Sri Lanka’s ‘Accountability’ Dilemma

With an important UN Human Rights Council session on the horizon, Colombo’s plan for ‘accountability’ is hotly debated.

By Taylor Dibbert-September 10, 2015

With the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 30th session just days away, many Sri Lanka watchers are waiting to see how Colombo deals with the release of a major U.N. report focused on wartime abuses in Sri Lanka and its plans for handling “accountability” issues domestically. What will Colombo’s accountability mechanism actually look like? And is it actually possible for such a mechanism to work properly? What role, if any, will international actors play in such a process?

Sri Lanka’s new government has said publicly that they will pursue accountability via domestic means, although (broadly speaking) ethnic Tamils simply do not have faith in a domestic accountability process. The thinking being that for decades the Sinhala-dominated state has created commissions of inquiry or domestic accountability mechanisms, yet genuine justice does not follow and impunity remains institutionalized.

When I was in Colombo last month, the tensions surrounding this debate were palpable. On the one hand, a properly administered transitional justice mechanism needs to be victim-centered, and there can be little doubt that the country’s Tamil community has suffered disproportionately as a result of decades of war. On the other hand, most Sri Lankans probably don’t want an international mechanism (or even a hybrid mechanism).

Moreover, on the international stage, the U.S. has been out in front in pushing for accountability (among other matters) in post-war Sri Lanka. Recently, the Obama administration has made it clear that it’s backing Colombo’s domestic process.

Some observers have described Washington’s current stance as a complete volte-face, claiming that the U.S. has gone from being a champion of an international mechanism to now willfully accepting a domestic process.

Establishing an international accountability mechanism for Sri Lanka would not be possible without significant and sufficiently broad international support. One prominent way to do so would be through a U.N. Security Council resolution. If something like that were to happen, the U.S. would almost certainly be one of the countries taking the lead. If the U.S. is now backing a domestic process, the prospects for creating an international mechanism look extremely dim.

Washington’s quick and wholehearted embrace of the newly elected Sri Lankan government has drawn skepticism, resentment and deep concern from the Tamil community. The recent visit of a pair of Assistant Secretaries of State, Nisha Biswal and Tom Malinowski, seems to have contributed to further polarization within the country.

One of the main issues now is that, paradoxically, the Tamil community’s total rejection of any domestic mechanism could weaken their ability to influence that process, particularly as it relates to international advice and the provision of technical assistance.

A recent piece by Colombo-based journalist Kusal Perera has illustrated how hard it will be to create a domestic accountability mechanism in Sri Lanka that’s truly impartial and independent. Nevertheless, in spite of the profound challenges ahead, it appears that Colombo will be given a chance to find truth and justice on its own terms – at least for the time being.

Like other issues that have saturated the country’s post-war discourse, this is an extremely difficult issue. No matter what happens in the coming weeks, that’s not going to change.

The Story Of Successful Devolved Governance

By Mahesan Niranjan –September 10, 2015

Prof. Mahesan Niranjan

Fast forwarding to the Eighteenth of May 2016, we observe noisy scenes in the Sri Lankan Parliament. A few members insist that the Prime Minister should intervene and stop separation from happening. They are a noisy minority. The majority, however, agree with Prime Minster Wikramaathiththan’s stubborn stance: “The right to separation has already been subject to maximum devolution. The central government will not interfere.”

Gosh! Who is Prime Minister Wikramaathiththan, and how can he devolve the most sensitive topics in our politics – the right to separation?

The recently formed jumbo cabinet of ministers was a disappointment to several of you. “Have we gone back to the bad old days?” you worried. Distracted by that, you failed to notice an innovation, the appointment of a Minister for National Dialog.

*Photograph of King Wikramaathiththan capturing the ghost scanned from the author’s ampulimaamaa archives

“But we already have dialog no?” an aunt of mine remarked, thinking of the telephone company.

The new Ministry for National Dialog has, as a starting point of achieving their objectives, given new names, with minimal edits to their present ones, to the main characters in the governance of our country. The aim is to remind those in power that reconciliation starts by the thought experiment of putting yourself in the other man’s shoes.

