Chibok girls: Many abductees dead, says journalist

Image copyrightAFP-112 of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls who were abducted in 2014 are still missing

14 April 2018

A Nigerian journalist with links to the Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed only 15 out of the 112 missing Chibok girls are still alive.

Ahmad Salkida said he had negotiated for the release of the girls on the behalf of the government.
Several opportunities to have them released were missed, Mr Salikda said.

A spokesperson for the government told the BBC that it was still in discussions with Boko Haram to secure the release of the 112 girls.

He said that there was no reason to believe some of the girls may be dead.

Mr Salkida said the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan had asked him to negotiate for the release of the Chibok schoolgirls two weeks after they were abducted.

He said he had arranged for a prisoner swap on five occasions, but delays from the then government led to a breakdown in negotiations.

• What happened to the 276 kidnapped girls?
• Chibok abductions: What we know
• The town that lost its girls

Mr Salkida would not reveal the names of the remaining girls, stating that this was the responsibility of the Nigerian government.

The 276 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram exactly four years ago, on 14 April 2014.
The kidnapping led to a global outcry for their release.

China Will Always Be Bad at Bioethics

It’s no accident that the Chinese government is leading the world in medical advances — and in dangerous ethical lapses.

A lab worker in China displays the newly developed Inactivated Vaccine for Streptococcal Disease (Type 2) in Swine at Guangdong Winsun Bio Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd on July 31, 2005 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. (China Photos/Getty Images) 

BY YANGYANG CHENG-

APRIL 13, 2018

This April, potential sperm donors at one of Beijing’s top hospitals found themselves facing a set of tough new standards. Listed as the first criteria, before any mention of infectious or hereditary diseases, was the requirement that potential donors have “a love for socialism and the motherland” and be “supportive of the leadership of the party.”

By itself, this would be just one more incident of political excess in a country where full-blown Chinese Communist Party ideology is making a fierce comeback. But unlike the demands that students dump “Western” textbooks or that singers parrot their love for President Xi Jinping, China’s bioethical standards are more than a curiosity for outsiders. They may shape the future of humanity.
Chinese scientists, in January, produced the world’s first cloned primates through somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same technique that created Dolly the sheep in Scotland in 1996. In the summer of 2017, the gene-editing technology CRISPR was successfully used for the first time to edit a gene associated with a disease in human embryos by an international team of scientists from the United States, China, and South Korea; that was just two years after Chinese scientists shocked the world by making the first such attempt. While the United States is just starting to look for the first patient for such studies, at least eight clinical trials are underway in China using CRISPR technology to treat cancer.
As China’s advances in biotechnology come closer to the secrets of life, they pose tantalizing prospects for the future. But when standards for research on the latest technological frontiers are being set by a government that has always prioritized power over ethics, there’s also plenty of cause for concern.
***
It was not until 1998 that the Chinese Ministry of Health established an ethics committee and issued the first set of guidelines on medical ethics in China. Over the past two decades, China has made earnest efforts toward the ethical practice of biomedicine. After years of denial, the Chinese government acknowledged in 2006 its decades-long practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners, and it has progressed toward a registry with volunteer donors. Nevertheless, many of the country’s rules and regulations, as in other fields, exist more on paper than in practice.

While the Chinese Communist Party has a branch office at every school and every hospital, the presence of ethics boards is optional. According to a presentation at the World Health Organization by one of China’s leading medical ethicists, Hu Qingli, only about half of Chinese provinces had set up ethics committees by the early 2010s; the same went for individual hospitals. Even when ethics boards exist, conflicts of interest are rife. While the Ministry of Health’s ethics guidelines state that ethical reviews are “based upon the principles of ethics accepted by the international community,” they lack enforcement mechanisms and provide few instructions for investigators. As a result, the ethics review process is often reduced to a formality, “a rubber stamp” in Hu’s words. The lax ethical environment has led many to consider China the “Wild East” in biomedical research. Widely criticized and rejected by Western institutions, the Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero found a home for his radical quest to perform the first human head transplant in the northern Chinese city of Harbin. Canavero’s Chinese partner, Ren Xiaoping, although specifying that human trials were a long way off, justified the controversial experiment on technological grounds, “I am a scientist, not an ethical expert.” As the Chinese government props up the pseudoscience of traditional Chinese medicine as a valid “Eastern” alternative to anatomy-based “Western” medicine, the utterly unscientific approach makes the establishment of biomedical regulations and their enforcement even more difficult.

The fragile bioethics system in China is further weakened by rampant corruption. In 2006, a large-scale investigation into the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration resulted in arrests and imprisonment of several of its highest officials for allegedly accepting bribes, including the administration’s Director Zheng Xiaoyu, who was ultimately executed. As with much of the anti-corruption effort in China, the crackdown started after dozens died due to unsafe drugs in highly publicized cases; the actual figures remain unknown.

And in medicine, as with much else in China, authorities will often evade laws that exist on paper if there are customers (or, in this case, patients) willing to pay. China long ago banned doctors from revealing the sex of embryos to patients, but the practice remains common and contributes to gender-based abortion. Another example is the clinical use of stem cells. The Chinese Ministry of Health classified stem cell treatments as “high risk” and banned its clinical usage without approval in 2009. However, a Nature investigation in 2012 revealed that despite increased regulatory clampdowns, stem cell clinics were still popping up across the country, charging patients thousands of dollars for unauthorized therapies.

The willingness to overlook safety for financial gain hints at a greater challenge with bioethics in China — not just structural, but ideological. Authoritarian states naturally prioritize the strength of their own power, including the size of their economy, above all else; this runs contrary to, and inevitably undermines, the healing purpose of medicine.

