Thursday, September 24, 2015

Dudley accepts what Ranil, Chandrika rejected!

Sep 24, 2015
During the last general election, Access Group chairman Sumal Perera had tried to give Rs. 50 million to Ranil Wickremesinghe to be used for election propaganda work, but knowing his pedigree, the UNP leader had refused to accept the money.

Then, he met Dudley Sirisena, brother of the president, who readily accepted the money.

After becoming president, Maithripala Sirisena has given just one day of the week for his siblings to meet him. Also, he has made the presidential secretariat a no go zone for his siblings and for his own children. After the ‘Yaha Paalana’ government took, over Dudley is saying publicly that “Things were better during Mahinda’s time.”

Who pocketed Rs. 50 m out of Rs. 150 m given by Dhammika?

Sep 24, 2015

Wealthy businessman Dhammika Perera had attempted to meet UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to handover Rs. 150 million to be used at the general election, but knowing the man very well, Wickremesinghe had refused pointblank to accept the money.

Failing in both attempts, Dhammika then met a leading figure of the UNP and handed him the Rs. 150 m. Of that money, the UNPer had pocketed Rs. 50 m and handed over only Rs. 100 m to the party fund.

Dhammika is saying these days that he had got the better of Wickremesinghe. Our attempts to reach the leading UNP figure in question for a comment failed.

Sisi destroys thousands of Egyptian homes in anti-Palestinian campaign

A Palestinian boy looks on as bulldozers work on the Egyptian side of the border with the Gaza Strip, 1 September. Egypt has destroyed thousands of its own citizens’ homes in order to further isolate Gaza.

Abed Rahim KhatibAPA images

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 24 September 2015

On 27 October 2014, soldiers knocked on the door of an elderly woman in the Egyptian town of Rafah, near the border with the Gaza Strip.

According to Um Muhammad, a neighbor and eyewitness, an officer told the elderly woman that the army would be blowing up her house the next day.

Sisi Destroys Thousands of Egyptian Homes in Anti-Palestinian Campaign by Thavam Ratna

EU calls on Thai government to respect freedom of of speech

A Thai soldier stands guard in front of the Democracy Monument in Bangkok after the military seized power last year. Pic: AP.

By AP News Sep 24, 2015 7:23PM UTC

BANGKOK (AP) — The European Union has called on Thailand’s military government to respect freedom of speech and assembly as it prepares to draft a new constitution.

The EU delegation in Thailand said in a statement Thursday that the Southeast Asian nation should allow critics to express their views to achieve true reform and reconciliation. It described the EU as a friend of Thailand that has repeatedly urged that democracy be restored.

“At a time when the drafting process of a new constitution is starting, the EU Delegation again calls upon the Thai government to respect freedom of speech and assembly. Only a full and free public debate in which also critical voices can be heard will allow for true reform and reconciliation,” the statement said.

The statement was approved by the envoys of all EU nations in Thailand.

Thailand’s army overthrew an elected government in May last year after months of turmoil caused by anti-government demonstrators.

Rival political factions have struggled for power, sometimes violently, since a 2006 coup toppled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The current ruling junta curbs dissent through intimidation and detentions.

The full European Union Delegation statement can be found here

More than 700 killed in Haj stampede

The death toll from a stampede at the annual pilgrimage to Mecca has risen to 717, Saudi officials say, in the worst disaster at the holy site in 25 years.

THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2015
The stampede, which happened at Mina, on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca, also left at least 805 people injured, according to Saudi Arabia's civil defence directorate.

It happened in a street between pilgrim camps, Street 204, at Mina, a few kilometres east of Mecca where pilgrims stay for several days during the climax of the haj. It is one of two main arteries leading through the camp to Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil by hurling pebbles at pillars - the last major rite of the pilgrimage.

More Than 700 Killed in Haj Stampede by Thavam Ratna

How India and the United States Are Building a 21st-Century Partnership

The ties between our two countries will help create prosperity and ensure security for billions of people.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

Five years ago, President Barack Obama declared the U.S.-India relationship one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. Acknowledging this unique bond and its transformative potential, our two countries inaugurated a Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD) this week. The S&CD is a new mechanism to broaden and deepen U.S.-India cooperation on a range of critical bilateral, regional, and global issues and focus increased attention on the significant role of economics and commerce in our bilateral ties.

