Monday, October 3, 2016

Trump Foundation ordered to stop fundraising by N.Y. attorney general’s office

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump takes the stage Aug. 20 for a campaign event at Fredericksburg Expo Center in Fredericksburg, Va. (Molly Riley/AFP/Getty Images)

By David A. Fahrenthold October 3 at 1:00 PM

The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law — by soliciting donations without proper certification — and ordered Trump’s charity to stop its fundraising immediately, the attorney general’s office said Monday.

James Sheehan, head of the attorney general’s charities bureau, sent the “notice of violation” to the Donald J. Trump Foundation on Friday, according to a copy of the notice provided by the press office of state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D).

The night before that, The Washington Post reported that Trump’s charity had been soliciting donations from other people without being properly registered in New York state.

According to tax records, Trump’s foundation has subsisted entirely on donations from others since 2008, when Trump gave his last personal donation. This year, the Trump Foundation made its most wide-ranging request for donations yet: It set up a public website, donaldtrumpforvets.com, to gather donations that Trump said would be passed on to veterans’ groups.

But the Trump Foundation never registered under article 7A of New York’s Executive Law, as is required for any charity soliciting more than $25,000 a year from the public. One important consequence: Trump’s foundation avoided rigorous outside audits, which New York law requires of larger charities that ask the public for money.

The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold explains why the New York attorney general’s office on Sept. 30 ordered the Donald J. Trump Foundation to stop fundraising immediately. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

“The Trump Foundation must immediately cease soliciting contributions or engaging in any other fundraising activities in New York,” Sheehan wrote to the foundation, of which Trump himself is still president. The Trump Foundation has no paid employees, and its board consists of Trump, three of his children and one Trump Organization employee. They all work one half-hour per week, according to the charity’s most recent IRS filings.

Schneiderman ordered the Trump Foundation to supply the state, within 15 days, with all the legal paperwork required of charities that solicit money from the public.

In addition, Sheehan ordered that Trump’s foundation provide all the financial audit reports it should have provided in prior years, when it raised money without legal permission. He said that if Trump’s foundation did not stop its fundraising and file the proper paperwork, that would be considered “a continuing fraud upon the people of New York.”

Trump’s campaign has not responded to The Post’s questions about the Trump Foundation’s registration in New York state. The campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Schneiderman’s order, sent early Monday afternoon.

Colombia and Farc scramble to rescue peace deal amid worries of return to war

Farc leader Timochenko says ‘peace is here to stay’ and that rebels will insist on the deal that has already been signed despite its rejection by voters

A man reads a newspaper announcing the results of the referendum that surprisingly said no to the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Farc guerrillas. Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

Sibylla Brodzinsky in Bogotá-Monday 3 October 2016

Colombia has begun grappling with the astonishing rejection by voters of a peace deal to end 52 years of war with Farc guerrillas, after a referendum on Sunday which has thrown the country into a state of confusion and uncertainty.

Reeling from the stunning defeat for the deal that took four years of arduous negotiations to conclude, both the government and the Farc have said they will persist in seeking peace for the country after 50.2% of voters rejected the agreement, to 49.7% who approved it.

“Peace is here to stay,” Rodrigo Londoño, the Farc commander-in-chief known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, said in a video statement from Havana on Monday, adding that the rebel group’s members would not return to hostilities in a war that has cost more than 220,000 lives and displaced more than 6 million from their homes.

His comments echoed a speech after the results were released on Sunday night by Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, who has staked his presidency on the peace deal. “I will not give up.”

The no campaign, led by Santos’s arch-rival and former president Álvaro Uribe – who has been the most stringent critic of the president and the peace deal – has said the plebiscite results give the government a mandate to renegotiate the accord with the Farc.

But in a hint of the difficulties to come, Timochenko indicated that the guerrilla group would insist on the peace deal that has already been signed. “We remain faithful to what has been agreed to,” he said.

While those who voted no continued to celebrate the outcome, those who had been sure of a yes win could not hide their sorrow, disbelief and concern.

“The plebiscite was magnificent because this means that the president can’t hand over the country to the Farc on a silver platter like he wanted to,” said Luis Bernal, 47, a doorman at a residential building in Bogotá, echoing a common refrain of those who felt the government had been too soft with the guerrillas in negotiations.

But César Ramos, who voted yes, said he was staggered by the outcome of the vote. “I woke up depressed. I was so hopeful that today Colombia would be different,” said the 19-year-old university student. “Things are going to get very difficult now.”

