New video shows Israeli soldier greeting right-winger after shooting 

Soldier, ultranationalist seen shaking hands after slaying of Palestinian

Israeli security forces conduct operations in the West Bank (AFP) 

Sunday 27 March 2016

An Israeli soldier who was seen in a video shooting and killing a wounded Palestinian attacker in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday was minutes later seen shaking hands with well-known ultra-nationalist Baruch Marzel, according to Israeli news agency Haaretz.

On Sunday night, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem released a second video that it says shows the same soldier at the scene shaking hands with Marzel after the shooting. 

The new video, published by the Israeli news website Haaretz, shows the soldier speaking with a rescue worker.

Marzel approaches them and shakes hands with the soldier who killed Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif, and the soldier in turn pats him on the arm.

 The shooting came amid a six-month wave of knife, gun and car-ramming violence that has left dead at least 188 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, and two Americans.

Israel says most Palestinians were attackers and the rest died in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Marzel was born in Boston in the United States, was a disciple of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, and succeeded him as leader of the Kach movement.

The group was outlawed by Israel in 1994 after Kach supporter Baruch Goldstein shot and killed 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has condemned the shooting, on Sunday defended the wider military, saying: “Challenging the morality of the IDF is outrageous and unacceptable".

Palestinians said the shooting proved that Israel was guilty of excessive force and extrajudicial killings.

Local Israeli media, citing military officials, quoted the soldier as saying the Palestinian "deserved to die," the AP said.

Israel has begun a murder investigation over the shooting. The soldier, who has not been named, was reported by his lawyer as saying he felt his life was in danger.

Sharif was killed after he and another Palestinian allegedly attacked and injured an Israeli with a knife.

Sharif's alleged accomplice was shot and killed, while Sharif was seriously wounded before being killed as he lay immobile on the ground.

Taliban splinter group claims attack on Christians at Pakistan park; 60 dead

March 27, 2016Relatives and workers bring an injured woman to the hospital. Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

By Shaiq Hussain and Erin Cunningham-March 27

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide blast claimed by Islamist militants ripped through crowds of families celebrating Easter at a park in the city of Lahore on Sunday, killing at least 60 people and injuring an additional 300 in an attack the jihadists said had deliberately targeted Christians.

The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in the parking lot of Gulshan e-Iqbal Park at about 6:30 in the evening, transforming a joyful scene of picnicking families into a spectacle of chaos and horror. Many children were among the dead, local officials said.

A spokesman for the Jamaat ul-Ahrar militant group, which is an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban, asserted responsibility in a telephone interview on Sunday.

“It was our people who attacked the Christians in Lahore, celebrating Easter,” the spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said. “It’s our message to the government that we will carry out such attacks again until sharia [Islamic law] is imposed in the country.”

Pakistan, a country of 190 million, has suffered for years from sectarian violence and Islamist militancy, including a Taliban-led insurgency in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. Christians make up about 1 percent of Pakistan’s population but have maintained a larger presence in Lahore.

In Lahore, Parveen Masih, a 30-year-old Christian woman, said she had gone to the park with her husband and kids to celebrate Easter. They were there when the bomb exploded.

“This attack was about nothing other than to sabotage our happiness,” Masih, who was wounded in the face, said in a telephone interview. “We had only a few days to celebrate, and they didn’t even let us enjoy those.”

The government of Punjab province — where the attack occurred, and which is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s political stronghold — announced three days of mourning. A statement from the office of Punjab’s chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, who is the prime minister’s brother, pledged that the culprits would be brought to trial.

“Those who targeted innocent citizens do not deserve to be called humans,” Shahbaz Sharif posted on his Twitter account. “We will hunt you down,” he said. And “make sure your terror infrastructure is dismantled completely.”

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister, met with his security advisers after the attack, and they reached “key decisions” on how to respond, a statement from his office said.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the Jamaat ul-Ahrar spokesman, declared that the militants would strike again in Punjab. The group broke away from the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban, in 2014, as a result of infighting between top commanders. Jamaat ul-Ahrar rejoined the Taliban in March 2015, but it still maintains its own faction within the group.

