Alleged Nazi war criminal wins reprieve against deportation

Helmut Oberlander, 92, was in death squad estimated to have killed 23,000 civilians and has lived in Canada since 1954

Helmut Oberlander joined the death squad aged 17 but says he did so under duress. Photograph: Supplied

German troops parade in front of Adolf Hitler and Nazi generals during the second world war. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Nadia Khomami-Tuesday 23 February 2016

A 92-year-old man who served with a Nazi death squad has won a fresh reprieve in his 20-year legal battle against deportation from Canada.

Helmut Oberlander was part of the Nazi Einsatzkommando 10a (Ek10a), which is estimated to have killed 23,000 civilians – mostly Jews – during the second world war.

The Ukrainian-born German, who joined the squad at the age of 17, has never been charged with any war crime but is included in the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s annual list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals.

Oberlander has been fighting to retain his Canadian citizenship since 1995, when the legal case against him began. He argues he only cooperated with the German unit under duress and merely served as a translator who never participated in any killings.

Canada’s federal court of appeal has now sent his case back to the country’s federal cabinet for reconsideration after it filed its third motion since 2001 to revoke his citizenship.

Oberlander arrived in Canada in 1954 and became a citizen six years later without disclosing his wartime experiences.

In a statement on Monday, Shimon Koffler Fogel, the head of Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said Oberlander was “contriving to abuse the judicial system to avoid responsibility”.

He added that Oberlander “was a member of one of the most savage Nazi killing units ... That he clearly lied about his wartime past to fraudulently gain entry into this country is not in question – nor the legal consequences of falsification of immigration documents.

“He is here illegally and he ought to have his Canadian citizenship revoked.”

Oberlander’s lawyer, Ronald Poulton, told the National Post his client’s role in the death squad was “limited and forced”. His daughter, Irene Rooney, told reporterslast year that recent months for her father had been “especially tough, since he lost his wife of 62 years to cancer, but he will carry on because he wants to see justice done and wants his good name restored”.

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EU exit would damage economy, say top bosses

Heads of more than a third of the country's biggest businesses are supporting Britain's continued membership of the EU ahead of the June referendum.

TUESDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2016

Chairmen or chief executives of 36 FTSE 100 companies, including Asda, BT, Marks & Spencer, Kingfisher and Vodafone, said in a letter that "Brexit" would "deter investment and threaten jobs".

But those campaigning for Britain to leave the 28-member European Union said two thirds of FTSE bosses did not sign the letter, which was organised by Britain Stronger in Europe with Downing Street's backing.

'Economy at risk'

The letter in the Times, which has been signed by 198 business leaders in total, says: "Business needs unrestricted access to the European market of 500 million people in order to continue to grow, invest and create jobs.

"We believe that leaving the EU would deter investment and threaten jobs. It would put the economy at risk."

The heads of Tesco, Sainsbury's and Barclays have not backed the letter, whose signatories include Tory donors and figures who have accepted government roles under David Cameron's premiership, according to the Times.

British membership is also being supported by the Trades Union Congress, whose general secretary Frances O'Grady said in a separate letter to the Times that leaving would mean that " vital workplace benefits that the EU has given us - paid holidays, extra maternity rights and better conditions for part-time workers - could be for the chop".

The Prime Minister is hoping his renegotiation deal with other EU leaders will help convince voters to support continued membership.

But his strategy has come under intense pressure following the decision by party colleagues Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, and Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, to campaign for an exit.

'National fight'

Former Labour business secretary and EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson wrote in the Guardian that supporters of EU membership were now involved in "a national fight".

Leave.EU co-founder Richard Tice said: "We remember well how many large businesses and EU-funded groups like the CBI said we should join the euro. How wrong they were.

"The truth is that despite the bullying of a prime minister who has no real business experience, it is other normal commercial factors which will determine the continued success of British businesses to invest and grow."

The in/out referendum will be held on 23 June.

Exposé: Undocumented Newspaper Delivery Drivers Treated as Slave Labor

The issue of long hours, little pay and no vacation for delivery drivers is finally out of the shadows.

