Rouhani on course for major gains in Iran elections

The outcome of Friday's vote is seen as a de-facto referendum on Rouhani's administration

Saturday 27 February 2016

Reformist candidates were leading Saturday in vote-counting in Iran's capital (AFP) 

Iran's moderate President Hassan Rouhani is likely to make sweeping gains against conservatives in parliament according to partial election results on Saturday that showed his allies winning decisively in Tehran.

The List of Hope, a pro-Rouhani coalition of moderates and reformists, is ahead in all but one of the capital's 30 seats, with 44 percent of votes counted.

The projected rout in Tehran was in marked contrast to earlier initial results from across the country which showed seats split between the main conservative list, Rouhani's allies and independent candidates.

 “The competition is over. It’s time to open a new chapter in Iran’s economic development based on domestic abilities and international opportunities," the semi-official IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying. He added that the government would cooperate with anyone elected to build Iran's future, Reuters reported.

Coming just a month after sanctions were lifted under Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, the outcome of Friday's vote is being seen as a de-facto referendum on Rouhani's administration.

The president joined forces with reformists to try and curtail conservative dominance of parliament and create space to pass social and political reforms on which he has so far been blocked.

Early declarations published by IRNA, citing electoral officials, suggested that no one faction would win a majority in parliament.

Out of 56 constituencies outside the capital, 19 went to the main list of conservatives, nine to the pro-Rouhani list, and 14 to independent candidates.

Of the independents six had ties to conservatives, five to reformists and three were undeclared. None of the remaining 14 seats had a clear winner, meaning a second round, not to take place until April or May, would be needed.

Turnout in the election was solid at 60 percent, but slightly less than the 64 percent of 2012.

There was further good news for the president in the second election that took place on Friday, for the Assembly of Experts, a powerful committee of clerics that monitors the work of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rouhani and his close ally Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former two-term president, held the first two places among the 28 clerics seeking one of the 16 places reserved on the assembly for Tehran.

Thirteen of those on the Rouhani-Rafsanjani list for the assembly were in the top 16, with around one third of votes counted.

The assembly election is especially important because should Khamenei, who is 76, die during its eight-year term, its 88 members would pick his successor.

Polling stations were kept open late Friday to allow millions of latecomers to participate.

Even after all votes are counted by the interior ministry's officials, final results of both elections must be confirmed by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council -- and are not expected for several days.

Khamenei was among the first to vote on Friday and he urged the entire electorate to follow suit, saying casting a ballot is "both a duty and a right".

If turnout proves no higher than in 2012 but the parliamentary election produces a radically different result it could be because different parts of the electorate voted this time around.

Many moderate voters stayed away in the last parliamentary polls in protest at the re-election three years earlier of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But the domination of Tehran by the List of Hope suggested they turned out heavily on Friday.

Known as the "diplomat sheikh" because of his clerical credentials and willingness to negotiate, Rouhani was the driving force behind the nuclear deal, which he delivered despite political pressure at home.

The agreement with powers led by the United States, the Islamic republic's bete noire, raised hopes of recovery in Iran. But although the economy exited a deep recession in 2014-15, growth has stagnated in the past year.

The run-up to polling day was largely overshadowed by controversies over who was allowed to stand. Thousands of candidates were excluded.

Reformists said they were worst hit, with the barring of their most prominent faces leaving them with untested hopefuls.

A total of 4,844 candidates, about 10 percent of whom are women, stood in the parliamentary election. Only 159 clerics -- a fifth of the applicants before vetting -- were vying for the Assembly of Experts.

India signals possible deficit revisions in upcoming budget

India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (C) leaves his office to present the 2015/16 federal budget in New Delhi February 28, 2015. REUTERS/Vijay Mathur

BY MANOJ KUMAR AND RAJESH KUMAR SINGH-Fri Feb 26, 2016

India should review its mid-term fiscal strategy, a government report urged on Friday, in a possible indication that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley may have to borrow more to raise pay for government employees and bail out banks.

The report called India "a haven of stability" in a gloomy international landscape but, as Group of 20 finance ministers gathered for talks in Shanghai, warned too of possible currency turmoil in Asia after China's recent devaluation.