The top security official in the province, Haider Ashraf, said an initial forensic investigation into the attack concluded that the suicide bomber had packed more than 20 pounds of explosives in his vest. Ball bearings, typically used in bomb attacks to maximize casualties, were found at the scene, Ashraf said.

A suicide blast exploded on Easter Sunday in a crowded park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore claiming the lives of at least 60 people. (Erin Patrick O'Connor/The Washington Post)

“We can say it was suicide blast, in which most of the Christian families and Muslim families who went to Gulshan-e-Iqbal park to enjoy the holiday were targeted,” he said, adding that the attacker detonated his explosives near an area marked off for women.

Witnesses to the carnage described body parts scattered in the wake of the attack, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported. Images on social media showed panic and chaos in the moments after the blast and medics ferrying the wounded away on stretchers.

In one case, four members of a single family were killed, a medic said. The only survivor was a 10-year-old boy, who was also injured.

“I was about to enter the park with my kids” when the explosion happened, said Anwar Ali, a resident of Lahore. “My kids started crying, and I held them tightly when I saw the wounded.”

In a statement on Sunday, the State Department said that the United States “stands with the people and government of Pakistan at this difficult hour.”

“Attacks like these only deepen our shared resolve to defeat terrorism around the world,” the statement said.

The government of Punjab announced on its Twitter account that it was offering free rides to those who wished to donate blood to the victims.

In Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, the army was deployed on Sunday to the “Red Zone” area of the city to help quell unrest following a violent protest march by Muslims. Thousands of demonstrators turned out to denounce the execution last month of Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated the former Punjab governor, Salmaan Taseer, in 2011. Taseer had spoken out against Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

Police could not halt the demonstrators, who rampaged across central Islamabad, setting buildings on fire Sunday. The Red Zone area of the capital houses a number of vital government institutions, including parliament and the prime minister’s house.

Myanmar army reasserts its key political role ahead of transition

Commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing rides on a vehicle during a parade to mark Armed Forces Day in Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw, March 27, 2016.-REUTERS/SOE ZEYA TUN

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (L), Myanmar's commander-in-chief, shakes hands with National League for Democracy (NLD) party leader Aung San Suu Kyi before their meeting in Hlaing's office at Naypyitaw December 2, 2015.REUTERS/SOE ZEYA TUN

 BY TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLIN-Sun Mar 27, 2016

Myanmar's armed forces commander-in-chief stressed on Sunday the need for the military to remain a political force just days before a democratically elected government is set to take power for the first time in 56 years.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, making an Armed Forces Day speech from a podium dwarfed by a towering statue of Myanmar’s three ancient kings in the capital, Naypyitaw, reasserted the military's belief that it is the country’s sole unifying force and protector of the constitution.

Though the military had "cooperated with the government and the people", to hold a historic general election in November, that was won by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, it was not yet time to step away from the political arena, he said.

"The Tatmadaw has to be present as the leading role in national politics with regards to the ways we stand along the history and the critical situations of the country," Min Aung Hlaing said, referring to the armed forces by their Myanmar name.

The military seized power in a 1962 coup and for decades suppressed all opposition. But it stepped back in 2011, paving the way for a semi-civilian government to prepare for November's election. But it retains important powers.

More than 10,000 military personnel marched in a parade marking the day in 1945 when a young nationalist leader, General Aung San, and his followers in a fledgling army turned against Japanese forces occupying their country.

Hundreds of veterans, foreign defence attaches and politicians gathered before dawn on a big parade field to watch the ceremony.

But conspicuously absent was Aung San's daughter, National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Suu Kyi.

She attended the ceremony in 2013 but has not since then.

Also absent was president-elect Htin Kyaw, Suu Kyi's hand-picked leader who will take power on Friday.

