Saturday, May 21, 2016

HIV cure a step closer after scientists remove virus's DNA from living tissue

Research could 'potentially serve as a curative approach for patients with HIV', scientist says

A young boy lights a candle at an AIDS memorial service in Belgrade, Serbia ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/Getty Images

Ian Johnston Science Correspondent -Friday 20 May 2016

Scientists have managed to remove DNA of the HIV virus from living tissue for the first time in a breakthrough that could lead to an outright cure.

At the moment, treating the disease involves the use of drugs that suppress levels of the virus so the body’s immune system can cope.

Now researchers in the US have revealed they used gene-editing technology to remove DNA of the commonest HIV-1 strain from several organs of infected mice and rats.

In April, the same team reported that they had successfully eliminated the virus from human cells in the laboratory, but a paper in the journal Nature Gene Editing revealed they had managed to do the same thing in live animals for the first time.

The researchers’ team leader, Professor Kamel Khalili, of Temple University, said: “In a proof-of-concept study, we show[ed] that our gene-editing technology can be effectively delivered to many organs of two small animal models and excise large fragments of viral DNA from the host cell genome.”

The current antiretroviral drugs for HIV are not able to eliminate HIV-1 from the infected cells.

And if treatment is interrupted, the virus can start replicating quickly, putting patients of risk of getting full-blow AIDS.

This is because it is able to persist in immune system T-cells and other places where it is not actually active and is unaffected by the current treatments.

The researchers used a specially adapted virus to deliver the gene-editing system into the cells.

“The ability of the rAAV delivery system to enter many organs containing the HIV-1 genome and edit the viral DNA is an important indication that this strategy can also overcome viral reactivation from latently infected cells and potentially serve as a curative approach for patients with HIV,” Professor Khalili said.

Leanne Wood attacks Nigel Farage for HIV comments

In a statement, Temple University said the implications of the new study were "far-reaching".

"The gene-editing platform by itself may be able to eradicate HIV-1 DNA from patients, but it is also highly flexible and potentially could be used in combination with existing antiretroviral drugs to further suppress viral RNA. It also could be adapted to target mutated strains of HIV-1," it added.

Professor Khalili said a clinical trial could happen within the next few years, but he first planned to carry out a similar study involving a larger group of animals.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Prospects for justice and peace in Sri Lanka discussed at panel in Washington

20 May 2016

A panel in Washington DC last week discussed the possibilities and risks in achieving justice and peace in Sri Lanka.

Speakers on the panel on May 11, organised by PEARL, were Kara Bue of Armitage International, Lisa Curtis from The Heritage Foundation, Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group and Suthaharan Nadarajah from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The event was moderated by PEARL's Senior Analyst Gowri Koneswaran.

See the full video of the event:

A variety of views came to fore during the discussions.

Alan Keenan said governments need to keep in mind the safety of human rights activists who now have the pace to speak up, pointing out that people who were active on political issues during the ceasefire were later gunned down.

"All the governments in the world who are praising the current opening, which is there and need to be seized need to keep in mind the fragility of it and need to keep their commitments of the long-term, both to prevent a backsliding but also, if that happens, do what they can to defend those who are speaking up now," he said.

Mr Keenan said it was defensible for governments, including the US, to engage with the SL military, but only if at least one of the driving principles was the "transformation of the military in ways in which it can accept accountability of a necessary process of its own cleansing", and in a process in which it is downsized and the civilian leadership has clear controls.

Lisa Curtis urged the US government to do more on offering assistance for Sri Lanka to implement an accountability and justice process.

"We can debate whether or not there is the political will or commitment to that but the only way to know that is if the US engages on the issues and puts forward its suggestions and if the government baulks then we will know the political will is not there," she said in response to concerns raised about the government's intention.

Kara Bue spoke of her experiences touring the North-East earlier this year. In the North-East the view seemed to be that "everything had changed yet nothing had changed", she said, and stressed the urgency for the government to implement measures to build confidence amongst the people.

"This is a fragile government and there is only so much time to make meaningful changes," she said.

Ms Bue stressed the importance of keeping people on side while focussing on concrete and evident changes.