The Economic Survey, which sets the scene for Jaitley's third budget on Monday, forecast the Indian economy would grow by between 7.0 percent and 7.75 percent in the 2016/17 fiscal year that starts on April 1.

That would be in line with this year's expected outturn of 7.6 percent but below earlier expectations that growth would accelerate to over 8 percent.

Although Asia's third-largest economy has overtaken China's as the world's fastest-growing, weak business investment and a growing bad loan problem will compel Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep the spending taps open to deliver on his promise of jobs for India's 1.3 billion people.

Modi needs to cover the estimated $16 billion annual expense of a once-in-a-decade pay and pension hike for federal employees.

The report also put the total cost of recapitalising banks at $26 billion in the coming years.

The government will stick to its budget deficit target of 3.9 percent of gross domestic product in the year now drawing to a close, but the coming year will be "challenging" from a fiscal point of view.

The report, written by economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, said that "credibility and optimality" 

argued in favor of sticking to next year's deficit target of 3.5 percent of GDP - phrasing that left room for an upward revision.

"The time is right for a review of the medium-term fiscal framework," the text, handed out in parliament, said.

Analysts said Subramanian was flagging some backsliding on the deficit - if not next year then the year after - to account for an economy that is doing less well than the headline figures suggest.

"My sense is that there is a 20-30 basis points slippage coming in the fiscal deficit number, so basically I'm expecting a 3.7 or 3.8 percent fiscal deficit number for 2017," said Ritika Mankar Mukherjee, senior economist at Ambit Capital.

Subramanian's cautious advice to raise the deficit has been rejected by central bank governor Raghuram Rajan, who argues that India should keep its powder dry in case the weakening world economy tips into recession.

Indian bonds, shares and the rupee gained on a view that the government was at least not throwing fiscal caution to the winds.

PAY HIKES

Raising pay for 10 million federal employees would not destabilize prices, the report said, while low inflation has taken hold, leaving room for the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates further if needed.

Inflation is expected to decline to a range of 4.5 percent to 5.0 percent in the 2016/17 fiscal year, within the RBI's target, while the current account deficit would stay low at 1.0 percent to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.

With the government tapped out on the spending side, there will be scant cash for capital projects through which it can achieve the growth rates of 8-10 percent needed to create jobs for the 1 million Indians joining the workforce every month.

This "does not augur well for the government capex - the major support to investment today, as private investment sentiment continues to stay weak," said Rupa Rege-Nitsure, group chief economist at L&T Finance Holdings in Mumbai.

The report flagged steps to broaden India's narrow tax base, arguing that 20 percent of individuals should pay tax on their earnings compared to just 5.5 percent now. The easiest way to do so would be not to raise thresholds on tax breaks and to review and phase out such exemptions.

India needs to gird itself for the possibility of turmoil on international currency markets and contend with "an unusually weak external environment".

"India must plan for a major currency re-adjustment in Asia in the wake of a similar adjustment in China," it cautioned.

Jaitley, making last-minute preparations for his budget address, is skipping this weekend's G20 gathering.

(Additional reporting by New Delhi and Mumbai bureaus; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Kim Coghill)

India under Modi : A requiem for the nation in dark times

The Indian state has unleashed a barbaric war of elimination on adivasis in the name of operation green hunt because they were resisting to give away their land for the loot of national and international big business. Thousands of innocent muslim youth are behind bars in the name of equally fake war on terror designed by the imperialist forces. Sexual violence against woman and atrocities on dalits are the order of the day. Jails are packed with political prisoners. This is a classic case of the nation devouring it’s own children.