Htin Kyaw, a loyal confidant of the hugely popular Suu Kyi, will take the role only because the Noble laureate is barred from holding the position under a military-drafted constitution, which she has openly criticized.

Min Aung Hlaing defended the charter on Sunday, saying it was drafted by ”coordinated efforts of intellectuals, experts from various fields and national races representatives and was ratified by a nationwide referendum”, and paved the way for the November election.

The 2008 constitution enshrines deep political powers for the military.

A quarter of the parliament seats are reserved for unelected military officers, giving them an effective veto over constitutional changes, and the commander-in-chief remains in control of three key main ministries.

(Additonal reporting by Aung Hla Tun in Yangon; Editing by Robert Birsel)

'No-one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim': Moment Burma democracy heroine Suu Kyi lost her cool with BBC's Mishal Husain after being quizzed over violence towards Muslim minority

By SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE FOR THE DAILY MAIL-24 March 2016

She is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a beacon of saintly integrity in the West who remained under house arrest for 15 years in her native Burma.

However, there is another side to Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi that sits at odds with her iconic image.

After the BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain gave Suu Kyi a rough ride during a BBC interview, Suu Kyi lost her composure and was heard to mutter angrily off-air: ‘No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.’

Interview: Husain (right) was interviewing Suu Kyi for Radio 4's Today programme in October 2013 (pictured)

The spat between the two prominent and famously elegant Asian women has only just emerged, and followed a heated interview with the 70-year-old president of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy on the Today programme, according to a new book, The Lady And The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi And Burma’s Struggle For Freedom, by Peter Popham.

Suu Kyi’s equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burma’s Muslim minority has alarmed even her most dedicated fans.

When she was repeatedly asked by Husain to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the wave of mob-led massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, she declined to do so. ‘I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons,’ she replied. ‘This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.’

Much of the country’s huge Buddhist majority dislikes its small Muslim community with a passion, so it is thought Suu Kyi did not want to alienate her supporters.

Muslims are only 4 per cent of Burma’s population. The Rohingya Muslims, who have borne the brunt of the violence, are a smaller minority still. The Rohingya are explicitly forbidden from becoming citizens of Burma and have no political weight whatsoever.

Husain, 43, was the first Muslim presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme.

But while often seen as a symbol of the BBC’s commitment to diversity, she is, herself, thumpingly posh.

The mother-of-three and Northampton-born daughter of Pakistani parents was educated at private school and Cambridge University, where she read law.

Read More

John Kerry: presidential campaign descending into 'embarrassment' for US

Secretary of state says world leaders are ‘shocked’ as Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump defend plans to combat terror and focus on Muslims

 Kerry did not specify which candidates or remarks had embarrassed the US but he was clearly alluding to controversial proposals by Republican candidates. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Alan Yuhas-Sunday 27 March 2016

The chaos of the 2016 US presidential election “is an embarrassment to our country”, secretary of state John Kerry said on Sunday, as he reflected on the candidates’ anti-Muslim sentiment and world leaders’ growing concern.

Asked about what he hears from leaders abroad regarding the US election, Kerry told CBS’s Face the Nation: “I think it’s fair to say that they’re shocked.

“It upsets people’s sense of equilibrium about our steadiness, about our reliability,” Kerry said. “And to some degree I must say to you, some of the questions, the way they’re posed to me, it’s clear to me that what’s happening is an embarrassment to our country.”

Kerry did not specify which candidates or remarks had embarrassed the US, but he was clearly alluding to controversial proposals from the Republican candidates.

Texas senator Ted Cruz has proposed sending police to surveil, “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods, and surrounded himself with advisers whom experts call “terrifying” on issues of civil rights. The proposals were derided by a wide range of officials, including NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton, who said on Saturday: “It is clear from his comments that senator Cruz knows absolutely nothing about counter-terrorism in New York City.”

Donald Trump has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US, and said he would order the military to torture prisoners and to bomb the families of terror suspects, in contravention of international law. The Republican frontrunner has separately wavered on whether to denounce white supremacist groups that have rallied to his campaign.