Sutha Nadarajah said the US government needs to constantly calibrate its engagement with Sri Lanka as developments occur and not hesitate if it needs to take a tougher stance.

"Problem is whether the US recognises when things are not working and calibrates its engagement to that extent. I would call for a constantly nuanced, constantly re-evaluated engagement where there is no concern about pulling back and taking a tougher stance."

Seven Years After The End Of Sri Lanka’s Civil War

By Mahendran Thiruvarangan –May 19, 2016

Mahendran Thiruvarangan

When the civil war came to an end in May 2009 I was still a final year undergraduate at the University of Peradeniya. Peradeniya was miles away from the war zone. The only venues that supplied us with details about the happenings in the war theatre were the television channels stationed in the South, self-censoring the civilian casualties incurred and feeding to the Sinhala nationalist jubilation of the times. And on the other side were websites like Tamilnet and Puthinam run by parties sympathetic to the LTTE releasing carefully filtered out reports singularly focusing on the deaths of civilians caused by the military leaving no trace about how the top leadership of the LTTE was recruiting children and adults, despite knowing so well they had already lost the battle or how the civilians who were trying to flee the war zone were shot down by the militants.

One had to work around these competing narratives to get at least a partial sense of the nature of the violence that the people ensnared in the No Fire Zone were exposed to. Some of us had friends whose relatives had been in the LTTE-controlled areas. When the guns breathed their last in Mullivaikal, some of them had already moved to hospitals and camps in Trincomalee and Vavuniya with their loved ones injured during the war. It was from these wounded men and women and their families that the harrowing experiences of the thousands of people inside the narrow battlefield trickled down to us in May 2009. The South erupted into celebrations when the re-unification of the island was announced via the media. As the former president in his televised address from Parliament was busy instructing the people of the country to annul the notions of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ from their political discourses, fire crackers celebrating the military victory started to deafen the ears of those of us who were seated under the senate building of the University of Peradeniya—Tamils, Sinhalese, Muslims and Malays—pondering in groups what was awaiting us and the country in the days and years to come.

I revisit these dark and frustrating days now not just to reflect upon how the people in the Vanni were subalternized by the state, the liberation movement, representatives of their own community, the media and the international community seven years ago during the height of the war but also as a way of understanding the difficulties that we outsiders who were not present in Mullivaikal, whether we were Tamils or Sinhalese, encountered in making sense of violence and truth. Being cognizant of these difficulties is necessary to understand the plurality of the responses to the war’s end that emerged seven years ago. No doubt, the end of the war would have meant relief to many in the Sinhala community who had to protect themselves on a daily basis from suicide bombers masquerading as passengers in buses and trains and the families of the soldiers who were fighting the war for a living. The war had created uncertainties for them and placed them, especially the ones who lived in the border villages around the Northern and Eastern provinces, in a precarious position. Many Tamil dissident activists who had fled Sri Lanka or the North-East of the country because of the threats they faced from the LTTE also expressed a sense of relief at the demise of the Tigers.

By Shamli071 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

May 17, 2016

Throughout Sri Lanka’s short history, Governments of all persuasions have fermented religious and ethnic nationalism to gain popular support. This has left Sri Lanka with a legacy of Buddhist extremism which frequently manifests in the form of attacks on members of religious minorities.

While Muslims have been the primary target in recent years, Sri Lanka’s Christian population suffered too. It was widely hoped that last year’s change in Sri Lanka’s government would bring about an end to these attacks. Yet today low level attacks on Christians, who make up around seven percent of the population, persist throughout Sri Lanka.

Christian Today recently reported a concerning increase in such attacks. A source, a religious liberties lawyer, was quoted as saying that since Maithripala Sirisena became President in January 2015, as many as 120 attacks against Christians had been reported, a doubling on figures from previous years. The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka’s Religious Liberty Commission recorded 15 incidents of violence and intimidation against Christians in January 2016 alone. The attacks are often led by Buddhist “village monks” (local thugs who dress as monks but may or may not be actual members of the Buddhist clergy), with local authorities frequently turning a blind eye to these incidents in a continuation of war-era ethnic chauvinism.