Photo Credit: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock

By Aviva Chomsky / Tom Dispatch-February 6, 2016

In our post-modern (or post-post-modern?) age, we are supposedly transcending the material certainties of the past. The virtual world of the Internet is replacing the “real,” material world, as theory asks us to question the very notion of reality. Yet that virtual world turns out to rely heavily on some distinctly old systems and realities, including the physical labor of those who produce, care for, and provide the goods and services for the post-industrial information economy. 

As it happens, this increasingly invisible, underground economy of muscles and sweat, blood and effort intersects in the most intimate ways with those who enjoy the benefits of the virtual world. Of course, our connection to that virtual world comes through physical devices, and each of them follows a commodity chain that begins with the mining of rare earth elements and ends at a toxic disposal or recycling site, usually somewhere in the Third World.

Closer to home, too, the incontrovertible realities of our physical lives depend on labor — often that of undocumented immigrants — invisible but far from virtual, that makes apparently endless mundane daily routines possible.

Even the most ethereal of post-modern cosmopolitans, for instance, eat food. In twenty-first-century America, as anthropologist Steve Striffler has pointed out, “to find a meal that has not at some point passed through the hands of Mexican immigrants is a difficult task.”  Medical anthropologist Seth Holmes adds, “It is likely that the last hands to hold the blueberries, strawberries, peaches, asparagus, or lettuce before you pick them up in your local grocery store belong to Latin American migrant laborers.” 

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Thoughts on Bernie Sanders, Global Economic Crisis, the Crisis of the Earth, and Social Disintegration

Featured image courtesy Huffington Post

• by Anonymous 
• - on 02/22/2016 

During the past months the race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clintonto be the Democratic Party (DP) nominee for US president has ignited interest around the country and globally. It is a contest noteworthy for the challenges being made: to the entrenched DP powers and their financial backers, to conventional wisdom on the current national and global economic crisis, to people everywhere about the priority now being given to the crises of our planet – misleadingly termed as ‘climate change,’ and to us all as individuals in contributing or not to social disintegration. The crises are there to see, they are being felt globally, there is fear, and not for nothing, but out of this can come a common agenda. It is time to resist the status quo.

The growing popularity of self-identified socialist Bernie Sanders must be seen as due to the issues being addressed and his perceived sincerity in this. The resonance of his economic message shows the success of the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement – We Are the 99% – which was already noted by election organisers on the ground during the 2012 presidential campaign. Sanders’ positions include: fair taxation so that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share; a large rise in the minimum wage (to $15 per hour); break-up of the large banks; health care as a right under a single-payer insurance system, and for retirees to not live in poverty; an energy policy not based on fossil fuels and geared to creating jobs in green energy; against private prisons and the incarceration of (disproportionately) blacks, Latinos and others for minor offenses; audit of the military; a route to citizenship for illegal aliens, with no break-up of families and no border fence; equal pay for women and protection of the right to choose; and campaign finance reform to exclude big money.

In foreign policy Sanders is against the new Pacific free trade agreement(TPP), as he opposed the similar North American agreement – as both sending US jobs abroad and as uprooting people in other countries from land and jobs due to the import of cheaper US goods. He is for a two-state solution in Palestine. And in perhaps the sharpest exchanges with Clinton he has repeatedly questioned her vote for the 2003 war in Iraq, which he as a member of the US House opposed from the start. One of his most significant positions in contrast to Clinton is to be against the US strategy of regime change, noting the disastrous consequences in Iraq, Libya, Syria and other places. And in one startling segment of his recent second debate with Clinton, he pointed to the similar case of Iran in 1953, stating that the US had deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in order to support (largely) British oil interests, installing the Shah, and leading to his overthrow and more recent well-known consequences. This is not the kind of information or message that the US public is used to hearing on national TV during a presidential election campaign; Sanders has broken the ‘acceptable’ information barrier.   Continue Reading →

Obama asks lawmakers to lift obstacles to closing prison at Guantanamo Bay

President Obama outlines a plan for closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Reuters)

A look at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
By Missy Ryan and Adam Goldman-February 23

President Obama urged lawmakers on Tuesday to help him close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as he made the case for a White House road map for shuttering a detention facility he said symbolized the excesses that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“This is about closing a chapter in our history ,” said Obama, flanked by Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, in remarks at the White House. “It reflects the lessons that we’ve learned since 9/11, lessons that need to guide our nation going forward.”

