Treasury bond scamsCOPE report holds Mahendran responsible

‘Good Governance’ MPs in last ditch-battle to defend their man
UNP to present alternative report disputing damning report
The Island draws fire for reporting committee proceedings

by Saman Indrajith-October 21, 2016, 9:41 pm 

Parliamentary watchdog committee, COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), yesterday approved its Chairman’s report holding former Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran responsible for Treasury bond scandals. The report recommends legal action against those involved in the scams and the recovery of losses from them, according to a senior COPE member.

The COPE met around 9.30 am in Parliament yesterday, following heated exchanges over the Mahendran issue the previous day, and the division continued resulting in UNP members of the committee saying that they would not agree with Chairman, JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti’s report. Of the 14 members of the COPE, who met yesterday, eight representing the UPFA and the JVP endorsed the Chairman’s report. They are Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Lakshman Seneviratne, Chandrasiri Gajadheera, Priyankara Jayaratne, Lasantha Alagiyawanne, Weerakumara Dissanayake, Bimal Ratnayake and Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa.

As they failed to secure majority to exonerate Mahendran of the treasury bond scam or change the report of investigation, the five UNP Members, Dr. Harsha de Silva, Ajith Perera, Sujeewa Serasinghe, Hector Appuhamy and Harshana Rajakaruna said that they would submit an alternative report of their own on the investigation, according to sources.

Sources said UNP Ministers Senasinghe and Perera openly faulted COPE Chairman and Auditor General at yester’s meeting in a threatening manner, demanding that they amend their findings. Minister Perera told the Committee that the Auditor General was neither the God nor the Buddha and others should not accept his word as the final. Perera became silent only when other members pointed out that it was unbecoming of an MP to threaten AG to change his report on the findings of an investigation conducted by his department. They said such action amounted to a punishable offence. Senasinghe wielding a photocopy of page one of The Island newspaper, which reported the proceedings of COPE on Thursday accused the COPE chairman of leaking the story to the media.Chairman Handunnetti vehemently denied the allegation.

The Chairman’s report concludes that there have been irregularities and malpractices of serious nature in the auctioning of treasury bonds from February 2015 to May 2016.

The irregularities and malpractices during the said period with Mahendran as the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) were proved beyond a reasonable doubt and it was revealed that they had caused the public and the international community to lose faith in the CBSL.

The COPE report recommends that severe punitive action be taken against those responsible for the bond scams. It also calls for the setting up of a committee or any other mechanism to monitor the progress of the implementation of the COPE recommendations and report it to Parliament.

Observing that Perpetual Treasuries company, owned by a relative of Mahendran has made massive profits during the period in question, the COPE report recommends that a special investigation be held into its financial gains. If that institution’s profit making resulted in any losses to the Central Bank, then the losses should be recovered from it, the report says.

The report also recommends the creation of a new mechanism to prevent occurrence of similar incidents in the future.

After eight members of the COPE had endorsed the report by placing their signatures thereon, the UNP MPs said that they would put out another report on the same issue.

The five UNP members, COPE Chairman, Auditor General and the COPE Secretarial staff stayed back after others had left the meeting around 1.30 pm, according to sources.

Sources said the COPE Chairman’s report on the bond scams would be presented to Parliament on Oct. 25 in spite of the UNP’s efforts to scuttle it. Finalising of the UNP report on Treasury bond scams had been postponed till Oct. 24, the senior COPE member said, adding that the UNP’s attempt to absolve Mahendran of what he did had failed at the end of 16-month long deliberations on the issue.

Court lifts injunction on ‘Silence in the Courts’

( October 21, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Colombo District Court today lifted the injunction order placed on Prasanna Vithanage’s film ‘Usaviya Nihandai’ (Silence in the Courts).

The order was first issued on October 5 after a lawsuit was filed by former District Judge Lenin Ratnayake, who alleged that the film was based on false facts and would cause damage to his character as well as to the entire judiciary.

நாடடை இழிவுபடுத்திய கோத்தா மீது விசாரணை-விக்கிரமபாகு வலியுறுத்து

பாரிய குற்றச் செயல்களுக்கு பாலமாக கருதப்படும் இராணுவத்தை பயன் படுத்திய இழிவு, கோத்தபாய ராஜபக்ஸவிற்கே உரியது என விக்கிரம பாகு கருணாரட்ன தெரிவித்தார்.

கொழும்பில் இன்று இடம்பெற்ற ஊடகவியலாளர் சந்திப்பின் போதே மேற்கொண்டவாறு குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளார்.

இதன்போது தொடர்ந்தும் கருத்து தெரிவித்த அவர்,

 நாட்டை இழிவு படுத்திய கோத்தபாய ராஜபக்ஸ மீது விசாரணை மேற்கொள்ளப்பட வேண்டும் எனவும் கேட்டுக்கொண்டுள்ளார்.

