Government faces credibility crisis

 November 4, 2016

The political atmosphere in the country has seen some significant change during the last month or so, as one can observe the villain and the hero in the government’s anti-corruption drive gradually swapping their roles, pushing the administration to be on the defensive. In other words, the entire anti-corruption drive of the ‘yahapalanaya’ government has been faced with a crisis situation mainly for two reasons involving both the main coalition partners of the government. 

One factor that nearly turned the government’s so-called good governance image upside down is the controversial speech made by President Maithripala Sirisena at the Sri Lanka Foundation (SLF) on October 12, in which he accused his government’s own anti-corruption campaign for functioning according to a political agenda. The other was the controversial Central Bank bond issue that tarnished the image of the government as well as the main driving force behind it, the United National Party (UNP).
As a Tamil saying goes, with the crow sitting on the tree branch the fruit has fallen down, this naturally gives the credit or blame to the crow in spite of the question whether there was a link between the crow’s action and what happened to the fruit.
A  leading figure in a prominent case that was mentioned in the President’s speech was allowed to travel abroad, while the suspects of two other cases which too were touched upon in the speech were bailed out. It is inevitable for one to resort to deny the ‘accidentality’ of the incidents. After all, we are human beings and we had such
a recent history. 

The resignation of Bribery Commission Director General Dilrukshi Wickramasinghe subsequent to the President’s speech, and the failure on the part of the government to appoint a new permanent DG to the Commission, have further complicated
the situation. 

Despite the President and the Cabinet Spokesman, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne having strived to express that the former meant the opposite of what many people gathered from the speech – that he was pushing for investigations on the major allegations against the former regime, instead of probing minor allegations – they failed to clear the air properly. 

Before the controversy over the speech subsided, Chairman of the Committee of Public Enterprises (COPE) Sunil Handunnetti presented the Committee’s report on the controversial Central Bank bond issue on last October 28. The media reports on the behaviour of the UNP MPs on the issue for the past 20 months, especially during the last two weeks prior to the presentation of the report in the House have inevitably given rise to a public opinion against the UNP.
At the last moment, when they had been compelled to acknowledge that a large-scale fraud has taken place, it was said that they wanted to blame only the Perpetual Treasuries, a private company which the COPE is not mandated to investigate, whereas it was the Central Bank that had increased the value of bonds that were to be sold. 

People do not seem to believe the UNP’s claim made following the presentation of the COPE report that it has been in the forefront in taking the culprits of the case to task. Never in the past twenty months did the UNP tell the country that something fishy had happened during the bond transaction. They had even published books denying allegations of corruption in this transaction. The media have reported that a group of MPs had wanted to charge only the Perpetual Treasuries letting the Central Bank heads to go off the hook.
However, the ultimate result has been that the leaders of the former regime who had been accused of plundering public wealth worth billions of rupees being gradually reborn in the eyes of the general public as those fighting against corruption and fraud.
In fact, they have a strong case against the incumbent regime. It is a proven fact that the Central Bank, after publicly calling bids for bonds valued at only one billion rupees, had sold 10 billion rupees of 30-year bonds at high interest rates on February 27 last year.
Meanwhile, loyalists of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa deserve to be acclaimed in this regard in spite of their highly-corrupt past as it was they who initially exposed this colossal fraud. They contributed immensely, though with political motivation, to maintain the pressure on the government in this regard throughout the past twenty months, along with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the civil society organisations. 

The only way out for the government now is to keep its words in respect of democracy and eradication of corruption. The President in an interview with the Sunday Lankadeepa a fortnight ago had stated that he wanted to send the message through his recent controversial speech at the SLF that large-scale corruption cases against the former regime must be investigated. As if assisting him, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake during a lecture titled ‘Fraudsters and guardians,’ held at the Colombo Public Library Auditorium on Monday, reminded the government of a list of high-profile corruption cases which, he said, had already been swept under the carpet. For instance, he questioned as to what happened to the cases on Greek Bonds and Hedging agreement. 

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera once equated Rajapaksas to Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines and Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Suharto of Indonesia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti and Alberto Fujimori of Peru who had plundered the wealth of their countries. While spelling out this long list of world notorious corrupt rulers, Samaraweera on May 7, last year told journalists that the Rajapaksas ranked number two in the world in robbing public wealth. He claimed that Rajapaksas held assets worth over a whopping US$ 18 billion in other countries.
Ten days after President Sirisena and his government were sworn in, the then Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Development Dr. Harsha de Silva stated that World Bank assistance had been sought under its Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative (StAR) to trace wealth stashed by Sri Lankans in Seychelles Banks. Four days later, on January 23, the Seychelles Government announced that it was prepared to assist the Sri Lankan Government in this regard.  Again on March 21, Dr.  de Silva told the journalists that the country had sought Indian assistance in tracing $ 2 billion allegedly stashed in three bank accounts in Dubai by the members of a Sri Lankan family. 

Now, the President himself accuses his government for not investigating into the high-profile corruption cases. On the other hand, a report on a largest-ever fraud in Sri Lankan history has been submitted to Parliament by COPE which consists of members from all political parties in Parliament including the constituent parties of the ruling coalition. Then the case for the government is easy; just act to keep your words, one may say. 