On Sunday, Cruz defended his proposal, saying that police patrols would be “proactive law enforcement”.

“We can’t become Europe with its failed immigration policies. We can’t repeat their mistakes,” he told Fox News Sunday. “We can’t be forced to live under Sharia law. We need to engage and find this enemy. We have to fight Islamism at every level.”

He then repeated a stump speech line that top Pentagon generals have rejected as illegal, un-American and unreasonable. “If I become president, we will carpet-bomb Isis into the ground,” Cruz said.

Trump was not asked about his proposals on Sunday, but did rule out internment camps for Muslim Americans; the anchor’s reference to a concept not realized in the US since the second world war reflected how extreme the campaign has become.

But the former reality TV star painted a picture of a dangerous world in the aftermath of the deadly terror attacks in Belgium.

“I don’t think America’s a safe place for Americans, you want to know the truth,” he told ABC in a phone interview. “I don’t think Europe is a safe place.”

“Lots of the free world has become weak,” he added. “We’re going to have problems, just as big or bigger.”

In order to combat terror, Trump suggested, “Muslims in our country have to report bad acts”.

Contrary to his suggestion that the Muslim American community is not doing enough to counter extremism, a 2014 Duke University study found more suspects were brought to the attention of law enforcement by Muslim Americans than through government investigations.

Trump also suggested the US and Europe need to completely overhaul their security systems and the Nato alliance that has united them for more than half a century. “I think Nato is obsolete,” he said. “I’m not saying Russia is not a threat, but we have other threats, and Nato doesn’t discuss terrorism.”

The third Republican candidate, Ohio governor John Kasich, also said Nato should be reformed, but said the ideas of his rivals were unproductive. Solutions, he said have “got to include our friends in the Arab Muslim community”.

“I don’t want to overreact to this,” he told NBC on Sunday.

Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican chair of the homeland security committee, told CNN “there are no credible threats” of terrorism in the US. But he also called for ground troops to intervene in Syria, and invoked the Iraq war phrase “coalition of the willing” to call for allies.

The Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have, in contrast, called for European nations to improve their intelligence sharing systems, though both have only vaguely outlined details of their recommendations.

Earlier this week, the State Department issued an unusual warning to Americans in Europe after the Brussels attacks, in which at least two Americans were killed. Kerry urged calm, saying: “People do not have to live in fear, but it doesn’t mean you should be oblivious to your surroundings.

“It’s really a matter of common sense,” he said. “It means avoid a crowded place where you have no control over who may be there. Have a sense of vigilance to watch who’s around you.”

He said travellers should report suspicious activity, such as men wearing single gloves and using large suitcases, in the manner of the men responsible for the Brussels attacks.

The secretary of state also defended Barack Obama’s conduct in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, which occurred while he was on the first diplomatic visit to Cuba by a sitting US president since 1928. Republicans heaped scorn on the president for attending a baseball game on the afternoon of the attacks, a long-planned event to celebrate new relations with Havana.

“Life doesn’t stop because one terrible incident takes place in one place,” said Kerry, who was also in the stands that day. “The president of the United States’ schedule is not set by terrorists.”

Viva Cuba Libre!

President Obama attends a wreath-laying ceremony in Havana, March 21, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Getty)

by

Eric Margolis-Saturday, March 26, 2016

Long ago in Havana, my mother and father would take me to the famed “Floridita” bar to join a burly, white-bearded man and drink daiquiris.

He gave me his book, “A Farewell to Arms,” autographed to “Eric, from his friend Ernest Hemingway. Havana, 1953”

Those were the old days in Cuba, even before Fidel Castro. That’s how far back I go on this lovely island on the Spanish Main.

I’ve twice been in battle in the west African state of Angola against Cuban troops that had been sent by Fidel Castro to fight white South African forces.

After visiting Cuba many times over the years and recently shooting a documentary there, I’ve acquired much affection for the peppery Cubans and their beautiful island. Havana is a century older than my native New York City.

