For your information Mr. President

SATURDAY, 20 DECEMBER 2014

Political stage these days is abundant with talks of the luxurious lives lead by members of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s family. Rulers spending money paid as taxes by the people in the country to lead sumptuous lives is not new. However, this has developed to a stage that public money is spent wastefully and also to colossally fatten their bank accounts.

When political parties of the opposition criticize such acts Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa dispels them very lightly. Also, certain individuals talk of members of Mr. Rajapaksa’s family with great respect and in awe.

We publish these photographs on a request from viewers so that those who are not aware of President’s sons’ prodigal living would know. We also would like to mention that the photographs were taken from the ‘Facebook’ account of President’s youngest son.

For Your Information Mr. President by Thavam Ratna

Namal Has No Inhibitions About Discussing His Lucrative Business Deals

By Rajiva Wijesinha -December 20, 2014

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP

Enemies of the President’s Promise: Dopey 3

Namal in fact had no inhibitions about discussing with friends the lucrative business deals he was involved in. But it is possible that he did not think there was anything wrong with all these. Over the years a culture of close involvement of politicians with the business sector had developed, and the favours received from them were seen simply as tokens of friendship – as were the concessions and contracts the complaisant businessmen received. So Chandrika Kumaratunga benefited as President from the largesse of a businessman called Ronnie Pieris, who did very well under the regime, while another close friend who had worked for Emirates ended up, when he was appointed head of Air Lanka, as it used to be known, by subordinating it to that airline. Emirates emerged strengthened immeasurably by the partnership while Air Lanka lost much of the reputation and the reach it had earlier enjoyed. But these seemed isolated examples, and the connections to any incentives were never direct.

                                           Read More

Who Should Captain?

By Dayan Jayatilleka -December 20, 2014

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

In October 1988, accepting the UNP nomination at the Sugathadasa Stadium, Ranasinghe Premadasa complained in a bitter, biting aside, that as Prime Minister he had enjoyed “the powers of a peon”. That status is about to change if the Opposition wins, because the Maithri manifesto makes clear that the centre of gravity of executive power will undergo a decisive structural shift from the Presidency to the parliament and the Cabinet. Thus Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe is tipped to be the most powerful Prime Minister since Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike—far more powerful than the infinitely more deserving Mr. Premadasa was under President Jayewardene. If after a parliamentary election, a breakaway SLFP is the largest party and if ex-President Kumaratunga is the leader of that party, then it is she who will be the most powerful Prime Minister since her mother. In this scenario,Mahinda Rajapaksa would have been shunted home to Medamulana. Is it only me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

What then are our real choices on January 8^th 2015? With the joint Opposition’s declared objective ofMaithripala Sirisena occupying a shrunken Presidency and therefore wielding reduced authority, and power being shifted to Parliament and the Cabinet, it will be Ranil and Chandrika who will wield real power and influence. Should we bring them back and toss Mahinda out?

To my mind, what Mahinda Rajapaksa has done wrong- or got wrong–is greatly outweighed by what he has got right and done right. On the other hand, what Ranil and Chandrika got wrong have done wrong, far outweigh whatever it is they did right. Since Mahinda’s positives greatly outweigh his negatives and the opposite is true of Ranil and Chandrika, I see no sense in removing Mahinda and re-instating Ranil and Chandrika, albeit with Mr. Sirisena as the human shield and presidential proxy candidate.Read More

Double standards at SLRC

Saturday, 20 December 2014 

The Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) is reportedly adopting a double standard when charging monies for advertisements from the presidential election candidates.

According to reports, while only Rs.30,000 is being charged for a 30 second advertisement of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a staggering Rs. 160,000 is being charged for an advertisement of Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena with an equal run time.

Meanwhile, the SLRC has also ignored instructions by the Elections Commissioner and given only a limited amount of election advertisements to Sirisena’s campaign.

According to sources, President Rajapaksa’s advertisements are being granted on a credit basis.

Ruwan, who is this?

Saturday, 20 December 2014

At today’s media conference by young MPs, leader of the UNP’s Youth Front, Gampaha district MP Ruwan Wijewardena drew a cartoon, and our photographer captured images of the cartoon and its creator at work.

Ruwan drew the sketch of a person, who remains in the hearts of most Sri Lankans forever. Ruwan drew him unintentionally while engaged in another activity.