by Asit Das

( February 26, 2016, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Fascist Hindutva forces have struck badly at JNU this time after baying for blood in FTII, Pune; Banning Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle in IIT Madras; Institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in HCU, Hyderabad, in their nefarius design of forcible saffronisation of Indian higher educational institutions. For the past few days one is witnessing medieval witch hunt and naked white terror to advance the Hindu nationalist agenda of fascist Sangh Parivar in JNU. The corporate media has been spewing venom against JNU painting it is as a den of anti-national activities. In the name of imposing the Hindutva style of nationalism on JNU, there a frightening witch hunt is going on to arrest students who belong to different ideological persuasions. It is not only the students of JNU and University of Hyderabad were protesting against the hanging of Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon, but a wide range of left, democratic and civil society groups are campaigning against death penalty. The students of JNU and Hyderabad were just reflecting this general democratic demand. The students of JNU have every right to challenge and interrogate the concept of the Nation, forcibly imposed by the Hindu right. The JNUSU president who is in record saying he didn’t criticise Indian nationalism and upholds the Indian constitution. Even after this he was arrested and sent to police remand for three days. There has been raids of male police in girls’ hostel to arrest. It should be noted that sedition law was enacted by the colonial authorities against the leaders of anti-colonial struggle leaders. It was used against Bhagat Singh. The post-colonial Indian ruling classes have ruthlessly used the same colonial sedition law to clamp down on dissenting views and social movements who challenged the contemporary capitalist developmental trajectory. The sedition charges against Dr. Binayak Sen, Kudankulam anti-nuclear plant activists are few glaring examples of misuse of sedition law, to stamp out any form of dissent that is unpalatable for the people controlling state power in India. Any university is a space for free debate and a healthy debate between the contending ideologies. Using sedition to clamp down dissenting voice in JNU is naked state terror on the students who refused to endorse the Hindutva brand of Nationalism, the corporate media who was instrumental in building up a larger than life image of Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha election,it has now has gone into its most loyal display of servitude to the Sangh Parivar endorsing very jingoistic brand of macho-HIndutva nationalism on the student community who have the basic democratic right to interrogate the nationalism of ABVP. If nation consists of Adivasis, Dalits, Women, religious minorities then the Sangh Parivar has been in forefront in committing atrocities on these communities so they have a right to interrogate the Sangh Parivar’s version of Fascist cultural nationalism where they forcibly dictates who will eat what. The Dadri lynching has raised the question of intolerance towards the cultural diversities which showed the shocking limits and farce of democratic pretensions and the will of tolerance of the saffron forces.Off course, every civilisation has certain limit to tolerance. Any civilised democratic society should not tolerate sexism, racism and casteism. It is here the lumpen brigade of the fascist Sangh Parivar has crossed the limits of civilised behaviour allowed by a state which calls itself the largest democracy in the world.

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Russia’s opposition is still looking for who killed its leader

Thousands of protesters marched through Moscow on Saturday to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Boris Nemtsov, the liberal opposition leader who was killed last February (Reuters)

By Andrew Roth-February 27

MOSCOW — Thousands of protesters marched through Moscow on Saturday to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Boris Nemtsov, the liberal opposition leader who was gunned down in a still-unsolved contract killing last February.

Nemtsov’s assassination sent shock waves through Russia’s political elite as well as grass-roots opponents of President Vladimir Putin.

“I came out here for Borya,” an affectionate form of Nemtsov’s first name, said Vladimir Schemelev, a 52-year-old writer and Uber driver who is from Nemtsov’s home town, Nizhny Novgorod. “I know who ordered his death. Everyone knows. That man is named Vladimir Putin.”

It was an increasingly rare public reminder that there remain vocal opponents to Putin in Russia despite his popularity in opinion polls and vaunted status on national television. Alternatively harassed and ignored, Russia’s pro-democracy opposition has faded into the background as national attention has instead focused on the simmering conflict in Ukraine and Russia’s military intervention in Syria, as well as an economic recession that has forced Russians to cut back in their daily lives.

[Putin’s biggest foe describes life in the crosshairs]

“It’s a chance for them to look around and say, ‘We are alive and not afraid,’ ” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist and a senior lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. She said that Saturday’s rally would serve as a kind of head count for the liberal and pro-democratic opposition, which will seek new support from those angry about the economy in parliamentary elections in September.

Rally organizers estimated 25,000 people attended, while police put the count at 7,500. At the height of the protest movement in late 2011, after vote manipulation provoked public outrage, more than 100,000 anti-Putin protesters surged onto Moscow’s streets.

Nemtsov, a former physicist who rose quickly in post-Soviet politics to the post of deputy prime minister, was known as a champion of democratic reforms and later as a devoted foe of Putin. Once considered a possible heir to Boris Yeltsin, post-Soviet Russia’s first president, Nemtsov joined the opposition and demonstrated for liberal reform as Putin consolidated power.

