The Peace Swindle

Erekat wakes up; Abbas still in Cloud Cuckoo Land

by Stuart Littlewood / January 6th, 2014

The Times of Israel reports that Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who recently resigned (again) but mysteriously remains in post, said in an interview that the Palestinians will not agree to extending latest talks with Israel one minute beyond the allotted nine months, ending in April.

“The objective is to reach an agreement on all issues pertaining to a final-status deal. And according to the wording of the agreement with [US Secretary of State] Kerry, there will be no transitional or interim agreement.” He said the US administration was trying to cut the talks short to preempt any attempt to extend them. In the meantime Israel was trying to thwart the peace process — and US efforts — in “every way”, the latest example being an Israeli bill to annex the Jordan Valley, which passed a key ministerial committee last week.

Proper talks, which started last July, have not been held for two month owing to stalemate and unofficial meetings had been fruitless. Erekat said Washington has yet to present the two sides with an official offer. Where exactly the US gets its authority to make any ‘offer’ without reference to (and full compliance with) international law and previous UN resolutions has never been clear to this writer.

We’re also told that Abbas, the de facto Palestinian president who is well past his clear-your-desk date, has written to Obama that the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents the Palestinians to the outside world, will not accept Israel as a Jewish state, will not accept a Palestinian state with 1967 borders without Jerusalem, and will not accept any Israeli on Palestinian land, sea, air and border crossings after Israel’s withdrawal is completed. Nor will Abbas accept any solution that does not grant potentially millions of refugees their right to return and be compensated, as per UN Resolution 194, and allow for the release of prisoners.

None of this is new or surprising; it’s standard stuff and should be unobjectionable, supported as it is by UN resolutions (unimplemented) and international law (unenforced).

According to the Times of Israel, Erekat said Abbas presented these preconditions to the Arab League, which passed them to UN Security Council member states. This is Erekat’s strategy for appealing to the European Union to recognize the Palestinian state while at the same time appealing to various international bodies to sign treaties and protocols that would enable the Palestinian Authority to file a suit against Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

Erekat has also produced a crime-sheet of Israeli moves that undermine the peace process. Again, what’s new? Israel has been sticking two fingers up, for the whole world to see, all the years Erekat and Abbas have been involved.

Shambolic

The confidential ‘Palestinian Papers’, leaked by Al-Jazeera in 2011, revealed the shambolic conduct of the so-called peace process and how the Palestinian team allowed the Israelis to walk all over them, with US help.

One of the leak’s sources, a French-Palestinian lawyer and former adviser to the PLO, Ziyad Clot, said in an article in The Guardian that the peace process was “an inequitable and destructive political process which had been based on the assumption that the Palestinians could in effect negotiate their rights and achieve self-determination while enduring the hardship of the Israeli occupation”. They were “a deceptive farce whereby biased terms were unilaterally imposed by Israel and systematically endorsed by the US and EU”. They “excluded for the most part the great majority of the Palestinian people: the seven million Palestinian refugees”. And, he said, “the PLO, given its structure, was not in a position to represent all Palestinian rights and interests”.

So why is Erekat still engaging in it? He was educated in political science in the US and conflict studies in England, so should be articulate and media-savvy. He became chief negotiator in 1995. He occupies a king-pin position in the world’s hottest hot-spot but how often do we see him in the Western media? When was the last time? He is possibly the least successful negotiator in the world, and where has that got the Palestinians? He also has a habit of resigning then popping up again. Is there really no-one else?

Furthermore, there’s still no sign that Abbas himself has got his backside into gear and commenced the necessary preparations for Palestine to activate the ICC and bring long-overdue war crimes charges against Israel. It’s also a bit late in the day for Erekat to suddenly see the light. Does any of this actually take us nearer a sane justice process, as opposed to the shameful ‘kangaroo’ peace negotiations that Erekat and Abbas seem addicted to?

As Oliver Cromwell told the English Parliament in 1653: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” It might be appropriate for those same words to be addressed to Erekat and Abbas, and indeed the entire PLO and Palestinian Authority… the whole caboodle a futile waste of space.

Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine, with Foreword by Jeff Halper, can now be read on the internet by visitingradiofreepalestine.org.uk. Read other articles by Stuart.