The world is experiencing huge social, economic and security challenges that the United States and India are uniquely positioned to address — but only together. Our two large, market-oriented democracies have already demonstrated an ability to work together to protect diversity in the face of sweeping social change; tackle regional challenges, old and new; and cooperate to increase the prosperity and security of our citizens.

The launch of the S&CD is an important step toward realizing our leaders’ shared vision of a stronger and more comprehensive U.S.-India relationship. In an effort to support India’s integration into global supply chains, we have injected new energy into efforts focused on improving India’s ease of doing business, infrastructure development, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, and standards collaboration.Progress in each of these areas will create new opportunities for American businesses and deepen our relationship with a critical strategic partner.

We also brought together our respective private sectors in a reinvigorated U.S.-India CEO Forum, during which our business leaders offered input and recommendations on issues that are critical to the economic partnership. Their priorities include improving India’s business climate, smart cities and infrastructure financing, supply-chain integration, aerospace and defense, and renewable energy. Input from U.S. and Indian business leaders will continue to inform our policymaking discussions as we work toward our leaders’ shared goal of increasing U.S.-India trade fivefold, to $500 billion annually.

Efforts to expand our economic partnership go hand-in-hand with our work to strengthen the U.S.-India relationship in a number of priority areas, including promoting stability, health, and prosperity around the globe. U.S. and Indian researchers are teaming up to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. In March, our joint research helped to launch the world’s cheapest vaccine against rotavirus, potentially saving millions of lives. Across the African continent, our development experts are partnering to increase agricultural productivity, boost farmer incomes, and reduce malnutrition. Last spring, our militaries and aid workers together delivered humanitarian relief following Nepal’s devastating earthquake. And just last month, our governments led more than 20 other countries from Africa to Southeast Asia in pledging to end preventable maternal and child deaths.

We are collaborating beyond the confines of sovereign boundaries into the borderless domains of cyberspace and outer space — discussing norms of responsible state behavior, increased cybersecurity cooperation, and a multi-stakeholder system of Internet governance to better realize an open, secure, and reliable cyberspace. NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization are increasingly working together, including on the future exploration of Mars.

Climate change also transcends borders and economic status. Indeed, it represents a monumental test of global leadership. Every country has a responsibility to step up because every country is at risk. Our two are working more closely than ever before to confront this threat.

India’s strategic location at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region also presents challenges and opportunities. Rooted in common values of democracy, pluralism, and free enterprise, our two nations serve as champions of the rules-based international order for that region. We both recognize that peace, prosperity, and stability in the Indo-Pacific region can only be secured by connected economies, freedom of navigation and overflight, and a rules-based architecture where maritime and territorial disputes are settled amicably.

On the high seas, our navies are partnering to promote maritime security across the Indo-Pacific region. This year, we began working together on aircraft carrier technology and design. Our annual joint naval exercise, Malabar, continues to grow in complexity, with the United States, India, and Japan participating this year in the Indian Ocean — a region that accounts for nearly half of global seaborne trade.

Beyond partnering to address bilateral, regional, and global challenges, our people continue to bring us closer together. More than 1 million Americans traveled to India in 2013, and more than 100,000 Indian students studied in the United States during the past academic year. The Indian diaspora has also made enormous contributions to every facet of American society, contributing its talents and ingenuity at the tech start-ups of Silicon Valley, the lecture halls and labs of premier educational institutions, the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, and the corridors of power in Washington and in state capitols across the country.

The United States and India share so much — democratic principles, common values, and aspirations for our citizens to live economically secure and peaceful lives. We are committed to improving this partnership at every level to achieve those aspirations.

Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images

Correction, Sept. 24, 2015: An earlier version of this article included two high-ranking members of the Indian government as co-authors. Their bylines have been removed.

What It Means to Be a Socialist

A giant American flag hangs on the facade of the New York Stock Exchange. (Mary Altaffer / AP)

By Chris Hedges-Sep 20, 2015

Chris Hedges gave this speech Sunday at a Santa Ana, Calif., event sponsored by the Green Party of Orange County.

We live in a revolutionary moment. The disastrous economic and political experiment that attempted to organize human behavior around the dictates of the global marketplace has failed. The promised prosperity that was to have raised the living standards of workers through trickle-down economics has been exposed as a lie. A tiny global oligarchy has amassed obscene wealth, while the engine of unfettered corporate capitalism plunders resources, exploits cheap, unorganized labor and creates pliable, corrupt governments that abandon the common good to serve corporate profit. The relentless drive by the fossil fuel industry for profits is destroying the ecosystem, threatening the viability of the human species. And no mechanisms to institute genuine reform or halt the corporate assault are left within the structures of power, which have surrendered to corporate control. The citizen has become irrelevant. He or she can participate in heavily choreographed elections, but the demands of corporations and banks are paramount.