China’s record attests to this. Claiming the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people” as its ultimate mission, the Chinese government has conducted massive social engineering campaigns to control and “improve” its population. The one-child policy was carried out with forced abortions, compulsory sterilization, and female infanticide, leading to an aging population and severe gender imbalance. Faced with the resulting demographic crisis, the Chinese government has now turned to campaigns encouraging “the right quality” of women — namely younger, urban women with a college education — to have more children, while imposing constraints on reproduction for ethnic minorities and in particular the Uighurs. The Maternal and Infant Health Care Law of 1995, initially named the “Eugenics and Health Protection Law” with the explicit purpose to “prevent new births of inferior quality,” effectively mandated childlessness for people with genetic disorders, certain infectious diseases, and mental illness.

Communism bases much of its legitimacy on its claims of resting on a foundation of science — but its understanding of science centers far more on authority than skepticism. “Scientific” in China’s party editorials is virtually synonymous with “politically approved.” The party’s journals are filled with glowing evaluations of Mao Zedong’s “scientific” legacy. The constitution’s latest addition, Xi Jinping Thought, lists early in its 14-point manifesto “adopting science-based ideas” for development. The suggestion is that if a government is “scientific,” then the state’s grasp on power must be as absolute and above criticism as the laws of the universe — even when that power is used to persecute scientists and crush entire branches of research considered contrary to political ideology, as the Chinese government has repeatedly done.

When science is used in service of legitimizing an authoritarian system, the resulting research, however successful it might appear to be, inevitably abandons cosmopolitan ideals. The first two monkey clones born in a Chinese lab in January were named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua; zhonghua means the Chinese nation and its people. The macaque twins were not just portrayed as the product of science, but of Chinese science.

This politicized approach to science also abets the trampling of ethical boundaries. Communism emphasizes the idea of “constant struggle,” not only between classes, but also against nature. China, like the Soviet Union before it, has already paid a harsh environmental cost for this approach to development policy. During the Great Leap Forward, sparrows were initially listed among the “four pests” to be extinguished, and the drastic reduction in sparrow population led to an increase in crop pests that worsened ongoing famine.

Most concerning of all is how the Chinese state’s understanding of science discounts the autonomy of an individual body for the collective notion of a strong national body. The legacy of social Darwinism still permeates China, evident in the government’s swift and brutal campaign this past winter to rid the city of Beijing of its migrant workers and their families, callously referred to in official documents as the “low-end population.”

But the justification of individual sacrifice for the greater good is contrary to any principle-based bioethics framework. When Jesse Gelsinger died at the University of Pennsylvania as the first casualty of gene therapy in 1999, the tragedy halted this type of experimental treatment on humans for several years in the United States, and it still serves as a somber reminder for the medical community. Had the death occurred in China, it would most likely have been either covered up or turned into propaganda depicting Gelsinger as a national martyr.

With the Chinese government’s intensifying explicit push for “civil-military fusion,” one should also take it at its word and assume any of its new technology will be dual-use — with military uses applying both to national defense and internal suppression. The Chinese government is already collecting DNA samples among other biometrics data in its far-west province of Xinjiang, where ethnic minorities like the Uighurs are already subject to systematic discrimination, and building up a massive surveillance state using artificial intelligence.

The introduction of AI into health care in China, spearheaded by Chinese tech giants including Tencent and Alibaba, can help with an overburdened hospital system, but it also raises serious privacy concerns in a state where data privacy is nonexistent. Biotechnology will become a powerful tool in the Chinese security state.
***
In ninth-century China, Taoist alchemists searching for the elixir of life found a dark mixture that was highly combustible. They named it huoyao, “fire medicine.” In the pursuit of immortality, the Chinese invented gunpowder.

In the face of China’s advances in biotechnology today, the world must be vigilant. At the same time, paranoia can, and should, be avoided; the correct approach is principled engagement, not isolation. A secure future demands that all stakeholders come together in good faith to reach a collective agreement in the development and utilization of biotechnology.

The International Summit on Human Gene Editing in 2015 — co-hosted by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine in the United States, the Royal Society in the United Kingdom, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences — and the National Academies of Science and Medicine’s 2017 report by 22 science and ethics experts from multiple countries laying out guidelines for human genome editing are both encouraging examples in the direction toward global governance and shared responsibility.

Biological threats recognize no human borders. Disparity in bioethics anywhere weakens bioethics everywhere. Liberal democracies must take advantage of the openness of their system to educate the public, live up to the highest ethical standards in protecting human rights and safeguarding the environment, and make such standards the bedrock of universal principles. China is most likely to abide by such standards when its membership in the global political and scientific community depends on it — in other words, when it has no other choice.

If P.M.’s erudite wife can be that simple why Commander’s unqualified wife this pompous?

(Lanka-e-News - 13.April.2018, 10.00PM)  Like in any other country  in the world so in Sri Lanka , the members of the forces work for a salary . Therefore there  are  no special rules nor State laws governing them to confer special  privileges or immunities  on them. In countries where there exists a dictatorship or a military rule , the situation is obviously different. 

In countries like SL where there is a viable democracy , neither do special rules and regulations nor special privileges or concessions attach to the officers of the armed forces any more than the other state officers.

It is owing to this reason ,the British during their rule  appointed civil officers as secretaries to the three forces and the police , and the  chiefs of the armed forces are considered as government department officers , and not as above  the ministers . However in the past we noticed , political opportunists  for their own selfish gains  glorifying  the soldiers as war heroes to use them as stooges  to achieve the filthy and foul agendas of the opportunists. Owing to  that the forces  were given a place much more than what was really due though truly  speaking these soldiers were taken down the garden path .