Palestinian red lines make chances of US-

mediated settlement slim

With Abbas saying he can’t accept Israel as a Jewish state ‘as a Palestinian, as a people, as 

the PLO,’ Erekat eyes ICC lawsuit as path to statehood

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives at Ben Gurion airport on Thursday, January 2, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)

BY AVI ISSACHAROFF January 4, 2014,

US Secretary of State John Kerry met on Friday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah for a talk that lasted several hours. On Saturday, Kerry was heading back for another round of talks with Abbas and his negotiating team, including chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat

On Friday, the London-based A-Sharq Al-Awsat paper published an interview with Erekat that made waves due to Erekat’s claim that Israel murdered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and could do the same to Abbas. ”This is the conduct of the Israelis,” said Erekat. “Before they killed [Yasser] Arafat by poisoning there were also voices from the [Ariel] Sharon government saying that Arafat is an obstacle and that he must be gotten rid of.” Independent French, and later Russian forensic experts have ruled out the possibility that the late Palestinian leader was poisoned.

The other comments made by Erekat in his interview — the ones about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians — were downplayed. But they are actually very important: Erekat’s statements demonstrate just how wide the gulf between the two sides is, and suggest that Washington’s chances of reaching a framework agreement are slim, perhaps even very slim.

First of all, Erekat stressed in the interview that the Palestinians will not agree to have talks extended beyond the allotted nine months, set to end in April. ”Even a one-minute extension is impossible,” he was quoted as saying.

“Unlike what others say, the negotiations will be nine months long. The objective is to reach an agreement on all issues pertaining to a final-status deal. And according to the wording of the agreement with Kerry, there will be no transitional or interim agreements,” Erekat said.

Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator, during a news conference in Ramallah in the West Bank on January 2, 2012 (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

Kerry made his way back to the region Thursday for another series of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. This time, he was expected to present both sides with a framework deal touching on all core issues. But with April approaching fast and time running out, Erekat’s words reflect a growing impatience within the Palestinian Authority with what they see as Israeli attempts to prolong negotiations.

“The US administration understands that the talks can’t go on for nine months, and so it is trying to cut them short in order to safeguard the peace process and preempt the extension of negotiations,” Erekat said.

He added, however, that Israel was trying to thwart the peace process — and US efforts — in “every way,” with the latest example being an Israeli bill to annex the Jordan Valley, which passed a key ministerial committee last week.

Claiming that the last face-to-face talks with Israel’s negotiating team took place way back on November 5, Erekat presented a list of Israeli moves and “crimes” that he said undermined the peace process and led him to resign from the position of chief negotiator — a resignation that seems not to have taken effect.

Erekat said that since then, there have been no direct talks, only separate meetings between US officials and their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts. Even these efforts did not bear fruit, he said, as Washington has yet to present the two sides with an official offer.

The top negotiator then revealed the contents of a letter Abbas had sent US President Barack Obama following a particularly fraught Abbas-Kerry meeting on December 8.

“In that letter, the president made clear what he would not be able to accept as a Palestinian, as a people, as the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). Firstly, we will not be able to accept Israel as a Jewish state,” Abbas wrote, according to Erekat.

“Secondly, we will not be able to accept a Palestinian state with 1967 borders without Jerusalem. Thirdly, we will not be able to accept any Israeli on Palestinian land, sea, air and border crossings following the completion of the gradual withdrawal.”

A fourth precondition reportedly set by Abbas was the instatement of the so-called “right of return” for potentially millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel.

“I will not be able to accept any solution that does not grant the refugees their right to the possibility to return and be compensated as per UN Resolution 194, as well as one that does not allow for the release of prisoners,” Abbas reportedly wrote.

Erekat said Abbas presented these preconditions to the Arab League, which transferred them to UN Security Council member states. This is in keeping with Erekat’s preferred strategy for achieving Palestinian statehood – appealing to the European Union to recognize the Palestinian state while appealing to various international bodies to sign treaties and protocols that would enable the Palestinian Authority to file a suit against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Frigid weather: How to survive an extremely cold day

If you want to go outside when the temperatures plunge, it's best to be well bundled up. (Pawel Dwulit/Canadian Press)

Many regions in Canada are experiencing a blast of snowfall and cold conditions

CBC News Posted: Jan 07, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 07, 2014 5:01 AM ET

With much of the country in the grips of bitter winter weather, Canadians are coping as best they can with bone-chilling cold, massive snowfalls and predictions of more nastiness to come.