Recently, some churches and prayer groups have been forced to close. Christian burials have been prevented andprohibited, with Christians forced to bury their loved ones far away from their village. A number of attacks have also beencarried out against members of the clergy, many of which have been violent in nature. There have even been reports ofcalls to eradicate Christian sects from certain communities.

Furthermore, no prosecutions have yet been brought against Buddhist extremists implicated in previous attacks on Christians or Muslims. In particular the inability and unwillingness of the authorities to take action in investigating the murder of Muslims in the course of the 2014 riots continues to feed concerns that the Government is not taking the issue of Buddhist extremism seriously enough.

Disturbingly, the 2015 Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that Sri Lankan “police harassed religious minorities at their houses of worship, did not stop religiously-motivated attacks and sometimes participated in them”

Whilst the Sri Lankan government has changed, Sri Lanka’s legacy of hard line Buddhist nationalism is hard to shake. It remains crucial for this government to consistently condemn religious and ethnic supremism in all its forms, and to thoroughly investigate attacks by extremist groups.

‘Ethnic, religious minorities in Lanka still feel marginalised’

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2016

"Unfortunately, not enough improvement has yet been seen by the Tamils, Christians and Muslims who feel marginalised and discriminated against," the Congressman said.

Sri Lanka’s ethnic and religious minorities including Tamils still feel marginalised, seven years after the end of the civil war with the LTTE, a senior American lawmaker has said as he appealed to the Lankan government to take “concrete” steps to address their concerns.

“The leaders of the new government have made many ambitious promises to advance toward the goal of a stable and prosperous future for all. Now is the time to turn those promises into concrete action,” Congressman Danny K Davis said on the House floor on Thursday.

“The US, must assist and support in any way we can, but we must also keep incentives in place such as conditions on military and other aid until the government has accomplished real reform,” said the Democratic Party lawmaker from Illinois.

Speaking on the House Floor to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the end of the war in Sri Lanka, he said the Lankan government won the war to keep the Sinhalese and Tamil communities within one country, but has not yet won the peace.

The Sri Lankan government has made commitments on transitional justice and accountability, a political settlement of the ethnic problem, security sector reform, the return of land, the release of Tamil political prisoners, actions to end human rights violations and other ambitious reforms, Mr. Davis said.

“Unfortunately, not enough improvement has yet been seen by the Tamils, Christians and Muslims who feel marginalised and discriminated against,” the Congressman said.

“Courageous leadership is needed to gain trust if reconciliation is the goal, not just promises.

“Now is the time for real action,” Mr. Davis said.

Tamil Civil Organisations Accuse Government Of Rushing Through In Setting Up Office For Missing Persons

May 20, 2016

Tamil Civil Society organisations and activists have accused the government on the lack of ‘genuine willingness’ to consult the victims in the setting up of mechanisms for transitional justice, while also trying to rush through the consultation process in setting up the ‘Office for Missing Persons.’

Mangala Samaraweera

In a letter addressed to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera, on 19th May 2016, 12 organisations and 26 individuals said that the mandate and terms of reference of the Task Force in setting up ‘Office for Missing Persons’ (OMP) are extremely vague and the process to date has been handicapped by in adequate resources and has made very little progress. “In the midst of this, the Foreign Ministry, it appears, is seeking to rush through a tokenistic consultation process on the OMP. The undermining of the Task Force by the Foreign Ministry makes clear the disdainful and instrumental use of the Task Force on Consultation,” the letter stated.

According to the letter, the consultation with regard to all Transitional Justice Mechanisms including the OMP were entrusted with the Task Force on Consultations functioning under the SCRM. “However in the design of the OMP the perception exists that the Foreign Ministry has taken over the consultation process.”

They also noted that despite repeated requests, the Government has refused to engage with victims who are abroad in the consultation exercise. (As to how the OMP will engage with these victims is also not clear). “The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in its Rule of Law Tools on Consultations raises the need to consult with all victims even those abroad. We are unfortunately forced to conclude that there is no genuine willingness to consult the victims on the part of the Government in the setting up of mechanisms for Transitional Justice,” the letter said.