No country in the world identifies a soldier as a war hero (Ranaviru) . War hero is derived from the English word “Warrior’’ . Even  Field Marshal Paton and General McArthur who were immensely contributory to win the second world war , are described as skilled soldiers , and not as war heroes. 

Even Napolean Bonaparte is a soldier and not a war hero . The reason is , a soldier is one who fought a war while abiding by all the laws , and strictly observing  all the international war norms and possessed of qualities of a  gentleman .He does not kill the enemies under him . He does not murder  civilians , specially women and children. In the battle of the Waterloo , the ordinary civilians from the mountain top watched the war because they were  aware true soldiers will  not be a source of danger to them.

But to a so called ‘warrior’ who is cruelly obsessed with only victory has only one objective – winning at any cost .  Such individuals have gone down history as brutal  murderers .

In truth in SL presently there are no soldiers in the true sense. In SL what exists is a selfish group that considers itself as exclusive , and as beyond the reach of laws  and above the reach of all . According to Saman Gamage of Divaina newspapers , they are immune from arrest. The people must tolerate and bear with  with these murderers who ruthlessly killed journalist Prageeth Ekneliyagoda , and broke the limbs of journalist Keith Noyahr. Unbelievably , they cannot be thrown into jail for their murders ,while  their  mentality is most frighteningly  cowardly and monstrous.

Though they are  servants  collecting a salary out of public funds they behave as if they are working  on no payment basis while  abusing  state assets .Our members of the forces are government servants working for a salary  A genuine government officer will not use the official vehicle to take his child to school , yet only a small group follows  that rule.  They are committing  wrongs  despite the fact  the vehicle is not one belonging to their family.

If one wishes to know how many vehicles of the officers of the forces take their children to school , one has only to wait at the gate of a Colombo school during starting time or school closing time to confirm that.  Besides, the wives of the officers of the forces go on their jolly rides  and shopping in the official vehicles. What ‘s more ! those are driven by the soldiers who are paid salaries out of public funds. That is ,the public are being  forced to pay for their sins and crimes.

We challenge the chiefs of the forces to prove whether  there exists a  law which permits their spouses to use the official vehicle or a  soldier in uniform to drive it for her.  

In addition , no permission has been granted to a State officer to use a soldier whose salary is paid  by the State to attend to the door and window repairs of his house , clean their gardens , wash the dirty lungies and ‘jungies’ (knickers) of their wives, hold umbrellas for them,  and bathe the dogs and bitches  in their homes.

In other words these soldiers are being treated like slaves ,while the state pays their salaries.  Can you beat that ! Recently when the wife of Air Force Commander went to an Avurudhu pola to purchase goods , it is a soldier of the Air Force in his official uniform (photograph depicts) who held the umbrella for her . Mind you for all these degrading tasks of the soldier discrediting the dignity of the forces   ,it is  the government which pays his  salary ! What a shame ! Isn’t this  most detestable  and deserves the worst   condemnation ? Just because he is a chief of the forces , a soldier under him cannot be transformed  into a slave , least of all to serve his wife. Isn’t  the  one who exploits  his subordinates and the lessor off this disgracefully is himself worse than a slave so to speak , no matter what his rank is ?
 
It will be well worth recounting an incident some years ago  involving the Queen Elizabeth . When the Queen was inspecting a guard of honor , it began to rain , yet none came forward to hold an umbrella. The Queen neither took offense nor called for someone to protect her from the rain . This is considered as chivalry  because sycophancy is  frowned upon in those countries. Neither did the Queen encourage that  sycophancy. 

On the contrary , in SL  a non entity who is just a wife  of the Commander who has no official designation is  brazenly and blatantly treating  a soldier as a slave .While the government is paying salaries  to perform respectable duties of a soldier,  he on the other hand is being taken along by the Commander’s wife to roam the streets ,and treated most disrespectfully to hold an umbrella  for her when she is shopping. Of course that is understandable if her arms had been amputated or is a cripple  , and unable to hold an umbrella.  

In profound contrast to the avurudhu pola scenario involving the uneducated bumptious  wife of the Air Force commander , the wife of the prime minister (P.M.) despite the latter being  the second citizen of the country never  gets anybody  to hold umbrellas. In the  photograph herein is P.M. with his wife . It is the latter who is holding the umbrella for him without any fuss . Couldn’t they  too have made an employee under them a slave ?

Unless and until this country rids itself of the  false pride , pretenses  and undue pomp and fuss at state expense  , the country’s future  is going to be bleak.  The P.M.’s erudite  wife attends  to her tasks herself and has no security detail whereas the uneducated wife from the backwoods,  of the  officer of the  Air Force has a security contingent to trail behind her wherever she goes. Whither SL? 

It is very unfortunate there is nobody to resist such worthless  useless women in SL who have not even passed the GCE adv. Level and who are parasites  , yet riding the high horse  . Because  it is difficult   for them  to rid themselves of their male fervor  and  ‘high flying fever’ , such wives perhaps  have to necessarily move around with a security detail .

For Saman Gamage who is unhinged  over  the ‘freak war hero’ these are not noticeable. Keerthi Warnakulasuriya too  gets his protruding bleeding piles  ,only when an officer of the forces is summoned over his criminality to courts which is meant to dispense justice alike to everyone   irrespective of rank and status .