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The Rape Of East Timor: “Sounds Like Fun”

East Timor won its independence in 1999 with the blood and courage of its ordinary people. The tiny, fragile democracy was immediately subjected to a relentless campaign of bullying by the Australian government which sought to manoeuvre it out of its legal ownership of the sea bed’s oil and gas revenue.

by John Pilger

( February 26, 2016, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Secret documents found in the Australian National Archives provide a glimpse of how one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was executed and covered up. They also help us understand how and for whom the world is run.

The documents refer to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, and were written by diplomats in the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The date was November 1976, less than a year after the Indonesian dictator General Suharto seized the then Portuguese colony on the island of Timor.

The terror that followed has few parallels; not even Pol Pot succeeded in killing, proportionally, as many Cambodians as Suharto and his fellow generals killed in East Timor. Out of a population of almost a million, up to a third were extinguished.

This was the second holocaust for which Suharto was responsible. A decade earlier, in 1965, Suharto wrested power in Indonesia in a bloodbath that took more than a million lives. The CIA reported: “In terms of numbers killed, the massacres rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”

This was greeted in the Western press as “a gleam of light in Asia” (Time). The BBC’s correspondent in South East Asia, Roland Challis, later described the cover-up of the massacres as a triumph of media complicity and silence; the “official line” was that Suharto had “saved” Indonesia from a communist takeover.

“Of course my British sources knew what the American plan was,” he told me. “There were bodies being washed up on the lawns of the British consulate in Surabaya, and British warships escorted a ship full of Indonesian troops, so that they could take part in this terrible holocaust. It was only much later that we learned that the American embassy was supplying [Suharto with] names and ticking them off as they were killed. There was a deal, you see. In establishing the Suharto regime, the involvement of the [US-dominated] International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were part of it. That was the deal.”

I have interviewed many of the survivors of 1965, including the acclaimed Indonesian novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who bore witness to an epic of suffering “forgotten” in the West because Suharto was “our man”. A second holocaust in resource-rich East Timor, an undefended colony, was almost inevitable.

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Indonesia ready to sentence Thai sea-slave traffickers

Fishing boats carrying recently rescued foreign fishermen prepare to dock at a port in Tual, Indonesia on April 4 last year. (AP Photo)

WRITER: ASSOCIATED PRESS-27 Feb 2016

TUAL, INDONESIA — Indonesian prosecutors are seeking up to four and a half years in jail for five Thais and three Indonesians accused of human trafficking in connection with slavery in the seafood industry.

The suspects were arrested in the remote island village of Benjina in May last year after the slavery was revealed by The Associated Press in a report two months earlier.

The victims — 13 fishermen from Myanmar who testified under protection of Indonesia's Witness and Victim Protection Agency — told the court that they had been tortured, forced to work up to 24 hours a day, and were not paid. They also said they were locked up in a prison-like cell in the fishing company's compound.

In their sentencing demand on Friday, prosecutors sought four and a half years in jail for Thai captain Youngyut Nitiwongchaeron and four countrymen — Boonsom Jaika, Surachai Maneephong, Hatsaphon Phaetjakreng and Somchit Korraneesuk — as well as Indonesian Hermanwir Martino.

They want two other Indonesians, Yopi Hanorsian and Muklis Ohoitenan, jailed for three and a half years.

They also demanded all the eight defendants, tried by a three-judge panel led by Edy Toto Purba, to pay a fine of 240 million rupiah, or 640,000 baht, each or to serve three more months in jail.

Indonesian police have found that hundreds of foreign fishermen were recruited in Thailand and brought to Indonesia using fake immigration papers and seamen's books and were subjected to brutal labour abuses.

More than 2,000 men from Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos have been rescued and sent home this year from brutal conditions at sea as a result of an Associated Press investigation into seafood brought to the United States from the slave island. Some had been held captive more than a decade after being trafficked onto Thai trawlers.

Prosecutors demanded that the five Thais pay compensation ranging from 50 million to 350 million rupiah (133,000 to 930,000 baht) to the 13 victims who testified at the trials that began on Nov 16 at the district court in Tual, a municipality in southeastern Maluku province.

State prosecutors have charged the defendants with violating a law against people-smuggling that carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine as high as US$46,000.

In the investigation, at least five fishing boats used by the suspects for human trafficking and slavery-like practices were confiscated, along with dozens of fake passports and seamen books. Also, a multi-million-dollar Thai-Indonesian fishing business has been shut down.