In Saskatoon on Tuesday, Environment Canada is predicting a high of –25 C, well below the seasonal normal of –11 C. In Toronto, the temperature is not expected to rise above –18 C, again a far cry from the normal high of –2 C.

Pedestrians in Montreal battle 90 km/h wind gusts as the city faces freezing rain, snow, and a rollercoaster temperature swing from 5 C to -13 C on Monday. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Cold weather in some parts of the country may invite scoffing from people living in other places where such low temperatures are run-of-the-mill at this time of year. But no matter how cold it gets, people everywhere are figuring out how best to endure the conditions.

Here's a look at ways to ensure you and your property stay safe and survive the current frigid temperatures.

Protecting yourself

There's no rocket science involved in understanding that colder temperatures can pose health concerns for individuals, especially if they are outside. Windburn, frostbite and hypothermia can pose significant risks.

Full Story>>>

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At last, a law to stop almost anyone from doing almost anything

Protesters, buskers, preachers, the young: all could end up with 'ipnas'. Of course, if you're rich, you have nothing to fear

'Street life will be reduced to a trance-world of consumerism in which nothing unpredictable or disconcerting happens.' Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty

George Monbiot- Monday 6 January 2014

Until the late 19th century much of our city space was owned by private landlords. Squares were gated, streets were controlled by turnpikes. The great unwashed, many of whom had been expelled from the countryside by acts of enclosure, were also excluded from desirable parts of town.

Social reformers and democratic movements tore down the barriers, and public space became a right, not a privilege. But social exclusion follows inequality as night follows day, and now, with little public debate, our city centres are again being privatised or semi-privatised. They are being turned by the companies that run them into soulless, cheerless, pasteurised piazzas, in which plastic policemen harry anyone loitering without intent to shop.

Street life in these places is reduced to a trance-world of consumerism, of conformity and atomisation in which nothing unpredictable or disconcerting happens, a world made safe for selling mountains of pointless junk to tranquillised shoppers. Spontaneous gatherings of any other kind – unruly, exuberant, open-ended, oppositional – are banned. Young, homeless and eccentric people are, in the eyes of those upholding this dead-eyed, sanitised version of public order, guilty until proven innocent.

Now this dreary ethos is creeping into places that are not, ostensibly, owned or controlled by corporations. It is enforced less by gates and barriers (though plenty of these are reappearing) than by legal instruments, used to exclude or control the ever widening class of undesirables.

The existing rules are bad enough. Introduced by the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, antisocial behaviour orders (asbos) have criminalised an apparently endless range of activities, subjecting thousands – mostly young and poor – to bespoke laws. They have been used to enforce a kind of caste prohibition: personalised rules which prevent the untouchables from intruding into the lives of others.

You get an asbo for behaving in a manner deemed by a magistrate as likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to other people. Under this injunction, the proscribed behaviour becomes a criminal offence. Asbos have been granted which forbid the carrying of condoms by a prostitute, homeless alcoholics from possessing alcohol in a public place, a soup kitchen from giving food to the poor, a young man from walking down any road other than his own, children from playing football in the street. They were used to ban peaceful protests against the Olympic clearances.

Inevitably, more than half the people subject to asbos break them. As Liberty says, these injunctions "set the young, vulnerable or mentally ill up to fail", and fast-track them into the criminal justice system. They allow the courts to imprison people for offences which are not otherwise imprisonable. One homeless young man was sentenced to five years in jail for begging: an offence for which no custodial sentence exists. Asbos permit the police and courts to create their own laws and their own penal codes.

All this is about to get much worse. On Wednesday the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill reaches its report stage (close to the end of the process) in the House of Lords. It is remarkable how little fuss has been made about it, and how little we know of what is about to hit us.

The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.

The bill also introduces public space protection orders, which can prevent either everybody or particular kinds of people from doing certain things in certain places. It creates new dispersal powers, which can be used by the police to exclude people from an area (there is no size limit), whether or not they have done anything wrong.

While, as a result of a successful legal challenge, asbos can be granted only if a court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that antisocial behaviour took place, ipnas can be granted on the balance of probabilities. Breaching them will not be classed as a criminal offence, but can still carry a custodial sentence: without committing a crime, you can be imprisoned for up to two years. Children, who cannot currently be detained for contempt of court, will be subject to an inspiring new range of punishments for breaking an ipna, including three months in a young offenders' centre.