The psychiatric opinion is that if someone is in love, that person would draw flowers, lips and other beautiful things. As the fall of Hitler neared, those responsible for it drew him, subjecting him to ridicule. In the end, they not only toppled him, but also ended his life.

What we have to say is that ‘Lankadeepa’ owner Ranjith Wijewardena can find a good cartoonist to work for free in his newspapers from his own home.

Sri Lanka presidential challenger vows to cancel Crown casino licence

United National Party leader Ranil Wickramasinghe (L-R), Common presidential candidate Mithripala Sirisena, former president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and former commander of the army Sarath Fonseka, stand for a one minute silence during the signing of the party leaders memorandum of understanding of the common opposition, in Colombo, December 1, 2014.

BY SHIHAR ANEEZ-Fri Dec 19, 2014
(Reuters) - Mithripala Sirisena, who is challenging Mahinda Rajapaksa's bid for a third term as Sri Lanka's president, will cancel a casino licence given to Australia's Crown Resorts Ltd if he wins the vote, his party's manifesto said.

With an eye on the votes of Buddhists opposed to the casinos, Sirisena's New Democratic Front said it would also cancel a licence given to Sri Lanka's most valuable listed company John Keells Holdings if he comes to power in the Jan. 8 election.

The promises were part of a manifesto released on Friday that also included commitments to extend farm loan waivers and lower fuel prices, populist measures aimed at eroding Rajapaksa's ethnic and rural support base.

Sirisena quit as Rajapaksa's health minister in November to run as an opposition candidate.

Rajapaksa was revered in Sri Lanka after ending the Indian ocean island nation's 26-year-old civil war. He is still seen as the election frontrunner, but in recent years has faced public disgruntlement at high prices, allegations of corruption and nepotism.

Western nations have piled pressure on Rajapaksa and his brothers - also in government - over allegations of war crimes as the army crushed the Tamil Tiger separatists, as well as ongoing rights abuses.

Sirisena's party said he would establish independent commissions to secure the impartiality of the judiciary, police and other public services, and crack down on corruption to boost growth.

"The extent of corruption in Sri Lanka in the last few years is unprecedented and unheard of," Sirisena said in the manifesto.

"I would achieve for the country 10 times the development that actually occurred during the past six years," he wrote.

Rajapaksa awarded Australian gambling tycoon James Packer's Crown Resorts Ltd a licence in 2013 to build a $400 million mixed-use resort including a casino.

Casino opponents believe they will lead to a boom in prostitution and damage values and culture in the mainly Buddhist island nation.

Sirisena has gained support in urban areas as well as from ethnic minority Tamils, Muslims and Christians. The main opposition United National Party supports him.

In a separate brochure, Sirisena said his government will deal with war-crimes allegations through an independent mechanism and purge the foreign service within the first 100 days of coming to power.

(Editing by Aditya Kalra, Frank Jack Daniel and Alison Williams)

Tweedledum or Tweedledee? 

Editorial-December 20, 2014

Our stable-mate, The Island, yesterday did some useful memory jogging about the Friday Forum statement regarding Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake’s offensive remarks about stripping former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of her clothes and making her run naked on the streets. Dissanayake, once a great buddy of CBK has, as everybody knows done some great leaps from one side of the political spectrum to the other, enjoying at various times many personal advantages and powerful positions as a result. He’s a good platform speaker who can hold a crowd and his patrons both in the blue and green corners have made good use of his not inconsiderable skills as a political mover and shaker. Nobody would seriously expect SB, who was once sentenced to jail by then Chief Justice Sarath. N. Silva, who did neither himself nor his office any credit by some of his judgments for which he is now apologizing, to say sorry and resign as Friday Forum has recommended. That, unfortunately, is not the way the game is played in this free, sovereign, democratic socialist republic as we call ourselves.

SB spent much of his two-year jail term in the Merchant’s Ward of the General (now National) Hospital, Colombo. His conviction of disparaging the courts did not cost him his parliamentary seat; President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he now serves loyally (until the next jump?) gave him a pardon. Perhaps Rajapaksa regrets placing this mighty midget whose record does not bear serious examination in charge of higher education. Whatever he was expected to do there, he has succeeded in alienating most of the academic community, once solidly behind Mahinda Rajapaksa at this crucial election time. While Dissanayake’s ugly statement about what needs to be done to CBK would have turned many stomachs, as our colleague in The Island reminded yesterday, this was actually done to a UNP supporter at the infamous North Western (Wayamba) Provincial Council election when Chandrika was president. And as far as we (or the country) know, nothing was done to the perpetrators. In 1977, after the UNP landslide, some unspeakable atrocities were committed by victors on the rampage and this, The Island said, included stripping women of their clothing. While Friday Forum, whose membership comprises a group of reputed people of the highest integrity who performs a very useful public interest function, can certainly severely reprimand bad mouths like SB, most politicians on both sides of the divide cannot. They have countenanced all kinds of devilry while in office and done little to deal with offenders owning them allegiance. Examples are legion and our colleague’s memory jogging most useful.

