Thursday, May 4, 2017

Canada, under Trump pressure, says will boost defense spending

By David Ljunggren-Wed May 3, 2017

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada, which like other NATO countries is under pressure from Washington to increase defense spending, on Wednesday promised major new investments in the military but stopped short of saying how much.

In unusually frank comments, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said poor decisions and under funding by successive governments had left the armed forces short of equipment and increasingly unable to do their job.

"It's going to take a significant investment ... it's going to be significant because of the hole we need to come out of," he told a defense industry lunch.

Canada currently devotes just under one percent of GDP on defense, less than it did in 2005. The Trump administration is focusing on the many NATO member states who have yet to meet a commitment to spend two percent of GDP.

"We are now in the troubling position where status quo spending on defense will not even maintain a status quo of capabilities," said Sajjan.

More details of planned spending will be revealed in a major defense policy review that is due to be released ahead of a NATO leaders' meeting this month.

"The number that we'll be announcing is a number that meets the needs of Canada and our support for our allies," he said.

Sajjan said he was particularly concerned by Ottawa's failure to acquire replacements for Canada's ageing fleet of CF-18 fighter jets, some of which have been flying for almost 40 years. He also highlighted problems with outdated trucks, excavation equipment and helicopters.

The former Conservative administration said in 2010 it would buy 65 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 jets for C$9 billion ($6.6 billion). They later scrapped the decision, triggering years of delays and reviews.

Sajjan said that if Canada were to fulfill its defense commitments both in North America and as a NATO member, it would in any case need more than 65 jets.

"The C$9 billion in funding that was earmarked for the jet replacements by the previous government is nowhere near enough to even cover the 65 jets they proposed," he said.

Last November, Canada unveiled plans to buy 18 Boeing Corp Super Hornets as a stop-gap measure while it prepared an open five-year competition to replace the CF-18s.

Canada has experienced a string of military procurement problems since the early 1990s, variously featuring naval ships, search and rescue helicopters, fighter planes, trucks, close combat vehicles and submarines.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren)

American Democracy: A Dead Man Walking

by Paul Craig Roberts-May 3, 2017

( May 3, 2017, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) Trump’s “sell-out,” as it is called, coming on top of Obama’s eight-year “sell-out,” is instructive. We have now had a Democratic president who sold out the people who elected him and a Republican president who has done the same thing. This is a very interesting point, the meaning of which most people miss.

But not Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. At the Valdai discussion club, Putin summed up Western democracy:

In the West, voters cannot change policies through elections, because the ruling elites control whoever is elected. Elections give the appearance of democracy, but voting does not change the policies that favor war and the elites. Therefore, the will of the people is impotent.

People are experiencing that they and their votes have no influence on the conduct of affairs of the country. This makes them afraid, frusrated, and angry, a combination of emotions that is dangerous to the ruling elite, who in response organize the powers of the state against the people, while urging them with propaganda to support more wars.

Obama promised to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq or perhaps it was both. He promised to reverse the police state created by the George W. Bush regime. He promised to focus American resources on American domestic problems, such as health care.

But what did he do? He expanded the wars and launched new ones, destroyed Libya and attempted to destroy Syria, but was stopped by British non-participation and Russian objection. Obama overthrew democratic governments in Honduras and Ukraine. He expanded the police state. He began the demonization of Russia and Putin. He betrayed the American people again by allowing the private insurance industry to write his health care plan known as Obamacare. The private interests wrote a plan that diverts public monies from health care to their profits.

All of this is forgotten when the ruling elites and the presstitutes that serve only them refocused the demonization on Trump. Suddenly, it was the president-elect of the United States who was the main danger to the US and the American people. Trump was a Russian agent. He had conspired with Putin to steal the US election from Hillary Clinton and make the White House a partner of Putin’s alleged reconsruction of the Soviet Empire.

The nonsense was hot and furious, and it was effective. Trump succumbed to pressure and sacrificed his National Secuity Advisior, who was supportive of Trump’s promise to normalize relations with Russia. Trump replaced him with a Russophobic idiot who apparantly cannot wait to see mushroom clouds over cities all over the Western world.

Why did two presidents in succession completely sell out the people who voted for them?

The answer is that presidents are not as powerful as the interest groups who make the decisions.

Trump was going to get us out of Syria, so he committed an unambigious war crime by gratuitously attacking Syria with Tomahawk missiles.