இராணுவத்தை பயன்படுத்தி நாட்டின் நீதித் துறையின் மீது களங்கத்தை ஏற்படுத்தும் வகையில் பலரை கடத்தி கொலை செய்த குற்றம் உறுதியாகி உள்ளது.

இவ்வாறான நிலையில், நாட்டிற்கு சர்வதேசத்திடம் இருந்தும் கிடைக்கும் அனைத்து உதவிகளும் இல்லாமல் போகும் என்றும் குறிப்பிட்டார்.

உதாரணமாக, வரிச் சலுகை, ஏனைய உதவி உட்பட அனைத்தும் இல்லாமல் போக வாய்ப்புள்ளதாகவும் இதன்போது சுட்டிக்காட்டினார்.

மேலும், நாட்டில் முக்கிய இடத்தில் இருக்கக் கூடிய ஒவ்வொருவரும் மக்களுக்கு எதிராக செயற்படுவதாகவும் குறிப்பிட்டார்.

இதேவேளை, இங்கு கருத்து தெரிவித்த ஜோசப் ஸ்டாலின்,

லசந்த விக்ரமதுங்க படுகொலை , பிரகீத் எக்னலிகொட காணாமல் ஆக்கப்பட்டமை, ரத்துபஸ்வெல துப்பாக்கி சூட்டு சம்பவம் போன்ற பல சம்பவங்கள் இராணுவத்தினரால் மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்டுள்ளதாகவும் குறிப்பிட்டார்.

மேலும், இதற்கு சட்ட நடவடிக்கை எடுக்கப்பட வேண்டும் எனவும் கேட்டுக்கொண்டார்.

Rajitha’s accusations that former Bribery Commissioner had secret deals with Rajapakses is an absolute lie !

(Lanka-e-News -21.Oct.2016, 2.15PM) The allegations made by minister Rajitha Senaratne the cabinet spokesman day before yesterday(19) that former Director General of Bribery and Corruption Commission Dilrukshi Dias Wickremesinghe was passing information of the confidential dealings  with the president to Mahinda Rajapakse the very next moment is an absolute lie , based on  inquiries made by Lanka e news. 

Based on the probe conducted  by Lanka e news, the confidential  information had been leaked to the crooked criminal corrupt Rajapakses by a pro Rajapakse language translator working in a Sri Lankan  Diplomatic mission here , and not by the former Director General of the Bribery Commission.

It is true that the former Director General also  had her foibles and faults ,but  the allegation that she had secret deals with the Rajapkses is an absolute lie and a serious false accusation , Lanka e news probe had unearthed. Rajitha mounting these false and untenable allegations against Dilrukshi while there exist two investigations against Rajitha himself at the Commission investigating Bribery and Corruption , is unethical  from all angles.

It cannot be forgotten that Dilrukshi was appointed by the present government of good governance , and that Gotabaya the elusive scoundrel  was hauled up in courts because of her bold and impartial actions taken in her line of  duty .

Meanwhile Dilrukshi who resigned her post as Director General of the Bribery Commission has resumed her duties at the Attorney General’s department today as additional Solicitor General , and Sunethra Jayasinghe who has been working   as  the deputy Director General  of the Commission investigating Bribery and corruption  was appointed as the Director General of the Bribery Commission .

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by     (2016-10-21 09:11:16)

‘Drexit’ from the Bribery Commission: The good, bad and ugly...

Our own local “Drexit”
Friday, 21 October 2016

So the President has ended all speculation and accepted the resignation. If the exit of Britain from Europe was “Brexit”, the resignation of our learned friend Dilrukshi from the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) must surely be “Drexit”; at least for the massive sensationalism it has created in the Colombo circuit. It even prompted me to awaken from the self-imposed media-hibernation to put these thoughts down. 

Firstly credit where its due, we must thank Wickramasinghe for the good work she did whilst in office, admire her stand of integrity by resigning no sooner she felt she was no longer in the pleasant disposition of her appointing authority and should she wish to return to the Bar, we wish her well and a warm welcome back! Similarly a big pat-on-the-back for President Sirisena for sticking to his guns without cowing down to the collaterally motivated pressure from all fronts to withdraw his statement, etc., thus proving that we backed the right candidate on 8 January last year; gradually asserting his authority and becoming the leader he ought to be, from the more diminutive Minister he was under the previous regime. 

The “Drexit” however is not so clear-cut as it appears with its myriads of political ramifications that appear to have tingled several quarters in their sensitive areas; all from their own personal perspectives (and evidently their self-interests), which therefore necessitates a crystallisation of at least the main issues involved; lest we too get caught up in the several “twists” to the story that has already got the spin-doctors working overtime. 

The roller-coaster ride 

in office

The now resigned DG/CIABOC held the most unenviable public office over the last year or so, since our People’s Revolution of 8 January 2015. Some praised her, others castigated her (depending upon their individual relative political benefit or loss) whilst the rest of the country were entertained with an exciting new circus in town; a game unfolding on the News as she batted-on hitting sixers and fours making headlines every day. 