They went on to add that it would be ‘unacceptable’ if the OMP is designed without proper consultation with the victims and their communities.

We publish below the letter in full:

19 May 2016

Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, M.P,
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Colombo 01.

Honourable Minister,

Comments on the draft proposal to establish an OMP

We the undersigned organisations and individuals from the North-East of Sri Lanka submit as follows our view on the draft outline of the proposals put forward by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the setting up of an ‘Office for Missing Persons’ (OMP). These proposals were put forward in a briefing held with selected civil society activists on the 9th of May at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a leaflet that was circulated by the Ministry on the 13th of May on the same.

Featured image courtesy TamilGuardian

MCM IQBAL-on 05/19/2016

(This is an abridged version of a presentation made at a meeting at the University of London on 25th April, 2016. The full version can be read here)

Enforced disappearance of persons remains one of the widely known human rights violations in Sri Lanka. The machinery that had been set up during the past to perpetrate such incidents appears to have slowed down as a consequence to the passing of a Resolution at the UNHRC in September, 2015. However, this machinery could be switched on again if those in authority so desire. Dismantling this machinery and destroying the remains, is a challenge the government has to face.

The government has to now deal with an untenable number of complaints of disappearances that have been lodged with various national and international institutions calling for help to trace those who have disappeared. A bulk of the complaints relate to either the disappearances of persons after being abducted, handed to the security forces by wives or other relatives in response to a call by the military during the closing days of the war, or of those who surrendered to them in the presence of witnesses. There are also allegations of torture and sexual abuse of persons who had been in custody. Having to deal with these complaints along with those of enforced disappearances, to the satisfaction of the victims, is a daunting legacy the government has to face.

Long years of Emergency Rule and the availing of the obnoxious provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, have blunted the knowledge of the Police and the security forces of the manner in which they should deal with law and order issues during peace time. Extracting information and/or confessions from suspects by torturing them, continues to be the norm. The forces appear to know no other way in which investigations into allegations against suspects could be conducted. The government is now left with a legacy of a Police force that has gained experience in performing more military duties than civilian functions. Bringing about a metamorphosis in their mentality and methods of investigation is another challenge the Government has to face to restore law and order

Persistent pressure on the Government to remove the Emergency Regulations (ER) made the previous regime, remove it ostensibly.^[1] But soon afterwards the much maligned provisions of the ER were tagged on to the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) making it more virulent than it was before. ^[2]

It is the provisions of the PTA that enables persons to be abducted and detained instead of being arrested. Consequently there has arisen a need to remove the PTA from the laws of the land. The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka has stated recently that soon a British style anti-terrorism law will be introduced in place of the existing PTA.^[3]Let us hope that the new law does not turn out to be the same wine in a different bottle.

( Tamils IDPs in Sri Lanka)-20/05/2016

Alumni Perspective: Confronting the Complexity of Loss in Sri Lanka – by Gehan Gunatilleke.

Seven years ago on this day, the civil war in Sri Lanka came to a brutal end. Since then, a national conversation on transitional justice has gathered momentum, with the current government expected to fulfill its international commitments to establish mechanisms on truth, justice and reparations. As it does so, it will be confronted with a recurring claim advanced by certain actors within the state. Their claim is that the ‘Sri Lankan approach’ to transitional justice is based on ‘forgiving’ and ‘forgetting’.

Confronting the Complexity of Loss

My own experience as a lawyer and researcher in Sri Lanka has prompted me to reflect on this claim. These reflections inspired “Confronting the Complexity of Loss”, an introspective study that tests this claim by examining the views and opinions of 45 victims and survivors of human rights atrocities from across the ethnic and religious divide. In some ways, its conclusion—that Sri Lankans often differ on fundamental questions of truth seeking, memorialization and accountability—makes intuitive sense.

Imagine, for example, a family around a dinner table grieving the death of a loved one in a DUI incident.

We would not expect them to cope in the identical manner. We would not expect them to uniformly forgive the offender, nor unanimously demand his punishment. Some disagreement around that table would hardly surprise us. If we can conceive of a single family producing such diverse views, should we then reduce Sri Lankan victims and survivors to a single narrative?

