exceptional achievement in post Northern and Tamil politics. For the Southerner, casinos have been decided upon and is being half heartedly protested by “puritans”. None is asking what benefit would they have for the poor and the deprived. What social equity and what contribution to rural development, is not what is asked about. There are also NO Anna Hazares, NO Kejriwals, NO Aam Admi Parties, but a popular, Sinhala President there is, sans an opposition. There is ever growing massive corruption, fraud and extortion, shipping, transshipping and peddling of drugs reported almost every day, battalions of saffron clad rogue clerics allowed free roaming, Tsunamis of murder, rape, sexual assaults, child abuse cracking all indexes of failed and falling States and also a much feared and revered Defence and Urban Development ministry Secretary sitting tough, under whom the police and civil security is, since 2005 December.

The year also ends with the UNP Convention, its 55^th since it was formed. Undemocratic as it exhibits itself to be and the convention presided over by a leader who sounded more a school’s principal sitting over a Monday morning assembly, passed four resolutions that again was mere tradition and nothing more. The first resolution says the party would work towards victory at the next elections headed by the new leadership council. Wonder why an opposition party has to pass an unanimous resolution to say it would work towards electoral victory. That’s what it obviously has to do.

The second resolution promises the party would abolish the Executive Presidency. Abolishing the presidency would take us back to a parliamentary system. We have had two parliamentary systems, with and without an upper house during the first 30 years after independence, under two different Constitutions; the Soulburry and the first Republican Constitution. The Soulburry constitution allowed for total disfranchising of Indian origin Tamils, making them stateless and then allowed the whole State to be “Sinhalised” with Sinhala language made the ONLY official language of the country. That parliament could not safeguard the right of minorities, nor could it arrest the decline in social life leading to a political crisis that paved for the first Southern Sinhala armed uprising to catalyse in late 1960s. The first Southern Sinhala armed insurrection broke loose in 1971, just a year ahead of the change in Constitution.

The first Republican Constitution ushered in thereafter in 1972 stressing the importance of being wholly independent and neutral from the British crown, allowed for politicisation of the State with the PSC brought under cabinet authority. Buddhism was written in as a very special religion to be treated exclusively under the Constitution. That parliament allowed for continuous rule under Emergency regulations that even allowed for very strict enforcement of food rationing in a tightly closed State controlled economy.

December 28, 2013

A Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will go to Geneva to push for an international independent investigation into alleged war crimes abuses committed during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.

TNA MP Suresh Premachandran said that the party will also brief foreign diplomats on the situation in Sri Lanka ahead of the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva in March.

Premachandran said that at a recent TNA meeting held in Vavuniya the TNA members had agreed on the need to push for an international investigation in Sri Lanka.

He said that the TNA had gone to Geneva when the Human Rights Council met on previous occasions but this time they hope to intensify efforts to push for an investigation on Sri Lanka.

The TNA MP also said he hopes the Council will adopt a resolution on Sri Lanka when it meets in March for the 25th regular session. (Colombo Gazette)

LTTE Bala was MR’s driver: Bombs transported to south in his vehicle -High Commissioner H.R. Piyasiri exposes

(Lanka-e-News- 28.Dec.2013, 10.30PM) Medamulana Mahinda Rajapakse was having an LTTE cadre as his vehicle driver , and during the 1988-89 insurgency, after getting down an LTTE group to the south helped in the killing of Sinhala youths ; and in addition transported LTTE bombs in his vehicle to Colombo, Sri Lanka (SL) High commissioner in Myanmar, H. R. Piyasiri revealed.

It is a well and widely known fact that what mainly contributed to the victory of Mahinda Rajapakse at the 2005 Presidential elections was the people of north refraining from voting at the behest of the LTTE . Tiran Alles confirmed this by an affidavit whereby it was disclosed a large sum of money was paid to the LTTE towards this election boycott ( the two videos are available on the you tube). The LTTE immediately consenting to this arrangement trusting Medamulana Rajapakse was not a matter for surprise because of these strong ties between Mahinda and the LTTE for a long time. Copious and cogent evidence have come to light corroborating this.

Piyasiri who is the present SL High Commissioner in Myanmar and a former Minister of labor under the Premadasa government had clearly confirmed this close relationship between MaRa even before he became the Prime Minister then , and the LTTE organization.

Piyasiri first made this announcement when he attended a conference in SL. According to him , during the second youth uprising in 1988-1989 period in the south, as late Premadasa did not have faith in the forces, he had enlisted the support of LTTE groups to curb and control the youth insurgency. This support became most necessary in the south because the situation was most grave there. It is Piyasiri the present SL high commissioner in Myanmar and former labor Minister under Premadasa government who had been in charge of the LTTE group that was sent to the south.