However, the JVP leader remains pessimistic as he argued before the packed audience at the Public Library on Monday that the current government too would fail to clean the country of corruption, as many friends of the leaders of the ‘yahapalanaya’ government were involved in corruption cases in some way. At the same time, the government seems to have caved in to the patriotic card played by the former President and his loyalists. All in all, the government is enmeshed in its own promises on corruption and democracy, manifesting a credibility crisis. 

Ranil To Dodge ‘Bond Scam’ Through AG Bureaucracy

November 4, 2016

Following the comprehensive report by the Committee on Public Enterprise (COPE) on the scam involving the sale of the Treasury Bonds in the Central Bank, Colombo Telegraph learns that Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe has no procedural authority to forward a report to the Attorney General.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe

“This sending of the report is a complete sham by Ranil, who seems to think the people are fools who don’t understand nuances. He thinks he could ease the public animosity by saying or doing something which seems popular but in actual fact is completely nonsensical or in this instance only makes sense in showing how far he is willing to go to cover the issue up” a source within the UNP critical of the approach by the leader said.

Colombo Telegraph learns that the move by Wickremesinghe to involve the Attorney Generals office, was initiated in order to delay any proceeding against his friend and confidante former Governor Arjun Mahendran.

Wickremesinghe is said to be relying on the lethargy and inefficiency of the Attorney Generals department and the judicial bodies at large. The mode of ‘taking up files’ by the Attorney Generals department is in normal circumstances the prescribed First in First Out method, unless as specified by regulation. Accordingly all pending cases before the Attorney General have to be cleared prior to the pending file being taken up for observation.

Under normal circumstances an opinion by the Attorney General could take up to 2 or 3 years if not more.

However, The Colombo Telegraph asked a cabinet Minister close to President Sirisena as to the reason behind the silence on the issue by the President and members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in the cabinet, despite such flagrant abuse.

” He is stuck after Ranil shot down the issue regarding his son. After the assault at the night club by his son, he cant speak about Law and Order with the Minister or his confidantes because everyone knows what happened” he said.

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EU linking Shariat law to GSP+ : Do not bring Europe’s war on Muslims to Sri Lanka.

by Latheef Farook-2016-11-04

The government has appointed a committee to consider reforms to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act though there are many burning issues which needs immediate attention. This new committee was appointed despite the fact that an earlier committee chaired by former Supreme Court Judge Saleem Marsoof has been involved in deliberating amendments for last 7 years.

The delay being due to the controversial and sensitive nature of the issues involved and the need to consider very carefully any changes to shariat law which is divine law, and cannot be deviated at any costs.

According to cabinet co-spokesman Gayantha Karunathilaka “some provisions in the Muslim Law, including the minimum age of marriage, were not in conformity to the norms stipulated in international conventions, which Sri Lanka was holding membership, and thus it has become necessary to amend those provisions.

It is difficult to understand on what basis he compared divine Sharia laws to the norms of manmade international conventions enacted to suit western imperial powers’ agendas.

Justifying the move, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake who knows nothing about Sharia law, told media briefing that “the country had to obey the international conventions to get the GSP+. Amending of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act is also a part of international protocol, which is a requirement to obtain GSP +”.

Earlier Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapaksa proposed to appoint a cabinet Sub-committee to make proposals regarding suitable amendments to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act.

This new committee was formed following Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe’s recent visit to Belgium where he discussed the island’s efforts to regain the GSP+ facility with the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. In response the European Union, EU, demanded Sri Lanka amends the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act to grant GSP+.

Importance attached by EU to this demand is such that a four-member delegation from the European Parliament visited Sri Lanka and the Maldives from October 31 to November 3 to assess the ground situation as a precursor for a successful GSP Plus application

Now the question is what is the need for EU  to demand changes in  Islamic Sharia law? In fact GSP+ facility was cancelled due to the short sighted policies of Mahinda Rajapaksa racist regime which antagonized the EU without realizing the serious impact on the island’s economy.

GSP+ facility and Sharia law are two entirely different subjects.

For example the GSP, Generalized System of Preferences, is a preferential tariff system which provides for a formal system of exemption from the more general rules of the World Trade Organization- WTO.  It's a system of exemption from the most favored nation principle (MFN) that obliges WTO member countries to treat the imports of all other WTO member countries no worse than they treat the imports of their "most favored" trading partner. In essence, MFN requires WTO member countries to treat imports coming from all other WTO member countries equally, that is, by imposing equal tariffs on them, etc.

GSP exempts WTO member countries from MFN for the purpose of lowering tariffs for the least developed countries, without also lowering tariffs for rich countries.

On the other hand Muslim Marriage and Divorce law is based on the teachings of Holy Quran which is the divine law clearly specifying every aspect of marriage and divorce.

Muslim Marriage and Divorce law, revealed 1430 years ago, provides the right for a woman to choose her husband and to divorce in the event of incompatibility or other factors which prevent them from living in harmony together. Long before today’s man made laws even thought of women’s rights, Islam has given all rights including on how divorced woman should be treated.