If a minister of the government can be sent to jail, what is precluding these khaki coat scoundrels from being put behind bars ? Why don’t the so called media Institutions and their media coolies spotlight this ? 

To them the wronging forces even if they deserve a place next to feces for their crimes, they are higher than Lord Buddha and therefore they cannot be criticized. This is simply based on their warped slave mentality  . 

By a special correspondent

---------------------------
by     (2018-04-13 19:50:03)

Sri Lanka fails to meet UN deadline on torture report

^{File photograph: A Tamil torture victim's scars on his back. ITJP.}

13Apr 2018

The Sri Lankan government has failed to respond to a United Nation Committee Against Torture (CAT) report, which called for information on the “establishment of a judicial mechanism” to investigate torture and information on the role of a former Criminal Investigations Department head, confirmed a UN official this week.

Sri Lanka had until December 2017 to respond to the report, which was issued after the state was discussed at the 59th session of the UN CAT in 2016. However, the Tamil Guardian confirmed with the United Nations this week that Sri Lanka is yet to provide a response, though several months has passed since the deadline. Other states such as Armenia, Ecuador and Turkmenistan, which were also discussed at the 59^th session, have responded to the global body as required.

The United Nations had amongst other issues, called for information regarding the role of Sisira Mendis, the Deputy Inspector General of Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigations Department from March 2008 to June 2009.



In its concluding report on Sri Lanka, CAT noted that the ‘4th floor’ facility at police headquarters in Colombo, which was under Mr Mendis’ command, is “known as a notorious site of torture” and that a previous UN investigation had reported there were “allegations of widespread torture, including sexual violence, perpetrated against individuals detained at Manik Farm Camp and elsewhere” – areas over which he allegedly “exercised supervisory authority”.

The committee was “alarmed” by Sri Lanka’s decision to include him in their delegation to the Geneva session in 2016, it added.

“Shockingly despite the comments from UNCAT, the Sri Lankan Government took no action against Mr Mendis in respect of the torture allegations but rather renewed his contract as intelligence chief until June 2018, according to media reports,” said Frances Harrison, a human rights activist with the International truth and Justice Project (ITJP).

^{Above right: File photograph. Sri Lanka Police Headquarters in Colombo, “known as a notorious site of torture” said the UN.
Above: File photograph. Sisira Mendis, who is currently Director of Sri Lanka’s Centre for National Intelligence.}

Since his appearance at the UN session in Geneva as part of the Sri Lankan delegation, had his term as the Director of Sri Lanka’s Centre for National Intelligence extended until June 2018. The ITJP's Executive Director, Yasmin Sooka said she was “stunned by this provocative action” at the time and called it a move that showed “utter disdain for victims of torture and the UN system”.

“Why wasn’t he at least vetted; Sri Lanka promised to do this under Resolution 30/1?” continued Ms Harrison. “This is an enormous insult to his alleged victims and is in clear breach of Sri Lanka’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”

Sri Lanka’s failure to comply with the latest United Nations deadline, comes amidst continued reports of torture taking place.

“We continue to see cases of torture, including from since this government came to power, and sadly Sri Lanka remains our top country of origin for referrals of torture survivors,” Ann Hannah, Acting Director of Policy and Advocacy at Freedom From Torturetold the Tamil Guardian. The London-based organisation has seen hundreds of referrals from Sri Lanka, as Tamil asylum seekers fled the island. In 2016 Sri Lanka was - for the fifth successive year - the top country of origin for torture survivors referred to the organisation, which provides clinical services and medico-legal reports, with 230 referrals in that year alone. An Associated Press investigation with torture survivors late last year, found continued reports of Tamil men who had been raped, branded or beaten repeatedly by Sri Lankan security forces.

^{Referrals received by Freedom From Torture in the year 2016.}

 “The government should share the information requested on Mr Mendis without further delay and should also comply with other commitments it has made to the UN on accountability for past abuses if it is truly committed to dismantling the structures which allow torture to continue,” continued Ms Hannah.

The failure to comply with the UN deadline illustrates the wider lack of will in Colombo in dealing these issues, said Bashana Abeywardena, co-ordinator of Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), an organisation founded by exiled journalists.

"The Sri Lankan government failing to meet the deadline shouldn't be a matter for surprise because there was no political will to do otherwise in the first place,” he said.

Sri Lanka has consistently rejected reports that torture remains widespread, with the Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena denying the existence of secret detention centres where torture takes place, earlier this year.

Yet, the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC), a government appointed body, admitted that the use of torture remains “routine” last year, with reports of undocumented sites across the island. Mr Sirisena’s comments also contradict the findings of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UN WGEID) who in 2015 announced that it had discovered a “secret underground detention cum torture center” located in Sri Lanka.

“Sri Lanka’s lack of will is a part of denial,” continued Mr Abeywardena. “And denial of responsibility is what earns them legitimacy and stability. So, not meeting the deadline is not diplomatic inefficiency - but the state policy."

^{File photograph: A Tamil torture victim's scars on his back. ITJP.}

Earlier this year torture in Sri Lanka was mentioned once more at the United Nations in Geneva. Deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore told the Human Rights Council that “allegations of continuing use of torture and continued reports of harassment or surveillance of human rights defenders are more than worrying”. Yet moves towards addressing that have been painstakingly slow. “It is with much regret that we must report slow progress in establishing transitional justice mechanisms,” she added.

“The Government of Sri Lanka’s failure to provide the UN Committee Against Torture the information they requested over a year ago is another example of their disregard for survivors of torture,” said Ms Hannah.

“Until the government demonstrates political will to address past human rights abuses they are fostering a culture of impunity.”

