Dealing With Pakistan – OpEd

By A.K. Verma-Sunday, September 13th, 2015

History since the inception of Pakistan shows that dealing with Pakistan has always been a frustrating experience.

Pakistan makes promises but immediately violates them without exception both in spirit and action. Not counting the wars of 1947, 1965 1971 and 1999 (Kargil) which were all surprises sprung on India, the diplomatic dialogues, Havana, Sharmal Sheikh, Lahore and Ufa which have been the most recent ones, saw the commitments disowned once the Pakistani leaders returned to their country after the dialogues. What lies at the roots of this long mystery needs to be identified.

Kashmir is not the cause. Sir Owen Dixon, an Australian jurist, appointed UN representative by Security Council in 1950 had reported that India was not unfavorable to the idea of partitioning of J&K State with the fate of the Valley being decided by a plebiscite. Pakistan finally rejected the proposition as the terms of the plebiscite were not acceptable to it.

Even if Kashmir issue gets resolved the enmity that Pakistan feels towards India would continue. This enmity is born from the civilizational and philosophical differences between the Hindu and Islamic streams that have made their presence felt over the past millennium. The two religions have coexisted largely in peace but the gulf between the Hindus and Muslims never ceased. The Muslims always sought the re-establishment of the glory of Mughal empire. Partition of India did not end the craving of the Muslims in Pakistan for this glory for the whole of India.

The truth of the matter is that Pakistani military leadership believes war is the only solution to Kashmir. Addressing the Pakistan Professional Forum at Dubai in 2000 General Jehangir Karamat, former Pakistan Army Chief, had said that “no peace process has ever been started between India and Pakistan which could decide against a military option and in favour of peace”. This doctrine seems to be holding up till today. Proxy war is being already waged. Warnings about a war and the nuclear backing to it are routinely issued from Pakistan.

The Pakistan establishment has been preparing the people of Pakistan to be ready for a war with India since a long time. The entire education system in Pakistan from primary schools to higher institutions has been geared to represent India as inimical to Pakistan with the result that at the ground levels there is little goodwill for India. The armed forces are similarly made India- centric, with the military credo including Jihad as a fundamental constituent of military planning. The young cadets passing out as officers from their Academies are required to take an oath that they will finally avenge the defeat of 1971 against India.

At the time of partition the civilizational values on both sides of the new borders drew inspiration from the British liberal traditions and therefore had much in common. With Islam accepted as the national ideology in Pakistan, the ethos of Pakistan started changing rapidly. Citizens, through educational channels and otherwise, were made to forget their Hindu and Buddhist heritage and sub-continental links. They were encouraged to look towards West Asia to seek a new identity. Advent of radical Islam in Pakistan and its speedy spread, besides the official nod to look westwards, has brought about a transformational change in the psyche of the average Pakistani. He hates to be reminded about his Indian background. He has also got convinced that India is the real enemy of Pakistan.

There are liberal elements in Pakistan who are disturbed by these developments. Such elements are scattered sparsely among the academics and media that are observed to be boldly articulating their views but the wider intelligentsia and the powerful military brass appear totally deaf to their importunities. Sometimes, some persons belonging to this bold group are taken to task for holding such views. The Judiciary which itself has shown signs of boldness has however generally proved ineffective in ensuring them personal security and safety.

Some sections of political democracy in Pakistan can be given the benefit of doubt that the trends in Pakistan towards totalitarian Islam is causing concerns to them and they would like to see less of military control and more of civil liberties in Pakistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who has himself in the past been a victim of military excesses could perhaps be counted as belonging to this persuasion. If this view can be considered valid, his conduct at Ufa where he agreed to an NSA meet of India and Pakistan just to discuss terrorism can be explained. He was perhaps trying to convey that some in Pakistan are ready to go beyond the red lines imposed by the Pak military in dealings with India, to reach a modus Vivendi. He would also know that he would be over ruled but he apparently wanted a message to go that elements are emerging in Pakistan that want to start on a clean slate with India.