Lord Macdonald, formerly the director of public prosecutions, points out that "it is difficult to imagine a broader concept than causing 'nuisance' or 'annoyance'". The phrase is apt to catch a vast range of everyday behaviours to an extent that may have serious implications for the rule of law". Protesters, buskers, preachers: all, he argues, could end up with ipnas.

The Home Office minister, Norman Baker, once a defender of civil liberties, now the architect of the most oppressive bill pushed through any recent parliament, claims that the amendments he offered in December will "reassure people that basic liberties will not be affected". But Liberty describes them as "a little bit of window-dressing: nothing substantial has changed."

The new injunctions and the new dispersal orders create a system in which the authorities can prevent anyone from doing more or less anything. But they won't be deployed against anyone. Advertisers, who cause plenty of nuisance and annoyance, have nothing to fear; nor do opera lovers hogging the pavements of Covent Garden. Annoyance and nuisance are what young people cause; they are inflicted by oddballs, the underclass, those who dispute the claims of power.

These laws will be used to stamp out plurality and difference, to douse the exuberance of youth, to pursue children for the crime of being young and together in a public place, to help turn this nation into a money-making monoculture, controlled, homogenised, lifeless, strifeless and bland. For a government which represents the old and the rich, that must sound like paradise.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot

Myanmar journalists protest reporter’s jail term

Khin Maung Win/Associated Press - Myanmar journalists shout slogans while marching through Yangon, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, in Myanmar. Dozens of journalists staged a rare demonstration in Myanmar’s biggest city to protest against a jail term given to a colleague working on a corruption story.

By Associated Press, Published: January 6

YANGON, Myanmar — Dozens of journalists staged a rare demonstration Tuesday morning in Myanmar’s biggest city to protest a jail term given to a reporter who was working on a story about corruption.

Wearing black T-shirts with slogans saying, “We don’t want threat on Press Freedom,” and carrying banners that read, “Right to Information is life of democracy,” nearly 60 reporters marched down a busy downtown Yangon street decrying the three-month prison sentence given to Ma Khine from the Daily Eleven newspaper.

She was convicted by a court in eastern Kayah state last month of trespassing, using abusive language and defamation.

Journalists have gained new freedoms under the reformist government of President Thein Sein, who since taking office in 2011 has abolished most censorship and allowed the publication of privately owned daily newspapers for the first time in almost five decades.

Previously, reporters here worked under some of the tightest restrictions in the world, subject to routine state surveillance, phone taps and censorship for all publications.

Still, even under recent reforms, some publications have been sued for defamation, including by government agencies. Ma Khine is the first journalist under Thein Sein’s government to be given a prison sentence.

Ma Khine was sued by a lawyer after she visited her house for an interview for a story about corruption. The lawyer was annoyed by her questioning and asked her to leave and later filed a lawsuit, according to Wai Phyo, chief editor of the Daily Eleven.

“The judge could have imposed a fine but deliberately gave the prison sentence not only to threaten the reporter but to threaten press freedom,” he said.

Myint Kyaw, the general secretary of Myanmar Journalist Network, helped organize the protest march “because we do not want the imprisonment of a journalist to become a precedent.”

Local and international media and watchdog organizations such as the World Association of Newspapers, Committee to Protest Journalists and Reporters Without Borders issued statements strongly condemning the prison sentence.

Facing The Challenge Of Single-Issue international Agenda

By Jehan Perera -January 6, 2014

Jehan Perera

Stephen J. Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large of the Office of Global Criminal Justice of the United States will be in Sri Lanka this week.  He will be meeting with political leaders and also with other influential opinion formers to ascertain the situation in the country relevant to his interests and to make known his own views.    His visit will be followed shortly thereafter by Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs of the US government, Nisha Desai Biswal.  Both these visits are evidence of the international interest in Sri Lanka and its present trajectory of political development.  They are also likely to be connected to the forthcoming session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March, where Sri Lanka is likely to figure as an important issue and perhaps even as a test case for collective international action.

Due to the global influence the United States whatever its officials think and say is going to be of utmost importance to all of Sri Lanka, and not just to its government.  The views on Sri Lanka of the closest ally of the United States, which is the United Kingdom, are already well known.  British Prime Minister David Cameronhas said that his government will use its place within the UN Human Rights Council to press for an international inquiry into the conduct of the last phase of Sri Lanka’s war.    When he was in Sri Lanka to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November last year, the British Prime Minister gave the government an alternative of doing its own investigation in a credible manner.  But this has not been forthcoming as yet.