So I was truly delighted to see President Obama travel to Havana this past week, rub shoulders with leader Raul Castro, and proclaim an end to Cold War hostility between the two neighbors.

Obama told Cubans, “you do not need to fear a threat from the United States.”

If Obama would make the same pledge to North Korea the dangerous crisis in North Asia might well be ended.

After half century, the American president renounced the use of force to overthrow Cuba’s Marxist government. Whether a new Republican president and Congress honors this pledge remains to be seen.

At the heart of bitter US-Cuban relations was the Castro brother’s adamantine refusal to take instruction from Washington. Before Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Cuba had been an obedient semi-colony of the US. This was the era when Big Brother in Washington told Latin America what to do and allowed US business to exploit the region.

The US seized Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay during the 1898 Spanish-American War as a naval coaling station. Cuba was forced to grant the US a perpetual lease. The Panama Canal was acquired in a similar imperial manner.

Over half the lush island’s agricultural land was owned by US corporate interests; many hotels came under control of American mobsters, including the once glorious ‘‘Nacional’’ hotel where I always stay.

Fidel Castro seized US property soon after taking power. The angry Americans imposed a punishing blockade on Cuba in 1960 that persists to this day, strongly backed by the Republican Party. Exiled Cubans and US corporations want their property back. Havana says no.

On my last visit to Cuba, I stood in awe in front of an old, crude-looking Soviet, 1960’s era SS-4 intercontinental missiles that had once been armed with nuclear warheads. They had been aimed at the US East Coast during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. As a student at Washington’s Georgetown University in that crisis year, I had been smack in the middle of ground zero.

1962 was a terribly close call for mankind, a nuclear game of blind man’s bluff. Thank god that John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev backed down. Both proclaimed victory. Interestingly, during a Moscow conference during the 1980’s, a senior KGB officer claimed that Fidel Castro had begged Moscow to fire its missiles at the United States – perhaps because CIA had tried to murder Castro more than a dozen times?

Cubans suffered terribly and ate grass for decades but refused to bow to US demands. They had to become beholden to Moscow to stave off the USA.

Now, at the end of Fidel Castro’s life, tiny, proud Cuba has won its struggle for independence. Obama’s visit capped Cuba’s pyrrhic victory. US tourist will soon inundate the island, eradicate its seedy 1950’s charm, and see Cuba returned to American tutelage.

Ironically, when Castro revolted against Washington, Cuba was the vanguard of Latin America. Today, half a century later, most of Latin America has become democratic and relatively prosperous while Cuba lingers in dire poverty and authoritarian rule. But at least it was a clean authoritarian rule that genuinely cared for its people, providing high grade medical care and education that in some ways put the US to shame.

Republicans insist the US should not deal with authoritarian Cuba. What flaming hypocrisy. Washington gives billions to the uber ugly Egyptian dictatorship of ‘Field Marshall’ al-Sisi that tortures and guns down its people. The US supports repressive Morocco, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and, biggest malefactor of all, China.

President Obama did the right thing. Viva Barack!

Robert De Niro backs movie by struck-off British doctor Andrew Wakefield which attempts to link MMR vaccine to autism despite having a son with the condition 

Disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield directed the film. Wakefield is infamous for beginning the MMR controversy debate 18 years ago

• 
  
• By Daniel Bates In New York and Stephen Adams for The Mail on Sunday
  
•  27 March 2016
• 
  
• Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe will be shown next month
• The star said he wants to promote a 'discussion' about the documentary
• In the film, Andrew Wakefield attempts to reignite the MMR controversy 
• Wakefield began the controversy 18 years ago in a medical journal article 

Robert De Niro has come under fire for championing a highly controversial film by a disgraced British doctor, which attempts to link the MMR vaccine to autism.

The A-lister has intervened to ensure Vaxxed: From Cover-up To Catastrophe, directed by Andrew Wakefield, will be shown at his Tribeca Film Festival in New York next month.