Perhaps she has realised by now (if she was indeed unaware and naive to it whilst in office) that all these moves secured through the CIABOC was simply a scene of a larger drama being staged mainly for public consumption. Whilst the elite few that made the jet-sets from both sides (green or blue) continued their merry-governing, VVIP status, tamashas and unending foreign trips, she was simply a pawn on a political-chessboard being moved back and forth and when necessary, sacrificed to protect the Kings, Queens and the Bishops whose ultimate benefit we all appear to live for! 

Herein lies a good lesson for all Public Officers, not to become “Government Servants” bending backwards to please political masters of the day, who are only temporary custodians of an administration (and therefore only interested in their own political survival) but be independent “Public Servants” and serve the People and the Republic that you have sworn allegiance to and taken an oath to uphold. 

Sun Tzu – Of enemies and friends

Reality appears to have dawned on the MS led fraction of the Blues in the Green led hybrid Government. The old Chinese war strategy of keeping your enemies even closer than your friends, successfully followed by the Soviets and Chinese during the Korean war, that “your enemy’s enemy is your friend” appears to show its face in this three-cornered fiasco. For the Greens to emerge victorious the Blues have to be separated, divided between the MR and MS camps. The question is whether the CIABOC (as indeed the FCID or other such “special prosecution machinery”) were being used to create this dissension amongst the Blues. 

The Ratnapura rally, the Co-operative elections (however much the MS fraction publicly dismisses them as unimportant) started showing tell-tale signs that they were fast losing their grass-root bases. The continuing circus of FCID, CIABOC and other “prosecutions” which begin with gusto with massive media shows never seemed to end. This “arrangement” couldn’t have escaped the politically savvy MR camp, surely and has to be with some “understanding”, for they too kept a fairly low volume as long as the relatively expendable pawns were being sacrificed. However there appears to have been a double-cross somewhere, for suddenly the Joint Opposition voices reached a crescendo when the tentacles started reaching the big boys, including their next possible Presidential candidate; action was imminent. 

The MS led Blue camp have realised the game and reacted. There were renewed calls to investigate the Central Bank bond issues (closely linked to the Greens) and questions being raised as to why CIABOC was not investigating that. Several other queries and investigations are being reported at leading State Institutions like People’s Bank, Mihin and SriLankan Airlines, coal tender awards, etc. 

On the evening of 19 October, the Joint-Spokesman of the MS fraction openly criticised Lake House, ITN and other State media for misconstruing the President’s statement. For the moment they appear to have drawn the right card, as there is praise flowing even from the MR camp of dissident Blues who were earlier screaming for the President’s scalp. They may very well meet at some win-win compromise, but we can now hear a different tune from some quarters harshly criticising this statement, who were thought to be independent up to now but the music emanating from these groups are showing a rather visible Green hand behind them. 

Civil society movements: Chameleon politics or sheep in wolves’ clothing?

In the immediate aftermath of our 8 January 2015 Silent Revolution, long after the white-van fears and goon squads had disappeared, a strange phenomenon suddenly appeared; multitudes of gatherings under the general banner of “Civil Society”, who appeared to take an active interest in the affairs of State, criticising mainly the former MR regime and calling for rapid action. 

Having played at least a minute part in that revolution during a very dark period of our recent history, facing everything from tear gas to helmeted motorcyclists following us home, as for instance when we took on the draconian 18th Amendment; protested Lasantha’s assassination; defended (then) Gen. Fonseka’s Court Martial or the (then) Chief Justice’s removal; although we had not heard most of these characters even uttering a whimper of protest at the time, I for one welcomed this uprising of the citizen, putting it down to the sudden freedom of speech and democracy that we had been able to secure at great cost and personal peril. 

However when we hear some of these new “Civil Society voices” only criticising President Sirisena over his statement that led to “Drexit”, some actually seeking a retraction by the President and the resigned DG/CIABOC to remain in office; one begins to wonder whether they are as independent or nonpolitical as they appeared to be all this time. 

Whither then our people’s revolt of 8 January?

If such is the present status quo then those voices that genuinely agitated for change with us, not for any political gain or personal glory but with a true and sincere desire to leave a better country for our children need to raise their voices again; we need to re-group and get back into the struggle. I fully understand and appreciate that some of us would have been disgruntled or even given up completely that even after all that struggle we had been let down; that nothing appears to have changed but the same “system” was continuing, only with different faces. In that very disappointment lies the challenge for us, if we can, because unfortunately our work doesn’t appear to be completed. 

In this campaign on the specific issue of “Drexit”, we must now appeal to the President to rise above party politics to be the leader we elected you to be; not party chairman of the Blues nor partner in a Green led Government but our President for the entire Republic. In our effort to rid our country of large scale corruption the CIABOC plays a pivotal role; thus you need to appoint a strong, fearless and independent individual who will not even take your side when executing his/her duties. 