Trump was going to normalize relations with Russia, so his Secretary of State announces that US economic sanctions will stay on Russia until Russia hands over to Ukraine the Russian Crimean naval base on the Black Sea.

It is impossible to normalize relations when the cost to the other party of the normalization is national suicide.

Despite Trump’s complete surrender to the powers that be, today (May 2) on NPR I heard raw propaganda dressed up as “expert opinion” that Trump is biased against the media, when what all of us have seen is massive media bias against Trump, including the program to which I was listening.

For example, NPR had accumulated “experts” who said that Trump had slandered Obama by accusing him of intercepting his comunications. NPR said nothing about the Obama regime’s charge that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

If anything was slander, this was, but all the talk was about how Obama could sue Trump.

But, of course, both are public figures, and neither can sue the other.

I wonder why NPR’s “expert” didn’t get around to this point.

Why is the ruling oligarchy still using its presstitutes to campaign against a president who has surrendered to them?

Perhaps the answer is that the real powers that be are going to make an example out of Trump so that never again does a person running for elected office make a populist appeal to the electorate.

While House passes GOP health-care bill, Senate prepares to do its own thing

If, and that's a very big if, the GOP's health-care plan makes it out of the House, there's a whole other set of obstacles it would face in the Senate. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

By Sean Sullivan, Paige Winfield Cunningham and Kelsey Snell May 4 at 5:44 PM

House Republicans journeyed to the White House Thursday for a health-care victory lap in the Rose Garden, but Senate Republicans were in no mood for celebration.

Instead, they sent an unmistakable message: When it comes to health-care, we’re going to do our own thing.

“I think there will be essentially a Senate bill,” explained Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the fourth-ranking Senate Republican.

“It’s going to be a Senate bill, so, we’ll look at it,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

“We will be working to put together a package that reflects our member’s priorities with the explicit goal of getting 51 votes,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) reasoned.

What’s next for the Obamacare replacement bill VIEW GRAPHIC

Now that the House has narrowly passed legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system, it is headed to the Senate, where Republican leaders will wrestle with political and procedural challenges complicating chances for final passage.

Republican senators are signaling that their strategy will be rooted in effectively crafting their own replacement for the Affordable Care Act. It remains to be seen how closely that measure will resemble the one that narrowly passed the House on Thursday.

It is also unclear whether Republican senators will resolve their differences — which on health-care have been stark.

A small group of GOP senators met Thursday morning in the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to begin outlining their health care priorities, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), McConnell’s top deputy.

“It was designed by the leader to be a smaller group of people that represent the different perspectives and points of view in our conference,” Cornyn said. “If that group can get to yes, then [we will] take it to the rest of the conference.”

But Cornyn would not commit to a timeline for a Senate vote, simply saying: “When we get 51 senators, we’ll vote.”

Republicans hold a 52 to 48 advantage over Democrats in the upper chamber, leaving GOP leaders with a narrower margin for error than in the House — where infighting among Republican lawmakers nearly derailed the push on multiple occasions.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), flanked by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), speaks to the media this week on Capitol Hill. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

In a sign of the frustration that some Republican senators already have with the House bill, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) posted a skeptical note on Twitter Thursday: “A bill — finalized yesterday, has not been scored, amendments not allowed, and 3 hours final debate — should be viewed with caution.”

[Republicans plan health-care vote today, capping weeks of fits and starts]

Senate Republicans have opted to use a maneuver known as reconciliation to try to pass the bill with a simple majority, instead of having to clear the 60-vote threshold that is required for most legislation. In the current balance of power, that would require Democratic votes. But even getting to a simple majority will be no small task.

GOP senators from states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, such as Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), have voiced concerns about rollbacks to that program in the House bill.

“Absolutely,” replied Capito, when asked if she has still has worries.

Meanwhile, a trio of conservative senators — Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — are also wild cards. They have been willing to buck party leadership; earlier this year, they pushed for a more aggressive repeal of the health-care law than many of their colleagues favored.

[What is in the Republican health-care bill? Your questions answered.]

“I think that the House Freedom Caucus was able to make the bill a lot less bad,” said Paul. “I think there’s still some fundamental problems that I have with it.”

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have already introduced an alternative plan, giving lawmakers a second measure to look at should talks fall apart over the current bill.

Then there are the procedural hoops that Senate Republicans will need to clear, which could steer them to strip away some of the House bill’s signature provisions.

The measure’s original version, introduced in March by Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), already contained elements at risk of being struck out in the Senate under budget reconciliation rules that allow tax and spending changes but not broader policy changes.

