Sri Lanka: Why nation’s political Siamese twins must live together or perish together

03/12/2017

Last year in March when Ranil Wickremesinghe blew the 67candles on his birthday cake, he offered the first slice he cut to Maithri. Not to Maithree, the wife. But to Maithri, the President. And though she may have felt snubbed the prized first slice was not given first for her delectation but to her new namesake, she would have understood the significance and the importance of the gesture made to the cohabitating partner of Ranil’s political marriage. For without it, his own political survival would have been at stake.

Sri Lanka Why nation’s political Siamese twins must live together or perish together.docx by Thavam on Scribd

The danger of democracy

By Suren Raghaven-2017-12-03

Democracy is a dangerous game. Especially, if it is played by those with bloody minds and muddy hands. This is not because such attempts may not succeed – they may well be so as often is the case in Sri Lanka – but because what they pretend to construct will be abysmally empty and permanently tarnished like their polity.

A Constitution will be the overarching canopy under which a progressive blueprint for a State and all nations within is desirable at any cost. It is for this reason that all modern democracies took painful labour to hammer out such a document to answer the epistemological question "then how shall we live better?" The keystone assumption is that the proponent (and yes even the opponents) must have the legitimacy to do such fundamental structural changes. Tenants have no right to remove the foundation of a house even if they claim it is for the betterment. Such legitimacy is not mere legalistic correctness but a much wider moral qualification that is expected. No one will respect a lawyer – even if s/he was the Gold medallist just last year – if such has turned to be a murderer. It is true that both Maithripala Sirisena as the common candidate and then President Mahinda Rajapaksa asked the mandate to change the present Constitution – in that Rajapaksa wanted an overall comprehensive change instead of piecemeal amendments as a sustainable solution to the Tamils' political aspirations. It is, also, true that both candidates collectively received a quantitatively astonishing over 95% endorsement.

But governance - especially if one is mindful of a participatory democracy in a pluri-nation State – is not only based on Wall Street type inhuman and often immoral number crunching but on the supremacy of goodwill, endorsement and the active participation of the citizens from the very periphery to the core centre. In the Political Science sphere during the last two decades an enriching development in political theory developed and it is broadly named as Deliberative Democracy (DD). DD refers to the mechanism that legitimate lawmaking happens from the public deep deliberation of citizens of all categories. As a normative reflection of moral legitimacy, deliberative democracy conjures ideals of rational legislation, participatory politics, and civic self-governance all such at the regional as well as the central level in a multi layered political structure. In short, it constructs an ideal of political autonomy based on the practical reasoning of a wider citizenship.

(A)Yahapalanaya?

It is in this context that the new proposals to constitutional changes have come forward almost as a side show to the government's other essentially non-essential activities, in a State where the annual budget gap is ever widening in a frightening manner. Even if one is to imagine that this Government of Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Presidency of Maithripala Sirisena both that come to power by the direct and sheer support of the minority votes and, therefore, trying to address the deep rooted issues of the minority nations such fancy imaginations have no ground realities. Simply the social,
economic and political conditions in the North and the East say an opposite story. Land release from the forcibly occupying Army is dead slow. Still more than 10,000 IDPs lament in the camps. Repairing/improving of the essential services such as the health sector, drinking water, transport is at a token minimum level. An adamant Minister of Rehabilitation again a royal friend of the PM is intransigent in his determination to build pre-fab aluminium houses against the will and advice of the local leaders.

This causes in the process to be hampered. No major new industry or investment has come. The mongering diaspora has not brought the millions of dollar investment they promised. Still over 90,000 Sri Lankans exclusively Tamils are living as refugees in Tamil Nadu. This Government has taken no step whatsoever to encourage their return even while the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has come forward to make such arrangement.

Above are issues at the operational level. Then comes the long list of the structural issues such as the topic of the Transitional Justice, the genuine inquiry into the war crimes (of both sides), the full and impartial operation of Office of the Missing Persons, strengthening and fortifying the full need of the judiciary administration in the entire region of 1.6 million citizens, filling and supporting the decomposed higher education system centred on the university of Jaffna: The need to make the agricultural economy of Jaffna synchronize with the needs of the southern market place: The social psychological repair of the war and its deep wounds in a systematic manner to recover the human potential: The systemic programme to address the ideological opposition between the two ethnic nations so that the future of this State will be true Sri Lanka instead of Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim.

Yahapalana Government has failed to meet these challenges in a satisfactory manner. The clever articulations of then Foreign Minister Managala Samaraweera, managed to defuse the fires at the international community and win some basic concessions like GSP +. Nevertheless, all such small gains are conditional and temporary. It is in this perplexing condition that this Government continues its arrogance of (shameless) power to protect the scallywags of the Bond scam. Ranil came to power promising to punish corruption and recover the lost. Ranil came to power promising to punish corruption and recover the lost. What a disaster of disjuncture. Within the first 100 days, he appointed one of his confidants Saman Athaudahetti to a loss-making pitiable ITN and another to the Central Bank, which is possibly only second to Parliament in terms of governance of this country, and made sure that he broke all the trust and all the ethics of professionalism, especially in a field like finance where the level of ethics and transparency should be as in the Supreme Courts.