It is pertinent to point out at this stage that the several Track 2 dialogues between India and Pakistan have proved to be no more than social occasions when people from the two sides, once holding powerful positions but now without any influence whatsoever, meet in five star surroundings to exchange ideas. Some of these dialogues have been going on for years with no tangible results. No Pakistani general, now on retirement, has been heard articulating views similar to Gen. Jehangir Karamat mentioned earlier.

The official dialogues between India and Pakistan can be rightly called as those between the deaf. The Indian diplomats and political leaders talk with their Pakistani counterparts, despite knowing that the Pakistanis are in no position to influence the military thinking and their deliberations would be coming to naught. Sixty eight years have gone by without the Indian authorities finding a way to reach the military establishment which is the real power in Pakistan controlling all key issues of foreign and defense policies.

A new track now needs to be considered. A recent revelation has disclosed that India and Pakistan were closest to resolving their problems when the Intelligence Chiefs of the two countries had been directed to meet and suggest the way out. Such a channel has the ability to reach out to the military establishment with a great deal of transparency and can remain completely deniable and secretive. Perhaps a time has come to try this out.

*The author is a former Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat

David Cameron meets refugees in Lebanon camp

David Cameron visits a refugee camp in Lebanon to meet Syrian asylum seekers who have fled the country's civil war.

MONDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2015

The prime minister visited a camp in the Bekka Valley, less than a mile from the Syrian border. He met a family who are due to be flown to the UK, and was invited into the tent of a Syrian mother who told him she has around $13 a month to care for her 10 children.

Mr Cameron's visit comes his announcement last week that Britain is taking 20,000 refugees over the next five years.

During his visit to the camp, he vowed to pump more money into schemes such as education for the children affected by the conflict in Syria.

"I wanted to come here to see for myself and hear for myself the stories of refugees and what they need.

"Britain is already the second largest donor to refugee camps and to this whole crisis, really helping in a way that many other countries aren't with serious amounts of money.

'Warm welcome'

"We will go on doing that, including increasing the amount of money we're giving to educate Syrian children here in Lebanon and elsewhere," he said.

Mr Cameron announced he is appointing Watford MP Richard Harrington as minister for Syrian Refugees to ensure that those arriving receive a "warm welcome" in the UK.

"I'm also appointing a specific minister for Syrian refugees to make sure that the 20,000 that we have promised to resettle and give a good warm home in our country, that that happens rapidly, it happens well, and the whole country pulls together to deliver that," he added.

The UNHCR-operated camp visited by Mr Cameron was just one of 1,500 in the Bekaa Valley.

He said that he wants Britain to take people directly from camps to discourage them from paying traffickers and making dangerous journey’s across the Mediterranean to the EU.

Refugees get a chance to wash and rest their weary soles in Budapest

Shadi Oudah, 17, from Yarmouk in Syria, rested his feet at Keleti Station in Budapest after walking many miles from Serbia into Hungary. Of the thousands of people are transiting through Budapest everyday, many have passed long distances by foot on the route through the Balkans on their way to Western Europe. PHOTO BY JODI HILTON (Jodi Hilton /Jodi Hilton )

By Robert Samuels-September 13

BUDAPEST — The boy could hardly walk. The tips of his toes were covered in corns. Fat blisters obscured his soles.

“I stopped feeling them a few days ago,” Shadi Oudah said. He gave his age as 17, but he looked younger. “They are numb. I’m good.”

For the refugees streaming into Hungary, running away from a war-torn country is more than a figure of speech. It means running from police at the sound of a suspicious rustle in the bushes. Or walking five days straight, nearly 50 miles, just to be able to sit and smile on the steps of the train station here.

In the mornings at Keleti station, where thousands of migrants arrive each day with hopes of making it to Western Europe, children and adults step gingerly toward open-air faucets about two feet from the ground, where water flows into two blue buckets. They brush their teeth and wash their faces, and the men help each other shave.

