Genocide has to be compensated by separation: Sikh politician

Simranjit Singh Mann

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 December 2013, 22:30 GMT]
“Tamils can’t live [in a united Sri Lanka] after the perpetration of the crime of genocide. I think the wounds are too deep historically there to be reconciliation. After a State has committed genocide, there can’t be any reconciliation,” says Simranjit Singh Mann, the president of Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar party, who advocates the formation of Khalistan as an independent and sovereign State for Sikhs, in an exchange of views with Tamil Nadu based May 17 Movement. “Pirapaharan and his movement was too powerful for the Sri Lankan government,” he said, adding that “it was under the collaboration of UPA-led Congress government that the Sri Lanka government was able to achieve and crush the movement for freedom by committing a genocide on the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.” 

Genocide Has to Be Compensated by Separation Sikh Politician by nelvely

A Footnote To Rajan Philips’s ‘Post-Tsunami Debacle And Post-War Aggravations’

By Tissa Jayatilaka -December 30, 2013

Tissa Jayatilaka

Like all of my old Peradeniya friend Rajan Philips’s articles the above to which I offer a footnote, too, is lucid, intelligently provocative and incisive. There is, though one serious reservation that I have about it. Rajan has, perhaps out of his partiality to the ‘Old Left’, sought to glorify Dr. Colvin R. de Silva. In doing so, he has also sought to downplay what I like to term the decline and fall of the ‘Old Left’, especially in regard to its once principled and sacred stand on the parity of status for both Sinhala ad Tamil languages.

The quote attributed to Colvin in Rajan’s piece is slightly different from that which I recall. The words of Colvin that are etched in modern Sri Lanka’s history are:

One language, two nations; Two languages, one nation.

The above version echoes Benjamin Disraeli’s roman a’ these (a novel with a thesis) Sybil or The Two Nations (1845). Disraeli, in his novel, traces the plight of the working classes in England dealing with the ghastly and appalling conditions in which the majority of England’s working classes lived.  It is a piece of writing that Colvin would doubtless have been quite familiar with and his quote may well have sprung from the title of Disraeli’s novel. I am not for a moment suggesting that Colvin could not have formulated his own thoughts without having to rely on Disraeli. Rather the point I wish to make is that we are often influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the writing of those we become familiar with in the course of our own reading. The Colvin of the above quote is the pre-1959 vintage Colvin of the ‘Old Left’, before the decline and fall of that group of once noble and principled politicians. What follows is some political history to substantiate my assessment of the fall also of the ‘Old Left’ to the lower depths of Sri Lanka’s murky politics.  Read More

Post-Tsunami Debacle And Postwar Aggravations

By Rajan Philips -December 29, 2013

Rajan Philips

Nine years ago, in 2004, the day after Christmas, Sri Lanka became one of the major victims of the Asian tsunami.  The nature’s fury brought the best and the worst in Sri Lankan society even as it ravaged most of the island’s coastal areas.  The best response was from the people who spontaneously stepped up to help one another, humanely crisscrossing ethnic boundaries, with Sinhalese soldiers rescuing Tamil and Muslim victims and Tamil LTTE rescuing Sinhalese and Muslim victims.  They responded before the state could mobilize itself and before needed and unwanted foreign help arrived from far flung places.  The cynics invariably called the deluge of foreign help as ‘NGO tsunami’.  A very positive explanation and hopeful teaching, in my view, emanated from the pen of Rev. Dalton Forbes, Catholic Priest and scholar, and longtime professor at the Oblate Seminary in Ampitiya.  Writing from a common religious standpoint, Father Forbes provided an explanation for the overlapping of the supernatural and the natural, and human interactions with both.                            Read More

School money to renovate Elephant Pass station

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena wants to renovate and re-name the Elephant Pass railway Station as Senahasaka Thotupola when train services between Kilinochchi and Jaffna are restored.