The ugly revelation continues by every hour. Ranil seems to be destined to go down in history as the UNPer who destroyed his party and its liberal image in just 100 days what Mahamanya Senanayake and others took decades to build. It may be the only clean achievement this Government has done so spectacularly – to divide and destroy the two major Sinhala political parties. It is in this deplorable surrounding that his government has contracted the all-important task of constitutional change to few minors like Dr. Jayampathi Wickramaratne , some liberal looking essentially Colombo based civil fronts and their advertising agencies.

They think the Sri Lankan citizenship importantly the Sinhala South is so weak and fallible that it can be altered by a part time Facebook campaign. They similar to their political leadership fail to read the continuous and undefeated ethno-national determination of the average man like Vannihami of 'Purahanda Kaluwara' of Prasanna Vithanage. They may be blind to certain democratic reality of the 21st century. But the Sinhala's are not deterrent in their determination. So all my dear friend Sumanthiran can do is to sit, dialogue and win the confidence of the Mahanayakes of Kandy and Matara as equally as or more importantly than Delhi and New York before we can even discuss the first draft of the proposals. These proposals can secure the majority in Parliament, yet what use of such endorsement if it is not coming from the conviction of the Sinhala majority of this country. By failing to give priority and instead letting his Government entangle in an abysmal tunnel of corruption Wickremesinghe has lost not only his "Mr. Clean' image but also slipped another opportunity to bring structural changes to this country: Because democracy is dangerous in the hands of those without political morality.

Suren Raghavan Ph D, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies and currently a Resident Research Scholar at the University of Colombo. raghavansuren@gmail.com

Making Sense: PM’s bond blast, Rajapaksa arrest howler, Lord Naseby, and local elections

Rajan Philips-December 2, 2017

Due apologies for a mouthful of a title! Sri Lankan politics is nothing when it is not mouthful. Better that way than going fistful, to give the latter word a violent meaning. Or, put another way, "Jaw, Jaw is always better than War, War", as Sir Winston Churchill is said to have quipped during a 1954 White House luncheon. Hosting Britain’s World War II Prime Minister was the American WW II General turned President, Dwight Eisenhower. The Americans now have a president who goes nuclear on twitter. What a turnaround – the greatest communication revolution in human experience is at the service of the worst warped political mind ever and anywhere. On Friday, Trump’s former National Security chief Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to charges of lying about his Russian connections.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his vast team of top of the list investigators had methodically cornered Flynn and he had no choice but to plead and guilty and co-operate in the probe against others in the Trump Administration. That’s how investigations and apprehensions are carried out in a society abiding by the rule of law and due process in its Magna Carta meaning. Sri Lanka has had the untoward experience of executing untenable arrests and not carrying out legitimate arrests. Last week, the country was spared of what would have been a monumentally stupid arrest of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa literally over the construction of a monument to his father. The politics of ancestral worship might deserve derision but not police arrest. Let me digress for a moment here.

Colombo’s boiling political turmoil may have been dampened by days of unseasonal rainstorms. The climate goddess is unleashing a double whammy all-round the island and beyond. Under a rare, if not unprecedented, double cyclonic formation the entire island and most of South India are having heavy rains and gale winds at the same time. It seems quite different from the more seasonally separated southwest and northeast monsoons. The weather maps currently being displayed in the media, despite some unseemly hedging going on the national Meteorological Department, seem to geographically attest to what historians have started calling the SISL – South India Sri Lanka – region. The weather goddess is driving home the obvious point about the geographical proximity of Sri Lanka to South India. World capitalism, first as colonialism and later as globalism, turned natural and pre-colonial proximities into un-navigable chasms. Not just in South Asia but everywhere.

All flak and no fame for PM

What was centuries-old local trading between the island’s littoral and the coasts of South India became smuggling in colonial law and lexicon. Everything about colonialism is anathema in Lankan politics except the colonial legacy about smuggling. No political leader has suffered more on account of this than Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, for his dogged pursuit of free trade with India. Please don’t mention his passion for a bridge connection between Mannar and Ramsehwaram. What a maelstrom it created. The brouhaha over the bridge exposed deep seated prejudices among the intelligentsia and their inability to differentiate between historical irrelevancies and current realities. Non-striking doctors even warned about Tamil Nadu mosquitoes come crawling on Ranil’s bridge to destroy Sri Lanka’s civilization.

As trade ideas go, Mr. Wickremesinghe is in good company. Hector Abhayavardhana, the LSSP intellectual, was a lively advocate of total free trade with India. Left thinking is usually more than a few generations ahead of its contemporaries. Genealogically, it would be interesting to know if Prime Minister Wickremasinghe’s free trade ideas owe any inspiration to his father, Esmond Wickremesinghe, who in his salad days was a blue-eyed boy of the LSSP. Even JRJ was a socialist relative to the grandees of the Ceylon National Congress. All of that was before DS Senanayake founded the UNP, a large enough home for all in the extended family.

To get to my point, Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW) is a unique political leader of his generation who gets all flak and no fame for pursing what are politically path breaking ideas in Sri Lankan politics. Is it in the water he drinks or the company he keeps? Chandrika Kumaratunga (CBK) is in the same category but she was always an electoral winner. Unique in her own way, she never lost an election in which she was a candidate. Her non-accomplishment is a different story. I will not call the ideas and approach of RW and CBK progressive given the term’s traditional connotations in Sri Lanka. But they are positively path breaking given Sri Lanka’s long miring in politics and policies that have time and again proved to be bigoted, short sighted and self-destructive. Their coming together behind a common candidate in 2015 was both an affirmation of what they jointly stand for and what they jointly stand against. All of that was also a repudiation of what the Rajapaksas stood for then and seemingly unashamedly stand for now.