We tend to agree with President Rajapaksa, whose campaign is clearly flush with money and who enjoys all the handicaps of incumbency including many state assets that most in the saddle freely exploit, that Maithripala Sirisena would not have been the common candidate had he been made prime minister. The challenger would then have closed his eyes to the all very visible faults of Rajapaksa and his government that he highlights today. But that’s the way that the papadam has long crumbled. It was better, no doubt, in the past in the early post-Independence years but from the 1960s the situation has progressively deteriorated with politics offering rich rewards at national, provincial and local levels to most of those enjoying elected office. Sycophantic bureaucrats who fall over each other to do their bidding, picking up crumbs from their table, make the situation worse. We have now reached a stage where a political VIP had the brass to openly proclaim that those in office have already made their bucks and need no more, so it’s best to not to elect a new bunch of locusts who need to make money! A ruling party MP was reported to have taken some suspects arrested for allegedly torching a platform erected for Sirisena away from police custody. He says that he did that to produce them in court. Since when do MPs do police work? And when suspects are driven to court in an MPs vehicle, what signal does it give the court and the general public? Asked whether the police had objected to this unusual method of delivering suspects to court, the MP has pithily remarked ewa koheda math ekka – "how can they (police) tangle with me" in rough transliteration.

Asked about his opinion of the possible changing of the guard at an impending election, a commentator is famously quoted to have said "same shit, new flies." That is surely an approximation of today’s situation. If there is a change of president, all those surrounding the challenger will want to stake out various claims for themselves and dispense patronage that will result in new flies stuffing their pockets. Now that the incumbent has set the bad example of a jumbo cabinet of over a hundred ministers – people have lost count of the actual figure – that precedent will be hard to drop. It is indefensible that a country with a population of a little over 20 million people have a public sector quantified the other day at 1.4 million. The way to solve unemployment is not to bloat the public sector but this has long been done. Jobs for the boys (and girls) are the toughest call on elected representatives at all levels and the easiest way of satisfying that demand is by inflating the state payroll. These jobs are not productive and the taxes of the people go to pay those who occupy them. To cap it all, national leaders boast about the number of jobs they have created.

Parliament in a rare gesture of unanimity enacted the 17th Amendment which admittedly had many flaws. The various independent commissions it created had the capability of separating politics from administration and improving governance that had plunged to unplumbed depths at present. Instead of correcting the weaknesses that were identified, the 17th Amendment was scuttled altogether via the 18th Amendment which removed the two-term limit on the presidency which is a salutary feature in any democracy. There was a Supreme Court judgment which held that it had enhanced rather than diminished the franchise and said there was no need for a referendum. The two thirds majority which enabled the constitutional change was not won electorally but by engineering defections, for consideration of political office. Sadly such defections of MPs elected under proportional representation where the elector first voted for a party before expressing any candidate preference was upheld by no less than the Supreme Court and this country is burdened with the sorry situation we live with today.

Whether the contest on Jan. 8 will be as tight as predicted by some we must wait and see. The people can only hope that whatever the result, it would be good for the country. If the incumbent is re-elected, he would perhaps make the course correction that is obviously needed. The challenger, if he makes it, will hopefully keep his promises and give are people not only good governance but also a better future.

The Problem with Karma: Notes from the Conflict in Sri Lanka

Amarnath Amarasingam -Posted: 03/04/2011

Over the past month, there has been some speculation among members of the global Tamil community on whether Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Texas to obtain cancer treatment in secret. The story in itself is not particularly interesting, but it does have relevance for the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka. Many reacted to the news not with sadness, but with a sense that cosmic justice was being meted out. Some argued that Rajapaksa, responsible for mass human rights violations during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war, was now getting his just desserts. Although many nationalist Tamils profess to be atheist or secular, the reaction to the news was always framed in Hindu and Buddhist notions of karma, popularly defined in the West as "what goes around comes around."