The task that was entrusted to this group was to erect road barriers in the south; search the vehicles and provide protection to selected VIPs; along with the forces conduct raids ; and after arresting the rebel youths , kill them by inflicting torture.

At that time, the individual who drove Piyasiri’s vehicle was Bala , a very close lackey of Prabhakaran. Mahinda Rajapkse’s security too was beset with many problems during that period. In order to beef up his security at Mahinda’s request , as Minister of labor then, Piyasiri had provided an LTTE security detail to him too. As a reciprocal gesture for the help Piyasiri provided, he was appointed later by Mahinda as High Commissioner to Myanmar.

Following Piyasiri’s directives that time , youths in the south had been murdered in thousands using physical torture methods by the LTTE group.

During this period, LTTE Bala had also been functioning as Mahinda Rajapakse’s driver. It is via this contact Mahinda had established close relationship with LTTE leader Prabhakaran, thus assuring the LTTE nothing will be done to hinder or harm them . The LTTE based on that assurance ensured that the votes of the northerners are not cast in favor of Ranil at the Presidential elections.

It was during this same period, the LTTE freely transported their explosives and bombs freely to the south and planted their spies too there. On some occasions, even via the vehicles of Mahinda Rajapakse and Piyasiri, LTTE cadres along with bombs had been transported to Colombo.

All these are stark and startling exposures made by H .R. Piyasiri himself directly.

Conflicts Persist And The Economy Languishes: Why 2014 Will Be A Gloomy Year

By Kumar David -December 29, 2013 |

Prof Kumar David

If your want me to fib you could ask me to affirm that, at last, in 2014 the world and Lanka will turn the corner and happier days will return. If I did, come December, you will sue me for misleading you into an unfortunate financial or matrimonial embarkation. No sir, you had better look after your pocketbook and your urges; I want no part of it.

One ominous expectation and dismal prophecy is that Mahinda Rajapakse, if he calls presidential or parliamentary elections in 2014, is likely to win. The only contrary possibility is if a strong common opposition nominee surfaces on the “single-issue” ticket. There were two people who could have pulled this off, Reverend Sobitha and Chandrika. The former has declined; the latter has studiously avoided the spotlight and lost lustre and credibility . . . but . . .? If we get stuck with Rajapakse for a third term, it is bad news. The multitude of abuses for which this government, more than any other, is notorious, will not diminish. Add-in anxiety that the regime is complicit in anti-Muslim hate-crimes by association with its extremist flange, and the decoction turns lethal. Specific concerns aside, regular changes of government are indispensable for accountability. Indeed this is why term limits are built into all civilised polities – China’s Communist Party included.

There is risk that this country will go the Mugabe-Gaddafi-Suharto way. It took an uprising to oust the latter two, but 90-year old rogue Mugabe is likely to die in office before he is driven out. In these and similar cases, there were uprisings and repression was the tool by which dictators hung on to power. In Lanka, there is widespread flouting of election law and rigging, but it is also true that the regime has a strong base. The perpetual reward for war victory is permanency of tenure and carte-blanch to indulge in misconduct.

The opposition in Thailand is barmy! It wants premier and parliament removed and the country run by a self-appointed council, sans elections, for many years. The reason is candidly admitted: “We can’t win!” Lanka needs to see the back of Rajapakse, but it must be achieved by legitimate and constitutional means. (If the regime itself subverts democracy beyond redemption, then that’s a different ball-game and justifies a robust response). Till then, there’s hard work to do.

Leadership: A different perspective Read More

Colombo’s wildlife department appropriates lands in Paddippazhai for Sinhalicisation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 December 2013, 12:40 GMT]

Colombo government’s Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), deploying Sinhala settlers from Ampaa’rai district and paramilitary known as Home Guards, has put up a fence covering 800 acres of Tamil villages of Batticaloa district. The land appropriation is taking place under the guise of constructing a fence to prevent wild elephants from entering Batticaloa district from the jungles of Ampaa’rai district, according to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council.

The occupying Sri Lanka Army also backs the fencing project.

On receipt of information Mr. Thurairatnam went to the site where Sinhalese from Ampaa’rai district are engaged in constructing fence to ‘prevent’ wild elephants from entering Batticaloa district.