All the defendants were employees at Pusaka Benjina Resources, one of the largest fishing businesses in eastern Indonesia.

The hearing will resume on Friday, when defendants and defence lawyers will submit their responses to the sentencing demands.

Why China Isn’t Hosting Syrian Refugees

BY LIANG PAN-FEBRUARY 26, 2016

The civil war in Syria, now spanning almost half a decade, and the Islamic State’s territorial advances there have led to the world’s worst refugee crisis in decades. More than 4.7 million Syrians have left their homeland, pouring into neighboring countries as well as Europe. The influx of refugees has strained resources in the region and fomented xenophobia and nativism in countries throughout Europe, helping to buoy the rise of extreme right-wing parties there.

But China, the world’s most populous nation and its second largest economy, has sat on the sidelines. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Beijing, by the end of August 2015, there were nine refugees and 26 asylum seekers from Syria in China. They were among the 795 UN-registered “persons of concern,” or displaced people, mainly from Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq, and Liberia living in China temporarily while waiting to be transferred. The East Asian giant faces complex political, demographic, religious, and economic challenges that have prevented it from considering allowing migrants inside its borders. Even so, if China is to become a responsible global power, the country must reevaluate the ideology that has prevented it from taking an active role in ameliorating a global crisis.

Chinese authorities argue that Western countries caused the meltdown in Syria that resulted in the mass exodus, making its resolution their responsibility. In an October 2015 opinion piece in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, Wu Sike, former Chinese Ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and former Special Envoy on the Middle East, argued that the Middle East “democratization” agenda of the United States and its allies lies at the root of the migrant refugee crisis. In a Feb. 15 piece in party journalSeeking Truth, Zhang Weiwei, director of the Center for China Development Model Research at Fudan University in Shanghai, contended that the “European refugee crisis is a price” that Western countries must pay for their “arrogance.” Chinese web users largely agreed. After the photos of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi’s body washed up on a Turkish beach went viral in September 2015, netizens in China shared in the grief and largely blamed the United States for the chaos in Syria which had led to the boy’s drowning.

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Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation

Fukushima in the wake of the Tsunami, March 2011

The spread of radiation. March 2011

Michel Chossudovsky (Editor)

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky-I-Book No. 3, January 25  2012

Global Research’s Online Interactive I-Book Reader brings together, in the form of chapters, a collection of Global Research feature articles and videos, including debate and analysis, on a broad theme or subject matter. 

In this Interactive Online I-Book we bring to the attention of our readers an important collection of articles, reports and video material on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and its impacts (scroll down for the Table of Contents).

To consult our Online Interactive I-Book Reader Series, click here.

INTRODUCTION

The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.

The crisis in Japan has been described as “a nuclear war without a war”. In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:

“This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.”

Nuclear radiation –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.

While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths (New Book Concludes – Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer Global Research, September 10, 2010, See also Matthew Penney and Mark Selden  The Severity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima, Global Research, May 25, 2011)

Moreover, while all eyes were riveted on the Fukushima Daiichi plant, news coverage both in Japan and internationally failed to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second catastrophe at TEPCO’s (Tokyo Electric Power Co  Inc) Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.

The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained.

The realties, however, are otherwise. Fukushima 3 was leaking unconfirmed amounts of plutonium. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, “one millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer”.  

An opinion poll in May 2011 confirmed that more than 80 per cent of the Japanese population do not believe the government’s information regarding the nuclear crisis. (quoted in Sherwood Ross, Fukushima: Japan’s Second Nuclear Disaster, Global Research, November 10, 201

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Household electromagnetic radiation doesn't make you ill or give you cancer. Here's why

People suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity are ill. But when you look at the evidence, it’s not electromagnetic radiation that’s the problem

 Despite the very real discomfort experienced by EHS sufferers, there is no evidence to support the idea that electromagnetic radiation is responsible. Photograph: Tim Robberts/Getty Images

David Robert Grimes-Wednesday 17 February 2016

There are few phenomena as ubiquitous or vital to human existence as electromagnetic radiation (EMR). It permeates everything we experience, be it the visible light illuminating all we see, or the broadcast media transmitted across the globe by radio-wave. In medicine, X-ray and gamma rays have revolutionized both anatomical imaging and treatment for cancer. In the era of wireless communication, our phones and routers take advantage of microwave radiation to rapidly convey virtually the entire repository of human knowledge to our fingertips at staggering velocity.