“No foot-washing in sink,” a sign reads, so they push aside the buckets. They slip out of their sneakers. Their feet emerge swollen and calloused and wrinkly and weathered and, sometimes, caked in dirt. Toes are bent and curled and mangled, and when the waters grace them, the migrants let out a sigh of relief. This familiar and important ritual makes the place feel a little like home. In Islam, the ritual of foot-washing is a custom before prayer.

The refugees’ feet “can be hard to look at because we see that they’ve suffered so much,” said Ronnie Youssef, a 30-year-old from Sweden providing volunteer medical aid. He had been touring Europe with his friends but decided to stay in Budapest because “the conditions [for the migrants] were so bad it felt wrong to walk away.”

For him, their story is personal. Some three decades ago, his parents and three siblings also came through Keleti after they left Lebanon during the civil war.

“All my life I heard about this walk, because I didn’t experience it,” Youssef said. “They would talk about walking, walking, walking for days on end so I could have a good life. Look around: Women. Children. I don’t think I fully believed how hard it was until I got here.”

An area under the train station is filled with shoes. Some were donated by volunteers, others by the migrants themselves, if they had sneakers in good condition that another migrant could use.

Oudah and a friend walked alone. His parents told him to flee to avoid joining the Syrian army.

“In my country, war has no age,” Oudah said. “Soon, I’ll be fine.”

Volunteers gave him another pair of shoes, size 8.

Oudah hopes to make it to the Netherlands and then apply for his parents to seek asylum. First, he has to get to Austria.

But trains from Budapest to Vienna have been suspended, so migrants are being sent to a stop more than a mile from the Austrian border. When Oudah climbs off the train, he’ll start walking again.

Gallery: Migrants’ desperate quest to cross into Europe

Refugees searching for new lives lose loved ones along the way

Why the language we use to talk about refugees matters so much

Robert Samuels is a national political reporter who focuses on the intersection of politics, policy and people. He previously covered social issues in the District of Columbia.

Hazing, sexuality and the problem with education in Thailand

Stills from a video shared online show students partaking in an erotic hazing ritual at Thailand’s Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University.

By James Austin Farrell-Sep 14, 2015

Hazing rituals at Thailand's universities, known in Thai collectively as 'rab nong' (welcome the juniors), despite often coming under heavy criticism by the Thai and international press, as well as growing numbers of Thai anti-hazing groups for sometimes violent, dehumanizing, and humiliating practices, remains prevalent in Thailand.

Hazing, Sexuality and the Problem With Education in Thailand by Thavam Ratna

A bold move to save a man's hand: Tucking it into his tummy

Plastic surgeon Anthony Echo, right, examines Frank Reyes' hand before surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

September 02, 2015

Casey Reyes struggled for a way to explain the "sci-fi" surgery doctors were proposing to save her 87-year-old grandfather's badly burned hand.

"They're gonna put your hand inside your stomach, kind of like a hoodie," she told him.

Frank Reyes agreed to the strange operation at Houston Methodist Hospital, and spent three weeks with his left hand surgically tucked under a pocket of tissue in his belly to give it time to heal and form a new blood supply.

On Thursday, doctors cut his hand free of its temporary home and shaped some of the abdominal tissue and skin to cover it. Reyes hopes for near-full use of the hand he almost lost after a freak accident earlier this summer while he was changing a tire.

"It's a funny feeling," he said in an interview while his hand was still attached to his belly. "Anything to get me well."

Surgeries like this — temporarily attaching one body part to another, or tucking it under skin — are by no means new, but they are uncommon. They are used on the battlefield, in trauma situations, and increasingly in research as a way to incubate lab-grown body parts from scaffold-like materials.

Dr. Anthony Echo, plastic surgeon at Houston Methodist, thought of it when he saw Reyes, a retired cattle ranch worker and school bus driver who lives in Missouri City, Texas.

Reyes was home alone one day in late June, changing a tire on a trailer, when the jack slipped, pinning his hand against a fender. It was more than 100 degrees that afternoon, and it took half an hour for help to arrive.