[Read: Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo]

Obama’s blueprint, which provided some detail to earlier White House plans to move up to 60 prisoners to the United States for trial or continued detention, was met with immediate condemnation from Capitol Hill.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the few senior Republicans who has expressed openness to closing the detention center, said the nine-page plan failed to address basic questions. He said Obama had “missed a major chance” to build support for closing the prison before he steps down in January.

“What we received today is a vague menu of options, not a credible plan for closing Guantanamo, let alone a coherent policy to deal with future terrorist detainees,” McCain said in statement.

At the heart of the debate is whether the U.S. government can securely house or try on American soil some of the 91 prisoners remaining at the prison.

[Saudi inmate repatriated as protesters mark Guantanamo milestone]

Whether Obama can make good on his long-standing promise to close Guantanamo will also shape his national security legacy and provide an important measure of how far he was able to go in distinguishing his presidency from that of George W. Bush, who opened the prison in 2002 and filled it with nearly 800 suspected militants.

Obama argued Tuesday that the facility remained a rallying call for terrorists.

“I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president, whoever it is,” Obama said. “If, as a nation, we don’t deal with this now, when will we deal with it?”

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This vaginal ring can safely reduce the risk of HIV in women, trial shows

But it didn't work as well in adolescents as it did in adults

By Arielle Duhaime-Ross 

on February 22, 2016

A vaginal ring that dispenses an HIV-preventative drug blocked about a quarter of HIV infections in a trial involving 2,600 women in Africa, according to a report published in TheNew England Journal of Medicine. When the numbers were broken down by age, researchers found that the monthly ring blocked more than half of HIV infections among HIV-negative women over the age of 21 who used the ring most consistently.

Given that the vaginal ring can be replaced once a month and doesn’t require a partner’s cooperation — unlike the condom — that’s encouraging news. This is the first study to show that a device that involves the sustained release of an HIV medication can work to block the virus in women, the researchers say.

"A PREVENTION OPTION THAT A WOMAN CAN USE DISCRETELY."

"This ring could provide a prevention option that a woman can use discretely and which is under her control — which is incredibly empowering," says Jared Baeten, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington and a co-author of the study.

Of the 35 million people living with HIV today, women make up more than half. And in some parts of Africa, one in four or even one in three women has HIV, Baeten says. Unfortunately, women don’t always have the social capital to impose common STD preventatives, like condoms, on male sexual partners. That’s why researchers have been working on HIV-prevention methods that women can use on their own. But trials involving the use of anti-HIV medicines in women haven’t always been successful.

Last year, for instance, researchers announced that a trial for PrEP — also known as the HIV prevention pill — was a dud because most women didn’t take their daily doses. This may have occurred because participants didn’t know if they were taking a drug or a placebo, researchers suggested at the time. And that does appear to have had an impact;a second trial in Botswana showed that women were more likely to take the pill when they knew it contained medicine. Still, these trials suggest that perhaps a method that doesn’t require taking a drug every day could be more effective. And that’s why today’s study stands out. Even though the women in this trial didn’t know if they had been given a placebo ring, the researchers noted a reduction in the risk of HIV infection among the women who were given the anti-HIV ring.

The study took place in Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe over the course of almost three years. Of the 2,600 women enrolled in the trial, half received a monthly ring with dapivirine — an anti-HIV medicine that stops the virus from replicating its genetic material inside a healthy cell. Overall, the researchers found that the ring with dapivirine lowered women’s chances of getting HIV by 27 percent. In geographic areas where women used the ring more consistently, that risk was lowered by 37 percent. And when results in those locations were broken down by age, the scientists found the ring decreased chances of getting HIV by 56 percent in women over the age of 21.

THE TRIAL "WAS NOT A SLAM-DUNK OUTCOME."

The trial "was not a slam-dunk outcome," says Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University who didn’t work on the trial. Even though the researchers recorded a meaningful reduction in the incidence of HIV overall, the drug didn’t work well in adolescents and vulnerable women. That may have to do with lower adherence rates among those populations, but the authors of the study say it’s also possible that the genital tract of younger women could be more susceptible to HIV infection. Finding answers to this question is critical, Baral says, because if it turns out that reduced effectiveness women under 21 is linked to adherence, then there’s an opportunity to improve those numbers. If the problem is biology-based, however, that’s something researchers can’t change; "that would necessitate a different product," he says.