Islam also has given women the right to property and evidence though being maligned, distorted and demonized today by United States, British, European, Russian and Israeli war mongers joined by anti-Muslim RSS racist regime in New Delhi.

Customs, traditions and culture of Muslims differ from country to country and society to society, yet Sharia laws were observed by all Muslims alike. Here in Sri Lankan child marriage is not a major issue as most Muslim girls marry in their late teens or early twenties.

Under such circumstance European Union demanding Sri Lanka to reform Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act to provide GSP + can only be described as ridiculous.

Sri Lanka’s foreign policy under this government has been blindly following US led western war mongers anti Muslim agendas dismissing the feelings of the island’s Muslims who played a crucial role in bringing this government to power.

Muslims suspect this as part of the overall global anti Muslim campaign unleashed by US led Europe which destroyed Muslim countries in the Middle East and turned them into killing fields and graveyards. They not only destroyed modern Muslim countries but also massacred millions of innocent Muslims who lived peacefully with all prosperity in their homes besides throwing millions of Muslims into refugee camps to suffer in abject poverty.

This is the very same Europe demanding Sri Lanka to change Sharia law to grant GSP+.

This is the reason why the government’s committee to temper with the Muslim marriage and divorce act is viewed with suspicion and likely to provoke   Muslims. Already there were demonstrations near mosques in Colombo and other places after Friday noon prayers calling the government to dissolve this committee.

Is changing Muslim marriage and divorce act the top priority of the country which is passing through one of its worst political and economic crisis.

The government which came with the slogan of eliminating crime and corruption has become the defender of crime and corruption. People are angry and disillusioned. Under such circumstance need of the hour is to deal with burning issues and not to antagonize the Muslim community to please European war mongers.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, architect of Genocide of Muslims in Gujarat in February 2002, is also hell bent on changing Muslim personal law. Not because he likes   Muslims but because he wanted to eliminate Islamic identity of the Indian Muslims.

BJP’s Cow Vigilante thugs subject Indian Muslims to medieval style persecutions.   They rape and    gang rape, kill and force feed Muslims with cocktails of cow dung and urine with police connivance.

Just five months after Burmese leader Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took over power Muslim villages in Northern Rakhine State were attacked on October 9 by government security forces. The U.N.'s special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Yanghee Lee, said serious violations, including torture, summary executions, arbitrary arrests and destruction of mosques and homes, threaten the country's fledgling democracy.

"The big picture is that the government does not seem to have any influence over the military," said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, an advocacy group that focuses on the Rohingya.

On 20 October Aung san Suu Kyi visited New Delhi and signed several agreements with violent anti Muslim BJP government. Thus hostile forces are ganging up and violence against Muslims spreading towards South Asia.  

Sri Lankan is not short of racist elements Myanmar’s Wirathu type racist elements. Under such environment, Sri Lankan government needs to reconsider tempering with   Muslim Marriage and divorce Act as no one wants to bring EU’s war against Muslims to Sri Lanka. Ends

The security of small states

I now see the problem in rather different terms. The small states that are in contiguity to the really powerful states should be placed in a very special category. The powerful states that I have in mind are the US, Russia, China and India. I am including India because it is now in close association with the US and is very much involved in the great power rivalries that have been evolving. We must ask why the world seems at present in a much more troubled condition politically that at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

by Izeth Hussain

( November 4, 2016, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Some years after the holding of the 1976 Non-Aligned Summit Conference in Colombo, the Marga Institute held an international seminar on the security of small states. I wrote the lead paper for it, which was fitting because at the Foreign Ministry I was in charge of the subject of the Non-Aligned Movement which had not given specific attention to the problem of the security of small states. The seminar was regarded as one of the most interesting ever held by the Marga Institute and as a path-breaking one. Substantial chunks of my paper were reproduced in the Lanka Guardian. Thereafter the idea that the security of small states was a problem that had to be addressed fell out of sight. Around 1990 I attended as a Marga representative a UN Conference on the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace at Sochi in the Soviet Union. My address focused on the problem of small state security, which particularly interested Howard Wriggins, scholar and former Ambassador to Sri Lanka, and an American observer who was there. It was thereafter published in the Lanka Guardian. That American observer told me that my address was exceptionally interesting and he was surprised that it made nothing like the impact that it should have made. Clearly I was dealing with an idea whose time had not come.

Maybe its time has come or is coming with the international concern manifested in recent weeks over the Kashmir problem. It is time therefore to spell out some ideas on the problem of small state security. But first I must make some observations on the Non-Aligned Movement, the significance of which tends to be misunderstood. In preparing the Draft Declaration for the Colombo Summit I conceptualized Non-Alignment as standing essentially for two principles, reducing to two the five principles enunciated at the first Non-Aligned Summit at Belgrade in 1961. The first was true independence as distinct from merely formal sovereignty. The other was peaceful co-existence cutting across ideological and all other divisions. That those principles had wide appeal was attested by the phenomenal growth in membership of the Non-aligned Movement, to an extent that would have been unimaginable at the time of the Belgrade Summit in 1961.