If you can do this, Mr. President, then you will truly show us that all those sleepless nights we spent jumping out of bed to put on a security light even at the slight sound or rustle outside, not in fear of our own lives but to ensure that our young families will not suffer harm would not have been in vain; then, Sir it would all have been worth our efforts. 

Power to the people!

How Dubai bank account probe got leaked!

Oct 21, 2016

At a media briefing on the 19th, minister Rajitha Senaratne shamelessly made a reference to former director general of the Bribery or Corruption Investigation Commission Dilrukshi Dias Wickremasinghe. He alleged that one hour after Dilrukshi got the signature of president Maithripala Sirisena to a document pertaining to investigate the Dubai bank accounts of Namal Rajapaksa, Mahinda Rajapaksa had given a phone call to president Sirisena and inquired from him as to whether he had signed such a letter. Senaratne implied that Dilrukshi has had connections with the Rajapaksa faction and leaked information to them.

However, Lanka News Web has details of the Dubai bank account and the correspondence alleged by Senaratne, which are as follows:

Getting hold of details of Namal’s Dubai bank accounts, a powerful minister of the government telephoned Dilrukshi and told her that the matter could be investigated through the Sheikhs who rule Dubai, and that she should contact Ports Authority director Suresh Edirisinghe who could act as the middleman, as he had close connections with them. This Edirisinghe is a double-cross character who had been an obedient servant of the Rajapaksas when they ruled the country, and then obtained positions from the ‘Yahapaalana’ government too.

Thereafter, a powerful minister and a senior DIG met the Dubai Sheikhs, who informed them that the matter could be dealt with like an inter-governmental matter (During the Dubai trip, Edirisinghe introduced a person named Tony to the minister and the senior DIG. But, it was actually the former LTTE international financial head Emil Kanthan).

As per the Sheikhs’ assurance, Dirukshi obtained an attorney license to the name of a senior lawyer from the president in order to deal with the bank accounts. It was to this letter that Senaratne referred at the media briefing. Obtaining the attorney license, Dilrukshi showed it to Edirisinghe, who obtained a copy and said he would leave for Dubai on the same day. But, he did not go to Dubai. He went and met Mahinda Rajapaksa and handed over the copy to him. Mahinda gave it to his son Namal. Namal told his political friends, “I will bring this out at the suitable moment.” That is how the Rajapaksas got to know details of the Dubai account investigation and they managed to find a way out of a serious financial fraud accusation.

Dirukshi waited for some time to see if the investigation went ahead through Edirisinghe, but seeing that it was not so, went to a private law firm in Dubai and produced the document to them. The Dubai Sheikhs became angry over this, as it was meant to be a government-to-government matter, and the investigation became a total failure.

In the meantime, the FCID launched an investigation against Edirisnghe, but his two government minister friends are disrupting the investigation. In the end, the Dubai bank account investigation became a failure. Everybody else have washed their hands off the matter, while placing the entire blame on Dilrukshi after she resigned from the commission.

Puttalam protest: fisher folk set fire to vehicles

2016-10-21

Fishermen in Kalapitiya engaged in a protest campaign against the use of illegal fishing methods have allegedly set fire to seven fishing boats, three motorcycles and a lorry.

The vehicles belong to other fishermen who allegedly use illegal fishing methods, it is learnt. The fishermen who have been out on the streets since yesterday had severely damaged the boats anchored at the harbor.     

A tense situation prevailed in the area this morning, which led to the Puttalam Police calling in the STF to control the situation.

Despite an interim order issued to prevent protestors from inconveniencing the public, the protestors blocked several roads in the area causing heavy traffic. (Padma Kumari)

Court orders Anura Senanayake to be moved out of hospital and into prison –Sickness racket exposed !

Doctor -mocker mafia helped him with false reports !

(Lanka-e-News -21.Oct.2016, 2.25PM)  Former senior DIG Anura Senanayake the accused in the brutal Thajudeen murder who is enjoying his incarceration in remand prison by getting himself admitted to the paying ward of the Colombo National hospital with the assistance of the latest breed of Doctor mockers’  mafia , was ordered by the Colombo additional magistrate Nishantha Peiris to move Anura Senanayake  out of the paying ward and detain him in prison. The additional magistrate issued this directive to the Prisons Authority yesterday .

In the order of the Magistrate which comprised 40 pages , it was stated the accused is not suffering from such a grave ailment to necessitate treatment in a hospital ward. 

The magistrate while saying nobody is above the law and all are equal before the law which is a basic tenet of justice , went on to emphasize that illness should not be determined or defined on the basis of status or affluence . At the same time all suspects should be entitled to medical treatment , but that does not mean , wealth should have a bearing on it, he added.  Hence he instructed the Prisons Authority to discharge the  duties in accordance with section  69 (1) of the Prisons Act.