The 72-year-old, who has an autistic son, Elliot, with his wife Grace Hightower, said he wanted to promote a ‘discussion’ about the documentary, which will claim US health authorities covered up evidence linking the triple jab for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) to rising autism rates.

Robert De Niro (left) has come under fire for championing a highly controversial film about vaccination. The star has an autistic son, Elliot (centre) with his wife Grace Hightower (right)

He denied being ‘anti-vaccine’ or endorsing the film, but confirmed it was the first time he had lobbied for a movie to be shown at the festival.

In the film, Wakefield attempts to reignite the MMR controversy by claiming US authorities ‘sliced and diced’ data to mask a link with autism. It is 18 years since he sparked the health scare, after writing an article in The Lancet suggesting that MMR could cause the developmental disorder.

It led to plunging vaccination rates – triggering measles outbreaks across Europe and the US on a scale not seen in decades. Measles can cause profound deafness and even kill. In 2010 Wakefield was struck off by the General Medical Council, after a panel found he had acted ‘dishonestly and irresponsibly’ in conducting ‘unethical’ research.

In Vaxxed he claims the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention manipulated data, adding: ‘The CDC had known all along there was this MMR/autism risk.’

Mr De Niro said: ‘I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.’

Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, England’s chief medical officer during the MMR scare, said: ‘Wakefield can’t appear to accept he has been wrong, wrong, wrong.’

The Department of Health said: ‘The safety of MMR has been endorsed through numerous studies.’

Presidential commission into disappearances continues hearings26 March 2016 Sri Lanka’s presidential commission into disappearances continued public sittings in Mullaitivu on Friday, where hundreds of people made submissions searching for their missing loved ones. Approximately 290 people filed complaints before the commission, which continues despite government announcement in October that the process was to be scrapped. Relatives who went before the commission criticised the process, saying that officials were attempting to persuade them to accept death certificates for their missing loved ones. However, they refused. “We hope that our relatives are alive and under army custody,” said one person who went before the commission on Friday. “We asked them to help us find our loved ones.” Reports of the commission encouraging relatives to accept their loved ones have died have been ongoing, with evidence that officials offered chickens in exchange for accepting a death certificates. Earlier this year Sri Lankan Prime Minsiter Ranil Wickeremsinghe claimed the tens of thousands of missing across the North-East were “probably dead” without any further clarification on the disappearances, sparking grief and concern amongst many Tamils. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN Special Rapporteur Pablo de Greiffexpressed concern at his comments, and called for further clarification. The commission has also been criticised by both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, who have called for its abolition. The chairman of Sri Lanka’s presidential commission Justice Maxwell Paranagama hasslammed the UN human rights chief in previous statements and called the reports of over 40,000 Tamil civilians having been killed during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict is a “myth”.

Sri Lanka: Tamil racism and 13 A

by Izeth Hussain

( March 26, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have come to share the view of the Sinhalese hard-liners that the Tamil ethnic problem cannot be solved through devolution. I now share their view that going beyond 13 A in its presently truncated form – that is by giving police and land powers – will only aggravate the ethnic problem, not solve it. There are two major reasons for this. One is that Tamil racism is worse, very much worse, than Sinhalese racism. That means that giving more devolution will only whet the Tamil appetite for more and more devolution until Eelam is established, or there is a confederal arrangement that amounts to a de facto Eelam. The second reason why I have come to share the view of the Sinhalese hard-liners is the new geopolitical configuration in which India is in rivalry with China.

I must make a couple of clarifications before proceeding further. I have stated only probabilities, not certainties in the above paragraph. Futurology is a hazardous exercise, and it usually proves to be mistaken, because of a human tendency to extrapolate the present into the future, to assume that present trends will continue without taking into account the possibility that a hitherto unregarded factor could secure unexpected outcomes. There was vast expertise in the West on communism and the Soviet system, but only two foresaw the dramatic collapse of that system between 1989 and 1991 – Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Emmanuel Todd. So, I won’t discount the possibility that good sense will prevail on both sides of the ethnic fence, that both will be able to check their racists, and mutual accommodativeness will lead to a final definitive solution of the ethnic problem on the basis of devolution. But I find that most improbable for the reasons given in the first paragraph.