I started asking these questions early on in my career when I represented victims in cases involving torture, detention and custodial death in Sri Lanka. In one particular case in 2008, I represented the wife of a man who died in the custody of the police. She wanted to know the truth about what happened to her husband. Despite police intimidation and her own family’s discouragement, she sought justice in the form of a declaration that her husband’s fundamental rights had been violated. Her resolute demand for truth and justice left a lasting impression on me, and influenced my understanding of Sri Lankan attitudes to truth and justice.

A year later, as a student in the International Human Rights Clinic, I focused mainly on the rights of detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. That work challenged me once again to reflect on the diversity of victim and survivor narratives. When I returned to Sri Lanka after graduating in 2010, I decided to engage in a study of the country’s history of violence, talking to victims and survivors who experienced violence firsthand. I focused on several tragic events, including the July 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom; the 1987-89 Marxist insurrection; the 1990 expulsion of Muslims from the Northern province; the 30-year ethnic war, including its final stages in 2009; and the 2014 anti-Muslim riots. From these interviews and historical analyses, I wanted to glean insights into how Sri Lankans understand and internalize notions of truth and justice.

“Confronting the Complexity of Loss” was published in 2015, following several years of research and reflection. Those who participated in the study differed vastly on whether they preferred to tell others about their loss; whether memorializing lost family members was desirable; whether the identity of perpetrators was important in the pursuit of truth and justice; and finally, whether perpetrators should be prosecuted and punished. In each case, victims and survivors presented views based on their personal experiences, value preferences and how they understood the context of their loss. There was simply no consensus with respect to a single approach—least of all an approach that prioritizes forgiving and forgetting. The conclusion, for me, was clear: the enormity of human loss cannot be reduced to a single narrative.

In view of this finding, my study recommends that, as the national conversation on transitional justice moves forward in Sri Lanka, mechanisms be designed to accommodate the broadest possible spectrum of preferences among victims and survivors. These mechanisms must respond to the diversity of needs and priorities among victims and survivors, including the discovery of the truth; the memorialization of events and lost relatives; and the accountability of perpetrators. A truly victim-centered approach must therefore accept victims and survivors in all their diversity and complexity, rather than homogenize them within a single reductive and coercive narrative of forgiving and forgetting.

Note: Gehan Gunatilleke, LLM ’10, is a human rights lawyer based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the Research Director of Verité Research. He teaches human rights and democratization at the University of Colombo. He is also a Commonwealth scholar at New College, University of Oxford.

haward.EDU

Still no resolution over Sri Lanka's missing priests

Jaffna Diocese wants answers in court and from the army about their whereabouts during the country's decades-long civil war

Catholics gathered May 18 to pay tribute to Father Mariampillai Sarathjeevan who died of a heart attack as he accompanied refugees out of a conflict area during the final days of Sri Lanka's civil war. (ucanews photo by Quintus Colombage)

Quintus Colombage and Niranjani Roland, Killinochchi Sri Lanka-May 18, 2016

A Jaffna diocesan official is demanding an answer from Sri Lankan authorities as to what happened to Catholic priests who disappeared under suspicious circumstances during the country's decades-long civil war.

"The local church still seeks an answer in court and from the army about the whereabouts of the missing priests but no information has been forthcoming," said Father S.V.B. Mangalarajah, president of the Justice and Peace Commission in Jaffna Diocese that was at the center of the civil war.

The war that began in 1983 came to an official end May 18, 2009 when the government overran Tamil Tigers, an insurgent group that fought to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the country's North and East.

Local diocesan sources say four Catholic priests disappeared and another 10 were killed.*

"What happened to the priests, no one knows," said Father Mangalarajah at a memorial gathering to remember Father Mariampillai Sarathjeevan at Our Lady of Fatima's Church in Uruthirapuram, May 18. Father Sarathjeevan died of a heart attack as he accompanied refugees from a conflict area during the final days of the war.

"But what happened to our missing Sri Lankan priests Father Jim Brown and Father Joseph Francis who surrendered to the army? asked Father Mangalarajah.