What a world of difference the Prime Minister could have made in 2015 if he had announced immediately after the January election the bond blast he announced in parliament last week. A systematic probe of the goings on in the Central Bank under the previous government would have been an ideal start for the new government. Perhaps that could not be done because there were other political IOUs and personal favouritism. The country did not deserve a Finance Minister like Ravi Karunanayake and the Central Bank would have been perpetually better off without having as its governor the father-in-law of its then perpetual bond dealer. The blast of a probe the Prime Minister has just announced is not too little. But is it too late?

Ancestral Worship

The same dilly and dallying and procrastinations have been the experience in the government’s handling of the allegations of corruption and abuse of power under the previous government. Every now and then the police announce yet another major breakthrough in the investigations of the murders of Lasantha Wickrematunga and Wasim Thajudeen. But the murders remain unresolved even though they are an open secret. Then stories are leaked about the likely arrest of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for allegedly violating arcane provisions in the Public Property Act in building a monument to his father in Medamulana, their ancestral village. The President even commented last Sunday that no arrest would be made before he discussed it with the Prime Minister who was out of the country at that time. That let the cat out of the bag if any letting out was necessary. This was political interference of the passive kind, but no less blameworthy than the active interferences that were common under the Rajapaksas.

The political aside to this is the rather concerted efforts by the Rajapaksa brothers and their entourage to elevate the political memory about their father to a level of prominence that it had not acquired on its own. Few people may have noticed this rendition of history that President Rajapaksa inserted into his 2012 Budget Speech, in his dual role as Finance Minister, and addressing the then Speaker who was his brother, Chamal Rajapaksa: "You would recall our young days when our father – late DA Rajapaksa, with other late leaders such as SWRD Bandaranaike, Philip Gunawardena, SA Wickremasinghe, were in the forefront to make a decisive change in our society. … This transformation was subsequently taken forward by several progressive leaders such as late Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, late Dr. NM Perera, and late Dr Colvin R de Silva."

And there is more. The curriculum for the now terminated leadership training program for university students conducted by the military under the auspices of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, as Defence Secretary included this list of "world famous leaders" as examples: "Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, King Dutugemenu, Anagarika Dharmapala, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Veera Puran Appu, and Ranasinghe Premadasa." It is not that the Rajapaksa brothers personally prepared the budget speech or the curriculum list but the ethos they created enabled their political acolytes to proliferate such nonsense. On the other hand, giving a government agency the authorization, whether directly or indirectly, to build a monument to one’s father, no matter how great a historical figure he was or not, is quite irregular and certainly unprecedented. And none of this would have come out if Mahinda Rajapaksa had won a third term as president.

There was a recent recollection story about Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike getting parliamentary approval to provide funding support for Lalith Athulathmudali’s education at Oxford after the latter’s father passed away and the family was in some financial difficulties. The Left leaders were not supportive of parliament making ad hominem provisions rather than a general allowance for all deserving students, but the point here is that Mr. Bandaranaike sought parliamentary approval for spending a very small amount of government money outside the budgetary allocations. Contrast the ethos of public finance then with what Prime Minister Wickremasinghe casually revealed to the bond commission – about contract payments made outside budgetary allocations during the Rajapaksa regime. The Medamulana monument might be small fry in the vast scheme of unbudgeted or unauthorized expenditures in the Rajapaksa era.

Lord Naseby’s dead count

Rather than exposing these irregularities, the present government has not only taken ownership of them and added its own contributions to them. And that has been the unravelling story of yahapalanaya victory. That has also been the story of the Joint Opposition – relying on government’s blunders for political traction: the bond scam, the handling of the constitution, the UNHRC resolution, award of tenders, the sale of Hambantota, and the list goes on. With other hot topics losing steam, the UNHRC is back in focus for nationalist scrutiny and political slights. The critics have found some new ammunition in Lord Naseby and his much publicized revelations before a rather empty House of Lords in London.

In fact, there is nothing new about Lord Naseby or his advocacy of alternative numbers for the death toll in the final phase of the war. Advocates are easy to come by, for hire or for hospitality. And Sri Lankans overseas have competing global forums with competing advocates. There is no ground breaking for either side; only vigorous spinning in opposite directions on safely separated spindles. In Sri Lanka, there is a clamour for debating competing dead counts. And there is blame that the government is not taking the lead in debating Sri Lanka’s dead in world forums. How deadly has our politics become? There is no point picking on those who clamour and those who blame, for the responsibility for the current impasse, if not mess, must rest mostly with the government and perhaps equally with UN fly-by-nights from Geneva.

Yesterday’s headline in The Island: "Sri Lanka under cavalcade of UN scrutiny", must alert UNHRC officials to what is becoming of their mission in Sri Lanka. There is little to show by way practical results after two years of time and effort. The virtual non-accomplishment by foreign experts on human rights is not the best case for involving foreign judges for dispensing transitional justice. This is not a criticism of the overall UNHRC objective in Sri Lanka, but the legalistic and sometimes hectoring approach is not showing results in a situation involving strong emotions and strong opinions. A mission rethink might be in order before the prevailing cynicism becomes even more entrenched to the point of questioning if Sri Lanka is Geneva’s only active file.

