Schumer to Trump: Let Congress work on avoiding government shutdown

Schumer: Trump to blame for failed bill 00:58

By Ted Barrett, CNN-Tue April 11, 2017
(CNN)Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday he recently urged Office of Management Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to stand back and let bipartisan negotiators on Hill find a compromise on how to keep the government running before it runs out of money at the end of this month.

"We can get this done," the New York Democrat said on a conference call with reporters. "Democrats want to get this done. We hope our Republican colleagues don't insist on things that force a government shutdown. But I think talks are going pretty well right and the White House doesn't have to throw a monkey wrench into it right now."

Schumer noted the Trump administration had come up with a budget proposal rejected by Democrats and some Republicans.

RELATED - McConnell: Government shutdown won't happen this month

On tax reform, Schumer was asked the if issue is made more difficult by Trump's refusal to release his tax returns.

"The President's refusal to release his tax returns is bad in several ways," Schumer responded. "One, I think he just has an obligation to come clean. When you clean up the swamp, it's not keeping things secret and it applies to yourself."

Schumer continued, "Second, there might be conflicts of interest that should be made clear. Third, it's going to make tax reform much harder. Anytime he proposes something, the average American is going to say, 'Oh he's not doing that because it's good for me but because it's good for him.' So for his own good he ought to make them public. And the big mystery is why he hasn't."

Trump has said he wants to focus on after a health care bill's failure to pass last month.

RELATED - Steven Mnuchin: Trump's new tax reform plan coming 'very soon'

Trump still can’t buy a vote of confidence

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, listens as President Trump speaks Friday. (Alex Brandon/AP)

By Aaron Blake April 10

President Trump's strikes against the Syrian government earned the support of the American people and improved views of Trump (albeit only slightly), according to a new poll. But the biggest takeaway might be the big, red stop sign that came with all that.

A new CBS News poll — the first live-caller poll to test reactions to the strikes — shows 57 percent of Americans agree with the decision Trump made. His approval rating, meanwhile, edged up to 43 percent, with about half (49 percent) still disapproving.

Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and senators of both parties on April 9 discussed the U.S. strategy in Syria. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

But Americans were even more emphatic about what they don't want to see next: any other unilateral strikes authorized by Trump or further involvement, period. And there is basically no vote of confidence when it comes to Trump's leadership.

[Trump officials tell Russia to drop its support for Syria’s Assad]

Seven in 10 — including a majority of Republicans — said Trump needs to obtain authorization from Congress for any more strikes. And a majority — 54 percent — say they are “uneasy” about Trump's approach to the situation in Syria, with just 41 percent expressing confidence in him.

And finally, just 18 percent say they would like to see American ground troops in the civil war, which features Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government forces; the Islamic State, also known as ISIS; and more moderate opposition forces. An additional 30 percent say they are okay with airstrikes — but many of them apparently want authorization first.

That support for ground troops is only slightly higher than it was in 2013, the last time the U.S. government threatened to retaliate for Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons. A McClatchy-Marist poll at the time showed 13 percent believed ground troops were called for.

At the time, very few Americans supported even the kind of airstrikes that Trump launched last week, so the situations aren't completely analogous. And as our own Scott Clement noted Friday, actions like the one Trump took often gain more support after the fact. President Obama never wound up launching strikes against Syria, despite having set the infamous “red line.”

But the new poll also makes clear that there is no significant increase in appetite for getting the United States more involved in a very difficult set of circumstances in the Middle East. Fourteen years after the war in Iraq was launched, the war-weariness still holds strong, even as Trump's limited strike earned a thumbs-up.

And the Trump administration doesn't seem particularly likely to take things further. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that its priority in Syria remains defeating the Islamic State. And national security adviser H.R. McMaster said that although the administration now believes Assad should go, it's leaving that up to others.

“It’s very difficult to understand how a political solution could result from the continuation of the Assad regime,” McMaster said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Now, we are not saying that we are the ones who are going to effect that change. What we are saying is other countries have to ask themselves some hard questions.”

That seems to be in line with what the American people want right now. And it seems that even when Trump does something the American people clearly support, they aren't going to suddenly give him the keys to the car.