"Father Francis was among those leaving the war zone in May 2009 and passing through a military checkpoint where some people saw him but he is no more today," said the priest.

Father Jim Brown was last seen on a motorcycle at a checkpoint in Allaipiddy in 2006, an area then tightly controlled by security forces, said Father Mangalarajah.

"It was during a time of escalated warfare between the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers," he said. Father Brown, 34, had offered his church as a sanctuary to civilians who were being subjected to intense shelling in the Allaipiddy area.

The other priests who disappeared were American Jesuit Father Herbiet and Father Selvarajah who both disappeared in 1990.

"We are waiting for a sincere attempt from the new government to find the culprits, reveal the truth and show accountability so as to really promote reconciliation," said Father Mangalarajah.

According to civic rights activists many paramilitary groups, government security forces and the Tamil Tigers are responsible for the enforced disappearances during the conflict.

The U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances says Sri Lanka ranks second only to Iraq when it comes to wartime disappearances.

According to the United Nations the war claimed the lives of at least 40,000 civilians in its final days alone.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena was elected in January 2015 amid promises to promote reconciliation between Tamils, the country's largest ethnic minority, and the majority Sinhalese.

*These paragraphs were corrected. The 10th paragraph misstated that Father Mary Bastian went missing in 1985. Father Bastian was shot and killed along with 10 other civilians in 1985.

Related Reports

68 deaths, 132 missing & 414,627 displaced

FRIDAY, 20 MAY 2016

68 deaths have been already reported 132 people have disappeared, 28 injured and more than 414,627 persons from 98,076 families have been affected due to floods and landslides caused by heavy rains experienced throughout the island.

According to the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) 306773 persons from 61,382 families have been temporarily settled in 594 camps. It states 288 houses have been fully destroyed and 3057 half destroyed.

The DMC states 170,232 persons in Colombo District, 122,232 persons from Gampaha District and 9242 persons from Kalutara district have been affected due to floods and rain. The highest number of people affected in Colombo district is from Kolonnawa which is 94.151.

The water level in Kelani river is subsiding but the flood waters around Peliyagoda would remain for several days states the Department of Irrigation.

Meanwhile, in Nuwarawewa in Anuradhapura, Mahakandarawa Tank, Mahavilachchiya tank, Rajanganaya, Huruluwewa Tank and Angamuwa reservoir are spilling over. Also, Deduru Oya in Kurunegala District, Thabbowa reservoir in Puttalam District, Inginimitiya reservoir, Mavilaru and Janaranjana Tank in Trincomalee District, Periyamadu Tank and Nalanda Tank in Kandy District too are spilling over say authorities.

The National Building Research Organization (NBRO) states the risk of landslides and earth slips could occur in Kandy, Ratnapura, Kurunegala, Nuwaraeliya, Kegalle, Matale and Kalutara districts if rains continue for next few days. rescue operations in landslide-affected areas in Aranayaka and Bulathkohupitiya are continuing.

Tragedy on the mountainside

By Dharisha Bastians in Aranayake-Friday, 20 May 2016

The wails of Prema Adikari, 58, mingle with the howls of a small brown dog as they both stare at the muddy remains of a collapsed house on the hill through sheets of rain falling in the area again Thursday morning. A red collar made of twisted string is still fastened to the dog’s neck, a sign that he once belonged to someone in the landslide hit area. Villagers in Pallebage, say the dog has been howling for two days, when parts of the mountain crumbled and fell, crushing small settlements that lay upon its slopes.

Prema Adikari says her brother and his family of three lived in the house on the hill. “The neighbours had shouted for them to leave but I don’t think they heard over the gushing waters of the canal nearby during the rain,” she explains sobbing.

Behind her, a team of elite army commandos rushed up the slippery mountain to dig through the rubble in an effort to recover three bodies residents claimed were buried in the landslide debris. Adikari was convinced they were the remains of her family that was crushed by the mudslide on Tuesday evening.