For this purpose, he wants to utilise Rs. 15.5 million collected from teachers and pupils countrywide. His proposal has been accepted and the ministry is now in consultation with the Sri Lanka Army to ascertain whether its engineering troops can undertake the construction of the railway station. The designs for the new railway station will be provided by the Ministry of Transport.

Simplified Grade Five Scholarship Examination in 2014 

By Aisha Nazim- December 30, 2013 

A tentative decision has been made to conduct a simplified version of the Grade Five Scholarship Examination in the year 2014, and a model examination question paper (of the simplified version) will be issued to school teachers by the end of January if the decision is confirmed, the Education Ministry said.

Addressing a media briefing, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena stated that there is a proposal to present a simpler version of the scholarship examination starting from next year, before completely changing the components of the examination in 2016. Also clarifying reports about the scholarship exam being abolished in a couple of year's time, he stated that there is plan to abolish the examination, and reaffirmed that it will only be re-made instead.

Meanwhile, Examinations Commissioner W.M.N.J. Pushpakumara also addressing the press conference said that teachers will be presented with a model question paper of the revised examination paper, if the educational authorities do agree to simplify the scholarship during the following year itself.

New fish in a dirty pond

Editorial-December 29, 2013

Opposition and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is reported to have looked askance at the practice of film and sports personalities taking to politics on a part-time basis. True, some people tend to prostitute their popularity and wallow in politics, which has become the last refuge of every scoundrel so that they will be ‘more equal than’ others. However, the fact remains that players and artistes cannot enter politics without being invited by political parties.

Senior political leaders who often lament about the sorry state of affairs in politics which has come to be bracketed with the oldest profession in the world ought to get their priorities right. First, they must stop nominating anti-social elements to contest elections. It was only the other day that former Cabinet Minister and present UNP Leadership Council member Mangala Samaraweera, MP, told Parliament that there were drug dealers among its members.

If the self-righteous political leaders stop the deplorable practice of allowing criminals to face elections and win by showering bribes on the poor this country will be a much better place. Full-timers don’t necessarily make good politicians; some of them are responsible for various crimes such as extortion, murder and rape. In a country doomed to put up with failed political leaders and lawbreakers in the garb of lawmakers, perhaps, we should stop worrying about cricketers and cinema artistes entering politics.

People also get the politicians they deserve. An actress was elected by the people of Gampaha at the last general election with a higher number of preferential votes than most of the Opposition heavyweights simply because she had played the lead role in a third-rate ‘mega teledrama’. Interestingly, she contested on the UNP ticket! She happened to admit in a television interview that she was clueless about the country’s Constitution.

We have politicians emulating cricketers, film starts et al whose entry into politics has come in for criticism. Apart from doing their damnedest to be in the public eye, they play dilscoop and reverse sweep in handling public funds and bowl googlies and doosras to the people who, true to form, attempt silly strokes and get caught or stumped. They have at heart anything but the national interest. There are politicians who try to be popular by taking part in singing and dancing competitions. Some of them even act in films and teledramas. Besides, they do quite a lot of acting in real life; they pretend that they are not au fait with people’s problems.

The Opposition leader has mentioned Vijaya Kumaratunga, who, he says, gave up acting and took to full time politics. The price Vijaya had to pay for that decision is only too well known. Suffice it to say that, hounded out of the SLFP, he ducked bullets from the UNP until his tragic death at the hands of the JVP. The country lost a good human being and excellent actor who made the mistake of entering politics. This is the fate that awaits good men and women who refuse to sell their souls to the devil in politics. Time was when we saw millionaires become paupers because of their politics but today it is the other way around. As the late Anura Bandaranaike put it very eloquently, politicians who wore flip-flops and rode bicycles some decades ago are now moving about in luxury vehicles and living in palatial houses.

The need is not just for politicians, full-time or part-time, but real statesmen, the difference between them being, as American theologian and author, James Freeman Clarke famously said, that the former think of the next election and the latter of the next generation. Clarke also said: "A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift."