Sri Lanka is a signatory to the UN charter regarding detainees , and providing medical treatment for payment is not covered by it , the magistrate pointed out. Besides , since 2003 , there was no occasion on which Anura Senanayake has taken indoor medical treatment after hospitalization , based on medical reports furnished , the magistrate observed. 

Meanwhile, the magistrate also issued  an order to  Professor Carlo Fonseka, the president of the medical society to furnish the report pertaining to  the investigations conducted by the medical society into  former Judicial medical officer Ananda Samarasekera , before the 30 th.The magistrate while lamenting that the report had been delayed inordinately - having taken 9 months , directed that the report be produced in court without undue delay as  justice shall be meted out on behalf of the people.

 Based on reports reaching Lanka e news , although Duminda Silva ,  Wimal Weerawansa’s brother , and several others have been sentenced to death , they are not in prison cells but in prison hospital. Believe it or not , it is the diseased doctor mockers mafia of SL that is shamelessly extending support to these evil manipulations and sickness conspiracies by providing false medical reports regarding their medical condition. Consequently the Prisons Commissioner too is unable to do anything about it. 

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by     (2016-10-21 09:14:10)

Vehicle permits for MPs is a racket – JVP

October 21, 2016

Making available duty free car permits for ministers and Parliamentarians every five years has made room for a racket states the JVP. Former JVP Parliamentarian Wasantha Samarasinghe says many Parliamentarians earn large sums of money by selling their duty free car permits they get every five years.

The Minister of Finance had said the reports that Parliamentarians are selling car permits could be false. However, Parliamentarian Udaya Gammanpila, when BBC asked him, admitted he sold his car permit. He had said he had to sell the permit as he didn’t have money to import a vehicle. Parliamentarian Gammanpila said he collected enough money to buy a vehicle by selling his permit.

Listen to the audio clip here.

JVP Provincial Councilor Wasantha Samarasinghe said making available a vehicle instead of the car permit would solve this issue.

He said the process of giving a duty free vehicle permit is a bribe as the permit is for an expensive car; Parliamentarians sell the permit for a huge amount, buy a vehicle from a portion of this amount and pocket the balance which could be more than Rs.1 million. He said this racket could be avoided by making available a car by the government for those who really need vehicles.

Kashmir

by Izeth Hussain

( October 22, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Shortly after I left the Foreign Ministry in 1989 I had an invitation to speak on the Kashmir problem by the head of a leading Muslim institution, a retired Supreme Court judge. It was to be part of a series of lectures on various topics of national interest. I declined to speak on Kashmir – choosing instead the Palestine problem – on the ground that making the Kashmir problem an issue in Sri Lanka could complicate our relations with India. That might be resented by the Sinhalese on the ground that we Muslims were giving too much priority to our Islamic identity and Islamic commonality with Pakistan over the national interest. That retired Judge showed a ready understanding of my argument. I believe that that reaction was not atypical of our Muslims who for the most part have played down the Kashmir problem in Sri Lanka. I myself have not written even one single article on Kashmir, though my output of articles has been prolific since 1989.

The Kashmir problem today is very different from what it was in 1989. International interest in it has been provoked by the rebel upsurge there since July, and there was more recently some amount even of international alarm over the possibility of war between the two nuclear weapons powers, India and Pakistan. Locally there have been excellent articles by Rajeeva Jayaweera and Lathif Farook, and an excellent updated version of scholarly material from one of G.H.Peiris’ books. It is time for me to speak out on Kashmir. In this article I want to point to its relevance for the Sri Lankan nation, and also to the question of shaping a new world order.

I won’t go into details about the genesis and evolution of the Kashmir problem as the interested reader can easily access the appropriate material through the internet. I want to emphasize two points above all. One is that India has put itself completely, blatantly, outrageously in the wrong on Kashmir. The other is that it is time for the international community to address the implications of that fact. It would be irresponsible, indeed criminally irresponsible, to fail to do so because there is obviously a prospect of an Indo-Pakistan nuclear war breaking out. Two facts must be born in mind. One is that the world came perilously close to nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis in 1961 – how perilously close is something that has been established only in recent times. The other is that Pakistan has made it clear enough that it would try to destroy India by using the bomb rather than face humiliation once again.

It must be acknowledged in favor of India that its behavior over Kashmir has been legally and technically impeccable. When irregulars from Pakistan invaded Kashmir in 1947 the Maharajah asked for Indian military intervention to repel them. Mountbatten, in the capacity of the Indian head of state, replied that that would be possible only if the Maharajah first acceded to India, which the latter proceeded to do. There followed in 1948 the UN Resolution calling for a plebiscite, to which India agreed. The Resolution was not mandatory, but advisory or recommendatory. Therefore India cannot be faulted for refusing on various grounds to hold the plebiscite. Prime Minister Nehru kept on promising over many years that the plebiscite would be held on the principle that the people of Kashmir should determine their own destiny, but that had no binding force particularly after Kashmir was Constitutionally incorporated into the Indian union.