“Let peace begin with me,” is the slogan written on the entrance to the new ministry.

Wikramaathiththan is one such name, the epistemology of which I will explain now, and leave others to your imaginations.

Regular readers of ampulimaamaa will know this character – a king whose job it was to catch a genie living in the banyan tree and bottle it. The genie was smart and each time he caught it, it would tell him a story to distract his attention and escape back the banyan tree. The king, however, was not someone to give up in the face of serial failures. He tried and tried, again and again, and in the most recent attempt had caught the genie. Will he be able to hold onto it, we are not sure yet.

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Torture and sexual abuse continues under new Sri Lankan government

10 September 2015
Abduction, torture and sexual violence has continued in Sri Lanka, despite the change in government earlier this year, said the International Truth & Justice Project in a briefing note released this week.

The ITJP also detailed a series of minimum prior steps that Sri Lankan government must carry out before establishing an accountability mechanism, including repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act and ratifying the Rome Statue.

The ITJP report detailed 11 such cases of torture and sexual abuse that occurred after the new Sri Lankan government came in to power in January. The cases had been corroborated by medical legal reports from international medical experts. Overall the ITJP has documented one hundred and eighty cases of torture in detention in Sri Lanka since the end of the armed conflict in 2009 and identified forty-eight sites, mainly in the Tamil North-East and Sri Lankan capital Colombo, where victims stated their torture took place.

“In addition to violent reprisals during 2015, surveillance and intimidation by the security forces has continued unabated under the Sirisena government,” said the ITJP.

“In this context of on-going violations it is extremely difficult for the victims and their families to envisage a domestic accountability process, even with some form of international involvement, in which they could safely testify against perpetrators who are members of the security forces,” it said.

“The context of Sri Lanka is also different from the context of other countries in transition as many of the alleged perpetrators and their authority structures are still in place, still wielding power or great influence, still allegedly committing ongoing violations, and still for the most part Sinhalese.”

See the full briefing note on “Torture & Sexual Abuse Under the New Government in Sri Lanka” here.

“The last hybrid international domestic mechanism in Sri Lanka (IIGEP (2007-2008) was an abject failure with tens of thousands of non-combatants killed since its failure and countless others tortured and sexually violated since,” said the ITJP, adding, “even those witnesses abroad [who make up the vast majority of those who testified to the UN investigation (OISL) and to ITJP] cannot reveal their identities to the Sri Lankan authorities for fear of what will happen to them if their asylum applications fail, or to their families back home”.

Detailing a series of minimum steps that must take before any accountability mechanism is set up, the organisation said Sri Lanka must ratify the Rome Statute and incorporate “into domestic law of international crimes, including criminalising war crimes and crimes against humanity and adding procedural provisions of command responsibility similar to those found in the Rome Statute”. “This must be done before any domestic or hybrid Tribunal is established,” it added.

It went on to add that Sri Lanka must ensure “no head of state secures immunity from prosecution and “there be no statute of limitations in relation to the crimes”.

The briefing stated that “any justice mechanism established must be based on the highest international standards guaranteeing complete independence, adding that “minimum standards” include an “equal number of international judges, international prosecutors, international investigators and international witness protection experts working in partnership with local Judges, prosecutors, investigators” and “the inclusion of domestic practitioners who are of Tamil origin and/or who have no affiliation with the authority structures, and have never worked for the government in any way”.

See the full briefing note on “Minimum Requirements for an Accountability Mechanism in Sri Lanka” here.

See related articles:

ITJP says Sri Lanka has sufficient information to investigate HR violations (05 Aug 2015)

Sri Lanka continues 'multifaceted assault of terror' on Tamils under new government (28 Jul 2015)

StopTorture_briefing notes_v2.1.pdf by Thavam Ratna

Big government – bad for good governance?