The second clarification I want to make is that the improbability of a solution on the basis of devolution does not preclude the possibility of a solution on some other basis. I have in mind a solution on the basis of a fully functioning democracy as in the West. We have shown ourselves in the past capable of operating such a democracy and we seem to be approaching it again. Our Tamils in the West are not clamoring for devolution and are quite happy without it under a fully democratic dispensation. Why not here? The answer is that the Tamils regard themselves as not just another minority but a national minority, with their homeland and a right at least to internal self-determination: therefore a definitive solution can only be on the basis of devolution. I have shown in an earlier article that the so-called right to internal self-determination is nonsensical. However, the important point is that if a solution on the basis of devolution is too difficult or simply not feasible for the two reasons given in the first paragraph, we have no realistic alternative to trying out a democratic solution.

I will now go into the two reasons why a definitive solution on the basis of devolution seems to be extremely improbable, beginning with the India factor. It would not be exaggerated to say that the ethnic problem we have on our hands is in reality an Indian problem, not a Sri Lankan one. If India did not exist, if there were no Tamils in Tamil Nadu, we would not be having a Tamil ethnic problem, not one that commands so much international attention. The Tamils would simply be treated as a conquered minority, suffering consequences that could be mild or very terrible. That would not bother the international community overmuch because it consists of nation states that privilege ethnic majorities at the expense of ethnic minorities. The prevailing consensus in the international community therefore is that ethnic minorities must know their place and keep it, or be taught to keep it. So the travails of the SL Tamils would not figure in international consciousness, except to some extent if there were horrendous human rights violations.

It is Tamil Nadu of course that makes all the difference. Delhi cannot ignore the fall-out in Tamil Nadu of what happens to the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Her intervention on behalf of our Tamils is consequently not seen by the international community as interference but as legitimate in the pursuit of the Indian national interest. That is why the air drop was seen not as aggression but at the worst as a transgression of international law, and that is why there was no international disquiet over the Peace Accords and the coming of the IPKF troops – though our other neighbors were deeply disturbed by the possible negative consequences of what was going on. I share the international perception that India did not use the Tamil ethnic problem to try to bully or dominate us. I believe that India committed a monumental blunder in stopping the Vaddamarachchi operation in the naïve expectation that a political solution for the ethic problem could be found without much difficult. But there was no malign intent behind that blunder.

Until recently India’s behavior in relation to the Tamil ethnic problem has been guided by a fundamental principle that has applied to Indo-Sri Lanka relations since 1948 even though it may not have been stated explicitly in written form: Sri Lanka by itself can pose no threat to India but it can do so if it gets together with some other foreign power against India. After 1977 Sri Lanka was perceived by India as getting too close to the US in a manner that posed a threat – a serious threat – to the legitimate interests of India. That may have been a misperception but all the same it was a perception on the Indian side. That perception has to be understood in the context of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with India seen as supporting it and the US opposing it. But Soviet expansionism was contained and reversed, Indo-US relations became cordial, and India which had been fomenting the ethnic problem wanted to solve it. That was the background for India getting together with the US over the Peace Accords. I hold that India had no imperialist objectives of a hegemonistic order towards Sri Lanka at all. The alleged Vice-regal posturing of High Commissioner Dixit was of no significance whatever.

