Tamil People Are Highly Disappointed And Dismayed: Shivaji Tells HR Chief

February 23, 2015

The Tamil people are highly disappointed and dismayed by United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner’s announcement on February 16, to delay the OHCR Investigation on Sri Lanka – OISL Report until September 2015, says M.K. Shivajilingam.

Sending a letter to the High Commissioner today, the Northern Provincial Council member says; The Tamil people, however, take solace in your “personal, absolute and unshakable commitment that the report will be published by September”, and it will be “stronger and more comprehensive report.”

M. K. Shivajilingam

We publish below the letter in full;

February 23, 2015

The Hon. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais Wilson, 52 rue des Pâquis
CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Dear Honorable High Commissioner Zeid,

Re: Accountability and Political Solution in Sri Lanka

The Tamil people are highly disappointed and dismayed by your announcement on February 16, to delay the OHCR Investigation on Sri Lanka – OISL Report until September 2015. The Tamil people had been anxiously waiting with high hopes for the release of the Report, but this unexpected delay has caused serious concerns to the victimized Tamil population, and we strongly believe justice delayed is justice denied.

The Tamil people, however, take solace in your “personal, absolute and unshakable commitment that the report will be published by September”, and it will be “stronger and more comprehensive report.”

The UN’s failure to protect the Tamils in 2009 was termed as “systemic failure” of the UN by the UN’s own “Report of the UN Secretary General’s Internal Review Panel on UN Action in Sri Lanka” released in November 2012 by the head of the Panel Charles Petrie. The Tamil people sincerely hope that the UN System will not victimize the Tamils once again by delaying or denying them full and complete justice. We see this delay yet again as a failure of the UN system to protect and listen to the victims of mass atrocities.

The Tamil Nation has been systematically destroyed by the successive Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan governments, ever since the island got its independence in 1948. The Tamil people have been massacred in thousands, they have been tortured, their churches and temples have been destroyed, their lands have been taken away, their rights have been denied, and they have been oppressed and occupied. The injustice against the Tamils continues even at this very moment.

We are hopeful that the Report by the OISL will be released in September of this year, and the UN judicial proceedings will follow without any further delay. We sincerely hope this extended time will be used to strengthen the Report and not to weaken it. Tamil people have experienced disappointments and disillusions in the last 67 years, and we do not believe Sri Lanka will ever deliver true justice to the Tamils; instead, it will use the time and space to hoodwink the International Community again, and try to derail the UN process of accountability and justice to the Tamils.

The main reason given for delaying the OISL Report is that Sri Lanka now has a new government, and they need to be given time. However, the Tamil people, who have first-hand experience of the Sri Lankan political culture which thrives on oppressing Tamils with Sinhalese Buddhist nationalistic Majoritarian sentiments, do not believe the new government which consists of several of the same personals that were part of the previous regimes that committed the crimes, will deliver anything new to the Tamils. The new regime came to power with the slogan of opposing the UN Investigation and opposing equitable political solution based on a federal model.

The new regime came to power on January 9th of this year. Within days of coming into power, the new regime has given the police-powers to its armed-forces. This is not a sign of demilitarization or good-will from the new regime. The fact that the Northern Provincial Council unanimously passed a historic resolution on February 10th clearly indicates the Tamils’ mistrust against the new Sri Lankan government. The Resolution details the genocide, crimes, and injustice committed against the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan governments and its system since 1948, and includes the roles of some of the leaders in the current regime including the President. This Resolution is tabled by our Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council Honorable Justice C.V. Wigneswaran, who is a retired Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. The Resolution describes the systematic historical atrocities against the Tamil people by Sri Lanka and calls for comprehensive investigation of Genocide against the Tamil people and referral to the International Criminal Court. Some of the highlights of the Resolution are attached at the bottom of this letter.*

While the OISL Report is being delayed to give more time and space to Sri Lanka, we Tamils kindly and respectfully request that the International Community and the UN must set clear requirements to measure the progress of the commitment of Sri Lanka. Although the UNHRC Resolution of March 2014, “Calling upon the Government of Sri Lanka to fulfil its public commitments, including on the devolution of political authority”, Sri Lanka has not made any progress towards finding a permanent political solution, instead, its oppression of the Tamils continues.