Things have always been difficult in Corinto, a small town in Cauca province that has lived for decades in the crossfire between the Farc and the military. People there, as in many of the areas hardest hit by the conflict, voted overwhelmingly for yes.

Gustavo Manrique said few people in Corinto could understand how the rest of the country rejected the peace deal. “This shows just how divided we are as a nation,” he said in a telephone interview from his home. “Now we are filled with uncertainty. Will the bombs start falling on us again? Are we going back to the bad old days?”

Both the Farc and Santos have said they will maintain a bilateral ceasefire that has been in place since 29 August. But it is unclear how long the truce can last in the current political atmosphere.

Santos called a meeting on Monday to discuss what comes next with political leaders, including members of Uribe’s Democratic Centre party. But Uribe and his followers stayed away from the meeting, and laid out their own terms for dialogue by asking the government to name “delegates” to talk to the no camp.

Aside from his criticism of the deal, Uribe has not made public any concrete proposals to fix it. Andrew Reiter, a professor at Mount Holyoke College who studies why peace treaties fall apart, said the result of the plebiscite was a “significant blow to that country’s prospects for peace”.

“Right now, there is still a lot of rhetoric about peace, but no one has any concrete plans about a way forward,” he said.

After the meeting, the government’s top two negotiators flew to Havana to take stock of the political landscape in emergency talks with the Farc leadership. Humberto de la Calle, the head of the government’s peace delegation, offered the president his resignation, saying: “The errors that we have committed are my responsibility alone.” Santos rejected his offer to stand down.

Under the agreement rejected by voters, the Farc’s 5,800 fighters and a similar number of urban militia members would have disarmed and become a legal political party, ending the armed struggle they began in 1964 under the banner of seeking social justice. Whether or when that will happen is unknown.

The deal would have also allowed rebel leaders to avoid jail if they confessed to their crimes, such as killing, kidnapping, indiscriminate attacks and child recruitment, something that many Colombians found hard to swallow.

All the provisions of the agreement are now in limbo.

“The deal as it has been negotiated by the Santos administration is dead and cannot be implemented,” said María Luisa Puig, an analyst with Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Malaysian cops bust 9 Aussies for wearing flag-themed undies at F1 race

Image via @Ranes 1985

3rd October 2016

NINE Australian nationals found themselves in hot water on Sunday after they stripped down to underwear carrying motifs of the Southeast Asian country’s national flag during its leg of the Formula One (F1) Grand Prix.

The authorities said the men, reportedly F1 fans aged between 25 and 29, were arrested after the race at about 5pm in the Sepang International Circuit (SIC).

“They will be remanded for four days beginning today. The remand period will be discussed with the Deputy Public Prosecutor for further action,” Sepang district police chief Assistant Commissioner Abdul Aziz Ali was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Photographs of the ‘stripped’ men celebrating the end of the race on the track went widely circulated on social media, sparking outrage among netizens while others thought it was laughable.

The arrested men, according to the NST, were being investigated under Section 504 of the Penal Code for intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace and Section 14 of the Minor Offences Act 1955.

SEE ALSO: 4 foreigners plead guilty to posing naked on Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu

Wearing ‘revealing’ swimwear is not illegal in the Muslim-majority country but foreign visitors are constantly reminded to dress modestly in line with local customs. The arrests yesterday were made after members of the public became offended over the ‘insult’ to the ‘Jalur Gemilang’ flag.

At press time, the Australian embassy in Kuala Lumpur had yet to issue a comment on the arrests.

In June last year, four foreigners were dragged Malaysian court after they stripped on Mount Kinabalu. The four – two Canadian sisters, a British woman and Dutch man – were jailed for four days.

Indonesia: Close gap between rhetoric and reality on 1965 mass human rights violations

Following statement issued by the Amnesty International, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), East-Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), La’o Hamutuk, TAPOL, Watch Indonesia! and Yayasan HAK

( October 3, 2016, Jakarta, Sri Lanka Guardian) Despite President Joko Widodo’s repeated commitments to address human rights violations committed in 1965 – such as extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture – more than five decades later millions of victims and their families are still waiting for truth, justice and reparation. On the 51stanniversary of these violations, Amnesty International, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), East-Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), La’o Hamutuk, TAPOL, Watch Indonesia! and Yayasan HAK call on the Indonesian authorities to go beyond just rhetoric. We call on the authorities to take concrete steps that address ongoing impunity for these crimes in accordance with international law and standards.