But while EMR is an inescapable part of our universe, there are many who worry about potential detrimental effects. In particular, the propagation of personal communication devices has been a source of concern to many. There is a vocal cohort who claim to suffer from a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS or ES), whose symptoms include everything from fatigue and sleep disturbance to generic pains and skin conditions. More still fixate on idea that our increasingly wireless offices and homes might amplify our cancer risks. Such narratives are common and understandably disturbing. But should we be concerned?

To answer that question, it’s important to clarify a few potential sources of confusion. Radiation itself is a deeply misunderstood term, frequently conjuring up worrying associations with radioactivity in the public conscious. But radiation simply refers to transmission of energy through a medium. In the context of EMR this means radiant energy released by an electromagnetic process. This energy moves at the speed of light, characterised by its wavelength and frequency. The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of EMR, where energy is proportional to frequency. While we only see a tiny portion of the spectrum in the form of visible light, we can think of it as a range of light particles (photons) with different energies. Some of these even have sufficient energy to eject electrons from an atom or smash apart chemical bonds, which renders them capable of causing DNA damage. This is known as ionizing radiation, and this ionizing potential is exploited when X-rays are harnessed to kill tumour cells in radiotherapy.

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SRI LANKA: MAINTAIN MOMENTUM, DELIVER ON HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITMENTS

By Amnesty International, 25 February 2016

In October 2015, the Sri Lankan Government made historic commitments to the people of Sri Lanka and to the Human Rights Council (HRC) “to undertake a comprehensive approach to dealing with the past, incorporating the full range of judicial and non-judicial measures” aimed at delivering truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. These four pillars are essential to end impunity for violations and abuses.

ASA3734492016ENGLISH (3) by Thavam Ratna

ASA3734492016TAMIL (1).pdf-மனித உரிமம கடப்பாடுகளுக்கு கிமடத்துள்ள by Thavam Ratna

As a 3734492016 Sinhalese by Thavam Ratna

The Ranaviru label, no shield to cover crimes

The crimes these men are arrested for are very well organized events conducted by more than one individual involved. When you analyze these crimes, it is important to identify the cause, reason and intention to commit an act of this nature.

by Nimal Lewke

( February 26, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There is a big hue and cry about the arrest of military personnel for Ekneligoda abduction case and Ravi Raj murder case. One wonders as to why these officers got involved in these crimes.

As a onetime leader of an elite paramilitary organization, I am quite aware that the juniors do not have the ability to get involved in any organized crimes without support from the ranks above, unless it is a real personal matter.

But the crimes these men are arrested for are very well organized events conducted by more than one individual involved. When you analyze these crimes, it is important to identify the cause, reason and intention to commit an act of this nature.

Someone to execute a plan of this magnitude needs careful planning, teamwork and the courage.

How did these officers get that courage to carry out a brutal crime of this nature, during daylight and get back to their barracks or to the safe house with confidence, that they will not be apprehended for what they have committed? Who gave that confidence to these men?

The investigators really have to identify and that will lead to the correct perpetrators behind the crime.

If the military personnel committed these crimes as per their own agenda they should be ashamed of themselves. Retribution will definitely come to them within no time, like what happened to the brutal terrorist leaders.

Discipline at very high level                                       Read More

Sri Lanka could accept international actors in war crimes probe

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj (L) shakes hands with Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera during the Sri Lanka-India Joint Commission meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka February 5, 2016.REUTERS/DINUKA LIYANAWATTE

 BY IDREES ALI-Thu Feb 25, 2016 

Sri Lanka's foreign minister said on Thursday he is willing to consider international participation in investigating possible war crimes during the 26-year Tamil insurgency.

"I think it is only fair that the victims of the war would want some form of guarantee that the new courts will deliver justice and accountability in a fair manner, and for that we are willing to consider the participation of international actors," Mangala Samaraweera, the minister, said at a Washington think tank.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has previously said that foreign participation was not needed for an impartial inquiry.

The foreign minister's comments come after the United Nations said earlier this month that it would not force Sri Lanka to accept a role for international judges, but any process must be impartial and independent.