Sri Lanka often talks about “reconciliation” but conciliation cannot begin without accountability, justice and a permanent equitable political solution. Sri Lanka must stop its anti-Tamil agenda including the land-grab, and hand over all the lands taken from the Tamil people and remove its military camps from the North and East.

I respectfully request you, UNHRC Member countries, and the International Community to urge Sri Lanka to show progress before September, on both the Accountability as well as the political solution. Here I list some of the major requests:
Accountability:

Sri Lanka must allow the UN Investigative Team to enter Sri Lanka and visit any areas without any restrictions.

The UN Team must be able to meet up with victims, and witnesses. It must be able to meet with military officials that were involved in the war. The UN Team must be able to visit the areas of mass-killings, mass-graves and others places of interest to the Investigative Team. They should be able to visit prisons and other places where the Tamil prisoners are kept.

The witnesses must be given protection, and conditions must be created for the witnesses and victims, such a way that they will be able to meet the UN Team without any fear or reprisals.

Political Solution:

Towards finding a permanent political solution, Sri Lanka must accept technical assistance from the UN, and accept mediation by the EU, India, US and the UN. The Negotiation must start as soon as possible and progress be made before September.

The Negotiation must begin from the Oslo Declaration where both the Tamil side and Sri Lanka side agreed on Dec 5, 2002 to explore political solution based on a federal structure. The current Prime Minister Hon Ranil Wickeramasinghe was also the Prime Minister of the government that agreed to the Oslo Declaration in Oslo, Norway in the presence of Norwegian facilitators.

If Sri Lanka is unwilling or unable to find a permanent political solution, I request you and the International Community to help conduct a UN monitored Referendum for the Tamil people to determine their political destiny.

If Sri Lanka has genuine intention of cooperating with the UN, and genuinely interested in accountability, justice and permanent political solution, it must show progress to the International Community and to the UN, before September on all fronts. The Tamil people hope that the International Community obtains unambiguous commitment from Sri Lanka to fulfill these.

The Tamil people are counting on you and the International Community towards finding justice and permanent political solution. We seek your assistance. We seek your help. Above all, we seek your protection. We sincerely hope you are listening.

Thank you.
M.K.Shivajilingam
Member of Northern Provincial Council, Sri Lanka
[Former Member of Parliament, Sri Lanka]

CC: UNHRC Member Countries, EU Member Countries

State Intelligence : Bid to Harm the President Maithri Revealed?

    Justice for All?          War Crimes in Sri Lanka-genocide 

Nugegoda, The Nazism Of Sri Lanka & Its Genocide

(February 22, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “The warning of the State intelligence, spoke of a possible assault on a leader or leaders of the Government when they attended the military parade held outside the parliament complex at Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte. It was to take the form of an incident similar to the one in which Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was killed in 1981 when soldiers at a military parade got down from their vehicles and started shooting at the VVIP dais,” the Sunday Times, a weekly newspaper based in Colombo reported today.

Here is the Sunday Times’s report’,

The talking point in a section of the National Unity Government this week was an intelligence warning President Maithripala Sirisena received ahead of the National Day celebrations on February 4.

Though sketchy, the warning spoke of a possible assault on a leader or leaders of the Government when they attended the military parade held outside the parliament complex at Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte. It was to take the form of an incident similar to the one in which Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was killed in 1981 when soldiers at a military parade got down from their vehicles and started shooting at the VVIP dais.

Defence Secretary B.M.U.D. Basnayake who received the intelligence warning apprised President Sirisena and chaired meetings to plan counter measures. “Immediate precautionary measures were taken to ensure nothing untoward happened,” said a Government source privy to the warning and the events that followed. The warning, however, did not say who the exact target or targets were and from which specific quarter the threat emanated.

The source declined to elaborate except to say that the information “appeared credible.” Even ahead of the warning of such a surprise attack on Government dignitaries, President Sirisena had sought to have a ceremony to mark the 67th anniversary of independence on a low key. He felt there was no need to display neither the many weapons the military had acquired nor a fly past of fighter jets. He also did not wish the participation of hundreds of schoolchildren. The previous Government had formulated elaborate plans for the celebrations to be held in Weeraketiya, the home ground of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The new venue was chosen by Sirisena.