For Sinhala soldiers as well, the notion of karma was ever-present throughout the war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which came to a bloody conclusion in May 2009. As Daniel Kent's recent research makes clear, Buddhist monks blessed Sri Lankan soldiers before they went out for training, preached at their funerals, and counseled soldiers and their families about the conduct of war and its justification.

For many years, scholarship on Buddhism, and Eastern religious traditions generally, was often guided by a crude assumption that Western religions held a monopoly on violence, while the East was largely peaceable. Over the last several years, research into conflict in Buddhist societies has forced scholars to rethink our assumptions. According to Kent's research in Sri Lanka, for example, there is real debate within the Sri Lankan army about notions of karma and intention in the killing of enemy soldiers. While there are many different aspects to the discussion, I focus here on one important question: whether religion, particularly discussions of karma and intention, restrict genuine reconciliation between Sinhala and Tamil communities in post-conflict Sri Lanka. I rely heavily on Kent's research on the Sri Lankan army, but much of what follows can likely be applied to the Tamil community as well.

Karma may complicate moves toward reconciliation in Sri Lanka, firstly, by assigning causal explanations to events that are largely inexplicable. Kent recalls interviewing a Sri Lankan Corporal, named Specs, at Panagoda army camp near Colombo, who told the story of narrowly escaping a blast from an improvised explosive device. His friend, who was not so lucky, was blinded and had both of his hands blown off. For Specs, his survival is explained with reference to karma. "That sort of thing must occur as the result of merit," he says, "one becomes disabled like this because of some sort of negative karma, but one's life is saved because one has done some sort of merit. That is what we think. It must be that. It is the way of karma." Not only do karmic explanations bring a spiritual rationalization to bear on worldly events, but these justifications often tend to be self-serving. In other words: I survived because I am good.

Perhaps more important for our present purposes is the way in which karma is linked with intention. Kent interviewed one monk, the Venerable Pilassi Vimaladhajja, who pointed out that negative karma does not accrue when an enemy is killed. "Vimaladhajja is not giving soldiers a blank check to kill whomever they wish while fighting the enemy," writes Kent, "He stresses that if a soldier has the intention to kill, a negative karma occurs. If a soldier's intention is to fight the enemy in order to protect the country and religion, however, their actions do not produce negative consequences." As Kent observes, those who hold this belief look at killing as secondary with the primary intention being the protection of the country.

As with the example above, however, it is assumed that karma, as a cosmic force, is supremely capable of discovering one's underlying intentions. Depending on how the soldier's life subsequently turns out, his ideas of karma and intention may have to be re-evaluated. As one soldier told Kent: "Honestly it is possible to rape and pillage during war without being caught. However, if you do that, nothing will ever go right for you ... there was one incident when we were in Trinco ... the Tamils had cultivated a field and left it. Our guys went and harvested the rice. They harvested the rice, sold it and took the money ... there were 21 guys who did that. All 21 of them were killed on the same day at the same time."

Such faith that karma will mete out punishment with mathematical certainty may work against the potential for remorse, regret or reconciliation. The very fact that some soldiers are still alive and living a life of health, wealth and happiness, is, with profound circular logic, seen as evidence of just conduct during war. This, in essence, is the problem with karma.

Put the evil bastards on trial: The case for trying Bush, Cheney and more for war crimes

The evidence for the prosecution is clear. Human decency requires putting the Bush administration on trial

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld (Credit: Reuters/AP/Jason Reed/Luis Alvarez/Kevin Lamarque/Filipe Frazao via Shutterstock/Photo montage by Salon)

SATURDAY, DEC 20, 2014

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

— Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, June 2008

We’ve seen it in Ferguson, Missouri, with Darren Wilson getting off scot-free for killing Michael Brown. And we’ve seen it again in Staten Island, with Daniel Pantaleo getting off scot-free for killing Eric Garner. So why shouldn’t scores of CIA agents, contractors, higher-ups and other government officials—including former President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney—get off scot-free for torturing hundreds of detainees, including some complete innocents?  That, apparently, is the reigning logic following the release of the Senate torture report.
Put the Evil Bastards on Trial the Case for Trying Bush, Cheney and More for War Crimes by Thavam Ratna

US releases four Guantánamo Bay prisoners to Afghanistan

• Official: ‘Repatriation reflects commitment to closing facility’
• Release follows six men sent to Uruguay earlier this month

• Prisoners released to Uruguay: ‘We’re so happy to be here’
• Want to know the reality of US torture? Ask Shaker Aamer

US military guards move a detainee inside Camp VI at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. President Obama issued an executive order to close the prison in 2009. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Martin Pengelly in New York-Saturday 20 December 2014

The US announced on Saturday the release of four more prisoners from the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. The four men were repatriated to Afghanistan.