The United Nations says the Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tiger rebels were both likely to have committed war crimes during the war, which ended with a military victory in 2009.

A U.N. resolution calls for all alleged war crimes to be investigated and tried in special courts by international judges.

"They could be judges, they could be forensic experts, investigators, prosecutors, all these options are being looked at," Samaraweera said.

Many Sri Lankans oppose foreign involvement, and supporters of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa believe the U.N. resolution aims to punish the military unfairly.

Samaraweera said the "contours and the architecture" of the court would be worked on in the next five or six months, after consulting with parties including the Tamil National Alliance.

He said that while the judiciary was on the right track, it had been politicized over the years.

Samaraweera met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday and is expected to take part in a strategic dialogue between the two countries later this week.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Leslie Adler)

From Words To Action: New Report on Sri Lanka’s Transitional Justice Commitments

Featured image courtesy Justin Tallis – WPA Pool/Getty Images

by Zachary Edward Walko 

- on 02/26/2016 

The South Asian Centre for Legal Studies (SACLS) held a panel discussion to present their recommendations for a roadmap for implementation of HRC Resolution 30/1, adopted on October 1, 2015.

Panelists included Attorney-at-Law A.M. Faaiz, Bhavani Fonseka Senior Researcher and attorney from the Centre for Policy Alternatives and TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran.

SACLS’s report, “From Words to Action: A Roadmap for Implementing Sri Lanka’s Transitional Justice Commitments“, comes at a time of heightened political and domestic tensions surrounding the role of international participation in the investigation of human rights abuses during the island’s bloody civil war between LTTE separatists and government forces.

Policy shifts

In a recent interview with BBC Sinhala, President Sirisena backed away from implementing tenets of the HRC resolution concerning the role of international actors.

“The international community need not worry about matters of state interest,” Sirisena told BBC Sinhala.

Sirisena also appeared to contradict Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who told Swarajy Magazine in January 2015 “We hope for technical assistance from the UN, perhaps judges from the Commonwealth – whom we chair at the moment – too.”

HRC Resolution 30/1 affirms “the importance of participation in a Sri Lankan judicial mechanism, including the special counsel’s office, of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorized prosecutors and investigators.”

“The participation of international players is absolutely essential for any sense of credibility,” says Sumanthiran. As for investigations into alleged human rights abuses, Sumanthiran says “There will be a temptation not to dig too deep because the wound is not completely healed… If not, an amputation might be necessary.”

Foreign Influence

A recent visit by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeidroused many opposition forces, who have raised the specter of “foreign tribunals” prosecuting Sri Lankan soldiers. At least two joint opposition rallies were staged in response to Zeid’s visit, one of which drew nearly a hundred protesters to Lipton Circle, a popular spot among tourists.

“The first duty of the Sri Lankan government is to see to it that the interests of our war heroes are looked after,” wrote former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a Colombo Telegraph opinion piece.

The Disappeared

Another major element of the report is the establishment of an Office of Missing Persons, but questions remain as to the temporal mandate of such an office.

“I don’t think there should be a temporal scope at all, says Sumanthiran. “I don’t think anything prevents us from looking into what happened 100 years ago.”

In a recent controversial gaffe, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe intimated that most of the disappeared persons are “probably dead.” It has been estimated that 40,000 people may be unaccounted for, including not only LTTE fighters, but also journalists and activists.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been registering disappearances for the past two decades, documented 16,064 missing persons in its 2014 Annual Report.

A movement is currently underway to issue missing person certificates. Seen widely as another step toward reconciliation, the announcement of the certificate initiative was also met with hostility from opposition forces who are increasingly suspicious of foreign influence. The certificates could serve as one mechanism for victims to receive reparations from the government, as well as for other practical purposes including land deeds and pension funds.

Reparations

The report also calls for the establishment of an Office Of Reparations in order to “build trust and acknowledge the dignity of victims.”

“I don’t think the government has taken a clear policy on reparations” says Foneska of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, citing Colombia as one potential model. In December 2015, the Colombian government and FARC rebels signed an agreement on reparations for war victims.

Back at the panel, A.M. Faaiz concluded his remarks on the subject of truth and accountability for victims: “It’s not only their right, it’s also essential in healing and moving forward.”