On October 17, 1981, Egypt was holding an annual victory parade to celebrate Operation Badr (1973), the surprise attack on Israel by Egyptian troops crossing the Suez Canal and taking back the Sinai Peninsula during the Yom Kippur War. The tide in the war later turned in Israel’s favour after the United States airlifted weapons. Egypt and Israel thereafter reached a settlement viewed as a victory for President Sadat. He was viewing a flypast of French built Mirage jet fighters as they soared above Cairo. Several soldiers jumped off from the trucks they were travelling in, moved towards the reviewing stands, opened fire and hurled grenades. Sadat was dead upon admission to hospital.

Here is an video account on how they killed the President Anwar Sadat;

Engineering force (Baas) Krishantha De Silva who gave false evidence against Fonseka is Army Commander -Whither SL ?

(Lanka-e-News -22.Feb.2015, 11.30PM) President Maitripala Sirisena and ministry of defense lastday appointed major general Krishantha De Silva as the new army commander replacing army commander Daya Ratnayake who is due for retirement. Krishantha is an old boy of Royal College , Colombo , and an officer attached to the engineering force of the army.

Engineering Force (Baas) Krishantha de Silva Who Gave False Evidence Against Fonseka is Army Commander -Whi... by Thavam Ratna

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake?

By Jagath Asoka -February 22, 2015

Dr. Jagath Asoka

What is JVP’s ultimate goal, Presidency? Do you think that Sri Lankans would elect comrade Anura Kumara Dissanayake as our president? Things that seem impossible and politically unpalatable today, with time, can turn into things that are real and politically palatable. What are Anura’s barriers? Has the JVP already dug Anura’s grave because the blood of our brothers and sisters that the JVP has killed continually cries out to us?

It seems like most Sri Lankans think that Anura Kumara is not only an honest, intelligent, educated, hard-working, sincere leader, but also an intrepid orator and skilled-politician; he is an out-of-the-box thinker, who has the ability to stir the spirit of our nation, because he approaches burning topics like corruption, murder, freedom of speech, from a unique point of view, without fear, which makes Sri Lankans redefine and rediscover their own deep-rooted values. Juxtapose Anura and our educated dhobis who have served as ambassadors, VCs, judges, and even some newly appointed Janus-faced educated dhobi-ministers who were sycophants ofRajapaksas, who claims that Impeaching CJ was a hasty and inappropriate move, and I Did Not Sign; but I wonder what this Janus-faced educated dhobi did when they impeached Shirani Bandaranayake? Compare and juxtapose!

Anura’s criticisms of Rajapaksas were so heated and bitter; his denouncing of Rajapaksas was Philippic and convinced most Sri Lankans to defeat Rajapaksas in order to avoid sinking our nation into the abyss of a new Dark Age. Remember, there was a time, not a single cartoon of Gota the gonibilla was published in Sri Lanka; there were no Charlie Hebdos in Colombo. But now, the mad dogs and their fleas are dancing and singing to Bruce Springsteen’s music. What a progress! Even the educated dhobis of our nation—the bloodsucking fleas of our nation—disguised as intelligentsia, political pundits, and some newly appointed ministers, are ecstatic and euphoric with this newfound freedom of speech. It seems like our educated dhobis keep writing their convoluted essays as they whirl to the music of Bruce Springsteen. How fortunate are you to live in a time like this in our edenic paradise, intoxicated without liquor, transfixed by the political dervishes of our educated dhobis?

All Sri Lankans know that the JVP is a communist party based on Marxist-Leninist ideology. In a nutshell, here is its history: It was formed in 1965; was involved in two armed uprisings against the ruling governments in 1971 and 1987. After 1989, it entered democratic politics in the 1994 parliamentary election; now they have become the watch dogs of our country.
Read More

A Brave New State Media? – Lakshman Gunasekara

[ Lakshman Gunasekara, Vikalpa Photo]-22/02/2015

The changes in leadership that the country’s public-owned news media institutions undergo along with changes in government is now so automatic that it is almost a hallowed tradition.

In one venerable public-owned institution, for example, there is a permanent ‘consultants’ room’ where, come regime change, politically appointed senior media managers of the ancient regime are put into cold storage on being displaced in their posts by the political appointees of the new regime. Sometimes, media executives who had been hibernating in the consultants’ room are rehabilitated and march out to resume their former or new positions while those displaced troop into that room to sit out the tenure of the new regime.