A plausible case can therefore be made out to show that India’s position on Kashmir has been legally impeccable. But morally it has been blatantly and outrageously in the wrong. It was an accepted principle at the time of Partition that a state with a predominantly Muslim population would accede to Pakistan if it was territorially contiguous. That applied so clearly and unambiguously to Kashmir that the fact that it had a Hindu Maharaja should not have mattered in the least. It has never been clear to anyone why India was so adamant in refusing to hold a plebiscite. Krishna Menon was famous for his epic speeches at the Security Council which convinced no one. A popular theory was that Nehru’s Kashmiri Brahmin ancestry made it difficult for him to give up Kashmir. But it was Nehru himself who was most vociferous about the sacred right of the Kashmiri people to determine their own destiny. I suspect that the truth was that in refusing to hold the plebiscite India was challenging the very principle on which Pakistan was established: the successful integration of the Kashmiri Muslims into the Indian union would destroy the very rationale of Pakistan. Behind that was India’s arrogance of power towards a weaker neighbor.

An interesting question is whether Britain deliberately created Kashmir as a gigantic bone of contention so that India and Pakistan would not come together again. There were two notions that were widely current about the sub-continent until the ‘seventies. One was that India, which never was a unity historically and was a British political creation, would disintegrate after some time. The question used to be asked well into the ‘sixties, I recall particularly by Westerners, “After Nehru what?”, meaning that without a leader of his stature to hold India together it would disintegrate. The other notion was that Pakistan which was so obviously an artificial creation – with two wings widely separated by a thousand miles of alien territory – would disintegrate and rejoin India. Behind such notions there seemed to be Western fears about the emergence of an Asian great power.

The notion that the Kashmir problem was a British creation hinges partly around the role of Gurdaspur. I served in Pakistan in 1957/1958 during which time the established orthodoxy there was that Mountbatten was pro-Indian and anti-Pakistan and had therefore got the Kashmir Maharaja to accede to India, thereby starting the Kashmir problem. The Radcliff Commission was uncertain about what to do with Gurdaspur which had a slight Muslim majority but also an exceptionally important Sikh presence. By a process that is not clear to me Gurdaspur was integrated with India at the time of Partition, thereby providing India with its only territorial link with Kashmir. That was a crucial step in the evolution of the Kashmir problem, because in the words of Wikipedia Gurdaspur “offered the only viable route to Kashmir for the Indian army to take control of Kashmir after Partition”. That was taken by some Pakistanis as crucial evidence pointing to the Kashmir problem as a British creation.

What of the future? It may be that the upheaval that has been going on in Kashmir since July is a passing phenomenon. I doubt it. More probably there are factors of a structural order behind that upheaval. Factors such as the advance of mass education lead to rising expectations towards a better life, which could be the reason for the growth of identity politics and the problems caused by restive minorities all over the globe. If that structural explanation is correct, we can expect the upheaval to continue, probably in waves. But why not look for a way out? That will require a radical change of outlook on the part of India: it should stop trying to explain away the upheaval in terms of foreign-inspired terrorism. To me, the best way out would be a separate state for the Muslim majority area of Kashmir. That would certainly be better than India and Pakistan going on quarreling over Kashmir and risking nuclear war. (I will have to address separately the questions of the relevance of the Kashmir problem to the Sri Lankan nation and to the problem of shaping a new world order).

Wither The Toxin-Free Nation

By Asoka Abeygunawardana –October 22, 2016

Asoka Abeygunawardana

The “Toxin-Free Nation” is a serious and path-breaking policy decision of the government with wide repercussions for the country, its citizens and its economic and social development thinking. It is aimed at righting the entire agrarian sector which has hitherto been stood on its head by reductionist, poisonous, nation debilitating reductionist methods. It is important, nay, critical that a thoughtful and thought provoking national dialogue is initiated as to whether this move will guide us to global glory or if it will set us off on a road to doom. It is important to note that some media organizations have not only provide wide exposure to the topic but have also been highly critical of these efforts on the part of the government. However, it is clear by the various features that have appeared in some newspapers that most of the detractors seem not to have even read the strategy document despite it being freely and widely available in all three languages. Therefore, I believe that it is my duty as one of the formulators of this strategy to clarify the various issues that have come up.

A toxin-free world

In some articles, it has been articulated that this program has been formulated by a group of traditionalist, nationalist, island trapped frogs-in-the-well with no clue on what modern science says about the subject. The fact of the matter is that this strategy is rapidly being mainstreamed across the planet to ensure the sustainable continuity of the whole of human civilization. It is common knowledge that the industrial revolution 200 years ago completely changed the development direction of mankind as well as changed thinking on what is good and what is bad, what is growth and what is stunting of nations and peoples. The speed of change escalated rapidly, people started to believe that economic development and social environments were the only factors worth considering and that everything that had gone on before was not only dumb but retroactive to the future of the world. Wearing pink tinted spectacles, the world careened onwards towards… paradise? Of course not! Civilization went straight from heaven to hell and the planet when from self-sustenance to self-destruction and is currently teetering on the brink of complete annihilation. Who says this? Traditionalists? No! Scientists! Freeing the world of this mad drive to doom and setting ourselves on the path of righteous, equitable development of people and nations should have occurred about 5 decades ago. However, we became the victims of capital and multination corporations pawned mankind’s future for a brief burst of profit today.