In August 2015, President Widodo announced in his Independence Day speech that he would establish a non-judicial mechanism to ‘resolve’ all past human rights violations. This would be through a ‘reconciliation committee’, so that “future generations in Indonesia would not continue to bear the burden of history”. However, victims and NGOs are concerned that this process may prioritize reconciliation to the detriment of truth and justice.

Our organisations believe that the establishment of a non-judicial mechanism to address past human rights violations does not preclude Indonesia’s obligations under international law. These obligations are to investigate and, if sufficient admissible evidence exists, prosecute those suspected of human rights violations and crimes under international law in fair trials, with no recourse to the death penalty. The absence of such a process would leave victims without an effective remedy and could hinder their right to adequate reparations. Furthermore, it could weaken public confidence that the authorities are serious about addressing the wider culture of impunity in Indonesia and send the wrong message that such acts can be committed without facing any consequences.

In April 2016, in a positive step, the government organized a symposium on the 1965 human rights violations. The event brought together survivors, scholars, human rights activists, artists, the Indonesian military and government officials to provide testimony about the events that happened across Indonesia at that time. Unfortunately, after the symposium the authorities failed to agree a way forward to end impunity for the 1965 mass human rights violations and even ruled out making a formal public apology for their role in these crimes.

Subsequently, there has been further scepticism of the government’s commitment to address past human rights violations when President Widodo appointed General Wiranto to the post of Coordinating Minister for Political, Law and Security Affairs in July 2016. Wiranto was indicted for crimes against humanity by a UN sponsored tribunal in Timor-Leste and named as a suspect in the inquiry initiated in 1999 by Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) for gross violations of human rights in East Timor surrounding the 1999 referendum. To date, however, Indonesia has failed to charge him.

Amnesty International, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), East-Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), La’o Hamutuk, TAPOL, Watch Indonesia! and Yayasan HAK urge the Indonesian authorities to address the 1965 mass human rights violations by ensuring the rights to truth, justice and reparation. The effective prosecution of those responsible of human rights violations and crimes under international law will not only send a strong signal about Indonesia’s commitment to justice and the rule of law but will also strengthen the efforts of all victims and their families who have, for several years, been fighting to ensure accountability for the serious crimes committed in different parts of the country.

Background

An estimated 500,000 to one million people were unlawfully killed and hundreds of thousands were held without trial for periods ranging from a few days to more than 14 years when the Indonesian military launched a systematic attack against members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and suspected sympathizers. Investigations by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) and other human rights organizations have documented a range of human rights violations during this period including unlawful killings, torture, enforced disappearances, rape, sexual slavery and other crimes of sexual violence, slavery, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced displacement and forced labour. Many victims and their families also faced violations of their social, economic and cultural rights, and continue to this day to experience discrimination in both the law and in practice.

A three-year investigation into the human rights violations committed in 1965 was carried out by Komnas HAM and was completed in July 2012, concluded that the findings meet the criteria of gross human rights violations, and include crimes against humanity, as defined by the Indonesian Law No. 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts. To date, however, there has been no indication that the government will even launch a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, attempts to establish a truth commission on the national level have stalled due to a lack of political will.

IMF Officially Gives China A Seat at the Adult Table of World Economies

BY DAVID FRANCIS-OCTOBER 3, 2016

China has the world’s second-largest economy, but its currency, the renminbi, has long been kept out of the International Monetary Fund’s elite club of the world’s strongest national tenders. That changed this weekend.

After years of liberalization reforms, the IMF announced Saturday the renminbi would join the bank’s group of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currencies. The group curries a kind of pseudo-currency, which is used only by the IMF to supplement countries’ official coffers when finances are tight. The value of this currency is determined by the strength of each of the currencies in the basket — the dollar, the pound sterling, the euro, the Japanese yuan, and now the Chinese renminbi.

Inclusion in the SDR is largely symbolic in terms of market movement; China’s lagging economic growth isn’t going to get a shot in the arm simply because it’s now been included. But it is a reward for recent efforts by China to open up its economy to foreign investment and influence, something U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have for years demanded.

But IMF’s inclusion of the renminbi is important. It’s an acknowledgement that China, after decades of being closed to the kind of foreign investment that can be made in free markets all over the world, is opening for business. It also shows that Beijing is allowing its economy to be subject to the same supply and demand forces that push the American, European, Japanese, and British economies in positive or negative directions.