That proposal initially left many of the ACA’s insurance regulations alone — with the goal of ensuring it would pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan officer of the Senate who decides on what may go in a reconciliation bill — but not all of them.

The version of the bill the House passed Thursday undercuts the ACA’s insurance regulations even more, by giving states a path to opt out of federal requirements for insurers to cover certain “essential” health benefits — and to allow them to charge sick people the same premiums as healthy people.

The GOP bill would allow insurers to charge older Americans five times what they charge younger people, as opposed to three times as much under current law. And it would enable insurers to hike premiums by 30 percent for people who don’t remain continuously covered. Health policy experts, including conservative ones, have noted that the parliamentarian may decide those provisions need to be stripped out.

Additionally, members of the House voted on their bill before they received a score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which measures how much the legislation would cost and how many people stand to lose coverage under it. Senate budget rules require a CBO score that proves the legislation will not increase the deficit after 10 years. The Senate parliamentarian can’t even start reviewing the AHCA without a score from the CBO, which is expected to take several weeks.

“I sincerely hope the Senate won’t mimic the House and try to rush it through without hearings or debate or analysis,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The CBO projected in late March that an earlier version of the GOP health-care plan would result in 14 million more people being uninsured in 2018 than under current law. It projected the plan would slash the federal deficit by $150 billion between 2017 and 2026.

Even if Senate Republicans manage to pass their own version of a health-care overhaul, it would then have to be reconciled with the House version. And if getting House conservatives and moderates to pass their initial measure was a challenge, it could be next to impossible to get enough of them to sign on to whatever the Senate decided to pass.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus that Paul referenced, said he will not necessarily back any changes made by the Senate.

“Obviously, the upper chamber has their own personalities and their own agendas,” Meadows said. “Certainly, it’s their agenda and not mine.”

“If they revise it, there’s no way,” Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), another Freedom Caucus member, said earlier this week. Brat refused to support the Ryan bill until provisions were added for states to opt out of more insurance regulations.

“Have you been watching for the last few months how tight this is, and you’re going to shift this one or the other?” Brat said. “Good luck, you don’t have to be Einstein to game theory that one.”

British Study Examines Marijuana Ingredient's Ability to Shrink Children's Tumors

William Frost, who is being treated at Nottingham University’s children’s brain tumor center. His parents are supporting the project.-Photo Credit: @makewilliamwell/Nottingham University

By Sarah Marsh / The Guardian-May 4, 2017

British scientists are investigating whether a compound found in cannabis could be used to shrink brain tumors in children.

The study of the effects of cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, was prompted by a growing number of parents giving it to children with a brain tumor after buying it online.

The lead researcher, Prof Richard Grundy of Nottingham University’s children’s brain tumor center, said in the last six months there had been a surge in parents administering it without medical advice in the belief it might help.

While no research has been done into how CBD can help children’s brain tumors, some work has been done looking at how cannabis-based molecules can help adult cancer patients. Products containing cannabidiol can be bought online, although recent changes mean companies now require a licence to sell them.

“New ways to treat childhood brain tumors are urgently needed to extend and improve the quality of life in malignant brain tumor patients, so we are excited at the prospect of testing the effect of cannabidiol on brain tumor cells,” said Grundy.

Brain tumors kill more children in the UK than any other type of cancer. Around 1,750 under-18s each year are diagnosed with cancer, of which about 400 are cancers of the brain and spinal cord.

The study, thought to be the first of its kind in the world, will seek to establish whether CBD reduces tumors. The researchers will grow cells from different brain tumors in lab conditions, some with the addition of cannabidiol molecules and others without. They will then compare how the presence of tumor cells differs in both samples through a technique called cell staining. This will help them see how many of the cells are dividing and whether any are dying.

Grundy said: “We expect the cells – brain tumor and normal brain – grown in our standard conditions to be healthy and actively dividing. We expect that normal brain cells grown in cannabidiol will remain healthy. However, we expect the brain tumor cells grown in cannabidiol to stop growing and die.”

Katie Sheen, of the Astro Brain Tumor Fund, which is co-funding the study, said if it proved to be successful CBD could be a gentler, less toxic way of treating cancer than chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

Dr Wai Liu, a research fellow at St George’s University of London, said: “We have performed experiments using CBD in leukemia and it can deactivate signalling pathways, making cells more responsive to chemotherapy.”

He said some drug companies combined CBD with psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) with positive responses, especially when combined with chemotherapy.