This destructive paradigm has not resulted in irreversible damage to some sectors critical for the continuance of life. Two of these that have been subject to much discussion are the destruction of biodiversity and the advent of rapid climate change. Loss of biodiversity is directly bound to agriculture and climate change is equally firmly tied into the burning of fossil fuels. Even now, the planet has warmed up by an average of 1 degree Celsius. Mankind cannot now prevent it rising by a further degree.

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Will UN bless Israel’s destruction of Jerusalem’s heritage?

A historic photograph shows Jerusalem’s Moroccan Quarter, below the al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Dome of the Rock. Israel demolished the 700-year-old neighborhood, including a 12th century mosque, to create the Western Wall Plaza, after it occupied East Jerusalem in 1967. (via Library of Congress)

Charlotte Silver-21 October 2016

Israel is once again trying to remove Jerusalem’s ancient sites from a UN list of endangered world heritage.

The effort to strip the protection comes as groups that call for the destruction of the al-Aqsa mosque and its replacement with a Jewish temple are intensifying their activities, often with Israeli government funding and support. It also follows decades of Israeli destruction of ancient sites in the city.

Less than two weeks after UNESCO adopted a resolution sharply criticizing Israel’s violations at the al-Aqsa mosque/Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem, the UN educational and scientific body’s World Heritage Committee Executive Board will vote on whether to keep the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls on the list of endangered sites, a status they have held since 1982.

Fifty-five other UNESCO World Heritage sites around the globe are considered to be in danger.

Jerusalem’s Old City was placed on the list after delegates found the site’s “historical authenticity” and “cultural significance” were threatened by negligence, rapid urbanization and the destruction of religious properties.

Israel has controlled Jerusalem’s Old City since its army occupied East Jerusalem along with the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to ask the 21 member nations on the World Heritage Committee Executive Board not to support keeping the area on the endangered list.

Israel has opposed the inclusion of the site on the list since it was first proposed by Jordan.

“There is a will to stop this chaos [of such resolutions] which harms everyone,” Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen told The Jerusalem Post.

But Shama-Hacohen said winning favor for Israel’s position from from the World Heritage Committee will be tough.

The committee will meet in Paris next week.

Extremist settlers

In April, Jordan submitted its report to the World Heritage Committee outlining why the site should remain on the endangered list.

Israel also submitted a report claiming it has undertaken several projects to protect the Old City “while improving the lives of its inhabitants and its use by tourists.”

The Israeli report claims that the Israel Antiquities Authority conducts or supervises all projects in and around the Old City.

But the report fails to mention that the authority has handed over control of several archaeological projects to the extreme settler organization Elad.

Elad currently manages a tunnel project that connects the Western Wall to the Davidson Center, an Israeli-built exhibition facility, in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan.

Jordan’s report details many of the concerns over the al-Aqsa mosque and the Haram al-Sharif outlined in the UNESCO resolution adopted on 13 October, but also discusses how the surrounding Muslim neighborhoods within the walls of the Old City are threatened.

In recent years, Israeli-government supported private settler groups such as Elad and Ateret Cohanim haveforcibly displaced scores of Muslim and Christian families in the Old City to make way for Jewish settlers.

Jordan’s report states that Israel has carried out 20 excavations in the area surrounding the al-Aqsa compound during 2015. It presents evidence that the excavations are discarding historic remains from the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. Jordan asserts that the excavations threaten to breach the walls of the al-Aqsa mosque.

The archaeological projects Israel undertakes in Jerusalem have the narrow agenda of unearthing artifacts that demonstrate an ancient Jewish presence in the land while ignoring or destroying artifacts from other eras.

History of destruction

Immediately following the 1967 war, Israel destroyed the 700-year-old Mughrabi Quarter, also known as the Moroccan Quarter, in the Old City in order to create the Western Wall Plaza adjacent to the al-Aqsa compound.

Today the plaza serves primarily as an open gathering space for tourists and Jewish worshippers.

When Israel occupied the area on 7 June 1967, the entire neighborhood was put under strict curfew and Palestinians were shut in their homes.

On the evening of 10 June 1967, the day the war ended, the 650 residents of the Mughrabi Quarter were given two hours to vacate their homes, according to scholar Tom Abowd.

Those who did not leave voluntarily, were removed by force before the area was flattened by bulldozers. By the next night, more than 130 homes had been destroyed.

One woman was buried beneath the rubble, her body found the next morning in the ruins of her home.