Finally, the IMF’s decision shows that the emergency-lending bank believes China is increasingly allowing markets to determine the value of the renminbi. Currency manipulation by Beijing is a hot-button issue on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign trail, where both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton have accused Beijing of keeping the value of its currency low to promote lagging Chinese exports.

“The inclusion into the SDR is a milestone in the internationalization of the renminbi, and is an affirmation of the success of China’s economic development and results of the reform and opening up of the financial sector,” the People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, said in a statement

The IMF rejected China’s application to join the SDR in 2010. It had kept the renminbi out of the SDR because it historically hasn’t been “freely usable,” meaning that it wasn’t widely used to pay for international transactions or traded on international monetary exchanges. In August 2015, the fund extended its SDR currency basket window to September 2016. At the time, the IMF said the new timeline would give countries drawing from the fund, like Ukraine, “lead time to adjust in the event that a decision were to be taken to add a new currency to the SDR basket.” But it also gave China more time for liberalization reforms.

China took full advantage. After an August 2015 IMF progress report determined China hadn’t embraced liberalization reforms the IMF demanded — and that Chinese President Xi Jinping had long promised — Beijing took the hint. A week later, it allowed the renminbi to “float” for three days and let supply and demand determine its value, just like the euro, pound, and dollar do each day. As its value decreased, the value of Chinese stocks plummeted, taking the rest of the world down with them.

Then, in September 2015, China announced it would open its domestic foreign exchange market to foreign central banks, allowing the likes of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to make bets on the renminbi’s value. In the past, central banks would have had to route investments in the yuan, the name of an individual unit of Chinese currency, through local banks — a costly and complicated process.

This move was an imperative one, because central banks can now hedge bets on other currency, like the euro or dollar, in China because they can take a position on the renminbi.

In addition, the People’s Bank of China announced in October 2015 it would remove caps on deposit rates. This means financial institutions can offer Chinese savers a market-based rate of return for their money, as opposed to one determined by the Chinese central bank.

None of this means that the renminbi will be replacing the dollar as the world’s standard currency any time soon. As Lew noted last week, “Being part of the SDR basket at the IMF is quite a ways away from being a global reserve currency.”

The IMF’s decision also does not mean that Chinese authorities will stop meddling in their economy to keep its currency strong or to prevent massive stock losses Chinese stocks experienced last summer.

“We believe that the Chinese authorities will remain committed to exchange rate flexibility and capital account liberalization over the long-term as they hope to internationalize the [Chinese yuan] but progress is likely to be gradual and bumpy,” a team from BMI Research, which covers emerging markets, said a recent research note.

Photo credit: LINTAO ZHAANG/Getty Images

Call on Mexico’s President to find the missing and stop the torture

URGE MEXICO TO FIND THEM AND HALT AN EPIDEMIC OF TORTURE AND DISAPPEARANCES

28,000+ MISSING IN MEXICO

43 Student Teachers and 28,000+ Others Missing in Mexico. Urge Mexico to find them and halt an epidemic of torture and disappearances.

On September 27, 2014, the tortured body of student Julio César Mondragón, was found.

Hours before, on the evening of September 26, Julio César and other students from a teacher-training college in Ayotzinapa were on their way to a protest when local police opened fire on them. Six people were killed and others badly injured. Eyewitnesses saw police take 43 students away. They have not been seen since.

The families and classmates of the Ayotzinapa students, along with Mexicans from all walks of life, have courageously taken to the streets in the hundreds of thousands to call for action. The protests are fuelled by the terrible knowledge that what was done to the students of Ayotzinapa is only the tip of a horrifying iceberg.

MORE THAN 28,000 PEOPLE
ARE REPORTED DISAPPEARED
OR MISSING IN MEXICO

More than 28,000 people are reported disappeared or missing in Mexico, almost half of them during the current government of President Peña Nieto. The few victims of disappearances and abductions whose remains have been found have displayed evidence of torture. Indeed, torture is out of control with a 600% rise in reported cases in the past decade.

TAKE ACTION

LEARN MORE
REPORT: Mexico: Gross incompetence and inertia fuels disappearances epidemic

Paris climate accord to go into force - but faces test of enforcement

A frog is seen on ground cracked by drought in the Las Canoas Lake, some 59 km (37 miles) north of the capital Managua April 8, 2010.REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas/Files

By Alister Doyle-Mon Oct 3, 2016

A global agreement on climate change is set to win enough ratifications by signatory nations this week to go into force in November, heralding a harder phase of turning promises into cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, outlining a shift from fossil fuels this century, says efforts to oversee compliance will be "non-adversarial and non-punitive", raising questions about how to ensure governments pull their weight.