The hot metal was like an iron and "just cooked his hand," burning through a thick glove and through skin, tendons and tissue, Echo said. Doctors initially tried a conservative approach, cleaning and bandaging the wound, but infection set it and most of his index finger had to be amputated.

Still, the hand grew worse.

"His skin was almost completely dead," his granddaughter said doctors told her. "They said it looked like mummy skin."

Reyes was sent to Echo, who realized a skin graft or flap of tissue from another part of Reyes' body would not work. The damage was down to the bone, and without a good blood supply, a graft or flap would die, he explained.

Echo decided to try tucking the hand inside Reyes' belly.

"The abdominal skin actually sticks to the hand" and new blood vessels form to connect them, he said. Without this, "likely he would have lost all of his fingers," Echo said.

When he explained it to the family, "I thought it was more or less something out of a sci-fi movie. It sounded crazy," Casey Reyes said, and when she explained it to her grandfather, who has trouble hearing, "he looked at me kind of funny," but agreed.

Dr. Vijay Gorantla, a plastic surgeon and hand transplant expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said the operation is not novel, but many doctors today don't realize it is an option in situations like this.

"The credit has to go to the surgeons for having chosen this" to help the patient, he said. "It gives you phenomenal results, especially in this type of injury, with minimal complications."

"They're now using this technique to prefabricate a particular body part," he noted. A group in China put cartilage under skin of the leg or the abdominal wall to create tissue and a blood supply for an ear.

Surgeons sometimes do it if the pulp or pad of a finger has been lost in an accident.

"You can take that tip of the finger and bury it in the abdominal wall," then remove it with some tissue to fix the finger, he said.

As for Reyes, "as soon as I'm well enough to drive I want to take a little trip," he said.

"The main thing I want to do is raise cattle, ride horses," he said. "I'm an outdoors person" who doesn't like being cooped up.

Campaign for international accountability moves to Amparai
13 September 2015
A signature campaign calling for an international process of justice and accountability for the mass killing of Tamils in 2009 spread to Amparai on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of signatures have been collected across the North-East to date by the campaign - organised by the Tamil Action Committee for International Accountability Mechanism (TACIAM).

However the Sri Lankan authorities have disrupted the campaign on several occasions in both Jaffna and Trincomalee.
Signatures are being collecting signatures ahead of the United Nation Human Rights Council session later this month, where a report into mass atrocities in Sri Lanka is to be discussed.
See our earlier posts:
Signature campaign reaches Mannar (10 Sep 2015)
Signature campaign moves to Batticaloa (09 Sep 2015)
Signature campaign for international accountability continues at Jaffna University (09 Sep 2015)
International accountability signature campaign continue in Kilinochchi (08 Sep 2015) 
Sri Lanka police disrupt signature campaign in Trincomalee (07 Sep 2015)
Sri Lankan police in Jaffna halt signature campaign (05 Sep 2015)
Signature campaign in Jaffna calls for international accountability (04 Sep 2015)

NPC unanimously calls for international tribunal (01 Sep 2015)

Politics Of The Lankan State & The Future Of The Tamil Nation

By Surendra Ajit Rupasinghe –September 13, 2015

Ajit Rupasinghe

The Terms and Conditions for the ‘Liberation’ of the Tamil Nation

The discussion on the future of the Tamil nation has to be situated in its concrete context within the political dynamics of the Lankan State. It is the State that is ultimately determinant, whatever the play by its varying contending ruling fractions. We should not be led by appearances, nor be deceived by personalities, nor by the change of regimes. The state and the political system of representation hoisted upon us by British Colonialism is most devious by deliberate design. We should strive to understand the internal dynamics of the State and the logic and compulsions of its dominant ruling class, if we are to unravel the real class interests and the prospects for the future of the Tamil Nation.