THE RESULTS WEREN'T "AS POWERFUL AS SOME OF US HAD HOPED."

In addition, the largest reduction in risk was just 56 percent, which means that the ring will probably have to be used in combination with other preventatives, rather than on its own, Baral says. So, even though the device is promising, today's results weren’t "as powerful as some of us had hoped," he says.

Now that the trial has been completed, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — the US institute that funded the trial — plans to convene a panel of experts in March to decide the future of dapivirine ring research. Depending on the outcome of those deliberations, two other government-funded trials could take place. Those would involve providing the dapivirine ring to former participants of today’s study, and trying to better understand the HIV prevention needs and desires of adolescent girls and young women. Finding an HIV preventative that works for everyone may be impossible, but developing a drug that’s delivered in a way that works for the people who need it the most could still be within reach.

The Need To Address The Root Of Conflict With Public Participation

By Jehan Perera –February 22, 2016

Jehan Perera

February 22 marks the anniversary of the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in 2002 between the government and LTTE with Norwegian facilitation. This was an unexpected development that brought hope to the country that the war would come to an end and a peaceful solution to the ethnic conflict would be possible. Faced with the prospect of economic collapse, and a protracted war, the government of that time headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe sought to break the stalemate with a bold initiative. The sudden cessation of armed conflict came as a relief to the general population and almost immediately the wounds of war began to heal with people traveling for business and tourism from the north to the south and to the east. The benefits to the people of the peace process made it seem that it had become irreversible. But what was not seen so well at that time was that the ceasefire was only the start of the process, not its end. There needed to be a sustainable political solution that addressed the roots of the conflict.

TIGER FIGHTERS WITH CYANIDE CAPSULES
IN CAMP, c. 1989
Photo by SHYAM TEKWANI, an Indian journalist
embedded within LTTE during war against IPKF.

The ceasefire agreement brought the country respite for four years from a war that had sapped its strength, and led the economy to shrink rather than to expand. If it had succeeded it would have saved tens of thousands of lives and obtained enormous economic resources for the country with the active support of the international community. After the ceasefire broke down in early 2006 the Ceasefire Agreement became seen as a political liability to the government that had signed it. The fact that neither the opposition nor the LTTE assisted the government to come up with a political solution was lost sight of. The ceasefire agreement became a subject of vilification for giving in to the international community and to the LTTE. The only ones who explained what it meant to the country were those who opposed it tooth and nail, and they gave it a one-sided interpretation. The ceasefire agreement of 2002 continues to be criticized for this even to this day by the nationalists and opposition politicians. 

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Surprise guests at Marriot Hotel amounts to breach of security?

 2016-02-21

The presence of certain controversial individuals in the close proximity of President Maithripala Sirisena on few occasions during his historic State visit to Germany kept the atmosphere heated among the Sri Lankan delegation even though the actual Berlin remained as low as 100 - 70 Celsius.

The President and the Lankan delegation arrived in Berlin by Qatar Airways QR 77 flight on 16 February 2016 at around 6:45 in the evening and were received by Karunatilaka Amunugama, Sri Lanka's Ambassador in Berlin and Jürgen Christian Mertens, Chief of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany.
He was later accorded a grand State welcome replete with a guard of honour by the German tri-forces under the auspices of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

While many claim this was the first time in 43 years, a Sri Lanka's Head of State was visiting Germany in an official capacity, it is evident, President Sirisena was the third Lankan Leader to visit Germany on an official invitation in almost half a century.
On 10 September 1974, world's first woman Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike undertook a visit to West Germany at the invitation of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

The focal issue during her visit was the energy crisis in the world and its impact on developing countries. The two leaders held extensive discussions on the matter, in addition to the enhancement of bilateral relations.
Incidentally, after her, the first Sri Lankan leader to visit Germany was her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga in her capacity as the President of the country and that too was, after a lapse of 27 years, in 2001.                                 Read More

A Sri Lankan Lesson in Free Speech – Kenan Malik, NYT

22/02/2016 

London — I gave a talk last month at the Galle Literary Festival in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. This festival, whose home is in the southern city of Galle, has become over the past decade one of the brightest lights in Sri Lanka’s cultural firmament. This year, it established “outreach” festivals in Kandy, in Sri Lanka’s hill country, and in Jaffna in the North.