What It Means to Be a Socialist by Thavam Ratna

Pope tells Congress U.S. should reject hostility to immigrants

WASHINGTON | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND SCOTT MALONE-Thu Sep 24, 2015

Pope Francis told Congress on Thursday that the United States should reject a "mindset of hostility" to immigrants, directly addressing a thorny subject that is dividing the country and stirring debate in the 2016 presidential campaign.

In a historic first speech by a pope to a U.S. Congress, the Argentine pontiff said the United States must not turn its back on "the stranger in our midst."

"Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility," the 78-year-old Francis told the Republican-dominated legislature.

Francis, the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, delivered a wide-ranging speech in English that took on issues dear to liberals in the United States and also emphasized conservative values and Catholic teachings on the family. The pope called for support in fighting climate change, a more equitable economy, and an end to the death penalty.

In reference to abortion and euthanasia, the pope said humanity must "protect and defend human life at every stage of its development."

Aversion to illegal immigrants has featured heavily in the

race for the Republican presidential nomination. Front-runner Donald Trump says he would deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants if he were elected to the White House and has accused Mexico of sending rapists and other criminals across the border.

Speaking softly and in heavily accented English to a packed House of Representatives chamber, Francis said America should not be put off by the number of immigrants who are trying to make it their home.

"We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal," he said.

His comments on immigration were met with frequent applause mostly from Democrats, but from Republicans too.

After efforts by both sides to overhaul immigration laws failed, the United States saw a flood last year of more than 60,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America rushing to the U.S. border hoping to get in.

Several Republican presidential candidates were in the audience, including retired neurologist Ben Carson, Senator Marco Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

A frequent critic of the damage caused to the environment by capitalism's excesses, the pope said Congress has an important role to play to "avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity."

In comments welcomed by conservatives, Francis expressed concern about threats to the family, a reference to same-sex marriage after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that made gay marriage legal across the country.

Francis said the traditional family "is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family."

(Additional reporting by David Lawder, Patricia Zengerle and Susan Heavey; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Pope Francis pauses after concluding his addresses before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress as Vice President Joe Biden (L) and Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) applaud in the House of Representatives Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington September 24, 2015.

REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

This 9,000-year-old ritual decapitation may have been one of America’s first

The Brazilian skull shows signs of a ritualistic burial. (Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Sao Paulo/PLOS)

By Rachel Feltman September 24

Researchers believe that a 9,000-year-old skull found in Brazil could be the oldest ever example of decapitation in the Americas.

[Medieval stabbing victim found tangled in the roots of a fallen tree]

The remains, which are described in a study published Wednesday in PLOS, were found in an archaeological site called Lapa do Santo, where signs of human occupation date back 12,000 years. The bones belong to a young man -- most likely a member of the community, not an outsider -- and his skull and hands have been eerily arranged: His jaw and vertebrae showed v-shaped markings, and his hands (also severed) were placed over his skull, with his left hand pointing up on the right side of his face and the right hand pointing down on the left.

A schematic representation of Burial 26 from Lapa do Santo. (Gil Tokyo)

The find pushes the origin of decapitation on this continent back by nearly 4,000 years, as well as increasing the geographical range where it's known to have occurred.

Based on their analysis of the remains, the researchers believe this was a complex, perhaps honorific ritual carried out after the young man had already died -- not the result of a disagreement.

[These 500,000-year-old shell markings may be the world’s first doodle]

Although the authors write in the paper that "no straightforward method is available to determine the nature of a severed head," they believe they can rule out that it was taken for a trophy, as was common in other areas where decapitation occurred. There was no sign of an attempt to remove the brain, or to drill holes in order to make some carrying apparatus for the head.

Instead, they suggest, the strange markings and arrangement could be some reflection of the group's beliefs about the afterlife. "In the apparent absence of wealth goods or elaborate architecture, Lagoa Santa’s inhabitants seemed to be using the human body to reify and express their cosmological principles concerning death," the authors write.