The European Parliament is set to give the green light on Tuesday for European Union states to join up this week, tipping the accord past a threshold of nations accounting for 55 percent of world emissions to enter into force.

So far, the 2015 Agreement has backing from 62 countries responsible for 52 percent of emissions, after India approved it on Sunday. Once it reaches 55 percent, it will enter into force in 30 days.

"The key question will be implementing the agreement. There's no legal enforcement of pledges," said Robert Watson, a British-American scientist and former head of the U.N.'s panel of climate experts.

The hope is governments will feel a "moral obligation" and "peer pressure" to act, he told Reuters.

Under the Paris Agreement, almost 200 states have set their own national targets for emissions, with five-yearly national reviews and promises to set ever tougher goals.

David Waskow, of the World Resources Institute think-tank, said the rapid ratification was a sign of willingness to tackle emissions, blamed for heatwaves, floods, downpours and a rise in ocean levels.

"This lightning-quick process has shown ... the depth and breadth of political support," he said.

The Paris Agreement aims to limit a rise in world temperatures to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above those in pre-industrial times. The United Nations says current pledges are too weak to reach that goal.

The agreement is likely to enter into force before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8. Republican nominee Donald Trump opposes the deal, while Democrat Hillary Clinton is a strong supporter.

It would also enter into force before an annual meeting of environment ministers in Marrakesh, Morocco, next month, which is expected to work on the nuts and bolts of the deal.

"Marrakesh will be more of a 'roll up your sleeves' working (meeting) than a big set of ground-breaking decisions," said Jake Schmidt, of the U.S. National Resources Defense Council.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Andrew Roche)

Medicine Nobel for cell recycling work

Yoshinori Ohsumi has been a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology since 2009

By Michelle Roberts-3 October 2016

The 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine goes to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan for discoveries about the secrets of how cells can remain healthy by recycling waste.

He located genes that regulate the cellular "self eating" process known as autophagy.

Dr Ohsumi's work is important because it helps explain what goes wrong in a range of illnesses, from cancer to Parkinson's.

Errors in these genes cause disease.

Last year's prize was shared by three scientists who developed treatments for malaria and other tropical diseases.

"Self-eating"

The body destroying its own cells may not sound like a good thing. But autophagy is a natural defence that our bodies use to survive.

It allows the body to cope with starvation and fight off invading bacteria and viruses, for example.

And it clears away old junk to make way for new cells.

Failure of autophagy is linked with many diseases of old age, including dementia.

Research is now ongoing to develop drugs that can target autophagy in various diseases, including cancer.

The concept of autophagy has been known for over 50 years, but it wasn't until Dr Ohsumi began studying and experimenting with baker's yeast in the 80s and 90s that the breakthrough in understanding was made.

Dr Ohsumi is reported to be surprised about receiving his Nobel Prize, but "extremely honoured".

Speaking with the Japanese broadcaster NHK he said that the human body "is always repeating the auto-decomposition process, or cannibalism, and there is a fine balance between formation and decomposition. That's what life is about."

Prof David Rubinsztein, an expert in autophagy at the University of Cambridge, said he was delighted that Dr Ohsumi's vital work had been recognised and rewarded.

"His pioneering work in yeast led to the discovery of the key genes and fundamental biochemical processes that are required for autophagy.

"As autophagy is well conserved from yeast to man, his laboratory's discoveries have also provided the critical tools to many labs to enable the appreciation of the important roles of autophagy in diverse physiological and disease processes.

"These include infectious diseases, cancers, and various neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease and forms of Parkinson's disease. Indeed, autophagy manipulation may provide a key strategy for treating some of these conditions."

More than 270 scientists were nominated for the prize, which was awarded at Sweden's Karolinska Institute and comes with eight million Swedish kronor (around £728,000 or $936,000 or 834,000 euros) for the winner.

The winners of the physics, chemistry and peace prizes are to be announced later this week.

2015 - Three scientists - William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura and Youyou Tu - foranti-parasite drug discoveries.

2014 - Three scientists - John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser - fordiscovering the brain's navigating system.