Minutes later the commandos scurry down again as the rain gets heavier, causing large tree trunks, mud and debris to cascade forcefully down the slopes. The commandos urge villagers and journalists who have travelled up the slippery mountain, wading knee-deep in mud over inundated paddy fields in a bid to inspect the damage, to make for higher ground. For two days now, like aftershocks associated with a major earthquake, Aranayake has experienced mini landslides as torrential rains beat down on the exposed mountain slopes.

Adikari, who has journeyed here from her home in Matale, tells a policeman wearing raingear nearby that she hopes the army will recover the bodies of her family. “At least we can have a funeral,” she says as he assures her that when the rains finally cease the army should be able to dig through the rubble quicker.

Aptly named ‘Saamasaara Kanda’, the mountainside is home to both wealthy estate owners and impoverished plantation workers and day labourers. Trees full of ruby red jambu and pungent durian fruits grow wild and tall tamarind trees provide shade and carry soft breezes across the entire settlement at the foot of the mountain. A settlement, residents say, that looks nothing like it did two days ago.

Silt and mud from the slopes of the collapsing mountain washed into the vast fields of paddy in the valley, inundating the rice fields and concealing village wells and canals in the surrounding area. The mud has made the long trek up the mountain fraught with danger for military personnel almost exclusively leading the search and rescue efforts at the Aranayake landslide site. Special Task Force personnel used large poles and sticks to feel their way across the mud-flooded fields, up to the foot of the mountain.

“It takes three hours for the troops to get to the top of the slope, to the first site of the devastation,” Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, who is commanding the rescue mission in Kegalle said. His team of some 300 men, including elite commandos, medics and sniffer dogs had dug 16 bodies out of the landslide in Aranayake by last light yesterday. Another 14 bodies had been recovered in Bulathkohupitiya, the second landslide site, bringing the total fatalities from the landslides to 30 by the end of day yesterday. The military said 60 soldiers were working in Bulathkohupitiya, initially to locate 16 people unaccounted for after the disaster.

Major General Ranasinghe, who coordinates his rescue mission from a make-shift command centre at the Hathgampala Maha Vidyalaya said he was increasingly doubtful of finding survivors under the mountain rubble. “The sad thing is I believe the 134 people still missing could be dead,” he said, explaining that 66 houses in the path of the landslide had been completely demolished. “If we count three to a family in those homes, it corresponds with the figures of those still missing in this area,” Ranasinghe explained.

Major General Ranasinghe said rescue operations were severely hampered by the continuing rains in the area. “Already once today we had to call the troops off when the rain came down too hard,” he said last morning. “Soldiers are knee deep in mud, we can’t take any machines in yet, so this is still very slow going.”

Streams of people visiting to see the damage from neighbouring towns and villages were also hampering search operations, Ranasinghe explained. “These small mountain paths that are already dangerous because of the rain are getting so crowded, that even if we have injured people or personnel to transfer it will be so difficult,” he said.

Inside the Hathgampola Maha Vidyalaya district and divisional secretariat officials are registering displaced families and the missing. An information centre has also been set up in the school for affected families to provide or receive information about missing loved ones and neighbours. Local officials are also coordinating relief efforts in four displacement camps now housing more than 1000 people in Aranayake.

The Hathgampola Temple which is providing shelter for 374 people reeks of disinfectant as district nurses tend to the sick and children play quietly in a corner. The shelters are being flooded with relief supplies, with dry ration and food stores overflowing. Officials are asking people to try and find other ways to help victims of the landslides.

Some of those being sheltered at the temple have lost homes in Tuesday’s mudslide. Others have been evacuated by the army and government officials who fear further collapses on the mountainside that could crush remaining homes.

“We are not afraid to go back home, but the officials won’t let us. They say our homes are now in a risky area,” said Amali Nimanthika, a brick-maker’s daughter from the Pallebage village.

Nimal Ariyaratne fell beside a canal while he was escaping and took shelter close by until the worst was over on Tuesday night. At the Hathgampola Temple for two days now, he is still searching for word of his daughter, her husband and two small children who have been missing since the landslide hit.

Residents blame the scale of the disaster on heavy quarrying on the mountain to build a road nearby and illegal deforestation to create vast tea estates in the area.