Medieval stabbing victim found tangled in the roots of a fallen tree

Human and Neanderthal love affair is traced back to Israel, 55,000 years ago

3,000 skeletons, many of them plague victims, must make way for new train site in London

Scientists find remains of Ice Age infants in elaborate but mysterious grave

Rachel Feltman runs The Post's Speaking of Science blog.

Family pleads for life of mentally ill man sentenced to death by firing squad

Somaliland supreme court due to rule on fate of Abdullah Ali, facing execution after being convicted of manslaughter

Faisa Ali holds a photograph of her brother, Abdullah Ali Photograph: Ali family

Zeinab Mohammed Salih-Thursday 24 September 2015

The family of a mentally ill man sentenced to death by firing squad in Somalilandhas appealed to the country’s president to intervene to prevent his execution.

The case of Abdullah Ali, who was convicted of shooting and killing a man last year, has prompted an international outcry, with Human Rights Watch declaring it a particularly cruel punishment for someone diagnosed with severe mental health problems.

His sister Faisa Ali said the family had taken the case to the supreme court and was expecting a ruling before the end of the month.

“We are very concerned about him because the supreme court decision will be final and I expect they will agree with the regional court and uphold the death sentence,” said Faisa Ali.

“We are asking the president of Somaliland, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo, to intervene to stop this crime against a mentally ill person.”

Ali, a father of nine from the city of Lasanod, started to suffer from hallucinations, delusions and depression in 2011. He spent two years at the Daryeel hospital in the capital Hargiesa, diagnosed with psychosis.

He was discharged in February last year but his sister said his mental health problems had continued. She said he had become agitated during a reunion with an old friend.

“They had an argument and Ali shot him. We don’t know where he got the weapon but it is very easy to find guns in Somaliland,” she said.

Human Rights Watch researcher Laetitia Bader condemned the court’s decision to sentence Ali to death, despite hearing evidence of his psychiatric problems.

“We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently cruel and irreversible punishment,” Bader said. “This case makes these concerns ever more poignant given the apparent lack of a rigorous judicial process and the cruel reality of executing a person who has been diagnosed with a severe disability by one of the very few clinicians with basic psychiatric training in the country.”

The Human Rights Centre in Somaliland, the country’s only human rights watchdog, has also expressed concern about Ali’s treatment and has submitted an appeal to the attorney-general.

Somaliland resumed the death penalty after a nine-year suspension last April when it executed six prisoners by firing squad. The EU condemned their deaths and urged authorities to drop capital punishment.

“This is completely unexpected act is a step back in the progress made in spreading the rule of law in Somaliland,” a statement said. “The EU Heads of Mission strongly and unequivocally oppose the death penalty and consider the death penalty constitutes a series violations of human rights and human dignity.”

According to Amnesty International, at least 10 people were sentenced to death in Somaliland last year.

Science Says Your Lack Of Sleep Is Making You A Miserable Person

"Slangry" is the new "hangry."

Lindsay Holmes-09/24/2015

Forget feeling "hangry." There may be another monster that's causing your next-level irritability: Exhaustion. According to a new small study, a lack of sleep may alter your ability to process emotions and keep them in check.

Researchers from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Tel Aviv University found thatsleepless nights caused subjects to overreact to everyday challenges that they would've taken in stride if they had been more rested. The findings were published in the September 23 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers superimposed a series of numbers on distracting images that were either classified as unpleasant or neutral. Then they monitored the brain activity of 18 participants as they attempted to memorize the numbers on the images.

The task was given on two different days: when the participants had been awake for 24 hours, and again when they were well-rested. The goal, the study authors wrote, was to create a need for subjects to regulate their emotional response to the distracting images in order to complete the task.

As expected, participants showed high levels of activity in the amygdala -- the area of the brain that processes emotion -- in response to both the neutral and the unpleasant images after they had a sleepless night. Participants also showed strong activity to the unpleasant images when they were well-rested, but did not have an emotional response in the brain when working through the neutral images.

The results also revealed that hyper-emotional reactions were linked to less rapid eye movement during sleep, potentially suggesting that deep sleep can play a role in emotional regulation. Sleep deprivation may also be linked to anxiety, according to the study authors.

The findings only further prove sleep should be a priority. Previous research suggests that sleep deprivation may even negatively affect your physical health, putting you at a higher risk for stroke and obesity.