Taking the festival to Jaffna, the northern province capital, was particularly significant. It is less than seven years since the brutal civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan Army came to an end. Much has been reconstructed in the North, but the ghosts of conflict still haunt Jaffna, from bullet-marked buildings to the thousands of civilians who were killed in the war’s bloody conclusion.

Against this background, the festival provided a space for engagement with a wide variety of ideas in a way that does not often happen in a place like Jaffna. It opened with a discussion of Tamil literature, which has a long and important history that has helped shape and define Tamil identity.

Acknowledging the sensitivities involved, the festival organizers held the session in Tamil. Strikingly, though, every panelist and many Tamil writers in the audience objected, insisting that it should have been in English. “We don’t want to be talking just to ourselves,” one said.

That is not a sentiment I have often come across — and I’ve taken part in many discussions about identity, in Europe and America. “Talking to oneself” all too often seems to be the aim of identity politics in the West.

A good case in point is the current fashion for denouncing “cultural appropriation,” which denotes the use by people of one culture (especially privileged ones) of the symbols or ideas of another. This notion has led to bizarre cases such as a student unions banning sombreros and yoga classes. The trouble is, the history of culture is the history of appropriation. There can be no culture without people borrowing, stealing and appropriating from one another.

The discussion about identity in Jaffna had a very different texture. For the Tamils there, identity was not a barrier to protect themselves from the rest of the world, but a means of engaging with that world.

I had been equally struck by the response of the audience at an event a few days earlier in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. I had been interviewed onstage in a conversation that ranged from my early life, to my sense of identity, to questions of free speech and censorship. I was critical of identity politics and supportive of the right to give offense. In particular, I defended the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo from charges of racism.

I have spoken on similar themes to similar audiences in Europe and faced considerable criticism. What gives you the right to offend others, I’ve been asked. Free speech comes with the obligation to use it responsibly, I’ve been told.

In one debate in Britain, about the fallout from the Charlie Hebdo affair, a fellow panelist bemoaned the fact that the debate had become polarized between those for and those against free speech. One cannot simply be for or against freedom, he argued: “It is more complicated than that.”

Would the panelist, I wondered, have made the same argument 200 years ago during the debate about the abolition of slavery? Would he have said: “One cannot simply be for or against the abolition of slavery. Freedom is more complicated than that.”

It was not a question I had to pose my Colombo audience. The people there implicitly understood the importance of freedom and, in particular, of free speech. Even those in the audience critical of the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo defended its right to publish them.

There are deep ethnic, religious and sectarian tensions in Sri Lanka. The Tamil Tigers were a secular organization, but a sectarian one. In Samanth Subramanian’s superb book about the war and its aftermath, “This Divided Island,” one of his interviewees, who was drawn to hard-line Hinduism, suggested that the Tigers lost because they based their struggle on language, not religion.

In fact, since the end of the war, Sri Lanka has witnessed a growth of sectarian religious movements. A more strident strain of Buddhism has developed, for example, which targets not Tamils, but Muslims.

Islam in Sri Lanka is also changing. It used to be a relatively open, relaxed faith. Yet I was struck by how many women there now wear the burqa, something unimaginable a couple of decades ago. Many Sri Lankan Muslims, it appears, have gone to Gulf states as laborers, and returned bearing a sterner strain of Islam.

Religious radicalism is still on the margins in Sri Lanka. Such trends are far more visible in other South Asian countries: the growth of Buddhist extremism in Myanmar, of Hindu fundamentalism in India, of Islamism in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The growth of these movements is what makes the response of the audiences in Jaffna and Colombo so significant. It’s a response too often ignored in the West. Many in the West cannot see beyond sectarianism or fundamentalist groups, failing to notice those who resist such ideas and movements. And by demanding bans on “cultural appropriation” or the giving of offense, many adopt ideas about identity, culture and free speech that give more comfort to the sectarians than to those challenging them.

Do we want a more open society or a more closed one? That is the heart of the debate, whether in Colombo, Jaffna or London.