Mr.Thurairatnam said about eight hundred acres of lands owned by Tamil people have been annexed with the Ampaa’rai district by the Colombo government under the pretext that the fence construction takes place at Kachchatkodi Suvaami Malai in Paddip-pazhai Divisional Secretariat division.

The matter was immediately brought to the notice of the Batticaloa District Government Agent and Paddipazhai Divisional Secretary.

They were unaware of the construction of elephant fence appropriating the lands belong to Tamil villagers in the Batticaloa district, Mr Thurairatnam said.

* US Assistant Secretary to visit Sri Lanka next month
Fri, Dec 27, 2013, 08:23 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Dec 27, Colombo: The United States delegation Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka next month, a local media report said.
Biswal will reportedly be in the island to review the progress of measures taken to expedite the implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission recommendations as directed in the US-sponsored resolutions at the UN human Rights Council in Geneva.
The Assistant Secretary will also hold discussions with the External Affairs Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris and other senior government officials.
Earlier this month, Indian-American Biswal warned that if Sri Lanka doesn't make meaningful progress in addressing the accountability issues, the patience of the international community on Sri Lanka will start to wear thin and urged Sri Lanka to take some "concrete steps" to address the issue of human rights, accountability and reconciliation process.
Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs Karunathilaka Amunugama has confirmed to media that the US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs had requested for a tour of Sri Lanka.

However, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo or the State Department has not officially announced her visit yet.

Rural Perspectives: The Disappearance Of The Very Concepts Of Accountability And Responsibility

By Emil van der Poorten -December 29, 2013

Emil van der Poorten

A reader would certainly be justified in asking what is particularly “rural” about the title of this column.

Let me try to explain, even if the preamble proves a tad tedious!

The recent kerfuffle over the accountability/responsibility of the Prime Minister, D. M. Jayaratne, in the matter of one of his immediate minions being directly involved in the smuggling of heroin in truly historic proportions, brings a couple of things to public attention (again!)

The first of these is the prevailing “shape” culture that enables anyone to do anything they please as long as they don’t displease any member of the Rajapaksa family. Does one have to quote chapter and verse with regard to the obscenities parading as decisions by an oligarchy parading as a “socialist, democratic goverment” in this country or would simply referring to the most recent event under cover of this very larger-than-life heroin bust suffice? That event was the dropping of charges of a capital crime against Cabinet Minister Punchinilame. In any country with pretensions to being a democracy with media uncontrolled by the government, this event would have provoked screaming front page headlines. Not in Sri Lanka, I’m afraid where it appeared tucked away in a corner of a web edition of one English language newspaper!

But, as significant as the timing of the Punchinilame exoneration was, the shenanigans around the heroin bust exposed the complete disappearance of the very concepts of accountability and responsibility in so-called “democratic governance” in The Debacle of Asia! In any country with even pretensions to democratic practice, the fact that a senior functionary in the office of the Prime Minister had issued instructions for a waiver of duty and immunity from inspection of a shipment of almost half a metric tonne of heroin would not simply have made the headlines of all the media but would have resulted in not only the immediate resignation of said Prime Minister but a criminal investigation of his conduct and that of all those responsible for this train of events.

Instead, what we have had is a bunch of apologists, inclusive of Opposition spokespersons muttering soothing platitudes about how totally unlikely it was that said Prime Minister would be within a million miles of any such wrong-doing!

To describe this as “theatre of the absurd” would be understating the case quite dramatically except that the current state of affairs is further “absurdized” by the contention that any comment about all of this is “Sub Judice” by virtue of this whole sorry mess being potentially the subject of some sort of judicial investigation! As the those less given to polite expression would ask, “Where the hell does all of this lead?”

I don’t know “Where the hell it all of it leads,” but I see that all of it certainly should lead to a realization, even at this late date, that these cornerstones of democratic practice have disappeared from the public discourse practiced in Sri Lanka. Read More

Political Will Is Necessary To Face Geneva Challenge

By Jehan Perera-Saturday, December 28, 2013

There is no reason to hurry to hold elections when both the Presidency and Parliament have two more years remaining of their terms of office. But President Mahinda Rajapaksa has asked his party members to be ready for elections in the New Year. Although he did not say which election would take place, a presidential election is the more likely. The President remains the ruling party’s greatest single asset. He is honoured by a large majority of the country’s people as the leader who freed them from the bondage of war and terrorism. Together with his charisma, this adds up to an unbeatable combination. The failures of governance continue to pale in comparison to this achievement in the minds of the voting population.