I hold that Non-Alignment has represented something very positive in international relations and that the Movement has been a resounding success. Decolonization was virtually complete by the time of the Colombo Summit, a process in which the Non-Aligned played a very significant role. That process was inevitable and therefore more important is the fact that today the third world countries are far more resistant to covert forms of domination than in the past. The defiance shown by the Philippines President towards the US would have been unthinkable some time ago. It seems to me significant that today’s American Empire takes the form of an empire of bases, according to Chalmers Johnson’s conceptualization. The probable reason for that is that it is more problematic now for a foreign power to dominate a people than in the past.

It might seem therefore – particularly as the ideological division of the Cold War is over – that the Non-Alignment Movement has served its purpose successfully and it should now be declared defunct. What is definitely over is the problem of ensuring peaceful co-existence within the framework of the Cold War. But the problem of ensuring true independence as distinct from merely formal sovereignty continues. As long as human beings remain human beings we can expect attempts at domination of the poor by the rich, of the small by the big, of the weak by the powerful. That has been made more difficult in the contemporary world partly because of the success of the Non-Aligned Movement. But the drive to dominate has not vanished from the earth. Can the NAM be used to deal with that problem, more specifically with the problem of the security of small states? It has been pre-eminently the Movement that has stood up for the poor, the small, and the weak. But in recent times it has given the impression of a loss of direction, and it seems doubtful that it can serve the purposes of the small states.

The appropriate forum would be the UN though when it comes to effective action it is dominated by the rich and the powerful. It is the appropriate forum because the problem of the small states is at the very core of the problem of shaping a new world order. I must explain why I have that idea. At the time of the Marga seminar I and probably most of the other participants conceived of the problem of small states more or less along the following lines. In the course of time some powerful states would be emerging in Afro-Asia and Latin America, such as India, Nigeria, and Brazil and they too could show a drive for domination over the small states. The securing of the interests of the small states had still to be worked out.

I now see the problem in rather different terms. The small states that are in contiguity to the really powerful states should be placed in a very special category. The powerful states that I have in mind are the US, Russia, China and India. I am including India because it is now in close association with the US and is very much involved in the great power rivalries that have been evolving. We must ask why the world seems at present in a much more troubled condition politically that at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is now talk of a renewed US-Russian Cold War; there are fears that the world may be getting closer to a nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of the early ‘sixties; and the relations between some of the great powers are clearly becoming more and more uneasy.

I believe that this troubled condition has its roots in the aggressive policy followed by the US towards Russia in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. As Russia saw it, it had voluntarily relinquished a huge empire and was ready for relations of amity and co-operation with the US and the West. The US response was to treat Russia as a potential enemy, as a country that would regain its power and threaten the US, the West, and the rest of the world. Its strategy was to try to get close to Russia’s neighbors and make them pro-Western. It was essentially a policy of containment, similar to what prevailed during the Cold War. But Russia has been regaining its power, it has given the impression of behaving aggressively towards the Ukraine and other neighbors as a riposte to the US containment strategy, and it has become a major player in the Middle East. As for China, I would explain its behavior in the South China Seas also in terms of a riposte to a virtual containment policy on the part of the US.

In the preceding paragraph there is implicit a solution to the problem of small states that are neighbors of powerful states. Sri Lanka should be included in the category of such states. The traditional solution would be to include them in the spheres of influence of the powerful states. Today that would be totally unacceptable because it implies unequal relations that could range from a loose hegemony to outright domination. According to the solution I have in mind a small state should firstly have untrammeled freedom except that it should not get together with a foreign power against its neighbor. Secondly other powers should respect that principle. What I am advocating is a solution to the problem of small states based on the two fundamental principles of Non-Alignment: the small state should have true independence as distinct from merely formal sovereignty, and it should practice peaceful co-existence.

Maithri has had secret discussions after switching off the lights with Gota, Namal and Basil !

-Our common candidate has been robbed – Prof. Wijesuriya (video)

(Lanka-e-News -03.Nov.2016, 11.30PM)    After Maithripala Sirisena was made the common candidate and elected the president ,  is he and his conscience been robbed by others ? After Maithripala became the president , not only Gotabaya , even Namal and Basil had visited the residence of his secretly to have discussions in the dark after switching off the lights, and these were  exposed by none other than  National list M.P. Malith Jayathileke , and not by himself ,  said Professor Sarath Wijesuriya.

Professor Wijesuriya revealed this when addressing the public rally organized by the Citizen’s Force yesterday (02) at the Public library auditorium , Colombo , while furnishing answers to the insults hurled against the civil society  in the wake of  the recent odious ‘cyanide’ speech of the president.

These individuals without any qualms by pursuing  the selfish self serving personal agendas of each have criminally and unconscionably  plunged the country and its future into despair , the professor lamented . Not only the president even the prime minister was not spared by the professor in his scathing criticisms.

The full text of Prof. Wijesuriya’s speech can be heard by clicking below 

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by     (2016-11-03 20:40:16)

NORTHERN GOVERNOR CONTRADICTS CABINET SPOKESMAN & MINISTER RAJITHA ON “AAVA” GROUP

Image (Daily News): Northern Province Governor Reginald Cooray.

05/11/2016

Adding one more internal disagreements to the “Yahapalana” governance  now Northern Province Governor Reginald Cooray has refuted Minster & Cabinet spokesperson  Rajitha Senarathna’s claim that AAVA  group was created by former defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapksa using military intelligence.