Liu added: “All cells need to communicate and these communications get jammed up, and CBD tries to correct this by restoring them. This ultimately results in these cells being able to undergo cell death.”

“People think that children’s cells are more flexible so there is a possibility that CBD may have a slightly different effect. We will only be able to understand the precise mechanism and value of this treatment when studies like this are done.”

Among those supporting the project are the parents of William Frost, a four-year-old who was diagnosed with a ependymoma brain tumor in 2014 and is being treated at the Nottingham centre. William’s father, Steve, said: “We were told halfway through 2016 that nothing more could be done for William. We couldn’t bear to accept the news and decided to look into alternative treatments.

“We started William on a low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diet and cannabidiol. Six months later William’s tumor had shrunk by two-thirds. He is slowly improving and attending school part-time.”

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Vigil for murdered Tamil journalists in Jaffna

03 May 2017

Tribute was paid today to the 41 Tamil journalists killed during the armed conflict and the years succeeding.

Journalists, media workers, politicians and civilians gathered around the monument to murdered journalists near the courthouse building in Jaffna, to mark World Press Freedom Day.

Following the vigil which involved tributes of candles and flowers, the journalists protested for justice and for a freer media.

Implementing Transitional Justice measures- A reality check

2017-05-04

Transitional Justice refers to the set of judicial and non-judicial measures that are implemented in countries which are coming out of a period of armed conflict, or state repression, and are in transition to a state of peace and good governance. Transitional justice is the process through which It is sought to redress the wrongs done, to make reparations and bring about reconciliation and non recurrence. This process includes institutional reform of those institutions which have been involved in or unable to prevent abuses, truth commissions, criminal prosecutions and reparation programs.
It is eight long years after the war and the question arises as to how far these processes if any have been implemented in our country. Every time a Geneva session of the UNHRC takes place attention is focused on the UNHRC Resolutions 30/1 of 2015/ & 2017, and particularly on the accountability process. The Tamil political lobby concentrates on this aspect and expects the international community to be their fairy godmothers, the Government looks on the Geneva sessions as an occasion for crisis management with sweet talk, and once a period of deferment is obtained it goes into a state of lethargy till the next sessions of the Council. Neither side (appears to) see the need to engage with and communicate the larger picture to the citizens of the country and enlist their commitment towards doing away with a culture of impunity and reasserting our cultural values of compassion and right conduct. Thus far the only subject which has been hotly debated/contested is the question of whether or not foreign judges should sit alongside local judges on the domestic tribunals/special courts, which would be constituted. But there is no information available in the public domain on preparation or discussion on the setting up of these courts and how they will function, nor the other aspects of Transitional justice namely reparation, truth seeking and ensuring non recurrence.
To commence on the Accountability process, we will need legislative measures and the incorporation into national law of the Geneva Conventions, as well as crimes under international law. For example use of civilian populations as a human shield or intentionally directing attacks on civilian objects including hospitals which are not per se offences under Sri Lankan law. In the case of offences such as extra judicial killings or enforced disappearances, the prosecutor would have to rely on ordinary penal offences such as murder or kidnapping, which do not reflect the gravity of such crimes. Moreover, when such crimes are not incorporated into national law, establishing command responsibility or joint criminal enterprise is not possible.