The Sri Lanka Red Cross said some residents were complaining that they had not been warned of a landslide risk ahead of time by local officials in charge of disaster management. But Red Cross officials also said the Government did not have the man power to go door to door and relied mostly on word of mouth and megaphone announcements.

But Major General Ranasinghe said some parts of the villages had been warned ahead of time of landslide risks due to heavy rain in the area. The Saamasaara Kanda was so fertile he said, people were reluctant to leave. Military personnel working in Aranayake yesterday said that even after the tragedy, people were still hesitant to leave the fertile valley. When military personnel went door to door to warn people to evacuate their homes, they had replied: “We will never leave this mountain and go.”

SAMPANTHAN COMMENDS THE PEOPLE FOR THEIR SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE AFFECTED BY FLOODS

20/05/2016

Statement of the Hon R Sampanthan, Leader of the Opposition of Parliament on the prevailing adverse weather situation.

I express my deepest condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones and their properties and all displaced due to the prevailing inclement weather conditions, landsides and floods.

I would like to call upon the government to take all steps necessary to provide urgent relief to meet the food, health and housing requirements of the affected people.

I urge all those affected to remain calm and offer their fullest co-operation to those leading relief and rescue operations.

I would like to commend the people of Sri Lanka for their overwhelming response to assist those affected and I urge them to continue their support as it is very essential to the affected people to overcome this situation.

My plea to all Sri Lankans during this time of adversity is to remain united and hopeful so that we could transform this adversity for the ultimate betterment of our people.

R Sampanthan,

Leader of the Opposition of Parliament. Member of Parliament of Trincomalee District

19^th May 2016. Office of the Leader of the Opposition of Parliament

CB governor alleges political ulterior motive in campaign against him

* Slams DEW and Jayaratne
* Defends son-in-law’s primary dealership
* Justifies BoC bankrolling Perpetual Treasuries bids
* Refuses to divulge details of primary dealers’ bids
* Claims economic growth accelerated after change of govt.

By C. A. Chandraprema-May 19, 2016, 12:00 pm

Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran’s term of office ends in June this year. There have been calls from opposition politicians as well as good governance activists for the government to investigate alleged malpractices in the issuance of treasury bonds during his tenure before reappointing him for another term. One of the bond issues was investigated by the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) but parliament was dissolved just before the day on which the report of the COPE sub-committee headed by D. E. W. Gunasekera was to be tabled inP. In this exclusive interview with The Island, Governor Mahendran contests the allegations against him.

Q. If you look at the front page of The Island today (Wednesday), Mr D. E. W. Gunasekera has called for an investigation into what he refers to as the ‘bond scams’ before your term is extended in June this year. He calls this the biggest scam in Sri Lankan history. Aren’t all these problems due to the fact that you started going in for bond auctions instead of direct placements as was the earlier practice?

A. All I can say is that the Supreme Court has vindicated me in the fundamental rights petition that was filed by Mr Chandra Jayaratne and two others on the same issue. Mr D. E. W. Gunasekera has a very outdated impression of how the economy works. In the modern economy the government can’t manipulate market prices.

One of the issues that I took up after I became Governor was that the determination of interest rates had not been left to market forces. It was being done administratively by the people in the Central bank. The rate of interest should be determined at an auction. That is the way it is done everywhere in the world. The members of the previous regime say that the interest rates under that previous system were lower than at the auctions. But that is beside the point.

My critics are accusing me of arbitrarily raising interest rates whereas the whole purpose of having auctions is to determine at what price the market will provide those funds to the government. The government had to borrow vast amounts of money to pay the salary increases that were announced, both by Mahinda Rajapaksa and subsequently by President Maithripala Sirisena’s government. In the past they were using the EPF, the Insurance Corporation and the state banks to fund the government’s borrowing and artificially set interest rates at whatever level they wanted to. The problem with that system is that firstly, the EPF contributors were being short-changed. They can get a much better rate of interest for their investments if there is an auction. Secondly, the banks who should be lending this money to private borrowers were instead lending that money to the government. In Mr Gunasekera’s scheme of things the government as in a communist state would manage the flow of lending throughout the economy. That system has now been discredited and is only practiced in North Korea. Even Cuba has given up that system.