Even learned men and women and professionals in politics have failed to make a difference in their chosen field. They are like clean fish put into a dirty pond; they have to adapt or perish. The ones who get elected to Parliament or nominated via the National List end up praising the Emperor’s New Clothes as they know if they refuse to do so and fall from grace as a result they will be made to walk the plank. This, they fear like death because they’ve never had it so good!

WikiLeaks: If CBK Wants Others To Treat Her With Respect, She Also Has To Treat Them Properly: Ranil

December 30, 2013 

“The PM said that he thought that the President was really concerned about what happened to her when her present term ended. The Ambassador said he believed that was correct, but that there was an additional factor. From his conversations with the President, he said, he believed the underlying motivation for her actions was to send a message that she would not be treated in the last two years of her Presidency as she was in the preceding two years. PM accepted this, but said that if she wanted Ministers to treat her with respect, she also had to treat them properly.” the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.

The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The classified diplomatic cable details a meeting the US ambassador had with then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The “Confidential” is cable signed by the US Ambassador to Colombo Jeffrey J. Lunstead on January 12, 2004.

Related stories to this cable;

WikiLeaks: Chandrika Precipitated The Current Crisis – US

WikiLeaks: Lost Deal – Ranil To Give CBK Two PC Ministries Including The Chief Ministership

WikiLeaks: ‘Just Do Nothing’ Is What Ranil Learned From His Christmas Vacation Reading On Roosevelt ! – US

Exclusive - Hacker took over BBC server, tried to ‘sell’ access on Christmas Day

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - A hacker secretly took over a computer server at the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, and then launched a Christmas Day campaign to convince other cyber criminals to pay him for access to the system.

While it is not known if the hacker found any buyers, the BBC’s security team responded to the issue on Saturday and believes it has secured the site, according to a person familiar with the cleanup effort.

A BBC spokesman declined to discuss the incident. “We do not comment on security issues,” he said.

Reuters could not determine whether the hackers stole data or caused any damage in the attack, which compromised a server that manages an obscure password-protected website.

It was not clear how the BBC, the world’s oldest and largest broadcaster, uses that site, ftp.bbc.co.uk, though ftp systems are typically used to manage the transfer of large data files over the Internet.

The attack was first identified by Hold Security LLC, a cybersecurity firm in Milwaukee that monitors underground cyber-crime forums in search of stolen information.

The firm’s researchers observed a notorious Russian hacker known by the monikers “HASH” and “Rev0lver,” attempting to sell access to the BBC server on December 25, the company’s founder and chief information security officer, Alex Holden, told Reuters.

"HASH" sought to convince high-profile hackers that he had infiltrated the site by showing them files that could only be accessed by somebody who really controlled it, Holden said.

So far Hold Security researchers have found no evidence the conversations led to a deal or that data was stolen from the BBC, Holden said.

It is common for hackers to buy and sell access to compromised servers on underground forums.

Buyers view the access as a commodity that grants them the chance to further penetrate the victim organisation. They can also use compromised servers to set up command-and-control centres for cyber-crime operations known as botnets, run spam campaigns or launch denial of service attacks to knock websites off line.

The BBC offer stands out because the media company is such a high-profile organisation, Holden said. “It’s definitely a notch in someone’s belt.”

BBC has some 23,000 staff and is funded largely by license fees paid by every British household with a television.

Justin Clarke, a principal consultant for the cybersecurity firm Cylance Inc, said that while “HASH” was only offering access to an obscure ftp server, some buyers might see it as a stepping stone to more prized assets within the BBC.

"Accessing that server establishes a foothold within BBC’s network which may allow an attacker to pivot and gain further access to internal BBC resources," he said.

Media companies, including the BBC, have repeatedly been targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and other hacker activist groups that deface websites and take over Twitter accounts.

Last January the New York Times reported that it had been repeatedly attacked over four months by Chinese hackers who obtained employees’ passwords.