Governer has said that military  has nothing to do with AAVA Group.

The so called AAVA group has been in the  news for harassing people in the North of Sri Lanka for some time now.

The Governor has said as of the information he has received, it was clear the Army was not behind the AAVA Group while  responding to a question by a journalist at a press conference at his Office in Battaramulla.

When asked about the comment by Co-Cabinet Spokesman Minister Dr Rajitha Senaratne that AAGA group was formed with the assistance of former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and certain military officers, the Governor said the Minister before going public with that comment should have communicated any such information he has with relevant authorities.

Giving an indirect advice  Minister Senarathna  had reportedly said that “rather than saying it to the media, it is better if the minister had communicated it first to the Cabinet, State Defence Minister, Defence Secretary, President or the Prime Minister.”

With the inputs from Daily Mirror

800 million worth bullet proof vehicle used by Karuna?

Nov 04, 2016

The Rs. 800 million Super Luxury Bullet Proof vehicle that was discovered recently from Batticoloa is suspected to have been used by former Minister Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan  Karuna Amman, FCID sources say.

Inside the vehicle several letters that had been sent by Radio Ceylon to Karuna Amman and some other document have been found by the FCID. The vehicle was found abandoned inside a garage in Batticoloa.

These are public funds. In recent times several instances where these luxury vehicles had been abandoned were reported in media. However further investigations are still going on.
 
 
The Super luxury bullet prof vehicle that was detected had been purchased from Hong Kong in 2010 According to one record , It's value is as Rs. 78,633,385.00. After this vehicle brought to the colombo and this vehicle haven't any documents or records. 
This vehicle has been imported in the name of the president secretariat. This Super vehicle had neither been register with the registrar of motor vehicles department. How ever this vehicle was not known until the FCID forums it last 28th.

AshWaru Colombo.

Ethical State & Division Of People Into Upper And Lower Castes

By Basil Fernando –November 4, 2016

Basil Fernando

Gunadasa Amarasekera has written and published a book titled ‘Sabyathwa Rajyak Kara’ (Towards an Ethical State), and around the same time I have written and published a book under the title ‘Dharmasokage Dhamma Prathipaththtia saha Prajatanthrawadi watinakama’ (Policy of Dhamma of Dharmasoka and Democratic Values). In this article I will try to show similarities and differences of ideas found in these two books. The basic ideas contained in Gunadasa Amarasekera’s book are as follows;

At the very early stage of history of Sri Lanka we could observe the rising of the ethical state and the basic character of that state is described thus. The outline of the ethical state that we were successful in developing came with the reception of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Mahinda Thero besides Buddhism brought the Buddhist state structure created by Emperor Asoka. In association with that we were able to develop our won ethical state – a Sinhala Buddhist state structure. (my translation) According to Amarasekara “this ethical state remained unbroken up till the coming of European foreigners and in particular the British and a construction of a state structure of their own in Sri Lanka.

According to Amarasekera the state structure developed by the British is unsuitable for Sri Lanka; democracy, system of parliament, and similar introductions by the British were based on their own nation state which was developed in their country through several centuries. What is suitable for Sri Lanka is the rule by a single ruler which was what prevailed during the time of the kings. On that basis executive presidential system is a suitable system for Sri Lanka. The movement led by Sobhitha Thero to abolish the Executive Presidency was a misguided movement.

Amaraekera states, that Sri Lankans should go back to the ethical state which was created in the early part of their history. On that historical basis S W R D Bandaranaike and the Sri Lanka Freedom party which he represented a rule which is suitable to Sri Lanka. It was Chadrinka Bandaranaike who distorted this. One who once again represented a leadership which is suitable for Sri Lanka was Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The ideas that I have represented in my book: “The policy of Dhamma of Dharmasoka and democratic values”, are as follows;

The development of an ethical state in Sri Lanka in the early part of its history, took place on the basis of Dharmasoka’s policy of Dhamma. What this policy of Dhamma meant has been revealed in great detail through contemporary research. The great Indian historian Romila Thapar in her book Asoka and the Decline of Mayuryas” has described in detail Asoka’s life and the policies he pursued. In this book entire chapter is devoted to describe his policy of Dhamma. The following quotes from this chapter throws light the Dhamma of Asoka.

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Country is indebted to Pandith Amaradeva - President 

Wimala Amaradewa, widow of Amaradewa, grieves during his funeral at Independence Square in Colombo on 4 November 4, 2016. – AFP

Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena (C) assists in carrying the coffin of legendary musician W. D. Amaradeva during his funeral at Independence Square in Colombo on 4 November, 2016. – AFP

Saturday, 5 November 2016

President Maithripala Sirisena, expressing condolences on the demise of Sri Lanka's renowned musician Pandith W. D. Amaradeva, said the country is indebted to the late great maestro who he said was an unparalleled genius in music.

"The country is indebted to him for the exceptional service he rendered to us by exploring the roots of local music to enrich it to an unprecedented high," the President said in his condolence message.

Pandith Amaradeva passed away on Thursday at the age of 88 after a sudden illness.