India offers $10 billion investment, $5 billion loan to Bangladesh

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina enters the General Assembly Hall to speak during the 71st United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan, New York, U.S. September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/Files

Tue Apr 11, 2017

India will invest up to $10 billion in Bangladeshi sectors including infrastructure and medicine and will provide $5 billion in loans, including $500 million in military assistance, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Tuesday.

Hasina returned to Bangladesh on Monday after a four-day state visit to India, leading a 280 member business delegation including 40 senior government officials and ministers.

"The offers of investment and loans were given by the Indian government and private entrepreneurs during my visit to New Delhi," she told reporters during a news conference.

"Both investments and credit will be used for the development of several sectors including power and energy, logistics, education, medical, infrastructures and rail, road and waterways."

Hasina said the military assistance included training for military personnel to ensure peace in border areas, and joint patrols and drills in international sea areas.

Hasina said the loan would also be used to purchase military equipment.

The credit for the military sector has been given with 1 percent interest to be repaid over the next 20 years.

Separately the Indian High Commission in Bangladesh said on Tuesday that during the visit India signed an agreement to facilitate debt for the construction of facilities producing 1,320 megawatts of electricity in Bangladesh.

(Reporting by Serajul Quadir; Editing by Alison Williams)

Verdict imminent on Pakistan PM’s Panama exposure

Supreme Court decision on allegations relating to Nawaz Sharif and his family tipped to have far-reaching consequences either way

Nawaz Sharif. Photo: Reuters

By F.M. SHAKIL APRIL 10, 2017

Pakistan’s top court is on the verge of handing down an historic decision relating to the Panama Papers scandal. The court’s verdict will put an end to a legal battle involving the family of prime minister Nawaz Sharif that revolves around accusations of money-laundering and multi-million pound properties in London’s Mayfair.

The Supreme Court’s five-member bench, led by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, took up petitions on October 20 last year and concluded its hearing on February 23. “[The] Supreme Court’s verdict will change the future of Pakistan,” said Imran Khan, the Chairman of PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf), one of three political parties challenging the legality of the Sharif family’s offshore assets, in January.

The other two parties involved are the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the Awami Muslim League (AML). The main opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has not contested the case in court, having instead campaigned for a judicial commission to probe the allegations against the prime minister.

Both camps – Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party and the petitioning parties – have signaled confidence about the upcoming court decision. However, some have expressed distrust over its delay. “The court is creating doubt that justice is being denied,” Nauman Wazir, a PTI senator and renowned industrialist, told Asia Times last week. He cautioned that an indecisive verdict would send a message that white collar crimes are unpunishable in Pakistan and stressed that the burden of proof lay with the accused, who had admitted owning the impugned London properties.

“If a few thousands crooks are sent behind bars, the future of millions of people, impoverished by wide-ranging corruption and malpractices, will be secured,” Siraj-Ul-Haq, the Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami told Asia Times in Peshawar. He underlined the need for an impartial and abiding verdict that would satisfy Pakistanis’ demands for good governance, adding that he feared there would be mayhem if the court failed to deliver one.

In the government camp, there has been a palpable sense of unease. That, certainly, is apparent from some of the public statements of PML (N) leaders. Responding to remarks from judges that there were certain “pages missing” from the prime minister’s affairs, Federal Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafique is reported to have said at a public gathering: “All pages of Nawaz Sharif’s Life are intact and if someone cannot see them, the fault lies in their eyes.”

“If a few thousands crooks are sent behind bars, the future of millions of people, impoverished by wide-ranging corruption and malpractices, will be secured”

The governing party has long had a testy relationship with the judiciary. In 1997, PML(N) workers occupied the Supreme Court building and forced Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah to suspend court proceedings in a contempt of court case against Sharif, who was then in his second term in office and is now in his third.

What will the court’s decision be? Is Nawaz Sharif on his way out? Given Pakistan’s chequered judicial history, these are tough questions to answer. Pakistan has elections coming up next year and cynics say it’s unlikely that the court will want to bring the government down at this juncture. It has also made known its dissatisfaction with the quality of the evidence produced by petitioners and respondents. “The court cannot give a judgment on the basis of disputed material,” Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan has said.