(Additional reporting by Belinda Goldsmith in London and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Eric Beech)

BBC Complaints Saga: Liyanage’s Complaint Against Bandara Is Under Investigation

December 30, 2013 

An investigation against BBC Sinhala Service Senior Producer Chandana Keerthi Bandara is underway, the Colombo Telegraph learns. This follows a complaint made against him by the former BBC Sinhala Service Head, Priyath Liayanage.

Bandara has been informed that the BBC could take disciplinary action against him, although is not clear what the charges are.

Corrupt BBC Sinhala trio, Liyange, Bandara and Elmo with the Head of Region for the Americas and Europe for the BBC World Service.

The BBC World Service spokesman, Paul Rasmussenrefused to give details, but did not deny the story.

When asked about the outcome of the recent investigation against Priyath Liayanage, the BBC said; ”the investigation has concluded and the BBC has put in place training and procedures to address the issues,” but refused to give further details.

The BBC said removed Sinhala Head Liyange “is shortly starting an attachment on the WS Languages WW1 project, which is part of the overall BBC coverage of the centenary.”

This is the second occasion this year that the BBC has found it necessary to provide special training for its Sinhala Service employees.  Early this year the BBC Sinhala head was sent to follow a BBC course on Journalistic Ethics after it was found that he had issued letters of recommendation to enable his deputy, Bandara, as well as to Colombo correspondentElmo Fernando to obtain interest free loans from the Sri Lanka Government.  He was also accused of misleading the public regarding the same issue.

According to the BBC, Bandara and Fernando have also been required to undergo BBC ethics training for applying for interest free loans from the Sri Lanka Government where the taxpayers pay the interest on behalf of these journalists.

Related posts;

Colombo's motive of using China for forensic examinations on Mannaar mass grave questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 December 2013, 08:42 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's police officials in Mannaar have said that the skeletons recovered at the mass grave at Thirukkeatheesvaram were being dispatched to China for forensic examinations. Responding, legal sources in Mannaar asked the motive of Colombo using China for DNA testing of the skeletons discovered at the mass grave and questioned the fate of similar cases earlier sent to China for ‘forensic examinations’. In 2009, China had allegedly provided Colombo with ‘movable crematory vehicles’ to get rid of the dead bodies of the genocidal victims in Vanni. Tamil activists urged the alternative world to assist the nation of Eezham Tamils to undertake forensic examinations in future in a credible and independent manner. 

None of the forensic examinations, supposed to be carried out by Colombo with foreign assistance since the discovery of Chemma'ni mass graves in Jaffna since 1998, has been helpful in the investigations. 

Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, the catholic bishop of Mannaar, has also called for international investigations to be conducted on the mass grave located in Thirukkeatheesvaram as Sri Lanka has systematically failed to carry out any investigations on similar findings in the past. 

In 2001, a number of civilians from Paappaa-moaddai were been reported missing when SL military deployed in Rana Gosha military operation advanced into Mannaar. At least 40 people from Paappaa-moaddai were reported missing in May-June 2001. 

At the same time, civilians trying to reach Mannaar from Vanni were also captured by the SL military and a lot of them are still reported missing.

Five UPFA Councilors Missing

( December 30, 2013 -Colombo , Sri Lanka Guardian) Five UPFA Members of Damana Pradeshiya Sabha in Ampara District have disappeared say reports. The budget of the UPFA ruled Pradeshiya Sabha was defeated.

All five Members who have disappeared are UPFA Members who voted against the budget held on the 26th. Member Lalith Lanka too has disappeared from the 26th say reports.

Minister ignores the President, uses the Premier’s Office

 Monday, 30 December 2013 

A government Minister has ignored accepted protocol and has sued the Prime Minister’s Office to make a request from a foreign country without requesting assistance from the Finance Ministry.

Commerce Minister Rishard Bathiudeen has reportedly used the Prime Minister’s Office to make a direct request from Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for a housing scheme for the Muslims.

Bathiudeen has received help from Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne to forward an appeal to Premier Sharif through the Pakistan High Commissioner Qasim Quereshi.
However, External Affairs Ministry sources have said that Bathiudeen has by-passed the Finance Ministry and the External Affairs Ministry when making the request from the Pakistan government.