Now that's something to feel irritable -- or dare we say "slangry" -- about.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

For some victims, UN report on Sri Lanka crimes is their only memorial

by Frances Harrison, London (UK)-23 September 2015

I learned exactly how a friend of mine was executed from the forensic examination the UN report did of the photographs of his corpse. His hands were tied behind his back and he was shot multiple times from behind. At least I now know he wasn’t tortured before he died, and in the warped world of Sri Lanka, that’s some comfort. I cannot imagine what it is like for his wife to relive this again.

Image caption:

Inhabitants of the Menik Farm internally displaced person camp in Sri Lanka await a visit by the UN secretary-general in 2009 (Photo: Flickr/UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

Nor can I imagine what it is like for the mother of a TV presenter for the opposition to see in black and white that her daughter was killed by gunshots to the head, execution-style, with skull pieces and protruding brain left visible. How does a mother cope with the conclusion in the report that her daughter’s body was desecrated, let alone know that the perpetrators are still a long way off from paying a price for their terrible crimes?

And these stories are repeated hundreds of times over because the UN could focus only on the emblematic cases though they are numerous.

The 250-page UN report, released last week by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), is filled with legal language and clinical descriptions of extreme brutality. But the 'Report of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL)' is also a graveyard of dead politicians, journalists, priests and combatants whom many of us knew personally. For some victims, this is the only memorial they have had in six long years.

The report focused on the extensive atrocities and alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed from 2002 to 2011 by Sri Lankan government forces and their opponents, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in a conflict that has raged for decades. Many human rights activists say remains unresolved, with grave violations still continuing even in peace time.

One human rights activist in the north of Sri Lanka told me he and his friends wept as they read the report, forced to relive all the events of a war that is not yet fully over. Abductions, torture and sexual violence by the security forces are still on-going, and the military still dominates life in the former conflict areas.

Some of the human rights defenders who went to last week's Human Rights Council session in Geneva were harassed on leaving Sri Lanka – a warning that their work still carries huge risks. By the time the report was published on 17 September, several I met were too emotionally exhausted to read it straightaway. For decades they have worked tirelessly for the truth and they personally knew hundreds of the victims or their families. Most victims are very distant from the process in Geneva, but the brave wife of the disappeared Sinhalese cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda was waiting outside the press conference where the report was launched. She seized the report from my hand, eager to see if her husband’s case was there, and then when someone helped her find it in the English text she looked momentarily happy.

Six years on, many of the Tamil war victims even living abroad can still not come into the open for fear of reprisals against family members back in Sri Lanka. In my capacity as a journalist and the author of a book of stories of survivors from the conflict in Sri Lanka, I was a moderator at a side event in Geneva where a survivor of the final phase of the war was present. He came under a false name and was careful not to be identified by other Sri Lankans there. He was a key witness for the UN investigation. After listening to the panel discuss the Sri Lankan government’s plan to consult victims in the coming months, he was palpably frustrated and upset that people like him cannot open their mouths in public and speak for themselves even in Switzerland.

A huge emotional milestone

As a document of historical record, the UN report is a huge emotional milestone on the road to justice. It’s important the whole 250 pages be quickly translated into Sinhala and Tamil so that it’s accessible to most Sri Lankans. For those of us who’ve worked on the issue of war crimes and then post-war systematic and widespread sexual violence by the security forces, it’s a vindication of everything we’ve said for years in the face of a great deal of scepticism, denial and vilification. For the victims living in the shadows who survived these experiences and thought they’d never come out alive, being believed and having their suffering acknowledged is a giant step forward.

In Geneva, though, the immediate focus is the political and legal implications of the report and its recommendations for the future. There’s still lobbying going on around the wording of a resolution on Sri Lanka to be tabled in the Human Rights Council on 30 September, with the government pushing back against significant international involvement in the accountability process.

The new Sri Lankan government [IJT-180] that’s promising change has already announced a truth commission, a special court and an office of missing persons to be established within 18 months, after consultations. Significantly, the new government in Sri Lanka has not outright rejected the contents of the UN report – in fact, the foreign minister called it a very balanced and sober document, but the government does not appear keen on international judges, prosecutors and investigators being part of the envisaged court.

Civil society groups in Sri Lanka agree on one thing: a hybrid accountability mechanism must have a strong international component to have any chance of working.

The UN report made it very clear Sri Lanka cannot tackle decades of entrenched impunity on its own. How much international involvement is the issue being fought over now. But, as one human rights lawyer has said, this is a historic opportunity for Sri Lanka.