The case originates from an enormous leak last April from the database of a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The leak exposed more than 200,000 offshore entities around the world, and implicated hundreds of Pakistani politicians, industrialists, business people, judges and luminaries, including the Sharif family. Under intense public pressure, the prime minister twice addressed the nation following the leak, announcing, “I will make a judicial commission under the supervision of a retired Supreme Court judge to present me and my family for accountability.” The opposition and government could not agree on the terms of reference of any judicial commission and the matter ended up in the Supreme Court instead.

Amid Rising Fundamentalism, Indonesia May Sentence Gay Men to 100 Lashes

BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN-APRIL 11, 2017

Two men in Indonesia’s northern province of Aceh are slated to stand trial in Islamic court after local residents caught them having sex. If convicted, the men will receive 100 lashes with a cane, in a case that demonstrates rising conservatism in the Muslim-majority country once known as a model of religious pluralism.

A 2014 law criminalized gay sex and sex outside of marriage in the province, which implements sharia, or Islamic law. The two men, ages 20 and 23, would be the first to receive punishment under the law.
“Based on our investigation, testimony of witnesses and evidence, we can prove that they violated Islamic sharia law and we can take them to court,” Marzuki, chief investigator of the Aceh religious police, said on Saturday.

Aceh is the only Indonesian province where sharia is officially on the books alongside other national laws. The region, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, was home to a deadly decades-long insurgency led by a separatist group called the Free Aceh Movement that only ended with a final peace deal in 2005. Before that, in 2001, the central government in Jakarta started granting Aceh special permission to to apply sharia in some cases. After government troops withdrew in 2005, Aceh was granted even broader authority to implement Islamic law.

Now, alcohol is illegal and modest dress for women is required. Law enforcement officers and vigilante residents police neighborhoods to root out immorality. And numerous offenses are punished by public lashing.

Aceh’s conservatism was once an anomaly in Muslim-majority Indonesia

Aceh’s conservatism was once an anomaly in Muslim-majority Indonesia, which has long been viewed as an example of tolerance and pluralism among Muslim nations. Its secular state guarantees freedom of religion, permitting six national religions (though it does not recognize atheism), and Indonesian Muslims are known for being both personally observant and accepting of the non-observance of those around them.

Indonesia is home to Islam Nusantara, or “East Indies Islam,” a progressive Islamic movement with centuries of history. It also boasts the largest independent Islamic organization in the world, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), founded in 1926, many of whose members adhere to a uniquely Indonesian form of progressive Islam. In 2016, in response to the theological challenge of the Islamic State, NU began to proactively issue ideological rebuttals to the extremist group’s propaganda.

But in the past 15 years, the archipelago has seen a rise in religious fundamentalism. After decades of dictatorship, Indonesia began a transition to democracy in 1998 following the resignation of Suharto, who had served as president for more than 30 years. A wide variety of political parties, including Islamist parties, flourished along with expanding political freedoms. The expansion of choice in the political sphere coincided with an Islamic revival as more conservative Indonesian Muslims increasingly looked to the Arab world as a more authentic expression of Islam. The Aceh model, which combines Islamic law with the national legal code, has proven popular, at least among some, and now other provinces in Indonesia have looked to pass similar regulations. To date, more than 440 ordinances based on Islamic precepts have been adopted around the country. In late 2016, accusations of blasphemy against Jakarta’s first Christian governor sparked new fears of growing intolerance. Some fear that secularism and liberalism are being eroded.

The arrest of the two men has sparked concern from human rights groups.

“These men had their privacy invaded in a frightening and humiliating manner and now face public torture for the ‘crime’ of their alleged sexual orientation,” said Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch, in a statementreported by Reuters. “Indonesian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release the two men.”

CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP/Getty Images

Japan’s nuclear dilemma: The search for energy security post-Fukushima
The eerie scene in the aftermath of the earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that hit Japan in 2011. Source: Shutterstock/Olivier Bourgeois--Abe’s vision placed nuclear power once again at the forefront of Japan’s quest to achieve energy security. Source: AP.

Anti-nuclear protesters raise a placard during a rally in front of the Parliament building in Tokyo, Japan, on March 11, 2017. Source: Reuters/Toru Hanai--Protesters don gas masks during a rally on the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster. Source: Reuters/Toru Hanai

By Michael Hart | 11th April 2017

SIX years on from the triple reactor meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan’s government has taken the first steps on the long and contested road to restarting the country’s decommissioned nuclear reactors.