The ideal for Sri Lanka in the New Year is to have a government, opposition, civil society and international community that will address the problems faced by people and solve them without making them worse.  Among the many urgent problems that need resolution, the issue of accountability is particularly sensitive as it impacts upon the government leadership. Largely in deference to this international pressure, the government has taken some cases of human rights violations before the civil courts and appointed military tribunals to look into other allegations, but these have not yet yielded concrete outcomes.  The visiting US officials are likely to get this message from those whom they meet. So it will appear to them that there is a need for international action.

People’s Concerns                                                     Read More 

TNA prepares to make recommendations to UNHRC

 Monday, 06 January 2014 

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is making the necessary preparations to make representations to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) during the March sessions and call for international intervention to address the issues in Sri Lanka.

TNA Spokesperson, parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran has said the government has failed to respect the resolutions adopted at the UNHRC in 2012 and 2013 on addressing post war issues and implementing the LLRC recommendations.

He has noted that the TNA will push for an international effort to pressure the government and the party will meet with members of the international community create awareness about the issues in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, President Mahinda Rajapaksa last week met Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran and discussed some of the long standing issues in the North that needs to be addressed.

The Welfare State And The Arthashastra

| by Dr. Naresha Duraiswamy

( January 4, 2014 -Colombo -Sri Lanka Guardian) As a new Gregorian year begins, it would be appropriate to revisit the concept of a welfare state in the traditional Sanskrit canon. The state had its obligations to the broader population. The public welfare was the measure by which a state was assessed. Kautilya authored the Arthashastra - a Sanskrit literary classic on statecraft - in the 3rd century BCE. I relied on L.N. Rangarajan, “Kautilya: The Arthashastra: Edited, Rearranged, Translated and Introduced”; Delhi: Penguin Publication, 1992 for this piece.

The Arthashastra emphasized (i) a well-organized public administration; (ii) economic prosperity; (iii) social welfare; (iv) effective diplomacy; and (v) military preparedness as essential ingredients of a successful state. A capable ruler had to focus on these five elements. I will limit myself to the subject of public welfare.

This 2,200 year old Sanskrit document defined welfare as

"the increase in economic activity, the protection of livelihood, safeguarding vulnerable segments of society, consumer protection, the prevention of the harassment of citizens, and the welfare of labor and of prisoners".

Kautilya begins his text by mentioning that

"In the happiness of his population, rests the ruler’s own happiness,

in their welfare lies his welfare,

he shall not necessarily consider as good whatever pleases him

but he shall consider as good whatever pleases his population.”

Kautilya proceeds to define the ideal ruler as one “who is ever active in promoting the welfare of the people, and who endears himself by enriching the public and doing good to them”.

The vast empire founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 321 BCE was administered by an efficient bureaucracy. It had an excellent communications network and came under the control of a strong ruler. Kautilya was the King’s chief advisor and strategist. The Arthashastra provided a political philosophy to unify previously small political units, weld divergent groups into a broader cohesive identity and integrate diverse linguistic groups. The emphasis on the common weal was intended to cement a diverse and heterogeneous population. The end goal was social cohesion.

This explains the continued relevance of several of the administrative principles enunciated in this classical text. This Sanskrit document influenced political theory and traditional statecraft in India, Nepal and in the Hinduized states of classical-era South East Asia.

The references to the welfare state in the Arthashastra are vast. I will confine this discussion to the prevention of public extortion, the welfare of public officials and the welfare of prisoners.

Kautilya begins by defining public harassment to include (a) village officials who extort; (b) heads of departments who are corrupt; (c) judges who solicit bribes; (d) counterfeiters; (e) traders who cheat the public; and (f) military personnel who go on rampage. The Arthashastra suggests mechanisms to enable the public to routinely register their complaints; to facilitate the investigation of such complaints; and to provide compensation where called for. Punishments for corrupt officials and traders are prescribed.

The Arthashastra defines the vulnerable segments of the population to include “minors, the aged, the sick, the disabled, the mentally challenged, Brahmins and ascetics”. The vulnerable “are to enjoy priority of audience before the king, maintenance at state expense, free travel on ferries and given special consideration by judges”.