The External Affairs Ministry states that whenever a Minister or Ministry wanted to make a request for foreign assistance, it must go through the Department of External Resources of the Finance Ministry which comes under President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the External Affairs Ministry was usually kept informed.

Bathiudeen has however been quoted in the media as saying that he had briefed the Pakistan High Commissioner in Sri Lanka about the issue after receiving Premier Jayaratne’s consent.

Bandula to use students to achieve his goals

 Monday, 30 December 2013

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena is trying to get students and teachers to collect monies to fund his goals.

Gunawardena it is learnt wants to renovate and re-name the Elephant Pass railway station as Senahasaka Thotupola. He is reportedly trying to get the renovation and re-naming completed when train services are restored between Kilinochchi and Jaffna.
In order to achieve this goal, the Education Minister has said he wants to spend Rs. 15.5 million collected from teachers and pupils island wide.
 The Education Ministry has accepted Gunawardena’s proposal and the ministry has consulted the Sri Lanka Army to see if its engineering troops could undertake the construction of the new railway station.

Should A Credibility Restoration Exercise Be Launched For Sri Lanka’s Statistics Agency?

By W.A Wijewardena -December 30, 2013 

Dr. W.A. Wijewardena

Alleged massaging of growth numbers: Should a credibility restoration exercise be launched for Sri Lanka’s statistics agency?

Allegation of massaging GDP numbers

A recent newspaper report has alleged that the top-most official in the country’s official Statistics Bureau, the Department of Census and Statistics or DCS, has instructed the officer handling the GDP numbers to increase the growth rate in Quarter I of 2013 from 5.5% to 6% when there were no ground conditions warranting the issue of such instructions (available here ).

The top-most official concerned has denied any wrong-doing but declined to give details of his side of the story expecting the problem to die away ‘just like the bubbles forming instantly in an opened bottle of soda will die away on their own accord’. He has good reason to rely on this bubble-dying theory since the media do not follow up these stories and the civil society is somewhat apathetic to them.

However, in this digital world, there is already a digital footprint of this allegation in the clouds and therefore it cannot die off naturally as things would have happened a few decades ago. To add to the digital footprint, previously, at the Committee Stage of the Budget 2014 debate, the opposition Parliamentarian Anura Kumara Dissanayake too had made the same allegation in Parliament quoting a statement reported to have been made by the officer concerned at an initial disciplinary inquiry.

It is a serious allegation since the country’s credibility is at stake

Nothing has been proved or disproved as yet. But, this allegation is serious enough to deserve the attention of top politicians on both sides of the House, top policy makers, academia, international watchdogs of the country’s economic data such as IMF and World Bank and civil society activists.Read More

Mandela is dead: Why hide the truth about Apartheid?

Posted: 2013-12-29

By Fidel Castro-

In this commentary by Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, he reveals facts which were hitherto not known to many Maybe the empire thought that we would not honor our word when, during days of uncertainty in the past century, we affirmed that even if the USSR were to disappear Cuba would continue struggling. World War II broke out on September 1, 1939 when Nazi-fascist troops invaded Poland and struck like a lightning over the heroic people of the USSR, who contributed 27 million lives to preserve mankind from that brutal massacre that ended the lives of 50 million persons.

Mandela is Dead Why Hide the Truth About Apartheid by nelvely

Deported Journalist Claims Torture in SL

By Express News Service - CHENNAI/COLOMBO

Published: 29th December 2013 07:59 AM

Last Updated: 29th December 2013 07:59 AM

Tamil Nadu journalist Tamil Prabhakaran arrived in Chennai on Saturday after the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) handed him over to the Immigration Department for deportation.

The TID had apparently concluded after interrogation that he had no terrorist links and had not indulged in terrorist activity, and that the only fault was that he had violated visa regulations.