2013 - James Rothman, Randy Schekman, and Thomas Sudhof for their discovery of how cells precisely transport material.

2012 - Two pioneers of stem cell research - John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka - were awarded the Nobel after changing adult cells into stem cells.

2011 - Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman shared the prize after revolutionising the understanding of how the body fights infection.

2010 - Robert Edwards for devising the fertility treatment IVF which led to the first "test tube baby" in July 1978.

2009 - Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for finding thetelomeres at the ends of chromosomes.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

New counter-terrorism law to replace PTA - PM

October 1, 2016

Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe says the country is cleaning up its act when it comes to human rights abuses.

Wickremesinghe, who is on a three-day visit to New Zealand, had formal talks with Prime Minister John Key at Government House in Auckland today.

Amnesty International had pressured Key to discuss human rights with Wickremesinghe during the talks, pointing out that Sir Lankan security forces have been implicated in tens of thousands of disappearances.

Executive director of Amnesty New Zealand Grant Bayldon said he wants Key to push for Sri Lanka to repeal its Prevention of Terrorism Act which “is basically a license to abduct and torture people.”

“It also needs a law to make disappearances illegal, and it needs to work much harder to investigate those disappearances,” Bayldon said.

Today, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said the Sri Lankan government is going through most of the things it has promised to achieve, including setting up a missing persons office.

“I think by next week the first draft of the counter-terrorism law, which will be placed in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, will be available for discussion,” he said.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe hopes by next March all these things will be behind Sri Lanka. He said it’s a quite open society these days, where fear is no longer a factor.

Animal rights group SAFE also wants John Key to reject Sri Lanka’s offer of another elephant to join the breeding programme at Auckland Zoo. Source: Newstalk ZB -Agencies

The Relevance Of British Hypocrisy & Cameron’s Duplicity To Sri Lanka

By Rajeewa Jayaweera –October 2, 2016

Rajeewa Jayaweera

Less than six months after the controversial Brexit referendum resulting in the resignation of David Cameron as Prime Minister, another storm is brewing in Britain on the vexed issue of investigation of British soldiers accused of human rights violations which may turn out to be war crimes, during their tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anger among the public and in some quarters in the political leadership seems to be on the rise against what is believed to be the ‘hounding’ of British soldiers, 13 years after the conflict.

Investigation mechanisms were initially set up in 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labor government under pressure from Human Rights organizations. Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) was tasked with investigating around 1500 allegations of abuse in Iraq and Operation Northmoor of around 550 allegations of abuse in Afghanistan. Yet another mechanism, Iraq Fatality Investigations (IFI) was set up by the British government after the European Court of Human Rights decreed that previous investigations had breached procedural rules laid down by the European Convention on Human Rights. It is commonly believed these investigative mechanisms were set up not out of concern for abused Iraqi and Afghan civilians. This option was considered preferable to the prospect of British soldiers being dragged through the International Criminal Court (ICC) which Tony Blair ratified in 1998 long before Britain invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. A private law firm, Public Interest Lawyers, who represented almost all the Iraqi abuse claimants, folded operations in the summer after being stripped of legal aid by the British government due to claims of irregularities in its work. Meanwhile, serious reservations are being expressed of the risk of witnesses being unable to recall events accurately, in view of the time lapse since the alleged abuses. It is also feared some complaints may be trumped up solely for purpose of compensation.

“I do not think this process should ever have been put in place. I am very sorry that our soldiers and their families have been put through this ordeal. It is wrong to put themthrough the ordeal of a criminal investigation for events in a war zone as long as 13 years ago.” – Tony Blair

Some past and present British leaders have publicly voiced their opposition in no uncertain terms. Comments from former Prime Ministers Tony Blair who led Britain to both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who stated “I do not think this process should ever have been put in place” and David Cameron, current Prime Minister Theresa May, Defense Secretary Sir Michael Fallon and a former soldier and sitting Conservative MP, currently chairing a parliamentary inquiry into treatment of troops have been quoted to impress upon readers of the current mood in the British establishment. The father of a British soldier murdered along with five other colleagues by an Iraqi mob, while accusing the British government of “rank double standards” has stated “We hound our troops but won’t pursue my brave son’s killers”. A leading Sunday publication in a recent editorial comment stated “It is within the Government’s gift to wind down these inquiries – so why do they persist? Does the government believe this is the only way to avoid an international legal nightmare? If it allows them to continue, however, it risks abandoning Britain’s veterans to a personal nightmare of allegations that revisit the confusion and horror of war. It is a disgraceful way to treat veterans”.