The Tamil nation has been led through the most unthinkable suffering and loss and continue to be politically subjugated and militarily occupied by the State. This State shall decide if, when and how the Tamil Nation shall be liberated! So much for honouring the right of self-determination, even internally within an undivided State. So, fall in line; be patient; moderate your demands, comply! Negotiate the terms of your submission! Pay unstinted homage and pledge allegiance to the Constitution, the Unitary State and the National Flag. In short, if you expect any kind of a political settlement, that would certainly be under the constitutionally entrenched supremacy and hegemony of the Sinhala-Buddhist unitary Capialist state. Play the Game! If not, the dark demonic forces of Neo-Fascism shall return to power and devour you. The best and only chance you have is to place your fate and your future in the hands of the Sirisena-Ranil dispensation. You have to learn to compromise, cooperate and collaborate with regimes and ruling class personalities that have shed the blood of the people, robbed the country wholesale and are the sworn and proven enemies of the Tamil nation.

Knowing the Game                                         Read More    

Sri Lanka: Delivering on the Promise of Justice for Journalists – Bob Dietz

13/09/2015

On August 24, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on the arrest of four Sri Lankan army officers on suspicion that they were involved with the January 2010 disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda. “We are encouraged by progress in the case of Prageeth Ekneligoda. If the government of President Maithripala Sirisena resolves the journalist’s disappearance, the Ekneligoda family will finally be able to find some closure in their long search for justice,” CPJ said.

CPJ might have been encouraged on August 24, but that is no longer the case, even with the arrest of three more Army officers on September 7.

Ekneligoda’s wife, Sandhya, told CPJ that while she welcomes the arrests, she feels the five-year-old case should have moved far beyond where it currently stands. Her greater concern, Sandhya told CPJ, is that what she calls “certain powerful elements” are aggressively trying to derail the investigative process by discrediting Ekneligoda both as a journalist and an individual. The attacks have come through Sri Lanka’s notoriously partisan media.

“They are calling him a LTTE operative. They are saying he was never a journalist. They are destroying his character. They are saying the arrest of the Army officers will jeopardize national security. Even the Attorney General’s Department is throwing up road blocks,” Sandhya told CPJ, referring to media reports about her husband’s case.

“I am only asking for justice. But nobody is willing to do the right thing.” Instead, the single mother said, authorities are harassing her through attacks in the media. “They are playing with me without facing the truth,” she said.

Seeking justice

Alongside the negative reports about her husband are conflicting updates on how police are progressing with the case. Police officials say they are under no pressure to conceal the facts of the case, despite having made no effective movement in more than five and a half years.

But reports quoting police officials say, CID officers investigating the disappearance are facing difficulties due to intimidation by some top defence officials who were close to members of the previous government.

The recent accusations of marital infidelityas the reason for his disappearance are certainly not the first to be made in Ekneligoda’s case. One of the most bizarre accusations is the 2013 claim by Arundika Fernando, an MP, that Ekneligoda and many of the other Sri Lankan journalists who had disappeared over the years were all leading the expat high-life in France.

Earlier, in 2011, Mohan Peiris, who at the time was the senior legal adviser to the Cabinet and would eventually become Supreme Court Chief Justice, said Eknelygoda has taken refuge in a foreign country and that the campaign against his disappearance was a hoax. He called the allegations against the government a “savage smokescreen” at the time. Peiris resigned from the court under pressure less than two weeks after former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was voted out of power.

Such accusations were the way the game was played under the Rajapaksa government. And reading Sri Lankan media in 2015, it appears little has changed, despite hopes for the better under the new reform government. And that is worrisome.

On August 26, the United States announced that it will sponsor a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that will back the new government’s plan to conduct its own investigation into possible war crimes during the final stages of the country’s civil conflict and ethnic divide, The New York Times reported.

That stance is a reversal of the Americans’, and many other countries’ position on backing an international procedure. And that reversal might well be a decision that will be carried through. The rationale is that it will give the government some breathing room by lifting international and domestic pressure for it to come to grips with the terrible history of the last 30 years of conflict, which continues to fester not far below the surface. The UNHRC will start its meeting on September 14.

President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, starting on September 16.

Human rights assessment

They will represent a duly elected government, one which has announced a reform agenda of democratically led economic growth, diplomatic realignment, and the intention to try to restore Sri Lanka to its rightful place among modern nations. Their appearance will be a validation of the democratic process.