Related Articles: 

01 March 2018 : Torture of Tamils continues in Sri Lanka - Al Jazeera

06 February 2018 : Sri Lankan president reiterates denial of secret detention centres

08 November 2017 : 'Dozens of men describe rape, torture by Sri Lanka government' reports AP

On the question of Muslims

Kandy during curfew

By Sivamohan Sumathy-April 12, 2018, 12:00 pm 

(Continued from yesterday)

Tamils in the region also have faced and are facing similar problems and it is to be presumed that Sinhala communities in the easthave a set of concerns that are peculiar to them.In the war years, the Coalition for Muslims and Tamils produced two documents that had traced the ways in which the state was redrawing the boundaries in the south-east; these articles can be found on http://ctmpc.blogspot.com/.One of the other allegations concerns Muslims of the Musali region, a community that has been living in the most trying circumstances as IDPs in the Puttalam region and had since 2010 resettled in their former places of abode and their surroundings. We need an empathic understanding of history, a history of the people, and not just a history of the constitution and the history of the state.I want to point to the works of S. H. Hasbullah, Farzana Haniffa, Mirak Raheem, the work of Women’s Action Network, Chulani Kodikara, Sharika Thiranagama, to name just a few, for somebody who wants to take this further.

If we are to have a nuanced understanding, we need to look both toward the state to understand what it is and away from it and towardcommunities and their social locations. Kishali Pinto Jayawardene never queries the social position of her co-traveller; we know so little about him, and yet he carries an authority denied many others. A relatively empowered being, a Sinhala male with the means to be jet setting in these times, his elocutionary power is enormous (at least at that moment), and she feels obliged to take what he says at his word. We hear neither the words of Thilaka Pushpakumari, the wife of PG Kumarasinghe, who was murdered by four men (Muslim) nor the words of the Muslim woman who boards a plane to work in the household of another empowered family in West Asia.I do not wish to prioritize the voice of working class women, suggesting they are automatically of a superior moral calibre. I refer merely to voices of privilege that speak with no investment in looking at politics beyond their own privileged positions.Class and gender are critical forces acting here,but do not seem to inform analyses that see the state and the nation as monoliths and as static.

There is much in Senaratne’s article that is strongly articulated, particularly his critique of violence emanating from purportedly Sinhala Buddhist quarters. I don’t want my own critique to detract from the value of that indictment. Here, I point to the theorizing that needs to pay attention to the politics of the state and the politics of the nation if we are to speak of reform.The state and its constitution are not static and impartial entities; a robotic apparatus that can be amended,but nevertheless has the potential to be impartial and has the potential to stabilize and ensure amity just through some force of will. In this understanding, the security of the state seems paramount.But the state is a political being and is invested in the hierarchies of the nation. In asking for a reform of the state,we cannottake its hegemonies,the hegemonies of class, gender and the nation, as the normative and for granted. We need to interrogate our attachments to the nation too, the dominant nation-state paradigm.

Secular mindedness as a concept seeks a reform of the state, where, while the state is secular, it also functions through an accommodation of group affinities. Senaratne views secular mindedness as something that Sinhala Buddhist communities need to navigate andaddress.While he is unclear on what he means by secular mindedness, he is rather clear about whom the reformist call addresses: It addresses the Sinhala Budhist polity, leaving the minorities out on a limb and thus raising questions about the place of minorities ( and in this instance, Muslim in particular) within the Sri Lankan national paradigm. It looks like the Muslim is positioned as the limitof the secular minded state, defining its contours. Secular mindedness allows for certain allegiances, and those of the Muslim too, if s/he is willing to be converted to the normative of secularism. The content of that would be the content of what other ethnicities would deem to be natural, hegemonically speaking. So, a Sinhala Buddhist’s normative conduct would be the touchstone for what it means to be secular minded. An accommodation, where the Muslim defines the no go area –the "descent" into fundamentalism?–as he stands with one foot in and one foot out.

Looking to reforming the state apparatus, in the understanding of it as an autonomous and independent entity,one is compelled to ask:who/what is it independent from?: the politics of place and the politics of nation are two interrelated aspects Senaratne divorces from constitutionality. And it behoves us to pay heed to the pluralities of the three forces, place, people and politics. There is a range of fractures here that need to be understood and there is a range of alliances that can be made; and those alliances may not happen in the name of Sinhala Buddhism, Muslimness or Tamil nationalism. There are other alliances that are impending; but those alliances need to pay heed to their own possible hegemonies within their operations. Secular mindedness is a welcome concept and it might be interesting to debate it here and elsewhere, but not in the cause of reinstating majoritarian dominance, but in deconstructing it and pointing toward multiple engagements with different minority (not just ethnic minority) concerns. Secular mindedness would be interesting if one approaches it not through the lens of majoritarian affiliations, but through the imperatives of life on the margins exemplified by minorities.

Sivamohan Sumathy is attached to the Deparrtment of English, University of Peradeniya.

We need to talk about impunity

Apr 13, 2018

Last month, Sri Lanka witnessed some of the worst violence in recent memory, as mobs of Sinhalese Buddhist hardliners rampaged through the streets of Ampara and Kandy attacking Muslim homes, businesses and places of worship.

Over the course of several days, hundreds of buildings were vandalised and burned to the ground, and scores of individuals assaulted, threatened and forced to flee for their lives. Two individuals were killed as a result of the attacks, with many more left seriously injured. Just as troubling are those consequences of the violence that we cannot yet quantify: the trauma inflicted on those targeted, the shattered trust between communities, and the increased risk of future conflict associated with the fresh grievances that have been sown.