The full text of the President's message is as follows:

“The nation is stricken by the news of the demise of the great maestro W. D. Amaradeva. He was an unparalleled genius in music that we ever witnessed.

Maestro Amaradeva belonged to the generation of pioneers whose quest was the Sri Lankan identity and the indigenous character. The country is indebted to him for the exceptional service he rendered to us by exploring the roots of local music to enrich it to an unprecedented high.

Maestro Amaradeva reached the pinnacle of Sinhala music and brought our nation to fame. He was a true genius, blessed with innate wisdom refined in the school of life, and perfected by the association of scholars of language the arts and philosophy. Above all, his was the voice of the deep-seated Sinhala cultural self.

The two songs 'Sasara Wasana Thuru' and 'Rathnadeepa Danma Bhumi' distinguish the eminence of maestro Amaradeva. Though he has left us today after his magnificent contribution to the nation, the aura of his oeuvre will kindle and inspire us forever.

He was also the embodiment of simplicity and contentment in life. Although the voice that awakened a nation has been silenced today, it will continue to echo in the ears and infuse life into the hearts of the future generations too.

Maestro Amaradeva, may you attain the bliss of Nibbana.

Civilian casualties are starting to rise as Iraqi forces push into Mosul

An Iraqi special forces soldier puts up a helmet as a decoy as a sniper prepares to fire on Islamic State positions on the eastern edges of Mosul on Thursday. (Marko Drobnjakovic/AP)

By Loveday Morris and Mustafa Salim November 4 at 6:16 PM

GOGJALI, Iraq — The vehicles screeched into the small field hospital on the outskirts of Mosul carrying desperate loads: soldiers injured in battle as well as men, women and children caught in the crossfire of Iraq’s war against the Islamic State.

Some staggered out clutching bleeding wounds; others were lifted by medics onto stretchers. They had come face to face with chlorine gas, mortar fire, bombs and artillery shells.

For a few, it was too late, and instead of a stretcher, a body bag waited.

The medical station, manned by medics from Iraq’s special forces alongside U.S. and Serbian volunteers, provides a small window onto the inevitable human toll of the battle to oust the Islamic State from Mosul as the war pushes deeper into the city.

After more than two weeks of advances, Iraqi forces are now pressing into more densely populated areas and penetrating the epicenter of the group’s last remaining territory in the country.

The civilian presence hugely complicates the fight for the advancing Iraqi forces and airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, a fact the Islamic State is using for its gain as it desperately tries to hold onto its capital in Iraq. (Loveday Morris/The Washington Post)

As they do, Iraqi commanders say Islamic State militants are putting up a tougher fight than they have ever seen, bringing furious battles to the doorsteps of more than a million people.

The civilian presence hugely complicates the fight for the advancing Iraqi forces and for airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, a fact the Islamic State is using for its gain as it desperately tries to hold on to its capital in Iraq.

For more than a year, the militants have largely prevented people from leaving the city, but in recent weeks they have rounded up villagers from the outskirts and forced them inside the city to use as human shields.

[ISIS is kidnapping thousands of people to use as human shields]

“Head injury!” shouted Maj. Ahmed Hussein, the medical station’s chief medic, as a 16-year-old girl arrived in a family sedan. After laying her on a stretcher, medics bound her head, trying to stanch the flow of blood from a shrapnel wound. “May God take revenge on Daesh,” cried her mother, using a derogatory term for the Islamic State.

Before the team had finished treating her, another casualty arrived: a tank driver struggling to breathe after a suspected chlorine attack. He was drained of color, and his chest trembled as he tried to fill his lungs. The militants have regularly used chlorine on the battlefield, often dispatching it in mortar shells.

“That’s our sixth or seventh chlorine gas,” said Derek Coleman, 27, from San Diego, who came to Iraq with hopes of fighting the Islamic State but said he later realized he could be of more use as a medic.

 Iraqi troops advance on eastern Mosul, continuing their assault on Islamic State’s last major stronghold, as the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi releases an audio tape saying he is confident of victory. (Reuters)

 Coleman, two other Americans and two Serbians were spending their first day with Iraqi forces after previously assisting Kurdish peshmerga soldiers.

The Iraqis do not appear to have much need for them, he said, as the Iraqi special forces have better-organized medical teams. But Hussein said he still appreciates the extra hands and supplies.

Hussein said more civilians have been injured in recent days, although he was quick to point out that the Islamic State is responsible. “They use civilians as a shield,” he said.

Over the course of the day, Hussein’s station treated 15 civilians, one of whom died from gunshot wounds. Many, though, are probably unable to reach medical assistance, and those fleeing talk of entire families killed in shelling and bombing.

But the militants do not appear ready to concede ground easily, potentially drawing out the fight and putting civilians at risk for longer.

The Iraqi military does not release overall casualty figures, but troops have faced stiff resistance as they have broken into the Islamic State’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Some 11 special forces troops were treated for injuries at the medical station, while two died. Not all Iraqi casualties pass through this point, and the toll is probably much higher. News of new car bombs crackled through on the radio.

“They are fighting very, very hard for the city,” said Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, head of the special forces, also known as counterterrorism troops. “They will not give it up easily.”