In the relatively open societies of the West, many demand — perversely, in the name of tolerance — the creation of more barriers between groups. In countries where the conditions of freedom are far more fragile, there is a greater recognition of the need for a more open society. We should all listen.

Kenan Malik is the author, most recently, of “The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics” and a contributing opinion writer.

FEB. 22, 2016 NYT

WikiLeaks: JR Asks US About Foreign Interests In The North

February 22, 2016

“Possible foreign power interest in north? President raised with me the question of whether a major foreign power could be behind the Tamil extremists.” the US Ambassador Dr. William Howard Wriggins Colombo informed Washington.

“I said I did not know; the Libyans occasionally dabbled in such situation. He dismissed this with the observation, ‘I am not afraid of money or training from them.’ he thinks tamil extremists do find sanctuary in south india which is annoying but not really worrysome. He wonders whether Soviet Union does not have sufficient interest in gaining a strategic position in northern ceylon, including Trincomalee,to tempt them to fish in these troubled waters. I did not contradict this view although I said we had no evidence to confirm it. He acknowledged he had no evidence wither although ‘soviet personnel have been active with many visits to the North’ and are being watched.” the ambassador further wrote.

The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked US diplomatic cable from the WikiLeaks database dated May 16, 1978 . The cable is classified as “Secret” and written by then US Ambassador to Colombo Dr. William Howard Wriggins.

According to the cable, the Ambassador had requested an appointment with President JR Jayewardene. President responded with invitation to lunch. On may 15 in a two hour relaxed luncheon with the President and his wife Elina Jayewardene, Ambassador and his wife Sally Hovey Wriggins had an easy discussion on many subjects.

This cable summarizes discussion on Tamil-Sinhalese problems.

The ambassador wrote; “Over past several weeks, militant group of young Tamil separatists (liberation tigers) are alleged to have assassinated five police officers. President has ordered all-out effort by police and military to track them down. His most intense worry is his fear that should the Tamil Tigers kill only one Sinhalese, the country could eroup in a communal explosion, as angry Sinhalese would take revenge. That is why the army is on special alert (this will be covered in septel), why special effort is being applied to pursuing Tamil extremists, and why police are being given special authority to pick up suspects.”

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Two political prisoners on a hunger strike

- Feb 22, 2016

Two political prisoners Madhi Arasan Sulakshan and Ganeshan Dharshan who are in the Anuradhapura prison have started a hunger strike from today morning 22nd. It’s been two years and four months since the charge sheet filed in the high court has been removed citing an amendment but the attorney general has so far not produced an amended charge sheet proving their allegations, has been the caused for the fast. Both are under custody from May 19th 2009.

Madhi Arasan’s mother said his son surrendered to the Omanthai army camp on the 19th of May 2009. He was detained in the rehabilitation camp in the Omanthai maha vidyalaya for thirteen months and then handed over to the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) on 15th July 2010. Following that he was detained in Colombo and Bossa camps and after one and a half years he was produced to the Aluthkade Magistrate Courts on 9th January 2010 and further remanded. After one and a half years on 15th July 2013 he was indicted in the Vavuniya high court under HCV/2491/13 supposedly taking a confession.

After three months despite lacking evidence to prove his allegations the earlier charge sheet was removed in order to produce a new charge sheet. However for more than two years and four months has elapsed a new charge sheet has not been produced. Sulakshan’s lawyer who has appeared 31 times in the courts has produced information and few times has submitted information to the attorney general but so far no solution has been given.

Sulakshan’s mother has written a letter to the president, prime minister, attorney general, justice minister, prisons minister and the Anuradhapura prisons authority urging a solution and informing his son’s intention to start a hunger strike. Following no response so far Sulakshan and Dharshan both has started a hunger strike today. Although the political prisoners problem was highlighted recently and the president pledged to give a solution still no positive attempts has been taken.