Among the scores of homes and structures reduced to rubble, was one of Jerusalem’s oldest Islamic schools, al-Afdaliya, which later came to be known as Sheikh Eid mosque.

The structure has been dated to Saladin’s reign in the 12th century.

Benjamin Kedar, a retired professor of history at Hebrew University and a former vice president of Israel’s National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, called the destruction an “archaeological crime.”

In the last five years, Israel has allowed the Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a so-called “Museum of Tolerance” on top of the ancient Muslim Mamilla Cemetery. Though in West Jerusalem, and therefore not the subject of the UNESCO resolutions, it is a stark example of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s disregard for Jerusalem’s people and heritage.

Hundreds of skeletons were dug up in the middle of the night. Yehoshua Dorfman, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority at the time, later admitted, “I should have stopped the excavation and not allowed the destruction of that part of the cemetery.”

Dorfman also admitted to mistreatment of Muslim and Christian graves at excavation sites elsewhere, including the Elad-run “City of David” in occupied East Jerusalem. “The bones were just left lying around outside for months until they were taken away,” Dorfman wrote in a book published after his death in 2014, according to the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz.

Vilifying UNESCO

Since UNESCO passed the resolution condemning the myriad ways Israel violates the rights of Palestinian and Muslim worshippers at al-Aqsa mosque and threatens the architectural integrity of the compound, Israel has gone on the offensive.

This week, Yisrael Hasson, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, stepped up the vilification of UNESCO,comparing the UN body to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, that has destroyed ancient sites in Syria.

Claiming falsely that the resolution denies Jewish reverence for the site it calls Temple Mount, Israel has effectively convinced UN leaders to distance themselves from the resolution.

These include Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova and UNESCO executive board chair Michael Worbs.

Mexico and Brazil, two of the 24 countries that voted in favor of the resolution, have since repudiated their support.

Though there will not be a re-vote, the countries say they would not support a similar resolution in the future.

If Israel should now succeed in convincing the World Heritage Committee to remove Jerusalem from the list of endangered sites, the UN would in effect give a blessing to Israel’s ongoing assault on the city’s ancient heritage.

Ali Abunimah contributed research.

Russian warships pass through Channel watched by Royal Navy

Ships including aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov expected to leave British waters later on Friday en route to Syria

Russian warships pass through English channel

Rowena Mason, Andrew Culfand agencies-Friday 21 October 2016

Royal Navy vessels are monitoring Russian warships as they pass through the Channel, potentially bringing supplies to the bombing campaign against the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, promised this week that the Russian fleet would be marked “every inch of the way”. No 10 confirmed that the vessels, including Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, were beingshadowed by the navy as they headed towards the eastern Mediterranean via the Dover Strait. The ships were expected to leave the Channel later on Friday.

The flotilla of Russian warships made for an incongruous sight as they made their stately progress along the Kent coast. At about 10am the vessels were clearly visible from St Margaret’s Bay, near Dover, as they steamed past the white cliffs.

The so-called Russian armada attracted a small crowd of sightseers with binoculars, and photographers armed with telephoto lenses, as it passed along the coastline in calm sea conditions with clear visibility and under beautiful blue skies.

The Admiral Kuznetsov attracted the most attention, looking like a second world war battleship, with clouds of black smoke billowing from its funnels. A fighter jet was clearly visible on the deck, glistening in the sunshine.

The Russian ships, shadowed by Royal Navy vessels, were interspersed with P&O and DFDS ferries sailing in and out of the port of Dover and by cargo and container ships in one of the busiest and most congested shipping lanes in the world.

Theresa May’s deputy official spokesman rejected suggestions that it was a sign of weakness that Russia felt able to send its ships via this route. A Downing Street spokesman said: “I would reject suggestions that the Russians feel we are too weak. Clearly, we are not weak at all.”

The type-45 destroyer HMS Duncan sailed from Portsmouth on Tuesday to “man-mark” the Kuznetsov group, and the type-23 frigate HMS Richmond escorted the group from the Norwegian Sea as it steamed south.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the British vessels were keeping a distance of about five miles from the Russians.

“It really depends. If they are really flying you will keep well away; if they’re not flying you will get a bit closer,” the spokesman said. “It’s just about manners, really. They know you are there if you are at 10 miles, same as they do if you’re at one mile. They will put themselves at a distance that makes it obvious that they are there but without making it either dangerous or annoying.”

According to a senior Nato diplomat quoted by Reuters, the Russian ships were likely to pass from the Channel towards Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean, heading for the Syrian coast. The source said the warships were carrying fighter bombers expected to join the attack on Aleppo.

The diplomat said: “They are deploying all of the northern fleet and much of the Baltic fleet in the largest surface deployment since the end of the cold war. This is not a friendly port call. In two weeks, we will see a crescendo of air attacks on Aleppo as part of Russia’s strategy to declare victory there.”

Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said in September that the Admiral Kuznetsov and other ships would be joining a taskforce in the Mediterranean.