The 2010 disappearance and apparent death of Ekneligoda is only one case of at least nine cases of targeted journalists that happened during the Rajapaksa government. Unlike the brutal end to the war, these cases do not need to be handled on an international basis. Their deaths can and should be treated as straight forward criminal cases that are thoroughly and openly investigated and prosecuted.

While on an international stage in New York, President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe should make a public pledge that that is what will happen in the case of Sri Lanka’s dead and missing journalists.

And after making that promise, they should see that it happens when they return home. If they cannot deliver on such clear-cut cases, it will be hard to believe they will be able to oversee the difficult revelations linked to the end of their country’s civil conflict involving tens of thousands of deaths. Their credibility is on the line.

About the author:
Bob Dietz is the Asia Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists(CPJ)

Sri Lanka’s Geneva Month in a Europe awash with Syrian Refugees

by Rajan Philips-September 12, 2015

September has become Sri Lanka’s Geneva month. The 30th Annual Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which begins tomorrow in Geneva is expected to be congenial to the new Sri Lankan government unlike the previous sessions that were decisively hostile to the now defeated Rajapaksa regime. But the broader European context to the 2015 UNHRC Session in Geneva, Switzerland, is the Syrian refugee crisis that is tearing apart the rest of Europe. 

Sri Lanka’s Geneva Month in a Europe Awash With Syrian Refugees by Thavam Ratna

UNHRC report: No names but strong indictments

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Sri Lanka faces tough international challenge as Geneva sessions begin, Govt. to propose two-year road map

The biggest international challenge for Sri Lanka will unfold in the coming week as the UN Human Rights Council receives the findings of the probe into alleged war crimes by troops and Tiger guerrillas.

A copy of the report, which has already been provided to the Government of Sri Lanka, is being kept a close secret until it is formally placed on the UNHRC’s official website anytime next week. However, diplomatic sources say the probe team has made strong indictments against both the troops and the guerrillas over purported war crimes.

Though no politicians or those who were in combat have been named, these sources said, identification of those involved was not difficult since reference was being made in the findings to the chain of command with the identification of areas where violations occurred.

According to some sources, the previous Government has also been strongly indicted for what they call systematically denying or depriving food and medicine to civilians in war-affected areas. It has taken note of reports by the Government Agent for Wanni that some 350,000 civilians were affected by this move, the sources added.

Even before some of the allegations became the specific subject of a probe titled “OISL” under the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the sponsor of the resolution as well as countries that backed it called for an international investigation. However, the new Government that took office in January succeeded in persuading them to agree to a “credible domestic inquiry” after the OISL findings are made known.

The United States’ position was articulated in Colombo by Nisha Biswa, Assistant Secretary in the Department of State. Addressing an “invitees only” news conference at the American Center — the Sunday Times was not an invitee — Ms. Biswal said, “We fundamentally believe that you’re going to have a more durable outcome if there is a very strong and credible domestic process that actually brings communities together in the country. As Secretary Kerry reiterated during his visit, we fundamentally support efforts to create a credible domestic process for accountability and for reconciliation.”

Tom Malinowski Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, who accompanied Ms. Biswal declared, “We have said that we support a domestic mechanism that will be credible to all of the affected communities in Sri Lanka. I would also add that international support for this process has been, and will continue to be important to building trust and confidence….”

Notwithstanding the public statements for Sri Lankans during the Colombo news conference, Mr. Malinowski has been more pointed in the tweets he made on the issue. A sampling: “US will back the Sri Lanka Accountability process if it’s credible, done in consultation with the victims and in co-operation with the United Nations.” – “When UN report comes hope Sri Lanka Government will continue defending the country without being defensive, accepting the need to fully, honestly confront past.”

That the US position has not helped one of the stakeholders in the issue – the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) – became clear yesterday. Its leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan was busy with the draft of a letter he is sending to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, seeking a meeting with him in Geneva.