Since the worst of the violence was reigned in on the evening of Thursday 8th March – following a slow and ham-fisted response from the authorities, which saw much emphasis placed on restricting the public’s access to the internet, and not enough on arresting perpetrators on the streets – ample column space has been dedicated to explaining the causes of the carnage. Some commentators have stressed the emboldening of militant Buddhist groups in recent months and years, facilitated by a political resurgence of an odious brand of Sinhala nationalism and widespread societal support for it. Others, for example, have highlighted the unchecked rise of Islamophobic myth-making and hate speech, particularly across social media, as well as the misogyny and toxic masculinity that appear to have animated the (almost exclusively male) perpetrators.

Each of these perspectives adds something to our understanding of the recent violence. Yet what is striking among the various analyses that have been offered, is the general level of consensus about its overarching cause: impunity. To put it very simply, violence was used because the perpetrators did not fear the consequences of using it.

And, for now at least, those consequences have remained minimal, just as they have in relation to past cycles of violence and mass atrocity in Sri Lanka – from the ‘Black July’ progroms and the bloody suppressions of the JVP insurrections, to the indiscriminate killing of thousands of (mostly Tamil) civilians in the final stages of the civil war and the targeted violence against Muslims throughout the post-war period, from Aluthgama to Gintota. Despite hundreds of arrests, including against former soldiers, local politicians, and the leaders of extremist organisations, no one has yet been formally charged, let alone successfully prosecuted, for the recent attacks.[1]

From Kandy to Geneva

In this context, last month’s session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva provided a timely opportunity for both the government of Sri Lanka and members of the international community to take stock of the violence, and to signal in the strongest possible terms a commitment to addressing its major underlying cause. How did they fare?

The opening of the general debate[2] on Sri Lanka on 21st March saw the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights once again set the bar on the issue of ending impunity in Sri Lanka. In a hard-hitting statement[3], which provided an overview of the government’s dismal progress in implementing Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1, the High Commissioner clearly spelled out the current regime’s failure to act on accountability, and re-stated the urgent need for the establishment of a Special Judicial Mechanism capable of bringing perpetrators of human rights violations to book.[4] In the absence of such a mechanism, the High Commissioner said, UN member states should seek to bring perpetrators to justice themselves through the exercise of ‘Universal Jurisdiction’ – a legal doctrine which enables countries to arrest and try those who commit atrocity crimes, notwithstanding the fact that they were committed in a foreign jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, the statements by UN member states on ending impunity in Sri Lanka were not as uniformly impressive.

In all, 15 members of the 47-member Human Rights Council made statements in which they referred to Sri Lanka,[5] with a further 6 non-members also making interventions.[6] Among the strongest were those statements from the likes of Belgium, Germany, Ireland, who (respectively) emphasized combating impunity and strengthening accountability as “priorities”, highlighted the serious delays in implementation towards this goal, and made recommendations consistent with the text of Resolution 30/1 by urging “the creation of an accountability mechanism with an international component.”

In contrast – and of concern – however, were those statements which discussed the challenges of impunity and the need for accountability merely in the abstract,[7] or which failed to describe these challenges whatsoever. Strikingly, a joint statementby the UK mission on behalf of the four original co-sponsors of Resolution 30/1 contained no mention at all of the government of Sri Lanka’s failure to bring perpetrators of serious human rights violations to justice, nor any reminder of the pressing need to do so – either by legislating for a Special Judicial Mechanism, or by fast-tracking the so-called ‘emblematic cases’ of serious human rights violations.[8]

Filling the silence

The growing timidity around the issue of impunity from among members of the international community, including those countries who played a pivotal role in putting it on the agenda in Geneva, is deeply concerning. Unchecked, it is a trend which could fatally undermine the already slender prospects for meaningful action on the issue over the next 12 months – the timeframe for implementation currently envisaged by Resolution 30/1, after which scrutiny via the Human Rights Council will come to an end unless a further Resolution is adopted by its members.

As the Sri Lanka Campaign recently argued, this timeframe represents a narrowing window of opportunity for holding the perpetrators of serious crimes accountable. The international community’s growing unwillingness to speak up on ending impunity risks narrowing it still further – by reducing the costs of the government’s failure to take incremental steps towards the establishment a credible justice mechanism, and by emboldening those war crimes apologists currently seeking to thwartthis process.

Into the vacuum of silence on accountability afforded by the international community, anti-accountability voices and positions have continued to gain ground. The recent statement by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister to the Human Rights Council – the first time that a government of Sri Lanka delegation has expressly communicated to the forum its opposition to international participation in an accountability mechanism – represents the latest high water-mark in this spiralling dynamic.

There is only one end-point to such a dynamic: impunity; impunity that leads to further mass violence, further atrocity crimes, and further human lives destroyed. If we are silent about the former, then we can all expect to hear much more about the latter in the coming months and years – again and again and again.

We need to talk about impunity.

Footnotes

[1] Many of which, it has now been well documented, involved the active participation of members of the police Special Task Force (STF).

[2] It should be noted that this debate also covered the human rights situation in six further countries: Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Burundi, Cyprus, and Iran.

[3] Delivered by the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore.

[4] Presenting the interim findings of his October 2017 visit to Sri Lanka, the UN Special Rapporteur on Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparations followed the High Commissioner’s statement by making some similarly tough remarks on ending impunity and highlighting the dangers of recurring atrocities. Regrettably however, his statement did not make reference to the need to establish a Special Judicial Mechanism, which the government of Sri Lanka committed to doing as part of Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1, adopted in October 2015.