Speaking to reporters at the Chennai airport, Prabhakaran claimed he was psychologically tortured and subjected to probe like a ‘criminal or terrorist’.

“I was subjected to psychological torture and repeatedly subjected to investigations like a criminal or a terrorist when I had done nothing wrong,” Prabhakaran said.

Prabhakaran, who had gone to Sri Lanka on a tourist visa, was detained on December 25 in Kilinochchi district in the former war zone of North Lanka by the local police. After overnight interrogation, they handed him over to the Terrorist Investigation Division, which took him to Colombo to find out why he was taking pictures of military installations and interviewing Tamil politicians when he was on a tourist visa.

While Lankan authorities asserted that he was doing journalistic work while being on a tourist visa and taking pictures of army camps and troops, Prabhakaran categorically denied taking pictures of any military area and said he had only captured a few photographs of certain civil functions.

“Even they were taken in the presence and knowledge of Lankan authorities and the arrest came much later,” the journalist said.

Officials of the Indian High Commission in Colombo were given consular access to the detainee and they had found him to be quite alright. After investigations, TID told the High Commission that Tamil Prabhakaran had no terror links but had violated visa regulations and, therefore, he would be handed over to the Immigration Department for deportation.

In Chennai, he said: “I was repeatedly interrogated and they kept me in handcuffs throughout my detention period, even when I was sleeping. I was subjected to emotional and psychological torture.”

Claiming that the Lankan authorities treatment of him was a violation of human rights, Prabhakaran said, “I was given petrol when I asked for water and was subjected to several more types of torture that are a clear violation of human rights. I will release proof for this shortly,” he added.

Egypt crisis: Al-Jazeera journalists arrested in Cairo

Former BBC correspondent Peter Greste is one of the journalists arrested

Egyptian police have arrested four journalists working for the broadcaster Al-Jazeera in the capital, Cairo..

They include the TV network's Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and former BBC correspondent Peter Greste.

The interior ministry said the journalists had held illegal meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood, which was declared a terrorist group last week.

There has been a crackdown on the Islamist movement since the army ousted President Mohammed Morsi in July.

Since then, more than 1,000 pro-Morsi protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces, and thousands of Brotherhood supporters have been arrested, including the majority of its leadership.

A court will hear a case to disband the Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), on 15 February.

'Damaging'

The journalists, who work for Al-Jazeera English, are understood to have been detained late on Sunday night.

They are Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who holds Canadian nationality, Peter Greste, an Australian, producer Baher Mohamed and Egyptian cameraman Mohamed Fawzy, who is said to have been arrested at home.

Al-Jazeera journalist Abdullah al-Shami and cameraman Mohammad Badr have been detained in Cairo since the summer

Al-Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, has demanded their immediate release.

The interior ministry said in a statement that cameras, recordings and other material had been seized from rooms at a hotel in Cairo.

It accused the journalists of broadcasting news that were "damaging to national security".

The BBC's Bethany Bell in Cairo says Egypt's military backed government has long accused Al-Jazeera of bias, because Qatar gave financial support to the government of Mr Morsi.

Observers say Egypt's media environment has been highly charged since Mr Morsi's overthrow.

Several Islamist channels were closed down immediately after the military intervention in the summer. Al-Jazeera's Egyptian station Mubashir Misr was shut down in September.

The channel previously had its Cairo offices raided, equipment seized, and staff detained. Two of its staff - journalist Abdullah al-Shami and cameraman Mohammad Badr - arrested in July and August remain in detention, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The latest arrests come after deadly clashes between police and Muslim Brotherhood supporters across Egypt.

On Friday, three people were killed - in Cairo, southern Minya province and the Nile Delta - during the violence.

Security forces detained some 265 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, officials said.

The Brotherhood was formally designated a terrorist group after the 24 December suicide bombing of a police headquarters in Nile Delta.

The government accused the movement of being behind the attack - a charge it strongly denied.

US Secretary of State John Kerry earlier called his Egyptian counterpart to express concern about the recent waves of arrests and called for an "inclusive political process".