[In first big wave, Iraqis flee Mosul and crowd into camps]

Friday’s fight in urban areas was extremely tough, he said, adding that the taking of people to use as human shields “has complicated the battle in a way we didn’t expect.”

A black Humvee pulled up at the medical station, which is little more than a few beds and stretchers near an abandoned mosque in Gogjali district, on the eastern edge of Mosul.

Men cried out for a body bag. The body of a soldier from Iraq’s special forces was lifted out of the back. The top of his head, from the jaw up, was missing. His clothes were soaked in blood.

“This is war,” Hussein said as he turned away.

The Iraqi government is trying to keep people in their homes during the fighting, but as the battle draws near, many inevitably flee.

The sound of heavy bombing and gunfire could be heard coming from the city, while Apache helicopters flew back and forth. Cars topped with white flags continued to stream out of eastern neighborhoods.

For those who stay, even after their areas are cleared of militants, food supplies are low, forcing many out.

A woman from Gogjali arrived at the medical station with her young daughter, who held a white flag fashioned out of a small piece of cloth attached to the end of a kitchen whisk.

The woman, who was too scared to be named, asked the soldiers to break open a shop that she said used to belong to the Islamic State and had sold milk before it had been locked up when the militants fled.
“I’ll put money in the register. I just need milk for my baby,” she said.

Hussein said that he could not break into private property and that it might be booby-trapped, but he dispatched a soldier to find milk.

Another car pulled up at the makeshift clinic carrying two injured children. One had a bone jutting out of his mangled arm. His chest was gouged by shrapnel. He had been playing near his house when he picked up something that looked like a grenade.

“I told him to leave it,” said Ayman Ouda, the boy’s elder, 11-year-old cousin, who was lightly injured. “But he dropped it, and it exploded.”

Medics surrounded the younger boy, and Hussein called for a drip. His fracture was treated, and he was rushed into the back of a waiting ambulance. But Peter Reed, 27, from Bordentown, N.J., and another volunteer here, is not hopeful.

“He’s probably not going to make it to the next med station,” he said.

Debating escalation of the war in Syria

Ali Abunimah 4 November 2016

This is the video of a debate that took place in New York on 1 November titled “Syria and the Left.”

Co-hosted by the online publication Muftah and Verso Books, it featured journalist and author Max Blumenthal, anti-war activist Zein El-Amine, The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain and Syrian activist Loubna Mrie.

The debate was presented as an opportunity for deliberation about what role a broadly defined left can have with regard to Syria, in an atmosphere where such discussions have been all too rare.

Mrie charged that many on the left “deny the Syrian voices and deny the agency of the Syrian people.” She added that she wants people on the left to “at least start with showing solidarity with the Syrian people by insisting on the accountability for all war crimes committed by all sides” and to start by acknowledging “that the party that is doing the most killing is the Syrian government.”

Blumenthal argued that the urgent question for people in the United States was whether to allow their government to support further military escalation in Syria, either by continuing to supply weapons to combatants or through a major direct intervention under the banner of a no-fly zone.

“Escalation leads to escalation in Syria and elsewhere,” Blumenthal said.

“We can’t have this debate without acknowledging that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, have pumped hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars of weapons and arms and helped fuel a human catastrophe which of course Russia and the Syrian government are heavily involved and implicated in,” he added.

“The war is the root of all evil,” Blumenthal said. “This war has to end today and anyone who says that it should continue, that it should be escalated for an idea that they don’t have to bear the consequences of, deserves to be challenged.”

Blumenthal described calls for a no-fly zone as a push for an “all-out US military assault across Syria.”

The eastern part of the northern city of Aleppo is “being turned into a kill box by the Syrian government and Russia,” Blumenthal observed. But he also argued that its plight is being used to “protect a narrative that erases West Aleppo” – the government-held part of the city where United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura has saidmany civilians have died as a result of indiscriminate rebel attacks that may amount to war crimes.

Blumenthal pointed to the support from the US and its allies of extremist factions. As an example, he noted that Robert Ford, who was US ambassador to Syria until 2014, promoted rebel leader Zahran Alloush as a “moderate.”

Ford is now a fellow at the Middle East Institute, a think tank funded by the arms industry and the state-owned Saudi Aramco oil company.

At the time Ford was writing in 2014, Alloush’s extreme sectarianism was already well exposed.

In November 2015, rebels in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb controlled by Alloush’s Saudi-financed Army of Islam, paraded Alawite prisoners, including women, in cages, to be used as human shields against airstrikes. Alloush was himself killed in an airstrike last December.

“We have to remove our complicity,” Blumenthal argued. “And that means when think tanks in Washington, especially those that are promoted by the same country that is helping fuel the violence in Yemen, in Bahrain, in Syria are promoting people like Alloush, that we call them out, that we expose them, that we make sure that arms stop flowing to figures like that.”

This is a point made by the UN Human Rights Council’s independent inquiry on Syria published in August. The report concludes that “direct external [state] support to belligerents, as well as support filtered through proxies … has fuelled further violence and undermined prospects for a peaceful settlement.”