The TNA wants to impress on him the need for an international investigation. The TNA also has another unenviable issue – different groups, some hardliners who support Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, want to be in Geneva to push their different campaigns.

However, other Tamil sources in Colombo, not aligned to the TNA, held a different view. They claimed that a “credible domestic inquiry” mechanism, which would “satisfy all stakeholders”, would have expert foreign technical assistance, the oversight of the UNHRC and be based on a two-year road map Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera would present. Such a road map, these sources said, would mean that Sri Lanka would have to keep the UNHRC briefed at its every session on the progress in the “domestic inquiry”. “All that would make it function much the same as an international inquiry,” a source pointed out.

In June 2014, the High Commissioner for Human Rights appointed three experts — Martti Ahtisaari, a former President of Finland, Silvia Cartwright, a former High Court judge of New Zealand, and Asma Jahangir, former President of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, to play a supportive and advisory role, as well as independent verification throughout the investigation.

Sri Lanka set to announce reconciliation plans

• T RAMAKRISHNAN-September 13, 2015
• 
  

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera would make a statement in Geneva on Monday, the inaugural day of the the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)’s three-week-long session.

The statement is expected to throw light on how the Sri Lankan government will proceed further on the issues of accountability and reconciliation. On September 30, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation on Sri Lanka will present a report on alleged violations of human rights during the Eelam War.

After making his statement, Mr. Samaraweera will leave for New Delhi to join Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who will be making his first overseas trip after assuming charge for the fourth time a few weeks ago, according to an official.

Asked whether the UN has handed over the probe report to the Sri Lankan government as reported by some media, Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva told The Hindu: ‘We would not like to comment on the matter’.  

ITAK team

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) has also deputed a team of lawyers to Geneva.

ITAK president Mavai S. Senathirajah told The Hindu that his party colleague M.A. Sumanthiran was also likely to join the team later. 

In the meantime, sections of the Tamil press carried reports that Chief Minister of the Northern Province C.V. Wigneswaran, whose role during the parliamentary polls came in for criticism, was expected to meet the Tamil National Alliance leader, R. Sampanthan and explain his position.

How to progress on the National Question

Tricky but potentially productive prospects ahead

 

by Kumar David-September 12, 2015

Today’s papers (Sept.13) will see a surfeit of gossip on who’s who and horse trading re ministerial appointments. Their number has turned ‘good-governance’ into a term of derision, but Sirisen and Ranil (S&R) have thickened their hide after the elections. Repeated flops in the courts, Avant Garde the most recent, confirms the incompetence of the CID and the AG’s Department and aggravates worries about the state machine (and S&R?) conniving with the old-time crooked leaders.

How to Progress on the National Question Tricky but Potentially Productive Prospects Ahead by Thavam Ratna

The National List Fraud

By Nagananda Kodituwakku –September 13, 2015

Nagananda Kodituwakku

An in-depth investigation conducted into the National List provision (Article 99A) introduced to the Constitution on 04th May 1988, reveals that there had been an instance of abuse of people’s Executive and Legislative power in unimaginable scale by the then government headed by the President JR Jayewardene.

The then Prime Minster, R Premadasa, who had introduced this bill in Parliament had stated that the 14th Amendment was the result of the deliberations of the Select Committee on Franchise and Elections, which had the approval of all members of the Select committee. Referring to the 14th amendment agreed by all parties the Prime Minister had stated that it was a product of constructive and collective thinking on the part of a broad segment of political opinion.

Yet, in the statement made in the Parliament the Prime Minister had conceded the presence of two bills on the 14th amendment in circulation amongst the members, one agreed by all party select committed and the other bill, which permitted party secretaries to nominate defeated candidate to enter the Parliament through the National List.

It is thought provoking to note that the Prime Minister who presented the bill only relied on the bill approved by the all-party select committed. In fact, referring to the ‘National List’ MPs, the Prime Minister had informed the house that. “… Names of the Party nominees are known beforehand and that the voter are aware of the identity of the candidates of the different Parties who are to be elected as National Members…”

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