[5] This includes 7 HRC members who made individual statements, as well as 8 HRC members who participated indirectly via joint statements, such as the US (in the context of the statement by the co-sponsors of Resolution 30/1, read by the UK) and the various members of the EU (in the context of Bulgaria’s statement on behalf of the bloc).

[6] Including Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway. We exclude from this figure those non-members of the HRC who participated indirectly via joint statements.

[7] i.e. omitting any reference of the kind of accountability mechanism specified in Resolution 30/1.

[8] These include, for example, the murder of the ‘Trinco Five students,’ the assassination of Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, and the disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda.

State Minister of Finance charges opposition of creating fear psycho among would be investors

Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 11:43 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

Apr 13, Colombo: Sri Lanka's State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne says that the opposition, not happy to see the country recording the highest foreign direct investments last year, is making statements to create fear psycho among the would be investors in Sri Lanka to destabilize the economy.

Speaking of the recent measures taken against money laundering and terrorism financing, the State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne categorically denied the claims, that the government mulls amending companies act to send the details of persons having 25 % of the shares in Public Limited Companies to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to inquire on money laundering acts.

It is also alleged that wider powers are to be given to CID to question Directors, shareholders of private companies.

Mr. Wickramaratne reiterated that opposition makes statements to create fear psycho among the would be investors in Sri Lanka as a part and parcel of the sinister move to destabilize the economy when the country has achieved the highest ever Foreign Direct Investment last year.

The government recently introduced special initiatives to strengthen the effectiveness of its anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism regime by amending the Companies Act No 07 of 2007.

This amendment approved by the Cabinet of Ministers recently incorporates the requirement of maintaining of a register, which contains details of the beneficial interest in shares or warrants or similar interests held by any individual who owns 25 percent or more of the issued shares of any public limited company.

Accordingly, every Public Limited Company will have to file records of such beneficial interest in the share, warrant or any other interest along with the personal details of the individual concerned with the Registrar of Companies annually along with the annual returns of the company.


These countermeasures were taken immediately as Sri Lanka was recently listed among the high-risk countries for money � laundering by the Inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the European Union following which Sri Lanka made a political commitment to the FATF to address any technical deficiencies in countering the money laundering and counter financing of terrorism regime.

IMF Chief optimistic on global growth, but warns against trade protectionism

Thursday, 12 April 2018 


International Monetary Fund (IMF) is optimistic on the outlook for global growth but warned darker clouds are looming due to fading fiscal stimulus and rising interest rates, the fund’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday.
In a speech in Hong Kong, Lagarde said the top priorities for the global economy are to steer clear of protectionism, guard against financial risk and foster long-term growth.

The IMF Chief was speaking as a trade conflict between the United States and China is creating significant uncertainty for businesses and their global supply chains.

“History shows that import restrictions hurt everyone, especially poorer consumers,” Lagarde said.

“Not only do they lead to more expensive products and more limited choices, but they also prevent trade from playing its essential role in boosting productivity and spreading new technologies.”

The best way to tackle global imbalances is to use fiscal tools or structural reforms, she said, adding that the World Trade Organization’s rules were in danger of being “torn apart”, which would be “an inexcusable, collective policy failure.”

Policymakers need to commit to a level playing field and resolve disputes without using exceptional measures, she said.

The reality for 2018 and 2019 was that momentum would eventually slow due to fading fiscal stimulus, rising interest rates and tighter financial conditions, Lagarde said.

New analysis by the IMF showed that global debt had reached an all-time high of $164 trillion, 40% higher than in 2007, with China accounting for just over half of that increase.

Lagarde said economies needed to reduce government deficits, strengthen fiscal frameworks and place public debt on a gradual downward path.

“Strengthening financial stability by increasing buffers in corporate and banking sectors is key, especially in large emerging markets such as China and India,” she added.

Housing markets in major cities worldwide were increasingly moving in tandem, with Lagarde warning that could amplify any financial and macroeconomic shocks coming from any one country.

The IMF chief was speaking after attending the Boao Forum in China where she said that a global economic recovery was taking root.

The Perfect Storm

Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy
Central Bank Governor

Ajit Kanagasundram-April 14, 2018,

The optimism that accompanied the Yahapalana government in 2015 has evaporated. We simply seem to have exchanged the misguided and dictatorial regime of Rajapaksa for the misguided and weak government of Sirisena/Ranil. There is a confluence of factors – political, economic, financial, inter-ethnic relations and international that are converging and will cause a major crisis within two years.

My title is a nautical term – The Perfect Storm. It refers to the convergence of gale force winds, strong tidal forces and huge waves that takes place in the Southern Atlantic in winter months. It is feared by seafarers as no ship could withstand it. This is a good analogy for what we as a nation face now. This is after experiencing a Storm in a Teacup (the No Confidence motion that was defeated in Parliament).

The coalition between the UNP and Sirisena’s wing of the SLFP (a brilliant piece of political engineering by Chandrika Kumaratunga) was fragile in the first place as it brought together disparate elements united only by their liking for the perks of power with no common ideology. The only way they could hold together was if the leadership had quickly implemented the Joint Manifesto – an excellent and rational policy document- so that the coalition could continue to win future elections. The main points were to eliminate corruption and bring those responsible for industrial scale corruption in the previous regime to justice, privatize loss making government corporations, foster National Reconciliation and Justice, attract FDI by providing a benign investment environment and bring down the cost of living.

Instead this is what actually happened.