An example from another small Asian country is of some relevance. In East Timor, (now known as Timor Leste) after the armed struggle for independence between the Timorese insurgents and the Indonesian Army, special criminal tribunals were established both in East Timor and Indonesia. As a consequence, the new Penal Code of East Timor includes a detailed section on war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2009, the Timorese Parliament passed a resolution emphasizing the need to ensure reparations to victims. These are examples we can follow. The matter of reparations has not been adequately dealt with in the Sri Lankan context. Those civilians whose properties have been damaged, destroyed, sequestered as well as those civilians who have been disabled or suffered injuries and there are a large number of them, have not received compensation/reparations. The family members of the disappeared would also have to receive compensation, at least in those cases where it was proved through evidence collected by the Disappearances Commission (also called the Paranagama Commission) and the LLRC which are already available which can be complimented where needed by the long awaited OMP when it is finally established, that the disappearances were caused by state and non state actors as a consequence of the conflict. So while the setting up of the Office of Missing Persons (yet to be made operational) is a step in the right direction it will also involve setting up alongside it an Office of Reparations. Reparations though primarily monetary must also take the form of guaranteeing of employment and livelihood opportunities, educational support mechanisms for children inclusive of transport for schooling. In lands which are returned where the homes have been destroyed and wells filled up, help to rebuild these abodes and facilities. These measures would make reparation more meaningful to the affected communities.
The UNHRC Resolution 30/1 also refers to the need for institutional reform. These too have to be undertaken not just in the context of Transitional justice but also in the interests of good governance in the country. The International Commission of Jurists which conducted a workshop with lawyers in Colombo recently (November 2016) has submitted a synopsis of its findings which gave recommendations for legal reforms and identified the strategies for making such reforms. They have pinpointed the Attorney General’s Department, Police Department and the Judiciary.
The findings stress the need to increase the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and provide support and resources for legal research and specialized courts for specialized areas, so that the judges sitting in those courts are specialized in those areas of the law. Also provision of better language and translation facilities in the courts so that suspects and defendants can have proceedings communicated to them in their own language. They also advocate strengthening the criminal justice system by allowing greater public oversight of legislative initiatives and greater inclusion of civil society in the drafting process. An example is the Witness Protection Act which would have improved with such oversight.
These are all matters which the reconciliation bodies within the government and the Tamil Political lobby, could address themselves to, and help towards the implementation of the Transitional justice process, namely truth, justice, reparations and non recurrence. Politicians too can help to build positive public opinion keeping in mind the larger interests of good governance in the country which requires that the culture of impunity be eradicated.
Transitional justice, if correctly implemented, would make citizens of the country of all communities have confidence in the criminal justice system and the impartiality of the governing authorities. Hence making the legal and institutional changes required, remedying the abuses and wrongs suffered and enforcing the rule of law will make for non-recurrence and peaceful resolution of the country’s issues without the need for external interference.

No media freedom without prosecutions for past crimes against Tamil journalists - Jaffna Press Club

04 May 2017

Media freedom can only be assured by prosecuting past crimes against journalists and media workers, the Jaffna Press Club has stressed.

The collective of journalists and media workers based in Jaffna and the rest of the Northern Province said they “firmly believe that without investigating and prosecuting those responsible for the murders and disappearances of journalists and media workers, media freedom in Sri Lanka cannot be assured.”

Releasing a statement yesterday for World Press Freedom Day, the organisation said that while the new government has not killed or abducted journalists, the lack of investigation into the murders of Tamil journalists has called its commitment to accountability into question.

Read full statement below.

Translated from Tamil by Tamil Guardian

World Press Freedom Day is observed all over the world today. While there has still been no justice this year in Sri Lanka for the journalists that have been murdered, abducted and forcibly disappeared, press freedom day is somehow being celebrated.

Jaffna Press Club firmly believe that without investigating and prosecuting those responsible for the murders and disappearances of journalists and media workers, media freedom in Sri Lanka cannot be assured.

It is unfortunate that while perpetrators roam freely, journalists will continue to engage in self-censorship.

In the reign of previous regimes, at least 44 journalists were murdered and disappeared across Sri Lanka. Of that number the majority are Tamils, with at least 41 Tamil journalists and media workers having been murdered and forcibly disappeared, mostly from the North-East.

The fact that the new government has not established even basic steps and inquiries towards justice for any of these murdered Tamil journalists, has caused us to question their willingness to bring about accountability.

Under the new regime there have been no blatant assassinations of journalists. Similarly, there also have not been any blatant abductions or forcible disappearances of journalists. Investigations have begun into the murder of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge and the abduction and disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda.

The Right to Information Act has been passed in Parliament. These are all welcome steps. However the government cannot just display these steps to the outside word to wiggle its way out of accountability for the murders and abductions of Tamil journalists.

That the government cannot be allowed to escape from accountability is the united position of journalists all over Sri Lanka.

So on this World Press Freedom Day, while the Jaffna Press Club remembers all our murdered and disappeared journalists and media workers, we emphasise to the government the need to ensure our rights to gather information and report it without having to face pressures and threats.

We stress again that there must be investigations into all the murders, abductions and disappearances of journalists and that their perpetrators must be prosecuted.

As EU Parliament Considers Preferential Trade Status To Sri Lanka, Ensuring Human Rights Compliance Is Key

By Shreen Abdul Saroor –May 3, 2017

Shreen Saroor

You see a shirt. The price is right: you buy it. “Made in Sri Lanka,” it says.

What you probably don’t think about is the real cost of that shirt, or how a preferential trade scheme called GSP+ brings that shirt to European markets and implicates human rights in Sri Lanka. On 27^th April the European Parliament voted to defeat a resolution to deny returning this preferential trade status to Sri Lanka.