Japan’s nuclear dilemma The search for energy security post-Fukushima.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Middle East home to three of top five global executors: Amnesty

Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are among the top five, with 856 executions carried out across the region in 2016

The launch of the report in Hong Kong on Tuesday (AFP)

Tuesday 11 April 2017 15:10 UTC

The Middle East accounts for three of the top five executors in the world, a new report from Amnesty revealed on Tuesday.

While China again led the global ranking, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq followed, in that order.

And excluding China, 87 percent of all executions took place in these three countries, plus Pakistan.

The number of executions recorded in the Middle East and North Africa decreased by 28 percent against the previous year, from 1,196 executions in 2015 to 856 in 2016.

However, the report states, it was not possible to confirm if judicial executions took place in Libya, Syria or Yemen, which are all currently at war.

Amnesty reported in February that the Syrian government has secretly killed between 5,000 and 13,000 political prisoners in extra-judicial killings between 2011 and 2015.

In Iran, which accounted for 66 percent of all recorded executions in the region, the use of the death penalty was down 42 percent on 2015, from at least 977 to at least 567 in 2016.

However, reports indicated that at least two people who were under 18 at the time of the crime for which they were sentenced to death were executed in Iran last year.

Some 33 executions were carried out in public, the report says, and the majority – around 328 – were carried out for drug-related offences.

In August, 25 Sunni men were executed after being convicted of what Amnesty calls the “vaguely worded crime, under Iranian law, of "enmity against God" (moharebeh), in connection with a number of armed activities, which occurred mainly in Kurdistan Province between 2009 and 2011.

The defendants’ right to a fair trial, it adds, was “blatantly violated”.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia executed at least 154 people, near to its high of 158 in 2015, the highest number recorded for Saudi Arabia since 1995.

• READ: REVEALED: Juvenile prisoners and mentally ill killed in Saudi executions

Amnesty broke down the convictions behind the death sentence in Saudi Arabia: 81 for murder, 47 for “terrorism”, 24 for drug-related offences, one for kidnapping and torture, and one for rape.

The trial which led to the execution in January of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, who had been an outspoken critic of discrimination against the country’s Shia minority, “contravened international fair trial standards”, the report states. He was convicted of “terrorism”.

“The authorities did not inform his family before he was executed,” the report states. “They refused to return his body for burial, despite the family’s numerous requests, thereby compounding their suffering.”

In Iraq, at least 88 people were executed last year, with 145 new death sentences handed down, including for 40 people who were convicted over the Speicher massacre, in which hundreds of Iraqi military recruits were killed.

At least 44 people were executed in Egypt in 2016, the report says, having received sentences in relation to “terrorism” and political violence.

A further 237 people received death sentences in Egypt in 2016, including 15 men who were sentenced to death by military courts after what Amnesty terms “grossly unfair trials and in connection to offences related to political violence and 'terrorism' that did not lead to loss of life, in contravention of international human rights law”.

On 15 January 2017, after the period which the report covers, Bahrain executed three people, its first use of the death penalty since 2010.

And similarly in Kuwait on 25 January 2017, seven were killed in the first executions there since 2013.

The United Arab Emirates did not carry out any executions in 2016, but 26 death sentences were handed down, with three commutations granted.

The scope of the death penalty in the UAE was widened in 2016, the report states, and a new law now relates to data protection and expression.

Brain cell therapy 'promising' for Parkinson's disease

11 April 2017

Scientists believe they have found a way to treat and perhaps reverse Parkinson's disease, by making replacement cells to mend the damaged brain.

They say human brain cells can be coaxed to take over the job of the ones that are destroyed in Parkinson's.

Tests in mice with Parkinson-like symptoms showed that the therapy appeared to ease the condition.

Many more studies are needed before similar tests can begin in people.

Experts say the research published in Nature Biotechnology is hugely promising, although at a very early stage.

The scientists still have to check if the treatment is safe, and whether the converted cells, which started out in life as astrocytes, can truly function like the dopamine-producing neurons lost in Parkinson's.

Parkinson's disease

People with Parkinson's lack enough dopamine because some of the brain cells that make it have died.

It is not known what kills the cells, but this loss causes debilitating symptoms, such as tremor and difficulty in walking and moving.