The bulk of the staff in these institutions, however, remain in their work stations, resigned to continuing the same kind of sycophancy and propaganda-style news production in lieu of the professional journalism that they would like to do. Incoming managers, in the past, have tended to

follow the now traditional policy of pro-Government and anti-Opposition propaganda, promotion of political personalities and even dis-information to divert public attention from governmental failures and mis-rule.

This insidious ‘tradition’, hopefully, has been broken by the historic political change that occurred with the presidential election on January 8. Whether the new political environment will remain conducive to substantive and enduring change in the public-owned mass media sector remains to be seen and, depends on how current national political dynamics evolve.

Previously, with regime change, incoming government tended to merely replace managers with their own trusted spin doctors and continue with the same old propagandist practices.

The only previous exception to this continuity was in 1994, when, as a result of public exhaustion over the overbearing propaganda and authoritarianism of the pre-1994 regime, the incoming Chandrika Kumaratunga-led government did attempt to fulfill its promise of ‘liberalisation’ of the State media.

For a couple of years, the State media did enjoy relatively liberal management and the public was slightly incredulous at this suddenly liberal State media behaviour. But the Kumaratunga regime fell prey to that vital dynamic of competitive democracy, namely, the criticisms of the political opposition. In addition to the politicians’ need for self-aggrandizement, all governments face the far more important challenge of a critical Opposition.

A critical and watchful political opposition is an essential pillar of a normally functioning liberal democracy. With a vociferous opposition inside and outside Parliament and struggling with the armed insurgent opposition of the Tamil secessionist movement and international propaganda by supportive

elements in the Sri Lankan Diaspora, the Kumaratunga regime instinctively resorted to using the State media in defensive mode as did all previous regimes. Thus, the State media enjoyed only a short-lived liberal honeymoon.

This time, however, the political landscape is totally transformed as never before. Most importantly, there is the broadest ever consensual government that Sri Lanka has experienced as a modern republic, perhaps, in this island society’s entire history.

There is a nation-wide sense of urgency to repair and recover the basic structures of the Sri Lankan polity after a decade of very serious decay and near collapse. Indeed, for those concerned about nationhood, there is compulsion for rebuilding civilisation.

This consensus and these compulsions alone provide a good basis for consistency in government policy. Additionally, and more specifically relevant to the State media is the lack of a coherent and legitimised political opposition.

The lack of a legitimised Opposition whose criticisms are seen as valid by powerful vote banks, has reduced the pressure on the regime to defend itself via the State media (leave aside white vans and other past repressive tools).

Thus there is an opportunity for the country’s news media both private and public sector to liberally report, criticise, expose and, most importantly convey the aspirations, grievances and celebrations of the mass of people and all communities, small or big. This is a precious moment in our history when the State media can leap beyond the restraints of political caution, propagandist manipulation and vendetta and function more responsibly to serve the public.

The country’s joint national leadership has the opportunity now to enable the publicly owned mass media to truly serve the citizenry as a critical and watchful media. The critical media will hold up a mirror for the rulers to truly see themselves rather than any ‘graven images’ that sycophancy creates and then leads them astray along with the people.

Editorial, Sunday Observer

Credible reports of bid to harm new Govt. leaders at National Day military parade

By Our Political Editor-Sunday, February 22, 2015View(s): 7745

Defence Secretary was tipped-off of plan similar to the assassination of Egyptian President Sadat
Sweeping changes in Army; new commander takes over todayVen. Sobitha Thera calls for postponement of parliamentary elections till electoral reforms in placeSirisena moves to consolidate his position as SLFP leader amid attempts by some UPFA parties to bring Mahinda back

The talking point in a section of the National Unity Government this week was an intelligence warning President Maithripala Sirisena received ahead of the National Day celebrations on February 4.

Credible Reports of Bid to Harm New Govt. Leaders at National Day Military Parade by Thavam Ratna

Is Modi A Role Model For President Sirisena?