In 2010, the EU withdrew GSP+ status for Sri Lanka due to its bleak human rights landscape. The Sri Lankan armed forces had just defeated the Tamil Tigers, bringing an end to a 26-year civil war. U.N. experts estimated that 40,000 or more died in the final months alone. The government that won the war held onto power tightly, amidst international alarm at widespread human rights violations against journalists, civil society groups, war-affected Tamils, and religious minorities. The EU told Sri Lanka that to maintain preferential GSP+, it would have to comply with the 27 international conventions covered by the GSP+ scheme, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture (CAT). It told Sri Lanka that several sections of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which facilitated the country’s thousands of enforced disappearances, were incompatible with the ICCPR and needed to be repealed. When the previous government doubled down on its intransigence instead of complying, the EU withdrew Sri Lanka’s GSP+ status.

In 2015, a new Sri Lankan government took over. It reapplied for GSP+ membership and co-sponsored U.N. Human Rights Council resolution 30/1 to commit to creating four transitional justice mechanisms to comprehensively deal with the past and prevent future violations. Among other commitments, the government promised the EU and the Human Rights Council that it would repeal the PTA and enact new counter-terrorism legislation.

Despite promises, there has been little action. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights recently described Sri Lanka’s transitional justice measures since 2015 as “worryingly slow” and “inadequate to ensure real progress,” with government officials giving “unclear and often contradictory messages.” Of the four promised transitional justice mechanisms, only the Office of Missing Persons has legislation in place, but it remains inoperative and moves are underway to eliminate a core provision allowing foreign technical assistance. Officials have dismissed the report of public consultations task force the government itself set up, despite over 7,300 participants from all ethnic communities weighing in on the best way forward. Notably the PTA has yet to be repealed. The government claims it will be replaced with a new Counter Terrorism Act (CTA), but that legislation is being developed in secret without any consultation with the Sri Lankan public, or even its National Human Rights Commission. On 24^th April Cabinet of ministers have apparently hastily endorsed the draft CTA just to placate EU members and secure GSP+. The draft CTA reportedly contains an overboard definition of terrorism-related offences, excessive powers of detention by police, and restricted legal access during the initial stages of detention – all falling well below acceptable international standards and the EU’s expectations for reinstating GSP+. Besides this draft that was approved on 24th April is substantially worse than a draft that had been presented to cabinet previously and it reintroduces offences relating to gathering confidential information, and makes speech that causes communal disharmony an offence. Meanwhile, the government is dragging its feet on constitutional reforms, causing moderate Tamil politicians to lose support against those hold hardline position and oppose engaging with the government. War-affected women are conducting street protests and hunger strikes to demand answers on disappearances and release of lands held by the military.

Hence, despite promises made, too little has changed in Sri Lanka’s human rights landscape since 2010. Nevertheless, on 11 January, the European Commission proposed granting Sri Lanka GSP+ membership. On 18 January, the Commission commended the Sri Lankan government for “committing to address historic and long-standing problems that have caused conflict and negatively affected the lives and living standards of all Sri Lankans.”

The war-affected community in Sri Lanka has voiced concerns over reinstating GSP+. When the root causes for GSP+ revocation have not been addressed, it seems counterproductive to reward the current government for mere promises made. Nevertheless, realistically speaking, GSP+ is now a virtual certainty. A majority of European Parliament would have to oppose the measure, an outcome that seems all but impossible, particularly given the decision to grant GSP+ status to countries with poor human rights records like Pakistan.

Youth Council chairman threatens journalist

Indika cartoon
May 03, 2017

Chairman of the National Youth Council, lawyer Eranda Weliange has threatened a journalist from www.gossip99.com during the UNP May Day rally at Campbell Park, Borella over an article published by the website in November 2015.

The threatened journalist says that the chairman, in an inebriated state, had come to him and threatened him, “Who are you to expose the Youth Council? You don’t know who I am. Get your life spared.”

The website reported a fraud that had taken place during the 2015 November youth parliamentary election. A candidate fielded from Rakwana was not a permanent resident of the electorate, a violation of the election circular. He had produced a Grama Seva certificate to say that he was only a temporary resident.

The Youth Council chairman had covered up a complaint he had received regarding this fraud.

Even as leaders of ‘Yahapaalana’ brag about the media freedom it is giving, it is unfortunate that persons like Weliange, who had thrived themselves through ‘Yahapaalana’, are threatening journalists on May Day.