Friday, 11 September 2015

Did you feel that democracy is the worst form of government? Except, of course, for all the others that have ever been! Could it be, though, that we have seen too little of it, of late, to appreciate it least when it works best...
We have experienced less of it than some supposedly mature occidental democracies, but more of it than many if not most of our oriental neighbours. Westminster-style parliamentary democracy in the early glow of our independence’s dawn had nice small cabinets; and only small change in terms of growth, development, progress.
Republican-style executive presidencies embraced more ambitious governmental and national developmental projects; but opened the door to the corridors of power for those who would usher in autocratic democracy or authoritarian republicanism. Realpolitik-driven coalition governments of the past two decades or so have seen gargantuan cabinets being built to bridge bipartisan divides; and explode the myth that a clean, strong, efficient, government has to be small and focussed for the most optimal impact. Ridiculously large and accommodating today, these are designed to accomplish the ambitions of a few – from the sublimely small and relatively exclusive cabinets of years gone by, which by default achieved the aspirations of many...
Good governance, when it raised its gorgeous head after much beating and battering under constitution-bending would-be despots, promised to end all of that. But it wasn’t long before the pragmatic dictates of politics based on a hamstringing electoral system that hangs too many parliaments made it turn aside for a moment for the worse, looking strangely attractive like some gargoyle’s head.
Bad enough the 19th Amendment under Good Governance’s vision of government by a single party/faction/coalition envisaged a small Cabinet of 25 and got us all excited; it also brought in the possibility of a large Cabinet of 50, 75, 100 – or more – Cabinet Ministers (at Parliament’s performers’ pleasure)... if and when the House was horribly divided and ‘national government’ was necessitated. That ugly reality was also envisaged by the shapers and moulders of 19A+/- and it looks as if democracy – which is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so – is set to pay the price of big, conjoined, united, symbiotic, government.
Worse than a distinct absence of separation of powers – as we saw with former regimes – is possibly the symbiosis of too many legislative forces, as under the present dispensation. Major Government = Minority Government + Minority Opposition Faction – Majority Opposition. Worst of all, we know this is a better form of democracy, even if we suspect it is less than the true substance of Good Governance.

Pros: the good
The best thing about so-called ‘national government’ is what Premadasa the Elder would have labelled ‘Consultation, Compromise, and Consensus’. Consultation has all the positive ramifications of a nation talking to itself via its elected representatives. There is a healthy benefit in compromising, in that no lone rangers or solitary visionaries get to set and drive the agenda, especially against the grain of the national interest. Should a plan or project or policy or programme to progress well and be implemented effectively, the stakeholdership that comes from consensus would cement Cabinet prerogatives and Parliamentary initiatives together. And yet...

Cons: the bad
The very thing about the “three C’s” formula is that is has a less favourable flip side. Consultation now means that those whom the polity rejected are not only back to occupy the seats they were deemed unfit for in Parliament but are, perforce and not perchance, holding important Cabinet portfolios into the bargain. Compromise – as we saw in dilution of 19A’s original and potent incarnation – often and usually means that what survives backroom deals and horse-trading is less than savoury (lifting of travel bans?) and often unfit for a full-bodied republican regimen. Consensus can sometimes necessitate that there is honour among thieves – and rogues and robber barons of all ilks – and that what was *pro bono publico* under a benevolent and dominant tyranny is now *pro bono politico* under an ersatz democracy.  