“Such backing ensures the fragmentation and general decentralization of the conflict, making the potential for a coherent diplomatic resolution of the crisis less attainable,” the UN inquiry report adds.

No alternative?

Murtaza Hussain asserted he is “not in favor of more US involvement or escalation, which will inevitably result in more deaths.”

But the terms he set out seemed to offer no alternative.

The worst outcome, he argued, would be an end to the war that leaves the government of Bashar al-Assad in control.

“After committing terrible, horrific acts, in full view of the world for five years, they will continue to rule the country indefinitely as they did before,” Hussain said. “The country will be given to the son of Bashar al-Assad in 15 to 20 years. That’s an affront to humanity. It’s disgusting. There’s absolutely no way we can countenance that.”

Hussain said that the onus is on those opposing further US military intervention to “proffer another solution where there’s a sense of justice in Syria.”

Zein El-Amine noted that even Hillary Clinton – who has supported a no-fly zone – has acknowledged that it would “kill a lot of Syrians.”

Top US military brass have said it would take 70,000 personnel to implement. In September, Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the Senate that a no-fly zone would “require us to go to war against Syria and Russia.”

But El-Amine argued that continued talk about a no-fly zone, even if unlikely given these assessments, was fueling the war.

“[Clinton] knows that’s not going to happen, as much as she’s a war hawk,” El-Amine said. “But the rhetoric that’s being put out is what’s causing both parties to increase, to escalate the massacre of the Syrian people.”

Misinformation

In early 2014, the UN abandoned efforts to count the number of dead in Syria, because of the difficulties of verifying reports amid the chaotic situation.

But there is no doubt that the toll of the war in Syria has been staggering and horrific, and continues to mount. In addition to estimates of hundreds of thousands of dead, the UN says that 4.8 million Syrians are refugees outside their country.

Another 6.5 million are internally displaced.

Yet despite the undeniable horror of this war, misinformation continues to poison the discussion and sow distrust of those advocating various positions.

An example in this debate came when The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain asserted that “a UN Human Rights Council report issued today found that over 90 percent of the deaths in the conflict are from the Syrian government.”

Hussain elaborated that “this is a five-year periodic human rights review of Syria. This review found over the past five years, over 400,000 deaths, over 90 percent were attributed to government sources.”

But the UN had issued no such report. In fact, the UN Human Rights Council did hold a session in Geneva on 31 October on Syria’s five-year review, at which certain governments, including the United States and United Kingdom, made statements.

But the final outcome of the review has yet to be published.

Hussain was unhelpful when asked by The Electronic Intifada for details of the report to which he was referring. “I recommend you contact the UN directly if you want to see the summary findings. This might be something an assistant can help you with if you are experiencing difficulties,” he responded.

He did not reply to further inquiries about whether he had actually seen such a report. Hussain’s source appears to be this misleading 31 October tweet by BuzzFeed writer Borzou Daragahi:

View image on Twitter

 Follow

Borzou Daragahi 

✔@borzou

Breaking: UN Human Rights council finds in 1st review of Syria since 2011 that 400,000 people killed in war, most at hands of regime.

4:42 PM - 31 Oct 2016

 
•  668668 Retweets
 
•  234234 likes

Daragahi claims: “Breaking: UN Human Rights council finds in 1st review of Syria since 2011 that 400,000 people killed in war, most at hands of regime.”

This tweet has been retweeted almost 700 times.

Attached to Daragahi’s tweet is a screenshot of an unidentified document that is not written in the language of a UN report. The UN would, for example, refer to the “Syrian Arab Republic,” rather than “Assad’s Syria.” But the screenshot contains the same claims Hussain presented as UN findings of fact to support his implicit arguments for intervention at the debate.

In response to an inquiry, Daragahi emailed The Electronic Intifada that the document attached to his tweet “was a press release put out by UK.” An Internet search using the title of the document in the tweet did not turn up any such press release.

Daragahi did not respond to a request to email the press release. He also did not respond as to whether he stands by the claim in his tweet about a UN Human Rights Council finding.

Later, however, Daragahi published a tweet “clarifying” that the UN “hasn’t made finding yet” and claiming that his earlier tweet was based on a UK Foreign Office document – for which he provided no link or reference.

Given the high stakes and high tensions around discussion of Syria, such misinformation serves no one interested in good faith exchanges of views.

Resisting McCarthyism

The debate in New York was an exception to what Blumenthal called a “McCarthyite” environment, in which anyone who challenges the calls for escalation in Syria is smeared, blacklisted or labeled an “Assadist.”

In an essay in Current Affairs this month, Fredrik deBoer argues that the purpose of the smears is to silence dissent against a possible major US military intervention.

Indeed, deBoer writes, this is the way McCarthyite innuendo casting doubt on dissenters’ motives and loyalties has been used during previous wars, not least in the run-up to the calamitous 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“Assad is a special kind of monster; Syria is a special kind of hell. I hope the regime of Assad falls. I hope the people of Syria are finally allowed to emerge from this horrific, bloody, unthinkable civil war,” deBoer states.

“But hope is not the basis for action. And a century of American foreign policy, as well as an adult conception of the reality of a broken world, should tell us to distrust our instincts even when we are most moved by humanitarian concern.”