By Mano Ratwatte –February 22, 2015

Mano Ratwatte

Indian media experts write in patronizing and condescending tones about how Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Mr. Sirisena should emulate PMModi or use Modi as a role model? I think not. Indians and Modi should look at Mr. Sirisena and use him as a role model. They do have one similarity in the sense neither was well known until thrust into the limelight by elections. Modi was a local figure in Gujarat (served 3 terms as Chief Minister) until he took over the election commission leadership of the BJP in 2013. Ironically, Mahatma Gandhi was a Gujarati; yet Gujarat remains one of the most ethno-religiously divided states of India even today

Modi was born to an underprivileged caste family of Grocers classified(census) as a “backward class” in the highly casteist Hindu India. Mr. Sirisena was from the bread basket of Sri Lanka and from a family with Rice cultivation interests. Hence, Modi has more of a miracle on 34th Street kind of story of ascendancy to power in the world’s largest democracy in comparison to Mr. Sirisena. Modi started his life in the feared Hindu supremacists Rashtriya Sevak Sangam (RSS) which has a much feared paramilitary wing. RSS ideology is to impose an exclusive Hindu Raj in India. He was introduced to RSS at a tender age of 8.

When Mr. Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat during his first term , whilst he had a very successful tenure in building Gujarat’s economy by creating a private sector friendly environment, he was also implicated in the terrible riots of 2002 which was known as the Gujarat pogrom.  After the burning of a train where Hindu pilgrims were burnt(there were two commissions enquiring into it.  The Gujarat courts and Gujarat commission found it to be a premeditated act of violence perpetrated on Hindu pilgrims to Ayodhaya where the controversial Babri Mosque was, but a Cong-I led Federal investigation concluded it was due to a mechanical failure inside the train). As  a result of the death of Hindu pilgrims, it caused a lot of communal tensions in Gujarat.Read More

May God Natha help agriculture ministry!

 Sunday, 22 February 2015 

A woman by the name Priyantha Senanayake, who claims herself to be the ‘local agent’ for God Natha and had earned millions of rupees by supplying traditional rice at the rate of Rs. 700 per kilo to the education services ministry with the blessings of Mahinda Rajapaksa after doing black magic for him, has now gained entry to the agriculture ministry and is interfering in its affairs, say ministry officials.

The Lanka Teacher Services Union has issued a statement regarding this woman.

She has even begun issuing orders to ministry officials, saying that she had done many things for incumbent minister Duminda Dissanayake and that he had even worshipped her. In this, she is being assisted by a person notorious as a very corrupt public servant, who is attempting to get appointed to the agriculture ministry as an additional secretary. He is intimidating ministry officials who have served there for 10 to 20 years and telling them to follow her orders, while lying that Rupavahini chairman Somaratne Dissanayake is a close relative of his and that he has the blessings of the president.

This man hopes to contest at the upcoming general election from Kurunegala district, and he is supporting the woman as she has promised him that she would help him to make it a reality, say ministry sources.

When Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena was the agriculture minister too, she had tried to strike deals there by visiting the ministry, but he had told his officials that she suffers from a serious mental ailment, and instructed them not to allow her entry to the ministry or to meet him.

Priyantha Senanayake deceives her followers by claiming that she knows top people in society and that they come to her to get various things done. She has a big desire to get persons older than her and who are prominent in society, to worship her. She tells her followers that she will be the queen of the Maithri Bodhisatwa. Also, she says most things that happen in the country take place with her knowledge and with the mediation of gods. Commenting on her behaviour, psychiatrists say Priyantha Senanayake and Prof. Nalin de Silva both suffer from the same mental ailment.

Ranil to summon media owners

By admin-February 22, 2015

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says he plans to summon the owners of local media to warn them against attempting to create communal disharmony in the country.

Speaking at an event today, Wickremesinghe said that he will also invite media rights groups to attend the meeting for them to raise concerns they have over the owners of the local media.

“If any media head does not come ill see to it,” he said.

He also urged the public to stage an “occupy” style protest at the office of any newspaper if it promotes hatred among communities.

The Prime Minister said that some Sinhalese language newspapers have been publishing reports which give the impression that there is an attempt by the LTTE to revive its activities in Sri Lanka.

Wickremesinghe also alleged that some newspaper owners have been backing former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and are now looking to discredit the new Government.

He said that some newspapers had attempted to remove him from politics but they failed over the past 10 years and later they attempted to ensure Mahinda Rajapaksa won the Presidential elections last month, but he lost.