“It’s clear that there is now an industry trying to profit from spurious claims lodged against our brave servicemen and women. It’s unacceptable and no way to treat the people who risk their lives to keep our country safe.” – David Cameron

The need for crimes committed by both soldiers and civilians to be investigated and those convicted to be punished, is a fundamental necessity in any civilized society. That said, the ever widening deficit in the sphere of rule of law in Sri Lanka is an undisputed fact. The 1983 pogroms against the Tamil community and the absence of a credible investigation to establish culpability and mete out justice even after thirty-three years stands to Sri Lanka’s eternal shame. Similarly, the Sri Lankan government in office from 2005 who single mindedly pushed for a military victory to the conflict as no other government before, failed miserably to address issues of misconduct by individual soldiers. The ‘zero causality’ theory was a monumental blunder and a clear sign of the government’s ineptitude and lack of sophistication in handling such matters.

OMP and the International convention on enforced disappearances

2016-10-03

The concept of sovereignty of the people as stated in the 1978 Constitution means the authority of the Government is created by the consent of the people.

The Government is granted with the people’s power ‘sovereignty’, on trust, in order to serve the public. This is the reason why in most democratic countries, Governments are known to be ‘by the people for the people.’ Peoples’ Sovereignty is a fundamental right guaranteed under the constitution. The writer is of the view that the recent passing of the “office of missing persons” bill was a violation of the citizens’ fundamental rights.

The draft Bill to establish an ‘Office on Missing Persons’ (OMP) was passed with amendments in Parliament without a vote on 11th August 2016. The Section 27(iii) of the OMP referred to the ‘International convention on enforced disappearances’. On perusal of the bill one will realise that the OMP bill does not have annexures attaching this convention by way of a schedule.

Also there appears to be a procedural flaw in signing and ratifying the convention, as the due process has not been followed in ratifying the convention at the United Nations office on 25th May 2016 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Sri Lanka. The real issue is the ‘International convention on enforced disappearances’ was ratified on 25th May 2016 without obtaining necessary parliamentary and cabinet approvals.
What was approved at the cabinet meeting on the 24th May 2016 (previous day) was not the convention itself but this controversial “OMP bill”, which was subsequently gazetted on 27th May 2016.
It is relevant to mention here that it was presented to the Parliament by the Prime Minister on 22nd June. The ‘convention on forced disappearances’ document has not been tabled in parliament either along with the ‘OMP’ bill or prior to presenting the said bill. Further it was revealed that the Foreign Ministry office did not have a copy of this convention in the Sinhala language, which is one of the official languages.

This shows that the passing of ‘OMP bill’ was not carried out with due care and caution. The procedure has not been followed and the members were not aware of the contents of the International convention as there was no attachment to the bill. According to the media reports, there are few more inconsistencies in the OMP bill. It could therefore be argued that the ‘OMP’ bill is inconsistent with the constitution and requires two-thirds’ majority and may be approval by the people at a referendum. It has to be expressly specified in the long title of a Constitutional Amendment Bill that the Bill is for the amendment to the Constitution, otherwise it is not valid.

It is noted that the four Presidential Commissions of Inquiry into the Disappearance of Persons, which were appointed in the 1990s, have made recommendations such as persons responsible for disappearances must be prosecuted no matter who the perpetrators are. It seems that so far no action has been taken in this regard. The OMP, if set up despite public protests, must first go into these matters and finality must be reached before initiating action on investigating new incidents.

As citizens we would like to verify these facts from the Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs as to why the above convention was ratified at the UN (papers were submitted to UN by MOF on 5th May 2016) without following the due process of obtaining necessary parliamentary and cabinet approval.
It is not too late for H.E the President, MS to refer this controversial OMP bill to the Supreme Court under article 129 where if he feels that it is expedient to obtain the opinion of the Supreme Court on any question of law stated in the ‘OMP’. Thereafter the SC shall report to the President its opinion.

We speak about a limited Government under unlimited sovereignty. What we bind to the law is the Government and not the sovereignty. Sovereignty remains unrestricted but institutions executive, legislature, and judiciary will have to observe its limitations. Even if The President of Sri Lanka, the ‘executive’ violates the constitution on a serious breach, an impeachment against the president could be brought up by the ‘sovereign’ the citizens of Sri Lanka.