Local Elections

It was hilarious to see how over last Sunday and Monday there were news stories first confirming and then contradicting the likely re-uniting of the two SLFPs to contest the local government elections. SWRD Bandaranaike used to have word-play fun at the expense of the good old CWC and DWC – calling them "the two double you sees!" He may have never thought that there would be a day when people will be talking about the two SLFPs.

On Sunday, the story was that the old People’s Alliance was being resurrected to fight the local elections with 40% of the seats for the two SLFPs each and 20% given to the non-SLFP parties of the JO. All that Mahinda Rajapaksa wanted was for President Sirisena to disavow the UNP. He seemed open to re-uniting even after denouncing a few days earlier the government’s alleged plan to arrest his younger brother over their father’s monument.

Wheels came off on Monday when President Sirisena met the group who brought him to power and not the SLFPers who wouldn’t bet on him when he left them to run for office. He told the yahapalanaya group there was no way he was going to have any agreement with the Rajapaksas. So what was all the re-uniting talk about? Was President Sirisena calculating to have a form of ‘no-contest’ agreement from 1960s - secure 40% of the LG seats for his party, and then dump the Rajapaksa group just as he did before the August 2015 parliamentary election? If so, he is made of shrewder stuff than he is given credit for. But he could not possibly explain his cunning stratagem to the good-government goody-goodies and so had to call it off.

As for the SLFP ministers who were dreaming of a new SLFP government after getting rid of the UNP bunch even before the local election, all their labour has been in vain. The two SLFPs are back to their separate ways and just to make sure that there will be no chance of an agreement with Maithripala Sirisena, Basil Rajapaksa got his new outfit the SLPP to start paying deposits in a number of areas to prepare for the LG elections. The beleaguered Minister for Provincial Councils and Local Government, Faiszer Musthapha, apparently one of the better lawyers in parliament, stood his ground against slings and arrows directed at from every political corner. The petitions to the Court of Appeal on the Minister’s gazetting of municipal delimitation scheme have been withdrawn, so the race for the local bodies is finally on.

In another instance of constitutional overreach, municipal elections have become multiple exertions of the franchise and assertions of subdivided sovereignty. GL Peiris, former Law Professor and now the powerful Chairman of Basil’s party, has declared that the local elections will be a national referendum on the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government. That is to say, there will be no kaanu-bokku elections this time! Put another way, we can expect national politics to fill up municipal drains surcharging the monsoonal rainfall.

Dehideniya and Gunaratne’s interim order siding Gota is illegal ; cripples future police investigations –Judge

(Lanka-e-News - 02.Dec.2017, 4.30PM) The recent interim injunction order issued  by the two notorious judges Lakshman Tikiri Bandara Dehideniya and Shiran Gunaratne of the appeal court on the grounds that  the legal action filed against Gotabaya Rajapakse ought  not to be under the Public Property Act, thereby deflowering the sanctity of justice in broad daylight is an absolute contradiction of the law and a miscarriage of justice , as revealed by  a retired appeal court judge  to Lanka e news. If the courts are to make such erroneous decisions , soon the police will able paralyzed and will not be able to conduct criminal investigations, he added.

The retired judge (we cannot  reveal his name right now) who knows very well about the sordid nature and unscrupulous  propensities of Dehideniya and Gunaratne made the aforementioned comments when Lanka e news asked for  his opinion on the judgment .

This learned judge declared the interim injunction order was unlawful on the grounds that ,  even before listening to the additional Solicitor General Ms. Dilrikshi Dias Wickremesinghe who was in court representing the Attorney General (AG),  the decision was announced by these two judges. In other words these two judges alias despicable stooges  even had refused to listen to   the AG’s views .  The fundamental rule of law – both sides must be heard had not been followed.

The petitioners submitted the application  to appeal court on the 28 th, just a day  before the hearing. Hence , the AG in order to make his submissions sent a most  senior State counsel of his to court . While he has taken such a step , what is the legal right  these two judges , Dehideniya and Gunaratne have to refuse to listen to the submissions of the senior state counsel ? the retired appeal court judge  questioned. The AG surely is not a soothsayer to have intuition or special foresight to know on the same day  about the petition that was  going to be filed by Gota on 28 th.

Therefore the judges are bound to permit the AG to make his submissions on the following day .Even while Dilrukshi representing the AG was insistently pointing out  that a unilateral decision cannot be taken without hearing both sides , the two  judges ignoring the requests and most uncaringly delivered their erroneous judgment , the retired judge pinpointed.

The retired judge went on to forewarn with great concern ,if the appeal court is to conduct itself this way , in the future , never a day can a criminal investigation be duly conducted. That is because , so far a case proceeding  has not begun in this regard. It is still at police investigation stage . Hence , when the police investigations are under way  AG’s advice are obtained and reporting to the court via B report are done. The case is only finally filed when  the investigations are at the end.  It is after filing indictments and preparing the list of names of the suspects.

In connection with Gotabaya’s heinous crime of misappropriation of a whopping Rs. 91 million  public funds to build a mausoleum for his parents , the investigations are still at the stage referred to in the foregoing paragraph , and the case has still not been filed.

In such circumstances , if an interim restraining order is issued by the appeal court  to the police which are investigating and producing reports based on AG’s advice to courts , that is certainly going  to obstruct the police from investigating crimes and will be a de –motivation, the retired judge went on to elaborate.