The opposition has yet to produce an alternative to rival the President.
The presidential desire to hold early elections may be attributed to increased international pressure on the government to deliver on the two UN Human Rights Council resolutions passed in the previous two years. It appears that Sri Lanka is becoming a test case with regard to the will of the international community to give teeth to the UN Human Rights Council. Media reports indicate that the United States will send its newly appointed Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal to Sri Lanka next month to review the progress of implementing measures outlined in the previous resolution on Sri Lanka ahead of the UNHRC session in March.

International Investigation

Indications of the government’s thinking are that a fresh presidential mandate can deflect the international challenge of direct international intervention in the country’s internal affairs. This is the threat that arose during Commonwealth Summit when British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would use his country’s position on the UN Human Rights Council to ensure that an international investigation into alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka would take place unless the Sri Lankan government itself came up with a credible investigation process. However, the short time frame before the next UNHRC session in Geneva makes it necessary for the government to take some concrete actions within the next three months.

What is most needed at this time is evidence of such concrete actions taken in respect of the two UNHRC previous resolutions. Indeed the visiting US official will be coming to Sri Lanka for the purpose of ascertaining the progress the government has made in terms of implementing these resolutions. Those resolutions called for the government to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and also to establish a special mechanism to investigate the issue of human rights violations in the last phase of the war. Before it goes before the UNHRC next March, the government needs to show concrete progress on both these matters.

The government’s strategy to deal with this challenge is to send its top civil servant and presidential secretary, Lalith Weeratunge, to Geneva in advance of the UNHRC sessions to lobby with the representatives of countries that are members of the UNHRC. He will be able to show documentation of successes in achieving targets in respect of resettlement of displaced persons, rehabilitation of former LTTE cadres and rebuilding of infrastructure destroyed by war. But the weakness of the government’s response will be in terms of the rejection of its efforts by the TNA, which represents the bulk of the war-affected people.

The implementation of LLRC recommendations is a priority for the government in view of the approaching March 2014 Geneva meeting of the UN Human Rights Council. Among the preparations that have got under way for the UNHRC sessions are moves to implement more recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. One such widely publicised measure is to conduct a census on deaths and injuries to persons and property damages due to the “conflict in the past more than 30 years.” It is being carried out jointly by the Ministry of Public Administration and the Department of Census and Statistics. A statement from them said, “It is essential to ensure that while all the families/persons directly or indirectly affected by the conflict are counted, they are not counted twice.”

Census and Statistics

The Director General of the Department of Census and Statistics, is reported to have said that in respect of families of those who were killed or reported missing during the final stages of the separatist war in May 2009, “evidence forwarded by third parties or relatives will not be accepted. Any information would have to come from the immediate family members.” He is also reported to have said, “We know that Prabhakaran and his family have been killed, but will not include that in the census as none of his family members is here to give the information.” Not surprisingly, in these circumstances, the TNA has protested against the census that is being conducted by the government. The problem is that the government has used a method of collecting data that is not accepted by the TNA and does not seem to be comprehensive to an objective outsider.

A further weakness of the government’s response to the UNHRC is that its implementation of the LLRC recommendations in respect of larger policy issues is virtually non-existent. So far the government has not dealt with issues relating to the greater devolution of power and securing the independence of the judiciary, public service and police, and strengthening the investigations into the past that flow from these. The Chief Minister of the newly elected Northern Provincial Council and his councilors are unanimous in objecting to the role of the presidentially appointed Governor who wields more effective power than they do. The national anthem continues to be sung in Sinhala only, and not in both Sinhala and Tamil as recommended by the LLRC, and there is no day set aside to commemorate all who died due to the conflict.

It is also most absurd but true that hardly anyone in Sri Lanka, and this includes the intelligentsia of the country, knows anything about the LLRC and its recommendations. This is borne out by workshop after workshop that I have attended in different parts of the country and at all levels of society, including Rotary Clubs in Colombo. This document remains confined to the website of the Presidential Secretariat. The government has not printed and distributed this bulky document to the people. Only a handful of NGOs have printed summaries and easy to read commentaries, which shows what can be done by the government on a much larger scale if it has the political will to do so.

In these circumstances it is difficult to see what positive development will come out of the diplomacy of the presidential secretary’s planned visit to Geneva. It is also difficult to see how a fresh mandate given to the President after the Geneva sessions in March will get the government off the international hook. In the absence of concrete changes prior to the next meeting of the UNHRC, an international resolution against the government appears increasingly unavoidable. The government has the charismatic leadership, the executive power and legislative super-majority in Parliament to do the needful, but it still does not appear to have the political will to do what needs to be done.