For weekly free stories and background follow us on Twitter @justicetribune

Chief Minister welcomes findings of OISL, calls on Sri Lanka to implement recommendations

23 September 2015

The Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council welcomed the findings of the report of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Investigation on Sri Lanka released last week.

Extracts from the statement made by CV Wigneswaran at the Northern Provincial Council on Tuesday reproduced below.

“We also welcome the finding that the investigations into international crimes of the scale that had taken place during the period investigated "will require more than a domestic mechanism" and, the need to form a mechanism which would give confidence to the victims of such violations, confidence in the independence and impartiality of the process. To that end the report has suggested the adoption of international best practices of "integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators.”

“We urge the Government to implement the recommendations of the Report immediately by embarking on a transitional justice process which takes into

account the scope and breadth of the violations, the diverse nature parties and offending individuals, the need for time-boundedness in accountability, justice and reconciliation, the need for addressing causes of the conflict and the need for a victim centeredapproach. As a Province which is home to the bulk of victims of mass atrocities and the scene of the last stages of the war, we strongly urge the Government to take note of observations made by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-recurrence that ‘measures intended to promote fundamental rights, the design implementation of these measures call for consultative and participatory methods. This has not been the hallmark of past Sri Lankan efforts.”

IMG.pdf-Chief Minister Welcomes Findings of OISL, Calls on Sri Lanka to Implement Recommendations by Thavam Ratna

The “Hot Potato” Which Came Wrapped Up From Geneva

By Bandu de Silva –September 23, 2015

Bandu de Silva

The “Hot Potato” Which Came Wrapped Up From Geneva Which Had To Be Spewed Out

“It’s not as hot as we anticipated, not a hot potato. It is not blood curdling and the report has not mentioned any names,” Samaraweera declared. He opined the OISL report was more “a narrative” and as declared therein, was a “human rights investigation and not a criminal one.”

That is how The Sunday Times (September 20th) Political editor put across External Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s response immediately after a cursory glance at the UNHRC report which he received on September 11, 2015 through UNHRC High Commissioner’s special envoy. So, for the Minister, it was not the ‘hot potato’ that many people expected. Going on to details, he had said there was no naming of any people. Even later addressing the media in Colombo he repeated that the UNHRC report was only a “human rights investigation and not a criminal one.” That is what the Sri Lankan Government also informed the High Commissioner through the Note Verbale sent by the Foreign Ministry in Colombo on 15th September, complying with the five-day time – frame allowed to the government to reply.

The unfolding events, nevertheless, point to what came wrapped up from Geneva was a hot potato indeed, which, as Dr. Samuel Johnson did, had to be spewed out. What External Affairs Minister, Mangala Samaraweera who seemed to be all upbeat over the report, and reportedly became outspoken to the extent of discussing with the media on Friday 18th September, even the modeling of the Hybrid Special Court which the UNHRC report was insisting on, has within three days found the potato too hot and thought of spewing it out to the amusement of onlookers. As Dr. Johnson said, he could tell those who are amused that “only a fool would have swallowed it”.

Now the question is “Will the UNHRC report then remain a virtual ‘Sweet-potato’ that the government wishfully made out to be at the outset? One doubts? If it is going to be the ‘sweet-potato’ or even a worm-infested ‘kunu-batala,’ familiar in the Sri Lankan market, can one think that the UNHRC and the investigating trio appointed by UNHRC following the US sponsored resolution at the Council session in 2014, had wasted their time and public funds on this account. That is the main question now in the face of the understanding reached a few weeks back by the governments of US and Sri Lanka which was laid bare during the most recent visit of the US State Department’s two Assistant Secretaries to Sri Lanka.

The two visitors from US were not the decision makers. They were only the mouth pieces for the US government. The decisions were made earlier from the time of change of government (Wenasa) in Colombo starting from January 8, 2015 with the formation of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government. State Secretary Kerry laid down the parameters and the Biswal-Malinowski team which followed after the August 17 General Election which further confirmed the electorate’s decision for the change of government, confirmed the US decision on the future action in Geneva supporting an independent local investigation into alleged human rights abuses and criminal acts against civilians. The US decision announced in Colombo constituted a complete course-change from her previous stand calling for nothing less than an international inquiry which was demonstrated by her strong sponsorship of the Geneva Resolution on Sri Lanka which was carried out by majority vote resulting in the present UNHRC report. Read More