Village elders were to hold the property of orphans in trust and look after them. The state had to maintain destitute children, the aged, childless women and the helpless. The Arthashastra emphasizes that “when an enemy fort was attacked, non-combatants, those who surrender and the frightened were not to be harmed”.

More importantly, Kautilya provides for the protection of female labor from exploitation. It stipulates harsh punishment for rape. It emphasizes the protection of commercial sex workers from physical injury and exploitation.

In the section on the rights of prisoners, the Arthashastra emphasizes the need for “(i) separate prisons for men and women; (ii) the provision of adequate halls, water wells, bathrooms and latrines; (iii) protection of prisoners from fire hazards and poisonous insects; and (iv) safeguarding the rights of prisoners in their daily activities such as eating, sleeping and exercise”. Kautilya restricts warders from torturing prisoners and prescribes severe punishments for the rape of female prisoners. He advocates the periodic release of prisoners on general amnesty.

The Arthashastra recommends that “Those officials who do not eat up the state’s wealth but increase it in a just manner and are loyally devoted to the state shall be made permanent in service”. He adds that “an official who accomplishes a task as ordered or better shall be honored with a promotion and rewards.” “The state is to provide for the family of a government servant who died on duty”.

Meanwhile, women had the right to inherit and transfer property. The Arthashastra also states that the ‘third gender’/homosexuals should be maintained by their families as they lack children and therefore do not inherit property. It forbids the vilification of the ‘third gender’.

Many of these precepts are modern in outlook and resonate with a contemporary audience. It is important to note however that it often only represented theory and the ideal. The actual practice of statecraft through the centuries did not necessarily meet these high standards. Further, Kautilya urged rulers to ruthlessly crush dissent and political opposition. His was not always a humane text in his anticipation of the Machiavellian ethos. Moreover, several other principles of the Arthashastra are irrelevant today.

Nevertheless, the text continues to provide an archetype of political thought that defines Hindu political theory, much like Plato’s Republic did in Europe. Its time to revisit it as we judge the effectiveness of our contemporary political systems. There are other chapters on trade, public finance and economic enterprise. But that discussion later.

Government launches programme to counter pressure at UNHRC

 Monday, 06 January 2014 

The government has commenced a programme to counter the pressure Sri Lanka could before the international community at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session in Geneva.

The External Affairs Ministry together with the Presidential Secretariat has launched a programme to appraise the relevant countries on the government's progress in implementing the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

Lalith Weeratunga, who is the head of the Presidential Task Force assigned to implement the LLRC recommendations, is to visit Geneva later this month to explain to the envoys of the UN member states on the latest developments on the implementation of the LLRC recommendations.
External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunathilaka Amunugama has told the media that envoys have been sent to member states of the UNHRC to inform them of the progress made in Sri Lanka since the end of the war in 2009.

External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris is to also meet envoys accredited to Sri Lanka but based in New Delhi to make them aware of the government’s progress.

Events: Lasantha Wickrematunge Memorial Candle Light Vigil

January 6, 2014 

SAMAGI Balawegaya (The Force for Unity)

invites you to join us at

Lasantha Wickrematunge Memorial Candle Light Vigil

on

Thursday, January 09

(5.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m)

in front of

MALAGALAGE PRIMARY SCHOOL in Attidiya, Dehiwala.

Contact:

(Brito – 077 109 2921 / Dinesh – 072 733 6559 / Freddy – 077 727 5171)

Journalism Then And Now

|

 by Pearl Thevanayagam

(January 06, 2013 London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sub-editors at the Daily News harassed me so much that they had to get every nuance right or else they threatened that my piece would not be published. I dreaded their beckoning me as I was about to leave on such pesky detail as a name of a minister or the sum allocated to a ministry.

Sub-editors harangued me and I was on the verge of saying to hell with these old codgers; but without them I would have been hauled up before courts for the four sins journalists are prone to. Breach of parliamentary privilege, contempt of Court etc; etc.

Sub-editors kept me in check. They earned no laurels like the reporters in that for the years they spent in pokey smoky cubby holes with magnified lenses their names never graced the pages of newspapers. But it was these sub-editors who jazzed up our stories with pithy headlines. They scrutinised their reporters’ stories with a fine tooth-comb and our by-lines kept our egos on a permanent high.