Neutrals: the ugly
The not so nice thing about a Government by the Government for the Government is that while propagandists can convince Parliament and spinmeisters can persuade Civil Society that it is the people’s interests that are being served, in reality it is a Pantagruelian Parliament’s interests that are seen to be serviced. For nearly nine months soon it would have been the case that members on both sides of the House have sat on the same side of the table, thinking, in typical Parliamentary style: “Spoon hand having while, serve self” (it works better in Sinhala translation).
This is not to say that no good – union in vision, unity of purpose, expedition of works, economies of scale, effectiveness in implementation – can come out of separate factions coming together in the common good. With that said, it might be argued that what has transpired is that the uncommonly evil – allegedly corrupt and aggressively cynical ‘congressmen’ with an eye on the main chance – have been turbo-injected back into the political mainstream where they can hold a big and growing government to ransom. Crooked politicos holding the nation hostage was a thing of the past... Or so we thought – Now it has been introduced and sanctified as the ‘new political culture’.
So, what is it, this New Political Culture? Animal, Mineral, or Vegetable? Animal: A creature not too unlike beastly zoos of Houses of the recent past, where the law of the jungle prevailed – and it was the survival of the fittest and dirtiest-fighting foulest? Mineral: A rare and precious element that we are on the verge of discovering – a superconductor of consensual politics that will grease the skids of the nation-state’s trajectory to the Nth? Or Vegetable: mindless, heartless, featureless, fruit of many winters of discontent among parliamentary plant life...
Maybe we quibble too much? Perhaps the part of “all good citizens and true” in times like these is to quit complaining and comply. A majority of us voted in both the MPs (I almost wrote “monkeys”, Mr. Prime Minister!) of the UNFFGG and the UPFA who comprise the Cabinet of Pantagruel and its Gargantuan parent Parliament. Though only a minority of us voted in the TNA to fulfil its federal dream of yore, that alliance’s leader is now the leader of the opposition – which, also, is neither good nor bad; but thinking makes it so. So only time will tell whether it would have been better for the broader national project to have a minority government that genuinely struggled to deliver on its good intentions (had the UNP decided to go it on its own). Or for it to have slipped back into strange bedfellowship with a majoritarian Government that has a majorly minor formal Opposition which has pledged to support it, and a minorly majority informal Opposition (whose other minority half has also promised to support the National Government) whose penchant is to scupper anything Good Governance says and does...
Perhaps we don’t quibble quite often and loudly enough, then! Maybe the more meaningful role of “we, this island’s watchmen” – in, and for, such a time as this – is to carp and cavil. Add the burden of the budgetary allocations and bureaucratic apathy of a raft of Deputy and State Ministers to the burgeoning cost of the national governmental project! Include the ludicrousness of Cabinet and non-Cabinet portfolios to your plaintive wails! (What’s a ‘Minister of National Dialog’, for e.g.? A Nation of Ministers talking to itself?) Never mind the ‘new political culture’, where is the ‘new society’ that Good Governance promised us? Shall we let the demands of realpolitik sabotage the good intentions with which the righteous (even self-righteous?) coalition to end all unholy alliances set out on the yellow brick road to red-blooded democratic republicanism?
We may have no choice. Some bad eggs and some ugly mugs seem to have been accommodated so that the ‘new political culture’ can take root in democracy’s freshly asweddumized soil. Darned little we can do now about hyper-Cabinets except to join with the JVP – arguably and demonstrably the de facto Opposition today – to engage with the de jure Government in the hope that new political culture will translate sooner than later into new society, new standards, new life. Even if we die a little in doing so! Carpe diem, citizens! 

Constitutional council through but ……

(Lanka-e-News -10.Sep.2015, 4.00PM)  During the general elections  it was   announced , a new country will come into being in 60 months. It was also  announced a new cabinet will be formed in 60 months. Having made those announcements , did this government fool the people by taking over  3 weeks to announce the cabinet ? In any case,  this delayed appointment of cabinet notwithstanding , the government is taking action to create the  constitutional council , and under the 19 th amendment , an independent commission is to be appointed  expeditiously.

Accordingly , representatives  to the constitutional council except the three civil representatives were appointed to the constitutional council officially – they are the prime minister (P.M.) , speaker and the opposition leader.

Thereafter , Patalie Champika Ranawake as  president’s representative ,  Dr. Wijedasa Rajapakse as P.M.’s representative and Vijitha Herath as opposition  representative of the minority parties  were named.

Under the 100 days interim government earlier  , A.T. Ariyaratne , Ms. Radhika Kumaraswamy and W.A. Salam (retired  judge) were appointed as civil representatives , but this time Salaam has suddenly begun vacillating  and his official consent has not been received yet , it is learnt. 

No matter what  , this issue is to be resolved by tomorrow ,and it is the need of  the government to ensure that  the constitutional council comes into existence tomorrow so that the independent commission  will immediately become active.