The chief justice should therefore take an immediate decision against these two unscrupulous judges for they have not only perverted the  course of justice but   also befouled the legal tenets through their professional misconduct and unethical corrupt move and motive , the retired judge insisted .

The retired judge showing grave concern for the judiciary whose image is being soiled by judges like Dehideniya and Gunaratne went on to highlight, the contention   there is  an oral civil agreement  between the Land reclamation and development Board and the D.A. Rajapakse Foundation  advanced by the petitioner is most ludicrous and ridiculous. He also asked where on earth do you get government Institutions entering into civil agreements , and in which country ? These two judges Dehideniya and Gunaratne who do not know even that basic law  should be interdicted and  sent packing, he observed. 

By Chandra Pradeep 

Connected report ..
Sanctity of justice deflowered by unscrupulous judges like Dehideniya and Gunaratne..! -Crooked Gota who robbed 91 million public funds encouraged not punished..!

---------------------------
by     (2017-12-02 11:02:22)

SLFP-‘JO’ talks falter, Sirisena must go it alone, face the inevitable

By Our Political Editor-Sunday, December 03, 2017    

• What prompted President to back out of talks? Some SLPPers also blame Basil for breakdown
• Sirisena meets Ranil; PM warns UNP group of action against anyone attacking the President; SLFP also will check polls leaflets to avoid mudslinging at UNP
• Elections to all 341 councils likely to be held on Feb. 10; SLPP and its ‘JO’ allies to contest as United Common People’s Front

Talks between rival factions of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) have collapsed despite efforts for the first time by President Maithripala Sirisena and his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa to reunite for the local polls.

The duo appointed their respective committees to take forward the talks. This even saw a meeting between President Sirisena and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. There was mutual endorsement of the two teams then. The former Defence Secretary, who had identified the pros and cons of uniting to his leadership, was in favour of giving it a chance.

Whilst the teams were at work, Minister Susil Premjayantha, who had Sirisena’s blessings at an earlier stage to broker a parntership, was the harbinger of bad news. His latest message said that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the political party formed by Mahinda Rajapaksa, was only a faction of the SLFP. Thus, he declared, the SLFP leadership could not engage in talks for unity. Thereafter, Premjayantha left Sri Lanka on a foreign trip. Like the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back, the talks collapsed.

SLFP-‘JO’ talks falter, Sirisena must go it alone, face the inevitable.docx by Thavam on Scribd

Top Army officials requests all military operatives to stay out of politics


December 3, 2017

Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake requested all Military personnel to keep to their political ideologies privately without seeking justice through a career in politics.

He expressed these sentiments while addressing a military gathering in Mullaitivu on December 1.

He further stated that the primary duty of a military officer is to safeguard the security of the people and not to fight their battles in the political arena. 

Rs 20 Billion Plus Deal For Unnecessary Russian Vessel To Be Inked This Week

The Yahapalana Government is set to go ahead with the deal to buy a Russian-built Gepart 5.1. Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) for the Navy costing US $ 135 million or more than Rs 20 billion this week.

President Sirisena – Minister Difence

December 3 2017

This purchase goes against recommendations from all authoritative sources and in particular serves no meaningful purpose given the Navy’s current requirements.

It was widely rumored that the former Navy Chief Travis Sinniah’s tenure was not extended because he was dead against this purchase.

The Sunday Times revealed that ‘the cost of the OPV at US$ 135 million would come from un-utilized credit from a facility issued by Russia on February 10, 2010’.

Although the credit line lapsed in 2015, the Government has persuaded Russia to re-validate the US$ 135 million for five years and a Russian bank has extended a loan for the amount at an annual interest rate of four per cent, the Sunday Times further reported. In September this year, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a recommendation from President Maithripala Sirisena, as Minister of Defence, for the purchase of this vessel. He said in a Cabinet Memorandum that “The Sri Lanka Navy has a requirement of this kind of a ship and already given the recommendations to purchase this.” Defence sources say the purchase of more ships from two different countries is now on the cards.

Read More

Mahindananda opts for the best way to evade the law !

 Dec 01, 2017
                                                                                          

Joint opposition MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage is accused of earning money and assets through improper means during the period he was a minister. The CID has submitted the investigation reports and legal action against him is unavoidable. As he has avoided courts, his guarantors had to appear before courts.

To evade the law, he has now opted for the best way, which he will enforce tomorrow (01), according to reports reaching us. That is to leave the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led joint opposition and join president Maithripala Sirisena by meeting him after he returns from South Korea. He will be the latest addition of crossovers to support the government, in order to escape from the law.

 

His friends in the JO have told him that the only way out was to ally with president Sirisena. The former defence secretary too, will benefit likewise.

 

Mahindananda has been making attempts to get Mahinda Rajapaksa cleared of the accusations of fraud, corruption, murder, irregularities etc. against him, but it will not be surprising if he finds him guilty of those charges once he crosses over.

 

Institutional Jewish leaders have “abdicated” in fight against anti-Semitism

Despite sharp attacks by Zionist organizations, tens of thousands tuned into panel emphasizing that criticism of Israel and standing up for Palestinian rights is not anti-Semitism. (via Facebook)

Michael F. Brown -1 December 2017

launch for a book about anti-Semitism and the movement for justice in Palestine.
Haters of Muslims and Palestinians were vocal on Tuesday about the high-profile New York

The book, On Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice, is by Jewish Voice for Peace. That group’s director, Rebecca Vilkomerson, and Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour were two speakers who drew sharp attacks from anti-Palestinian organizations in advance of the event.