But in recent times the fundamentals determining our relations with India in connection with the Tamil ethnic problem have changed completely because of the new geopolitical configuration of Sino-Indian rivalry in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. The factors of geography cannot be changed. The US can increase or lessen its presence in this region without jeopardizing its vital interests, but China cannot do that because of its vital commercial and other interests. It should therefore have an interest in securing a permanent presence in Sri Lanka. We have now to take into account the fact that Sino-Indian relations will have its ups and downs, and that they can become dangerously troubled. It has to be expected therefore that India would want – in pursuit of what it sees as its vital and entirely legitimate interests – a dominant or predominant position in Sri Lanka. If that entails too many difficulties, it could want at least an arrangement in which a solid segment of Sri Lanka – a North East inhabited mainly by Tamils – will be permanently on its side. A federal or even confederal solution of the ethnic problem would be best for that purpose. Was that the significance of the fact that during Prime Minister Modi’s visit he unexpectedly vaunted the attractions of federalism? Anyway, it seems to me that attempting a solution on the basis of further devolution could be hazardous. It would be prudent to go for a solution based on a fully functioning democracy.

Professional bodies flay SL’s ETCA negotiators

* Indians penetrate SL’s most highly regulated profession with ease
*  Shortcomings in SL’s regulatory framework for professions highlighted
* SL CEPA/ETCA negotiators declared incompetent compared to Indian counterparts

March 26, 2016, 6:16 pm 

Even though the Joint Opposition’s rally at Hyde Park on 17 March was held mainly to oppose the proposed ETCA with India and to highlight other issues such as the changes in the fertiliser subsidy and the low price of paddy, these objectives were completely lost among the large crowds and it became another ‘bring Mahinda back’ rally. Last week professional groups were busy clawing back public attention to what is undoubtedly the most important immediate issue facing Sri Lanka – the proposed ETCA which the prime minister has said would be signed no matter how intense the opposition to it. The professional associations opposing ETCA organised a seminar at the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) auditorium on Wednesday last week where a number of presentations were made by Dr Anuruddha Padeniya, Dr Lalithsiri Gunaruwan, Prof. Sumanasiri Liyanage, Nalaka Jayaweera and others.

 The presentation made by Nalaka Jayaweera - a Chartered Architect - raised certain serious issues about the proposed ETCA which have not been highlighted sufficiently up to now. In the absence of a detailed draft of ETCA, Jayaweera harked back to the abandoned CEPA to extrapolate what ETCA would envisage in terms of trade in services between India and Sri Lanka. Such an approach is certainly valid because it is in place of CEPA that the ETCA proposal has been brought forward. Furthermore, the ETCA framework agreement that is in the public domain now clearly indicates that trade in services will be one of its objectives and in fact the government has already announced that in the first instance the IT and naval engineering fields will be opened up to India. The 2003 joint Statement of the India- Sri Lanka Joint Study Group on CEPA envisaged the following in terms of the trade in services:

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SRI LANKA MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION; IF THEY AREN’T WE WILL POINT OUT – HUGO SWIRE

(Hugo Swire)

25/03/2016

“We are all waiting for the progress report of the high commissioner for human rights which is due out in June.  We do want to see how they are progressing in many of the things they have agreed to do with the international community. I believe they are moving in the right direction and if they are not we will be very quick to point out where they are falling short with what the international community expects,” Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the United Kingdom Mr.  Hugo Swire has said while commenting on the current human rights situation in Sri Lanka.

The British Foreign Secretary has made the comment during a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils on 23rd March 2016, reports Tamil Guardian.

He has emphasised that the situation in the country has improved and claims of ongoing torture needs to be looked in to before accepting them.

“The best hope for Sri Lanka in many years is under the present government.  I don’t believe things are perfect, but I do believe that the human rights situation has improved. I see here various statements that the white van cases still continues. I’m not sure I quite agree with that. I think the evidence of torture we need to look at every closely. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist but I think we need to look at it very closely. When you go to Sri Lanka I believe you can smell the difference. I feel  that there is an absence of fear, some people say that is not true in the north. But I believe that is true. People are going about their business largely free of intimidation. Not everything will be perfect overnight, but I think there is a palpable difference in Sri Lanka compared to when I went there 2,3 years ago.”

Expressing concern at Sri Lanka’s economic statement he has  said that “the economy generally in Sri Lanka does worry me. They are generally short of money. They are desperate for trade, desperate for business. That’s something the UK could do more and get our businesses out to Sri Lanka.