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by     (2015-09-10 10:38:17)

Thajudeen's injuries could have been from 

assault: JMO 

Ex –JMO Prof. Ananda Samarasekera in his final autopsy report filed in court asserts that the death of Mohamed Waseem Thajudeen was due to unconsciousness, disability of limbs and inhalation of carbon monoxide gas emitted from the fire. 

The detailed report stated that at the time of the onset of the fire he was alive but unconscious and totally disabled for he was breathing till his death. 
The report also stated that there was high level of ethanol in the blood of Thajudeen and he would have consumed it during the interval of 2 hours prior to the incident. 

The report says a habitual alcoholic could drive a vehicle partially impaired even after a heavy alcohol intake. 

Prof. Samarasekera said in the report that the injuries on the head of the deceased could possibly be due to a blow from a blunt weapon while he was inside or outside the vehicle.

 It also says the deceased could have been pulled out by someone from the vehicle or he could have fallen off the vehicle and could have been assaulted fracturing his limbs 

He also states the injuries to the chest could have been caused by a circular object pushing against the chest. 

He asserts that the injuries were not lethal and the cause of death was carbon monoxide inhalation. 

During the Magisterial inquiry held before Additional Magistrate Nishantha Pieris today Senior State Counsel Dilan Rathnayake appearing with OIC Ravindra Wimalasiri of the Court Branch of CID filed a report and said the CID were investigating on a complaint made by a relative of Thajudeen alleging that some unknown persons in a vehicle had visited the vicinity of the complainant’s house at Wellawatte and made inquiries about them. 

The CID also sought court permission to send the mobile phone that was recovered from a person from Agarapathana to the IT Faculty of the Colombo University for examination. Counsel Ranil Samarakoon appearing with Madhawa Wijesiriwardena for Dialog Mobile Phone Company said his client had provided all necessary and possible assistance to the CID during the investigations and the mobile phone was recovered by the CID on the information provided by them on the imei number. 

Counsel Mohamed Misba with Rohitha Rajapaksa watched the interest of the aggrieved party. 

Magistrate Nishantha Pieris noticed the panel of doctor’s headed by Colombo Chief JMO Ajith Tennakoon who conducted the second post mortem examination to be present in Court on October 22 and ordered the CID to conduct further investigations. (T. Farook Thajudeen and Lakmal Sooriyagoda) - 

MS-RW Mastery Of Ministerial Appointments Surpasses Rajapaksa’s: Sobhitha Thera

September 10, 2015 

National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) Leader the Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera today reiterated his call to reduce the number of ministers in the new government calling it a massive burden on the tax paying public.

Appointing a large number of ministers is a “payoff” and a farce, a visibly agitated Sobitha Thera who was in the forefront in galvanizing the civil society movement to bring down the former regime and usher social and economic reforms said .

Severely criticizing the move to appoint a large number of ministers for the purpose of accommodating a ‘National Government‘, the Thera said that those who criticised former President Mahinda Rajapaksa for appointing an unreasonable number of ministers was treading the same path in a shameless manner.

The so-called “National Government” the Thera said had mastered the art of appointing ministers to such an extent in a short span of time even going on to eclipse Rajapaksa.

“If this continues soon we will see all 225 parliamentarians become ministers” he added.

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Eknaligoda Abduction: Army Blocks Probe at Giritale Camp

10/09/2015

The Homagama Magistrate has referred to the Attorney General a request made by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) seeking permission to search the false LTTE camp at Giritale, revealed in investigations, which had been maintained by the Army.

The search application is in pursuance of investigations conducted by the CID into the disappearance of Journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda.

When the Ekneligoda Case was taken up for hearing at the Homagama Magistrate’s Court on 7 September, counsel representing the Army objected on the basis that inspecting the Giritale Army Camp could prove to be a threat to national security. Acting Police Media Spokesman Senior Superintendent of Police Priyantha Jayakody said the request made by the CID to inspect the Army Camp, which was revealed to have been maintained by the Army, has been referred for Advice from Attorney General Yuwanjan Wijetilleke.

He said, future steps will be decided upon, on advice from the Attorney General, but investigations into the Ekneligoda incident will continue.