Paul Lewis, the Defense Department’s special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo, said: “This repatriation reflects the Defense Department’s continued commitment to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo in a responsible manner.”

The men, who had been in the camp for more than 10 years, were named as Shawali Khan, Khi Ali Gul, Abdul Ghani and Mohammed Zahir. They had been cleared for transfer for some time and are not considered to represent security risks in Afghanistan, where US troops are still deployed.

The release of the men reduces the number of inmates held at Guantánamo to 132, eight of whom are from Afghanistan.

A US official told Reuters the men were flown to Kabul overnight, aboard a US military plane, and released to Afghan authorities in the first such transfer since 2009. The official said the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, had requested the transfer.

More releases are expected in the near future.

A Pentagon statement said the men had been “unanimously approved for transfer” by an inter-agency task force and that the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, had informed Congress of the decision to release them.

According to the Associated Press, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, had opposed the release. Officials said Campbell and all military leaders on the ground had now screened the move. The AP also reported that an official involved in the review said most of the terrorism accusations against the men had been discarded.

The Pentagon statement continued: “The United States is grateful to the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan for its willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.

“The United States coordinated with the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.”

President Barack Obama issued an executive order to close Guantánamo in January 2009. Earlier this month, six inmates were released to Uruguay.

Among the men released to Uruguay was Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian man who is challenging in court the Obama administration’s use of force-feeding at the base.

Battle with the Islamic State for the minds of young Muslims

Fighting the ‘invisible arm’ of the Islamic State

The story of a Berlin mosque illustrates Muslim communities’ battle to save youths from the pull of extremists.

By Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet December 19 at 10:38 PM

BERLIN — After the latest of his sermons denouncing the Islamic State, Mohamed Taha Sabri stepped down from an ornate platform at the House of Peace mosque. The 48-year-old chief preacher then moved to greet his congregation, steeling himself for the fallout.
Battle with the Islamic State for the minds of young Muslims.odt by Thavam Ratna

BJP distances itself from religious conversions

People watch a religion conversion ceremony, where devotees are converted from Christianity to Hinduism, at Hasayan town in Uttar Pradesh August 29, 2014.

BY ADITYA KALRA-Sat Dec 20, 2014

(Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Saturday it does not support forceful religious conversions, distancing itself from a sensitive issue that has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties and hurt the government's reform agenda.

Modi has in recent weeks come under fire for being slow to rein in his hardline affiliate groups that are allegedly trying to promote a Hindu-dominant agenda by luring Muslims and Christians to convert to Hinduism.

Critics say such groups undermine the secular foundations of multi-faith India and have become more assertive since the BJP swept to power in May.

"BJP is not supportive of any forceful conversions," party president Amit Shah said, adding that his party was supportive of bringing in an anti-conversion law.

India's 1.2 billion people are predominantly Hindus, but the country has about 160 million Muslims and a small proportion of Christians.

Religious conversions are a hot button issue for Hindu nationalists in India, which was colonised for centuries by Muslim and Christian invaders. Some hardliners want the entire country to become a land of Hindus.

Earlier this month, Muslim slum-dwellers complained they had been tricked into a conversion ceremony by Hindu groups who attracted them with promises of cheap government rations and voter identity cards. Police are investigating the case.

In another incident, a Hindu priest-turned-MP of the BJP planned a conversion ceremony on Christmas Day, but cancelled the event after the prime minister intervened.

Supporters define such events as a 'homecoming', saying families signing up for the ceremonies were originally Hindus.

"A police complaint has been registered against the so-called homecoming programme and the matter has reached the court. ... Let the court decide if it was a forceful conversion or not," Shah said.

Modi's agenda to push through reforms to boost economic growth has hit a roadblock in the Lok Sabha, where opposition lawmakers have demanded that the prime minister make a statement on the contested conversions issue.

The Hindu nationalist leader has so far refrained from doing so, and has let his colleagues fend off criticism.

"The BJP speaks with a forked tongue," national spokesman of the opposition Congress party, Sanjay Jha, told Reuters, accusing the BJP of using economic reform as a way to a camouflage its Hindu agenda.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Crispian Balmer)