Doctors can prescribe drugs to help manage the symptoms, but cannot treat the cause.

Scientists have been looking for ways to replace the damaged dopamine neurons by injecting new ones into the brain.

The international team of researchers who carried out the latest work, however, used a different approach that does not require a cell transplant.

They used a cocktail of small molecules to reprogramme cells already present in the brain.

When they mixed a sample of human astrocytes with the cocktail in their laboratory, they produced cells that closely resembled dopamine neurons, although not a perfect match.

Next, they gave the same cocktail to sick mice.

The treatment appeared to work, reprogramming their brain cells and lessening their Parkinson's symptoms.

Viable therapy?

Dr Patrick Lewis, an expert in neuroscience at the University of Reading, said work like this could potentially offer a game-changing therapy for Parkinson's.

But he added: "Moving from this study to doing the same in humans will be a huge challenge."

Prof David Dexter of Parkinson's UK said: "Further development of this technique is now needed."

"If successful, it would turn this approach into a viable therapy that could improve the lives of people with Parkinson's and, ultimately, lead to the cure that millions are waiting for."

Kilinochchi disappeared protest on 49th day

09 Apr  2017

Families of the disappeared have been protesting for 49 days in Kilinochchi.

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20 February 2017 : Families of missing protest in Kilinochchi

Collateral damage of delaying transitional justice process

BY Jehan Perera-April 10, 2017, 8:11 pm 

The International Women of Courage award to Sandya Ekneligoda by the US government, and presented to her by First Lady Melina Trump, was a symbolic affirmation that the fate of victims of enforced disappearances is an international priority that will not be negated by either time or official denials. Sandya Ekneligoda’s husband, Prageeth, a journalist, disappeared in 2010 just a few days before the presidential election that saw President Mahinda Rajapaksa win a second term of office. Prageeth backed the opposition. When he went missing many motives were attributed to it, including going to France, working with the LTTE and gathering evidence of financial crimes of government leaders. But whatever the motivations of those who made Prageeth go missing, his enforced disappearance like those of thousands of others is a heinous crime. It is an international crime that all countries of the world are duty bound to prosecute by virtue of the international covenants they have signed.

Despite the change of government in 2015, the investigations into the disappearance of Prageeth, and others who went missing, have been proceeding slowly and in fits and starts. There have been innumerable instances of ground level harassment of Sandya and others in similar positions who are seeking the whereabouts of their missing family members. Today there are at least 24,000 families in Sri Lanka who have individually and personally suffered from having their family members go missing which was the number of complaints lodged with the Missing Persons Commission which wound up in August last year. These are the numbers who availed themselves of the opportunity to complain to the government commission on missing persons. Although the commission gathered evidence for over three years, it did not disclose the whereabouts of any of the missing persons and their eventual fate. Unlike Sandya, the vast majority of the victims came from the North and East of the country.

In August 2016, the government pushed through a bill in parliament that sought to set up an Office of Missing Persons. This was meant to be a permanent body unlike ad hoc and short lived government commissions of inquiry. In passing this law, the government was delivering on one of the several promises it had made in Geneva at the forum of the UN Human Rights Council where it had co-sponsored a resolution on Sri Lanka. This was in October 2015, where the government, having renegotiated the text of the resolution, was able to defuse the crisis that the former government was threatening to immerse itself at the time of its election defeat. The government changed from the previous confrontational approach, that saw Sri Lanka become akin to an international outcaste, and defeated in votes on three successive occasions at the UNHRC. Thereby it averted a system of internationally mandated political and economic sanctions would have put the country into a severe crisis.

OPPOSITION CRITICISM

The opposition is today criticizing the government for having co-sponsored the UNHRC resolution of October 2025 and for having co-sponsored the follow up resolution of March 2017 which gave the government another two years to implement the promises it had made. It is because the government agreed to co-sponsor these resolutions that it was able to moderate the terms of the resolution. If it had opposed these resolutions totally, as did the former government headed by President Rajapaksa, there is no doubt that the international community would have imposed sanctions upon Sri Lanka. The international community might also have decided to become the implementer, both in terms of investigations and in terms of sitting as judge and prosecutor in international tribunals. By way of contrast because Sri Lanka accommodated the demands of the international community, and co-sponsored the two resolutions, it was able to moderate them. Sri Lanka is to be the implementer, and appoint the judge and prosecutor, which is why the Tamil polity and international human rights organizations have registered their protests.