Asked for comments on the development, Army Media Spokesman Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera said, since investigations into the disappearance of Ekneligoda are being carried out, the Army cannot make a statement at this moment regarding the issue.

He added that the media should depend on statements issued by the Police Media Spokesman regarding this particular incident.
Eleven persons including four officers of the Sri Lanka Army have been taken into custody by the CID and are being subject to questioning as of now in connection with the Ekneligoda disappearance.

By Niranjala Ariyawansha /Ceylon Today

Three more including an army second lieutenant arrested in Prageeth murder : D.O still not extended ! Lt.col. Shammi had given 1000 T 56 weapons to terrorists

(Lanka-e-News -10.Sep.2015, 4.00PM) The CID has arrested three more army officers in connection with the abduction and murder of Lanka e news journalist Prageeth Ekneliyagoda .  One of the suspects is a second lieutenant and the other two are Corporals.

Based on the information elicited from Lieutenant Colonel  Shammi Kumararatne the commanding officer of Giritale army camp at that time who was arrested earlier in connection with the abduction and murder of Prageeth committed on the orders of ex defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse, these three suspects were now  arrested.

The 14 days detention order issued by defense secretary to detain the four suspects along with Lieutenant Colonel Shammi Kumararatne for interrogation expires today (10) . The CID has taken action to obtain a 90 days detention order (D.O.) on the recommendation of the Attorney general (AG) , and this application has been duly sent to the defense secretary, yet until yesterday (09) , the new defense secretary Karunaratne Hettiarachi has still not signed it , it is learnt. The CID has also requested a detention order in relation to the three suspects arrested lately.So far , the approval of the defense secretary for this detention order had not been received .

The defense secretary of the government of good governance ought to know that a two weeks detention order is by no means enough vis a vis the copious information that have been elicited pertaining to the many crimes committed by Shammi Karunaratne.

The public ought to know the criminal activities and the crimes allegedly committed by Shammi Kumararatne at the behest of Gotabaya Rajapakse. Hence we are herunder revealing but a few of the many for the present ….. 

On the orders of Gotabaya, Shammi had given 1000 T 56 weapons to terrorists .These were released from the Giratale army camp. 4000 magazines at the rate of 4 magazines that can be filled with bullets,  in respect of  each weapon had also been released.

According to Shammi Kumararatne , these were issued to the terrorists of Karuna Amman group. However these weapons were nether  returned until today by this group, nor were they taken into army custody. In the circumstances , this is a very grave issue from the point of view of national security . The inventory of army weapons indicates this shortage  of 1000  T 56 weapons , but nothing is mentioned regarding its fate or what happened to them.

Is the Homagama magistrate mad?

An incident that took place has triggered doubts whether the Homagama magistrate who is conducting the trial in Prageeth Ekneliyagoda brutal murder is unhinged. The CID had asked from this eccentric judge for an order to inspect the venue of the scene of murder at Giritale army camp following the information disclosed by the army officers including Shammi Kumararatne who are now in custody. Indeed , a written directive has been issued by the AG to grant this request with a view to obtaining a warrant in this connection. This judge apparently in one of his insanity fits , had responded most eccentrically: When the CID made the request for a warrant in order to investigate further ,from this judge who is hearing this case , the judge had postponed the case until the 28 th of September while stating the AG’s advice must be sought again.

If there is a magistrate who returns  a written directive of an AG addressed to him, saying  he wants the AG’s advice again , that magistrate must be crazed or dazed with outside involvements distracting him from his legitimate  professional duties .

In any event let us make it clear to all , the people of the country who are relying on the new government of good governance are not insane – they are fully sane and sensible 

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by     (2015-09-10 10:34:42)

World Duty Free and Flemingo Duty Free pushing hard to get extension at Colombo Airport without Tender…

Sep 10, 2015

With the end of the current 5 year terms of  both World Duty Free Group  (WDF)  and  Flemingo  at the Bandaranayake International Airport in  June 2016, Airport and Aviation is expected to announce the new tender for the Supply and Operation of the Duty Free Shops  at  the  Colombo  Airport  shortly. As per regular procedures an evaluation period of 3-4 months is required for the selection and award of this lucrative business. The tender is usually published approximately 9 months prior to the evaluation.