“We are insisting on a vision of resisting anti-Semitism that roots it inside the broad fight against racism and oppression,” Vilkomerson told the audience. “We know that rather than falling into isolationism that we are strengthened by and welcome tying all liberation struggles together.”

“We cannot dismantle anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, every phobia and -ism without also dismantling anti-Semitism,” Sarsour said. “Anti-Semitism is one branch of a larger tree of racism – we have to address all the branches.”
The panel can be watched on video.
On social media, many of the haters displayed their own Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bigotry.
That racism followed Sarsour to The New School auditorium, where Laura Loomer, an attendee at the recent Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) gala feting former Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, screamed at Sarsour that she is a “cockroach.”

Tonight @LSarsour will use her hijab for more than just supporting medieval oppression of women’s rights. It’ll double as a tear catcher. Looking forward to Round 2 #Loomered @TheNewSchool

CC: @TimesofIsrael @Jerusalem_Post @ZOA_National pic.twitter.com/CEs4TUZAOO

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) 29 November 2017

Laura Loomer@LauraLoomer

Tonight @LSarsour will use her hijab for more than just supporting medieval oppression of women’s rights. It’ll double as a tear catcher. Looking forward to Round 2 #Loomered @TheNewSchool

CC: @TimesofIsrael @Jerusalem_Post @ZOA_National

11:36 PM - Nov 28, 2017

•  6868 Replies
 
•  300300 Retweets
 
•  595595 likes

But according to Jewish Voice for Peace, the smears did not deter nearly 500 people from attending the book launch, with tens of thousands more tuning in online.

Israel lobby smears

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the ZOA attacked the event in advance.
ZOA president Morton Klein has allied with far-right figures, including Bannon and Gorka, a sympathizer with Nazi-linked and anti-Jewish organizations.
Yet writing at the Bannon-run “alt-right” platform Breitbart, Klein castigated The New School for promoting “enablers and perpetrators of anti-Semitism” by hosting the event with Vilkomerson and Sarsour.
In a similar vein, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted that hosting the two women to speak on anti-Semitism “is like Oscar Meyer leading a panel on vegetarianism.”

Jonathan Greenblatt

✔@JGreenblattADL

Having Linda Sarsour & head of JVP leading a panel on #antisemitism is like Oscar Meyer leading a panel on vegetarianism. These panelists know the issue, but unfortunately, from perspective of fomenting it rather than fighting it. http://bit.ly/2AHg8Ok  1/2

5:15 PM - Nov 13, 2017

The New School Invites Linda Sarsour and Jewish Voice for Peace to Panel on Anti-Semitism

Founded in 1919 by progressive New York intellectuals, The New School rose to prominence two decades later, when it took in a small band of Jewish intellectuals fleeing the Nazis. Eminences like...

tabletmag.com

•  185185 Replies
 
•  554554 Retweets
 
•  984984 likes

Such inflammatory rhetoric was clearly intended to smear activists concerned about both anti-Palestinian sentiment and anti-Semitism, and to deflect any criticism from decades of Israeli dispossession of and discrimination against Palestinians.

Lightning rod

If Greenblatt had any decency, he would apologize after the powerful presentations by Sarsour and Vilkomerson – they were joined at the event moderated by Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman by Leo Ferguson of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and Lina Morales, an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace’s Jews of Color caucus.

Sarsour, a Democratic Party activist who endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries, has been a lightning rod for anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic smears and hate speech, especially since she gained prominence as one of the organizers of the Women’s March that followed Donald Trump’s inauguration as president in January.

Although pro-Israel activists credited Sarsour with helping them keep the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights off the Women’s March platform, this has done nothing to stem the attacks. Sarsour herself supports BDS as she emphasized Tuesday.

The attacks from Israel lobby leaders like Klein and Greenblatt in advance of Tuesday’s panel were evidently an attempt to drown out the clear message voiced by the panelists: that it is wrong to conflate equal rights for Palestinians with anti-Semitism and disingenuous to go after this claimed “anti-Semitism” while the Trump administration and pro-Israel groups embrace the likes of Bannon and Gorka.

“The institutional Jewish community has abdicated its responsibility to fight against actual anti-Semitism – trading it for support of Israel,” Vilkomerson said, adding that this “leaves it to us to build the real intersectional movements for justice needed in this time.”

Vilkomerson asserted that the panel “was seen as so provocative precisely because we collectively represent a new vision for fighting anti-Semitism.”

This inclusive vision is clearly worrying powerful Israel lobby groups. The ADL has previously complained about and misrepresented the rise of “intersectionality” that includes support for Palestinian rights as a threat to the ability of pro-Israel groups to pose as champions of “civil rights.”

Out of touch

The ADL has long been mainstream media’s go-to source on a range of civil rights issues, particularly anti-Semitism – and, unlike the ZOA, it has strongly criticized Bannon and Gorka.
But its politics and methods are nonetheless increasingly out of step with younger people concerned about social justice.

The ADL is, for instance, deeply involved in promoting exchanges between police forces in the US and Israel, at a time when many anti-racism campaigners see ending police brutality and impunity as a priority. Jewish Voice for Peace has recently made opposing such exchanges with Israel a focus of activism.