The fate of General Chagi Gallage, who was denied a visa to Australia to visit his family is an illustration of what might have happened to Sri Lanka on a larger scale if the path of confrontation with the international community had been taken. General Gallage has found himself at the receiving end of punitive action by a single country. The decision to deny him a visa was not a decision of the entire international community, which might have been the case if the government had continued on the course of confrontation with the international community as advocated by the opposition. If Sri Lanka had decided to oppose the resolution of the UNHRC in October 2015 that resolution would have included a recommendation for political and economic sanctions. The call for implementation of these sanctions would have been taken on by a larger group of countries.

A few days after General Gallage was denied his Australian visa I had occasion to meet with senior military officers at an academic programme on peace and conflict studies. They expressed their deep unhappiness at the treatment meted out to General Gallage, whom they saw as a professional soldier of a high calibre. They saw him as having done his job as part of the security forces of the Sri Lankan state that defeated the LTTE and thereby protected the unity and sovereignty of the country. They questioned why he had been punished by the Australian authorities on the basis of still unverified charges of being complicit in human rights violations on the battlefield. It was clear that these soldiers were also concerned about their own fates in the future. They felt that the government had a duty to defend them to the utmost as they had done what they did to protect the state. They agreed that specific incidents could be investigated, but they saw the present human rights campaign as being directed against the security forces as a whole.

TRUTH SEEKING

Due to the goodwill that the present government has developed with the international community the government has been given another two years to deliver on the promises it made in October 2015 and has failed to deliver on till now. Even the Office of Missing Persons is not established and is not functioning. As a result thousands of families, and tens of thousands of individuals, continue to live in uncertainty about the fate of their loved ones, and lacking all conviction in the genuineness of the government to find out what happened to them. Even if the Office of Missing Persons is set up, finding the missing persons will be a slow process. In Kosovo, where there are about 30,000 remaining cases of missing persons, only about one hundred cases are solved each year despite all the international assistance that is being made available. However, if the Office of Missing Persons is set up, it will be a signal to those who continue the search for their missing loved ones that the government is serious about dealing with the problem.

The examples of Sandya Ekneligoda and Chagi Gallage show that the international community is serious about wanting Sri Lanka to deliver on its promises. In recognizing Sandya Ekneligoda’s suffering, and her work in pursuing the truth about what happened to her husband, the international community is demonstrating its support for those who seek truth and justice. Unless the truth seeking and accountability processes move forward in Sri Lanka there will be actions taken against Sri Lanka and those associated with the war will be liable to punitive actions by individual countries. A credible truth seeking and accountability process is a way in which to clear the names of the security forces who did not violate the laws of war or commit the massive human rights violations they are accused of. Those who seek to block the truth seeking and accountability process are endangering the rights of those who fought the war professionally.

The soldiers who met me spoke of one of the last battles where the security forces breached the last LTTE trench, and entered into an area filled with civilians. They did not fire on them and 24 of the crack soldiers who led the offensive died when the LTTE shot at them from the midst of the civilians. The way forward for the government is to establish the reconciliation mechanisms it promised the international community, especially the truth seeking mechanisms. All sides of the truth must come out, and the time line needs to be extended beyond the last phase of the war, to include the accounts of the soldiers, those who had their loved ones abducted or go missing after they were handed over by them to government custody, and those who suffered massacres at the hands of the Sri Lankan security forces, the LTTE, the homeguards and paramilitary forces and also the Indian army when their peacekeeping mission failed.

There also needs to be a countrywide dialogue and debate about how best to deal with the past so that it will not recur and about what the transitional justice process really means. One of requests of the soldiers who spoke to me was that the government leaders should engage with them in serious and long discussions about what the country’s commitments in Geneva to the UNHRC are all about. Everyone in the country, the victims of the war as well as the soldiers who fought in the war need to be reassured that the Sri Lankan state cares for them. The government, it appears is prioritizing economic development, and is devoting its efforts to bring tangible things into the hands of people. It is devoting its best and focused efforts to grow the economy. Dealing with the past and healing the wounds of war is no less important.