Wickremesinghe said that while he has no issue with any newspaper backing Mahinda Rajapaksa at the next election, he will have an issue with anyone attempting create communal disharmony.

He also said that some newspaper owners who have the support of Mahinda Rajapaksa are big businessmen and have a stake in the Colombo Stock Market but he will look to remove them from the Stock Market. (Colombo Gazette)

Limited operations against corruption

Editorial-February 22, 2015, 

Don’t arrest Duminda’ – order from higher up!

A retired public official has written to us, endorsing views expressed by former IGP Frank de Silva in a recent letter on bribery and corruption. The latter stressed, among other things, the fact that the onus was on the higher echelons of the public service to take action against corrupt officials under them. Both writers have put forth cogent arguments which deserve the attention of the government leaders, public officials and anti-corruption activists.

Leaving the country’s battle against corruption solely to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) is like depending entirely on the National Child Protection Authority to ensure the safety of children and safeguarding their rights with others doing precious little to achieve those goals. The CIABOC, no doubt, has a pivotal role to play in tackling bribery and corruption; it needs more powers, adequate resources and the freedom to act without fear or favour, but other state institutions, politicians, the media and the general public cannot absolve themselves of the responsibility for their failure to help battle corruption effectively.

Corrupt public officials succeed in carrying out their sordid operations with impunity due to either connivance or serious lapses on the part of their superiors as well as politicians under whose purview their institutions come. Such high-ranking officials and the politicians concerned must also be held responsible for the country’s predicament.

Campaigns under successive governments to rid the country of bribery and corruption have gone by the board because they were highly politicised. Above all, a culture of corruption has evolved over the years and the people have apparently taken it for granted. Giving bribes is as unlawful as taking them, we are told. But, how many Sri Lankans can honestly say that they have never ever offered or given bribes to public officials willing to grant them various favours by bending the rules or even breaking laws? Most of them have at least greased the palms of RMV officials to obtain their driving licences. Sri Lankans learn how to benefit from bribery and corruption at a very tender age when they start schooling. Various documents are forged, several palms are oiled and children coached to lie at the so-called admission interviews conducted by public schools.

People who refuse to give bribes as a matter of principle are indeed rare and those who take the trouble of moving the CIABOC against those who solicit bribes or at least protest against that illegal practice are rarer. They seem to have fatalistically chosen to endure what cannot be cured.

Why anti-corruption campaigns launched from time to time fail to mobilize the people is understandable if one looks at the history of those who lead them. Some of them have even been punished by the courts for corrupt deals. Most of the self-appointed knights on a mission to slay the two-headed dragon of bribery and corruption have not accounted for their assets; they live in the lap of luxury spending millions of rupees as they do on their election campaigns. Strangely, they are never asked how they have amassed so much of wealth. The CID has recently interrogated an MP with alleged links to a drug baron on funds he has distributed among various persons and associations to further his political interests. This is a baby step in the right direction and it needs to be appreciated. But, the question is why neither the taxman nor anyone else has demanded to know from other politicians, regardless of the parties they represent, how they have acquired the colossal amounts of money they are spending on political campaigns.

It has not been revealed how much the two main candidates in the last presidential race, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena, received for their election campaigns. Who contributed those funds? How much of the money so donated was actually spent? These are some of the questions that the campaigners for transparency, accountability etc should answer.

Laws with stronger teeth and robust institutional safeguards are necessary for bringing the corrupt to book, but if corruption is to be battled effectively, there has to be a social movement devoid of a political agenda to mobilise the people. Anti-corruption drives used by holier-than-thou politicians as bludgeons against their opponents to achieve short-term political objectives with an eye to the next election end up being mere political circuses which only divide the people further along petty party lines and let the culprits pretend to be victims of witch-hunts.

What is needed is a well-planned, all-out war on corruption; politically determined limited operations won’t do.

Shashi Weerawansa arrested

By Umesh Moramudali- 2015-02-23 

 
Shashi Weerawansa, the wife of former Cabinet Minister Wimal Weerawansa, was arrested yesterday for having obtained a diplomatic passport fraudulently.
According to the Police Media Unit, Weerawansa was arrested at a private hospital in Malabe yesterday evening. Meanwhile, former minister and National Freedom Front (NFF) Leader Wimal Weerawansa is to appear before the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) today (23) morning.