Visakha Cooke, Lalitha Viththanachi, Mr De Silva, Mr Samuel, Anton Kurukulasuriya, , Dudley Jansz and Nedra Vittachchi were ready to edit our badly written copies; particularly Daryll de Silva’s inebriated piece on a ministry press release or the late Ivor Milhuisen’s interview with the attractive PR Jasmin Cader from Hilton. The late Preethi Kodagoda who died an untimely death was forever bickering with Daily News chief editor Manik de Silva.

Dinamina and Silumina were our siblings and we exchanged many a stories when we failed to turn up for press conferences which bored us to death.

Jasmin was supposed to be interviewed by me but Ivor said he was more experienced in Hilton affairs; ergo Jasmin should be interviewed by him. Ivor’s grin stayed for days than the Cheshire Cat’s and he survived for days on her gorgeous legs which he described as tender plantain shoots.

Daryll died a few years ago having been trampled by an elephant while he was press officer for the wildlife department.

My life at Daily News was blighted by the shenanigans of its news-desk reporters. While I adhered to the book of rules of journalism as dictated to by my peers, these maverick journalists chose me to be their mouthpiece when they scooted off to the water-holes surrounding Beira on pay-day.

Zorro hot-footed it to the bookies, Rodney Martinesz to the bar and court reporter Sarath Malalasekera to a hotel outside Colombo with his flavour of the day in an Ace cab and I was left with answering their wives’ telephone calls and giving excuses they were at important press conferences. Despite the restraint on my reporting my Daily News days will long be remembered for those halcyon days when we forgot we were Tamils, Sinhalese, Burghers, Malays or Muslims. We were simply journalists and we told it as it were.

(The writer has been a journalist for 24 years and worked in national newspapers as sub-editor, news reporter and news editor. She was Colombo Correspondent for Times of India and has contributed to Wall Street Journal where she was on work experience from The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, California. Currently residing in UK she is also co-founder of EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK in 2005 the membership of which is 200 from 40 countries. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)

Truth & Reconciliation Commission: A Time Buying Ploy?

By Dinesh D. Dodamgoda -January 6, 2014

Dinesh Dodamgoda

Is the proposal to initiate a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sri Lanka with the assistance from South African government a time buying ploy to thwart the call for an international inquiry into war crimes? No doubt, the answer relies on Rajapaksa government’s sincerity in initiating a genuine post-conflict reconciliation process.

During the CHOGM in Colombo in last November, President Mahinda Rajapaksa asked the South African President Jacob Zuma twice to provide assistance to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), similar to the South African model. However, it was learnt that the President Zuma replied and advised President Rajapaksa, “Not to rush” as the President Zuma views, “This is not something you do politics with”. Nonetheless, it was further learnt that during the CHOGM, President Rajapaksa wanted to announce the CHOGM leaders the TRC initiative that could secure the South African assistance, yet again President Zuma advised, “Not to rush”.

It is obvious that the Rajapaksa government is in a kind of a rush either to initiate or to show the world that the government is keen on initiating a post-conflict reconciliation process, four and a half years later to the end of conflict. As some critics also argue, “Why did the Rajapaksa government take so long to initiate such process?”

During his visit to Sri Lanka in late May 2009, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proposed a post-conflict framework for Sri Lanka that had three key issues: resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs), political reconciliation, and accountability for war-time atrocities. A few months later, then the US Ambassador to Colombo, Patricia A. Butenis, proposed a wider framework with four key issues: treatment of IDPs, human rights, political reconciliation, and accountability for alleged war crimes. Both frameworks suggested initiating a political reconciliation process. However, Rajapaksa government had a different opinion.

Giving an interview to Headline Today television, Defence Secretary Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2011 thrashed “the political solution talk” and said that it was “simply irrelevant” as “we have ended this terrorism in Sri Lanka”. Nonetheless, no clarification was made by the Rajapaksa government regarding Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s position on political reconciliation and indicated Rajapaksa government’s endorsement to Defence Secretary’s opinion.

Nevertheless, on 15 November 2011, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) handed over its final report to President Mahinda Rajapaksa with various recommendations to build post-conflict Sri Lanka. As the report pointed out in page 368, the essence of the report is about reconciling the society: “What needs to be done for reconciliation and nation-building is that the State has to reach out to the minorities and the minorities, in turn must, re-position themselves in their role vis-à-vis the State and the country.”

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