Younger activists may also be unaware of the history of some of the ADL’s sordid activities – a generation ago it engaged in spying and violations of the rights of American Indian, Palestinian, Arab American and Black organizations, as well as activists against South African apartheid and those challenging violent US intervention in Central America.

In the 1970s, the ADL even spied on left-wing public intellectual Noam Chomsky, considering him to be an “Arab apologist.”

New approaches

Today Greenblatt and his colleagues face an uphill struggle selling their pro-Israel, pro-police agenda to young activists, and their smear tactics are not winning hearts and minds – as the enormous interest in the event they denounced demonstrates.

Anti-racism activists are highly motivated right now to push back against the degradations of the Trump administration and the hypocrisy of one-time standard bearers who are missing the mark in 2017 and who are often openly anti-Palestinian.

New approaches and thinking by activists will be needed to right a country doubling down on policies that could precipitate catastrophic new wars – for example in North Korea and Iran – on top of the ones started by previous administrations.

The international dangers are mounting along with civil strife, division and a rise in racism at home promoted by an unpopular president apparently intent on bringing matters to fever pitch in time for the November 2018 mid-term elections.

There was a power in the room on Tuesday night that offers hope of a viable alternative. Those aligned with the policies of Trump or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are increasingly anxious about what the new anti-racism voices might accomplish – from Ferguson to Palestine.

Tehran Is Winning the War for Control of the Middle East

And there’s no indication that, despite Mohammed bin Salman’s bold moves, Saudi Arabia stands a chance of turning the tide.

Then-Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 opening ceremony in Hangzhou, China on Sep. 4, 2016. (Nicolas Asfouri/Pool/Getty Images) 

BY JONATHAN SPYER-NOVEMBER 21, 2017, 9:22 AM

Saudi Arabia appears to be on a warpath across the Middle East. The Saudi-orchestrated resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and Saudi officials’ bellicose rhetoric after the launch of a ballistic missile targeting Riyadh from Yemen, appear to herald a new period of assertiveness against Iranian interests across the Middle East.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s sudden moves on a variety of fronts may superficially have the feel of Michael Corleone’s swift and simultaneous strikes at his family’s enemies in the closing frames of The Godfather. Unlike in the film, however, the credits are not about to roll. Rather, these are the opening moves in an ongoing contest — and it is far from clear that the 32-year-old crown prince has found a formula to reverse Iran’s advantage.

Let’s take a look at the track record so far. The confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran is taking place across a swath of the Middle East in which, over the last decade, states have partially ceased to function — Iraq and Lebanon — or collapsed completely, as in the case of Syria and Yemen. A war over the ruins has taken place in each country, with Riyadh and Tehran arrayed on opposing sides in all of them.

So far, in every case, the advantage is very clearly with the Iranians.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah vanquished the Saudi-sponsored “March 14” alliance of political groups that aimed to constrain it. The events of May 2008, when Hezbollah seized west Beirut and areas around the capital, showed the helplessness of the Saudis’ clients when presented with the raw force available to Iran’s proxies. Hezbollah’s subsequent entry into the Syrian civil war confirmed that it could not be held in check by the Lebanese political system.

The establishment of a cabinet dominated by Hezbollah in December 2016, and the appointment of Hezbollah’s ally Michel Aoun as president two months earlier, solidified Iran’s grasp over the country. Riyadh’s subsequent withdrawal of funding to the Lebanese armed forces, and now its push for Hariri’s resignation, effectively represent the House of Saud’s acknowledgement of this reality.
In Syria, Iran’s provision of finances, manpower, and know-how to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has played a decisive role in preventing the regime’s destruction. The Iranian mobilization of proxies helped cultivate new local militias, which gave the regime access to the manpower necessary to defeat its rivals. Meanwhile, Sunni Arab efforts to assist the rebels, in which Saudi Arabia played a large role, ended largely in chaos and the rise of Salafi groups.

In Iraq, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has developed an officially-sanctioned, independent military force in the form of the 120,000-strong Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). Not all the militias represented in the PMU are pro-Iranian, of course. But the three core Shiite groups of Kataeb Hezbollah, the Badr Organization, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq answer directly to the IRGC.

Iran also enjoys political preeminence in Baghdad. The ruling Islamic Dawa Party is traditionally pro-Iranian, while the Badr Organization controls the powerful interior ministry, which has allowed it to blur the boundaries between the official armed forces and its militias — thus allowing rebranded militiamen to benefit from U.S. training and equipment. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been left playing catch up: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Riyadh in late October to launch the new Saudi-Iraqi Coordination Council, the first time an Iraqi premier had made the trip in a quarter-century. But it is not clear that the Saudis have much more up their sleeve than financial inducements to potential political allies.

In Yemen, where the Saudis have tried their hand at direct military intervention, the results have been mixed. The Houthis and their allies, supported by Iran, have failed to conquer the entirety of the county and have been kept back from the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait as a result of the 2015 Saudi intervention. But Saudi Arabia is bogged down in a costly war with no end in sight, while the extent of Iranian support to the Houthis is far more modest.

This, then, is the scorecard of the Saudi-Iranian conflict. So far, the Iranians have effectively won in Lebanon, are winning in Syria and Iraq, and are bleeding the Saudis in Yemen.