A high ranking police officer told Ceylon Today that the police are conducting a confidential investigation into Shashi Weerawansa's sudden illness. She was charged with making two passports illegally and the CID is conducting investigations into the issue.
The CID has commenced an investigation into the controversial diplomatic passport obtained by Shashi Weerawansa, by allegedly producing false information.
The CID had deployed seven police teams in Kandy, Gampaha and Colombo to search for and arrest Sashi Weerawansa.
Sashi Weerawansa is alleged to have obtained diplomatic and general passports by submitting birth certificates with false names and dates of birth.

She had applied for a diplomatic passport in 2010 by submitting false personal information which was different to what appeared in her previous passport that expired on 24 May, 2009.
There was much criticism in political circles over the police not arresting the former minister's wife when there were serious allegations with concrete evidence.

Granting dual citizenships to review

 Sunday, 22 February 2015 

A special committee will be appointed to review dual citizenships granted by the Defence Ministry during previous government.

According to the source, over 2000 people were granted for the  dual citizenships  and most of it would be cancelled.

The Minister of Public Order, Disaster Management and Christian Affairs John Amaraunga said, even though the granting of dual citizenships was cancelled in 2010, with the approval of higher officials at the Defence Ministry, dual citizenships were later granted without a proper study.

The Minister said that it has been revealed that some officials have taken monetary briberies to grant dual citizenships to some people.

Amaratunga said that all the dual citizenships granted in this way would be reviewed and those given without meeting the required criteria would be cancelled. In addition the government is focusing on recommencing of granting dual citizenships and the ministerial draft in this regard will be presented to parliament within next two weeks, he said.

Earlier the head of the household had to pay Rs. 200,000 to obtain a dual citizenship while a family member had to pay Rs. 50,000.

The new Government will charge main householder Rs. 300,000 and other members, Rs 100,000 each.
After considering the requests from Sri Lankans in foreign countries, the government has decided to grant dual citizenships, the minister further added.

To A Secured Future Under ‘Maithri Rule’ For Our Biggest Minority Group

By Ajith C. S. Perera -February 22, 2015

For a secured brighter future as a developing country, today we are focusing a formidable and sustainable national economy.

It is thus imperative to arrest colossal economic and social waste that plague the country in untold proportions.

Two prerequisites here are: (i). Arresting the waste of human potential and instead mobilizing this asset and(ii). Minimising unwanted dependents through empowering, inclusion and equal opportunity.

Our Constitution Article (12.2) recognises race, ethnicity, religion, caste, gender and place of birth as non-discrimination states.

For a SINGLE REASON, that’s yet not included even under (12.3), continue to marginalise and discriminate the BIGGEST and the WIDEST sector of our population!!

As such, amidst legislation, a diverse range of our population atleast 20% continue to cry louder over near twenty years concerning their marginalisation, exclusion and discrimination in day-to-day life.

They are the voters, not fewer thanfour (4) Million in number, those the inevitable accidents, debilitating illnesses, wear & tear of the body, etc., and the ended 30 years of war, have robbed of their abilitiesto see, walk, climb or even stand steadily, whether that be to a greater or lesser extent, whether permanently or temporarily.

The biggest minority group of Sri Lanka.

A Person with dis-Ability (often still termed injuriously as Differently-abled) legislation defines as: **Any person who, as a result of any deficiency in his physical or mental abilities, is unable by himself to ensure for himself, wholly or partly, the necessities of daily life**.

Dr. Ajith Perera

Sri Lanka has the fastest ageing population in our region. 17% of our population will soon be over 65 years.

Every one of us, inevitably, undergoes a process of decay, often meets numerous debilitating conditions or is convalescing after surgery or illnesses.

Almost all of us, thus, is certain to spend some of our time living with deficiency in ability, in moving and seeing, physical coordination, manual dexterity, etc.

All this means, more than one in five, experience deficiency in mobility.

World views and perceptions, thus, on what it means to be dis-Abled have changed rapidly and changed for the better to enhance equally the quality of life of ALL people.

The focus hence, is on **Persons with RESTRICTED ABILITY**.

However, for this fast increasing biggest minority group, the degree of their mobility should never be a disadvantage caused by physical and architectural barriers. Everyday activities should NOT become a daunting task to accomplishRead More