ETCA is not CEPA in all respects, but it should be made public to allay fears

 Taking note of the widespread protests which CEPA had run into earlier by a section of the services sector organisations in the country, the new Government, it appears, has presented it in a rebranded form called ETCA after deleting some key contentious provisions. It is this ETCA which has been the target of protests by almost all the professional bodies of the country organised loosely today as the United Professionals’ Movement or UPM

 Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Secrecy surrounding ETCA proposal is damaging

In the first part of this series published last week (available at: http://www.ft.lk/article/525181/Sri-Lanka-faces-crucial-tests-ahead-with-growing-opposition-to-ETCA ), it was pointed out that the secrecy surrounding the proposed Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement, now commonly known as ETCA, had left both supporters and opponents in a state of confusion. 

As a result, fear has engulfed the local professional bodies of every description that Indian professionals would flood Sri Lanka’s limited job markets. Such a flooding, it has been argued by protesting professionals, would not only displace those currently employed in respective professions but also deny opportunities to those waiting to join them in the future. 

In this background, the article also commended that one of the ardent opponents to ETCA, the Government Medical Officers’ Association or GMOA, has developed a rich webpage giving publicity to both critics and supporters of ETCA equally, a good practice which the Government should also consider emulating. Hence, the article concluded that in the name of good economic policy governance to which the present Government is committed, a wide and continuous consultation should be conducted between the Government and ETCA’s main stakeholders.

Tendency to equate ETCA with old CEPA

The critics of ETCA have equated it to the old Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or CEPA that was negotiated with India during 2002-2003 and was to be implemented as from late 2004. However, with the change in government twice, first in 2004 from one party to another and later in 2005 within the same party, CEPA was permanently shelved from the Sri Lanka side, though India was still keen on having it with Sri Lanka. 

- See more 

Why Sri Lankans Fear India On The Proposed ECTA?

By Sarath Wijesinghe –February 22, 2016 

Sarath Wijesinghe

Ruler is only a Trustee of a Nation and there is every reason to be cautious in dealing with the rest of the world on behalf of the country in trust- especially when the previous experiences have shown adverse results for not being cautious. Sri Lankan Kings did business with the rest of the world when the visitors voyaged this beautiful Island in the Indian Ocean via “SEDA MAWATHA” the famous traditional naval route, from Mediterranean, Persia, China, East Asia, India and the west on the emergence of the naval power. Kings allowed Muslims to erect mosques, Christians to build Churches, but the biggest mistake committed by them was to permit Portuguese, Dutch to have a permanent trade opportunity which has led British to conquer Sri Lanka who bluntly violated the 1815 Convention entered into with the Sri Lankan chieftains surrendered the Independent Sri Lanka to British to be a British Colony. Had they been cautious we would remain a unique and independent Nation which is a lesson for the future.

International Organizations 

International Agreements are binding, subject to decisions of the World Court, Arbitrations, Regional Organizations and more importantly the agreements of the international community based on the reputation in the absence of a World Executive Body. Reality is the survival of the fittest who is powerful in the world community on the implementation. It is sad but true to state that Sri Lanka has been failures and at the receiving end in terms of entering into and implementing international agreements since flowed 1815 Convention which is still in force unimplemented, hurriedly signed, 2002 ceasefire Agreement when we had the opportunity for a less harmful document with the impact of 9/11, also hurriedly signed Indu Sri Lanka accord of 1987 that forced Sri Lanka for Provincial Councils which are white elephants today, clamping on us on a regional foreign policy and series of agreements since Independence with WTO, UN and connected institution including IMF, countries and international institutions on various fields. Successive governments and rulers have arbitrarily and hap-hazedly entered into arbitrary and incomplete agreements of no quality, except “Sirima- Srisathi” Pact on stateless citizens of Indian origin that was amicably settled on equal terms due to the excellent relations Sri Lanka had with India due to excellent foreign policy and foreign relations then which are classic examples to the modern Trustees. Madam Sirima Bandaraneike maintained excellent relationships with Prime Minister Indra Gandi that led to many agreements on equal terms benefiting both countries. Mrs Bandaranaike – the first world women Prime Minister had a battery of excellent and dedicated foreign officers at the foreign Ministry then. These memorable events are merely pleasant memories for us and materials for historians. Today tables have turned and one wonders whether we in fact have a foreign policy, and who manages when three main leaders on Foreign Policy among the Trustees are giving different versions and views on the same subject on CEPA, ICTA and Foreign Policy. They do not speak with one word. Their public speeches are part of International Law in terms of the implementation of foreign policy.Read More