The Colombo Airport currently handles over 7m passengers annually. Current duty free sales for the airport is estimated at between USD70–80 million annually (over 1 billion rupees per year), shared between the two main players WDF and Flemingo.

 

It is learnt that both incumbents WDF and Flemingo, are lobbying hard at the highest levels to extend their current contracts by an additional 5 years, without tender. Airport and Aviation is expected to do their due diligence and review the marketplace for different Duty Free Operators prior to giving away this lucrative business to WDF and Flemingo. As an example of gauging the marketplace for the best possible fit, in July 2014, Singapore’s Changi Airport added Korean travel retailer Shilla Travel Retail (The Shilla Duty Free) replacing long-time incumbent Nuance-Watson (Singapore). Changi Airport’s Duty Free is now operated by both DFS Ventures Singapore and Sheila Duty Free.

 

AG under fire over KP & Avant Garde

Puravesi Balaya wants committee to probe allegations

Dharma Sri Abeyratne and Chaminda Perera

Thursday, September 10, 2015

A coalition of civil society movements including trade unions and the Puravesi Balaya yesterday lashed out at the Attorney General for taking arbitrary decision to conclude the cases filed against LTTE chief arms procurer, Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP and the floating armoury of Avante Garde Security Services Limited.

According to Puravesi Balaya Convenor Saman Ratnapriya, the AG has taken an arbitrary decision to conclude these cases even after a Deputy Solicitor General (DSG) has recommended him by a report to proceed with the cases. Ratnapriya said that a copy of the report was sent by the DSG to the Attorney General asking him to proceed with these cases was with him.

Rathnapriya urged the President to appoint a committee comprising suitable persons to look into the decisions of the Attorney General regarding these cases.

“There is no legal provision to take forward these cases due to the position taken by the AG,” he said.

He said that it has been reported that KP has committed a number of crimes for decades, including assisting the LTTE to carry out terrorist activities.

Under his assistance many bombs were exploded killing thousands of innocent unarmed persons.

He was also a fund raiser for the LTTE which is a banned terrorist organisation and supplied arms to the terrorist outfit, among other crimes. Besides, he has been accused by India in connection with assassinating former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

However, according to the Attorney General there is no legal provision to take further legal action.

“There is no legal sanction to maintain private armories in the country, but the Avant Garde company had two armories, one on a ship and the other in a store at the BMICH. This is clearly a violation of the country’s civil law,” Rathnapriya said.

He said that the FCID has forwarded 20 files to the Attorney General for further action but the Attorney General’s Department has done nothing as yet on these 20 cases.

Therefore, the conduct of the Attorney General’s Department should be inquired into by a high power commission. It is must in order to create equality in society.

The people of this country never expected such a situation when they elected this government to power to strengthen good governance and democracy. 

Milco milk tanks contaminated 

Sep 10, 2015

The milk tanks of Milco Company’s Gallella factory in Polonnaruwa have been contaminated with a toxic chemical, reports say.

Around 6,000 litres of milk had been stored at these tanks, collected from Polonnaruwa and other surrounding districts.

The company will have to suffer a loss of around Rs. 01 million, as the milk will have to be thrown away, say its employees.

Similar instances happened in the past too, due to the shortsightedness of the management, they charge.

Milco general manager Sudath Munasinghe said the milk had been contaminated with a mouthwash, adding that an investigation was underway.
- SLM -

Video: Five PSD officers killed; several injured in accident 

2015-09-10
Five presidential Security Division (PSD) officers were killed and several others injured when a defender vehicle and two private buses crashed into each other at Miriswatte on the Minuwangoda-Colombo Road this morning.

Three males and one female were among the dead, police said.

The injured were admitted to the Minuwangoda Hospital and later transferred to the Gampaha Hospital.

Another injured PSD officer who was receiving treatment at the Gampaha Hospital had been succumbed to his injuries a few hours later, police said. (Tony Karunaratne)