In each context, Iran has been able to establish proxies that give it political and military influence in the country. Tehran also has successfully identified and exploited seams in their enemy’s camp. For example, Tehran acted swiftly to nullify the results of the Kurdish independence referendum in September and then to punish the Kurds for proceeding with it. The Iranians were able to use their long-standing connection to the Talabani family, and the Talabanis’ rivalry with the Barzanis, to orchestrate the retreat of Talabani-aligned Peshmerga forces from Kirkuk in October — thus paving the way for the city and nearby oil reserves to be captured by its allies.

There is precious little evidence to suggest that the Saudis have learned from their earlier failures

 and are now able to roll back Iranian influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is no better at building up effective proxies across the Arab world, and has done nothing to enhance its military power, since Mohammed bin Salman took the reins. So far, the crown prince’s actions consist of removing the veneer of multiconfessionalism from the Lebanese government, and threatening their enemies in Yemen.

Those may be important symbolic steps, but they do nothing to provide Riyadh with the hard power it has always lacked. Rolling back the Iranians, directly or in alliance with local forces, would almost certainly depend not on the Saudis or the UAE, but on the involvement of the United States — and in the Lebanese case, perhaps Israel.

It’s impossible to say the extent to which Washington and Jerusalem are on board with such an effort. However, the statements last week by Defense Secretary James Mattis suggestingthat the United States intends to stay in eastern Syria, and by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will continue to enforce its security interests in Syria, suggest that these players may have a role to play.
Past Saudi behavior might encourage skepticism. Nevertheless, the Iranians here have a clearly visible Achilles’ heel. In all the countries where the Saudi-Iran rivalry has played out, Tehran has proved to have severe difficulties in developing lasting alliances outside of Shiite and other minority communities. Sunnis, and Sunni Arabs in particular, do not trust the Iranians and do not want to work with them. Elements of the Iraqi Shiite political class also have no interest of falling under the thumb of Tehran. A cunning player looking to sponsor proxies and undermine Iranian influence would find much to work with — it’s just not clear that the Saudis are that player.

Mohammed bin Salman, at least, appears to have signaled his intent to oppose Iran and its proxies across the Arab world. The game, therefore, is on. The prospects of success for the Saudis will depend on the willingness of their allies to engage alongside them, and a steep learning curve in the methods of political and proxy warfare.

Syrian army intercepts Israeli missiles near Damascus: State media

The latest Israeli strikes come a day after Syrian government pulled out of UN-led talks in Geneva to end the civil war

An Israeli F-15 fighter jet takes off during an exercise dubbed " Juniper Falcon"at Ovda Military Airbase in southern Israel on 16 May 2017 (Reuters)

Saturday 2 December 2017 

Syrian air defences intercepted at least two Israeli missiles which targeted government positions near Damascus early Saturday morning, state media reported.

"At half past midnight (2230 GMT Friday), the Israeli enemy fired several surface-to-surface missiles at a military position in Damascus province," the state SANA news agency reported.

"The air defences of the Syrian army were able to deal with the attack ... destroying two of the missiles," it said, adding that the attack nonetheless caused "material damage".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based group that monitors the war through a network of contacts in Syria, said the missiles, presumably Israeli, targeted "positions of the Syrian regime and its allies" southwest of Damascus near the town of al-Kiswa.

"An arms depot was destroyed," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman, adding that it was not immediately clear whether the warehouse was operated by the Syrian army, or its allies Iran or Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment.

Hezbollah fighters put Lebanese and Hezbollah flags at Juroud Arsal, Syria-Lebanon border, July 25, 2017 (Reuters)

The Israeli air force has previously acknowledged carrying out repeated air and missile strikes within Syria since the outbreak of the bloody civil war to stop arms deliveries to Hezbollah, with which it fought a war in 2006.

The militia has played a key role in supporting the Syrian regime forces of President Bashar al-Assad in recapturing territory from Syrian rebels and Islamic State militants.

Israel has also grown deeply alarmed at the increasingly prominent role regional rival Iran has played in the neighbouring conflict. Iran has provided critical support to the Syrian military and Hezbollah.

On a visit to Damascus in October, Iran's military chief warned Israel against breaching Syrian airspace or territory.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

The two countries remain technically at war.             

Latest peace talks stall over Assad’s future role  

The latest incident came after Syrian government representatives quit UN-led peace talks in Geneva to end the civil war on Friday, saying it would not return until the Syrian opposition withdraw a statement demanding that President Assad play no-role in an interim post-war government.

The civil war which begain in 2011 has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million from their homes.

So far all previous rounds of negotiations have failed to make progress, faltering over the future role of President Assad.

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations and head of the government delegation Bashar al-Jaafari (C) arrives prior to a round of negotiations during the UN-led Intra-Syrian talks in Geneva on November 30, 2017 (AFP)

After a morning of talks, Syria government chief negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari said: "For us [this] round is over, as a government delegation. He as mediator can announce his own opinion," referring to UN mediator Staffan de Mistura.

"As long as the other side sticks to the language of Riyadh 2 ... there will be no progress,” Ja‘afari said, referring to a position adopted in Riyadh last week in which the opposition stuck to a demand to exclude Assad from a transitional deal.

Riyadh 2 was a "mine" on the road to Geneva, he added and accused the opposition of imposing preconditions on the talks and purposefully undermining them.

The opposition spokesman Yahya al-Aridi rejected the claims saying his side sought a "political solution" to the war.

"We have come to this round with no preconditions," he told reporters.

"Now, not coming back is a precondition in itself. It's an expression or a reflection of a responsibility toward people who have been suffering for seven years now," Aridi said.