Time was frittered away in taking action against the kleptocrats of the previous regime. All it required was special courts under new legislation.Now the chance is lost and the lesson for politicians is – you can get away with it if you stall long enough. This was made worse by the Bond scandal. This held the nation enraptured for 18 months with daily revelations of dishonesty and to make it worse the ultimate loser was the EPF – the common man’s retirement fund. This forever tainted the UNP with corruption - when the truth is that the money lost is a fraction of what the previous regime stole or what SriLankan Airlines or the CPC lose each year. This was the single most damaging blunder by the present regime relating to its reputation and moral authority to counter corruption – a cancer eating into our national life.

The ability of the government to take the unpopular steps necessary to achieve national progress is undermined by political infighting within the coalition. The earlier constitutions had the virtue of simplicity and accountability– in the pre 1978 constitutions Cabinet responsibility and the Post 1978 constitution an all- powerful Presidency. Now after the 19th amendment, no one quite knows who is ultimately in charge. The President dissolves the Prime Minister’s Cabinet sub-committee on Economic Management and cabinet ministers publicly criticize government policy.The result is decision making paralysis. The only voice of sanity is the Central Bank Governor Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, who has warned that political instability will threaten foreign investment and economic growth.

The problem is that as a Harrow and Cambridge educated economist and gentleman he is too polite. It would be more effective to be blunt and use Bill Clinton’s famous phrase "It is the economy, Stupid" to concentrate politicians’ minds on what is really important.

We face three more elections in the next two years – Provincial, Presidential and Parliamentary. These are distracting our leaders and preventing the difficult decisions necessary - and the nation is enthralled by this Political Theatre (by far the most entertaining in the world) while the affairs of the nation are left to drift.

* The Ceylon Petroleum Corporations is losing Rs 244 million a week and prices will have to be raised. The government’s hands are tied on this as they have committed to the IMF to implement a transparent pricing formula to link the local prices to the international benchmark price of crude oil. The same goes for the electricity prices charged by the CEB.

* The CPC is running a 50 years old refinery whose efficiency (or lack of it) is such that it would be cheaper to import refined products and close down the refinery.

* We have committed to the IMF to selling loss making corporations like SriLankan Airlines and hotels like the Hilton and the half completed Hyatt. This will be difficult as in the airline’s case the government will have to absorb $1 billion in past losses and our reputation for corruption in the purchase of planes and political interference is such that no reputed airline will touch us. In the case of the Hilton and the Hyatt the government will have to take a significant write off to attract a foreign buyer.

* There has been no significant FDI in the past two and a half years except for the aborted proposal to "build Volkswagens" in Sri Lanka. Actually this was a scam to get government land cheap and was denied by Volkswagen management in Germany.

* When the inevitable financial crisis hits us in two years the IMF will impose the same misguided conditions as they did in Greece in 2015 and which caused unnecessary hardship to their hapless people. This will involve higher taxes and reduction in expenditure on subsidies and services like health. This will deepen the recession, cause increased unemployment (in a country with no social safety net) and cause stress in a society with deep fissures along religious and ethnic lines. This may lead to more attacks on Muslims as there are no worthwhile Tamil targets left.

Ethnic relations : It should be remembered that the UNP led coalition won the 2015 election entirely on their promises of justice for the minorities and the Tamils and Muslims therefore overwhelmingly voted for them – Rajapaksa won the plurality of the Sinhala Buddhist vote. But after making unrealistic promises the government has done almost nothing. No justice for the victims of the war. No compensation, no new constitution and an Office of Missing Persons which after two and a half years has not yet found a single Tamil missing person (perhaps they should be asked to find Arjuna Mahendran who is the most prominent Tamil missing person! ). Instead of a new constitution the government could have taken simple administrative steps like recruiting Tamil speaking policemen and giving back the land taken by the Army for hotels and holiday homes. The Tamils in the North and East will be better off under a competent and benign Central government (I repeat competent and benign) till the wounds of war have been healed, and trust built between the two communities and leave it to a future kinder, wiser generation the task of a permanent constitutional settlement. After all we Tamils have waited 60 years since the Bandaranaike- Chelvenayakam pact and endured 25 years of war. Will another 20 years make a difference to our people? To complicate the situation further there are dark forces secretly inciting violence against the Muslims, who are the targets now as there are no viable Tamil targets left.

In the diplomatic arena we have made entirely unrealistic promises to the UN Human Rights Commission and Western governments and have done almost nothing to fulfill them. These organizations are not stupid and their patience is running out – goaded by the Tamil Diaspora with their equally unrealistic agenda of "Tamil self-determination".

So after 70 years of independence,having received one of the highest levels of per capita aid in the world, having patrons with deep pockets like China (we are a willing and promiscuous pawn in the "Great Game" being played out between the US, China and India in the Indian Ocean), we are now facing an existential threat of our own making.

We are drifting towards a crisis and no one is paying attention. The public are distracted by our Political Theatre and the necessity of making ends meet on a daily basis amid the rising cost of living. The politicians are jockeying for position when the Government changes. In Colombo there are grand parties for the rich in five star hotels, even grander weddings at destination resorts and "parties" for rich young businessmen where cocaine and Russian girls are available at a price that will pay the expenses of the average family for a month.

To continue my nautical metaphor – this is exactly the same as when the band played dance music on the deck of the Titanic to distract the passengers when the ship was slowly sinking into the icy waters of the North Atlantic – and in our case the Captain and Chief Officer are arguing and pulling the wheel in different directions and the crew are escaping on lifeboats leaving the passenger stranded. Meanwhile the ship of state drifts helplessly towards the rocks where a Perfect Storm awaits us.

ajitkanagasundram@gmail.com

The author welcomes comments.