Sirisena apologises to Modi

By a Special Correspondent -Thursday, 18 October 2018 

President Maithripala Sirisena spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last night after bombshell revelations in the local and international media that President Sirisena had accused the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, of plotting his assassination, followed by a spate of denials by high level Government authorities came close to sparking a major diplomatic incident. 

The Daily FT yesterday exclusively reported The Hindu story titled ‘President Sirisena alleges that RAW is plotting his assassination’.

Yesterday’s telephone conversation was preceded by Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Taranjit Singh making an official call on President Sirisena last morning when “matters were clarified and bilateral relations reassured”, the President’s Office said in a media release.

The PMD statement about the phone call made no reference to the President’s denial of his remarks as reported in the media. However, Modi’s Office issued a statement last night, saying President Sirisena had telephoned Prime Minister Modi and “categorically rejected the reports in sections of media about him alluding to the involvement of India in any manner whatsoever in an alleged plot to assassinate the President and former Defence Secretary of Sri Lanka”. 

President Sirisena also apprised the Indian Premier about urgent steps taken by him personally and the Government of Sri Lanka to publicly reject these reports, the Indian PMO said. 

“He mentioned that the mischievous and malafide reports were utterly baseless and false and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours,” Premier Modi’s Office said. 

Prime Minister Modi appreciated the prompt steps taken by President Sirisena and his Government to “firmly refute malicious reports and publicly clarifying the matters”, the release by Modi’s Office said. 

During the telephone call, Prime Minister Modi had assured President Sirisena of India’s fullest support towards development and prosperity, and hailed the Sri Lankan President’s efforts to maintain good relations with neighbouring states, the President’s Media Division said in its release issued after the call. 

The diplomatic damage control comes just ahead of a visit to New Delhi by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is set to meet with Premier Modi on Saturday and hold discussions on key Indian projects and investments by India. 

Headlining the front page of India’s The Hindu newspaper, the report said that at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, President Sirisena had told Ministers that the Indian intelligence agency was “trying to kill” him, but added that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not be aware of the plan”. The Indian newspaper quoted multiple sources in Government across political parties who attended the meeting and confirmed the remarks. 

The report also pointed to heated arguments between President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe when a Cabinet paper on developing the Colombo Port East Terminal came up for discussion. The report quoted sources as saying that President Sirisena had vehemently objected to any Indian involvement in upgrading the East container terminal – a project that New Delhi has been keen to take up. Premier Wickremesinghe, however, had countered by claiming that Colombo had promised New Delhi on collaborating on the project. 

Issuing a statement, the Presidential Media Division (PMD) said the Indian High Commissioner had called on President Sirisena last morning, adding: “During the meeting, all matters were clarified and bilateral relations were reassured. The statement clarified that the President had not mentioned any involvement of an Indian intelligence service in the alleged plot to assassinate him.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs soon followed, clarifying that media reports in this connection were “baseless and false”. 

“The Ministry wishes to emphasise that relations between Sri Lanka and India, including at the highest level of government, are strong. It is disappointing, therefore, that matters of this nature have become the subject of distorted and erroneous media reports, taking the President’s remarks out of context, which has given rise to further media and social media speculation and the spread of unfounded fear among the public,” the MFA statement said. 

The Secretary to the Cabinet of Ministers also issued a separate denial, saying the contents of the news items were ‘totally false’. Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Rajitha Senaratne doubled down on the denials during the weekly briefing, insisting that all President Sirisena had said was that there were those who were attempting to create a rift between the two countries by claiming that a RAW agent was involved in the alleged plot to assassinate President Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

The characteristically brash Minister Senaratne, who rarely watches his words at the briefing, used measured speech and refused to budge from his position, despite confirmation by The Hinducorrespondent at the briefing that the story had been corroborated by at least four Cabinet Ministers drawn from across party lines. 

Minister Senaratne flatly denied that President Sirisena had claimed the Indian national arrested in connection with the ‘assassination plot’ was a RAW agent. The official communiqué from the PMD, however, admitted that a discussion had taken place at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting about the alleged plot to assassinate President Sirisena. 

The spate of Government denials notwithstanding, multiple Ministerial sources continued to confirm President Sirisena’s outburst and the argument between the President and the Prime Minister, whose relations have been particularly strained in recent weeks. 

The fragile ruling coalition has hurtled into another political crisis – the third in only nine months – with President Sirisena launching secret talks with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his siblings about ousting Wickremesinghe and forming a caretaker government. 

The alleged plot to assassinate President Sirisena, and Kumara’s attempts to link the plot to IGP Pujith Jayasundara and the Premier may also be linked to this ongoing tension and bids to oust the UNP from Government, Ministerial sources said. 

The pace of the investigations and the wider Government’s lack of interest to pursue the probe appeared to have irked President Sirisena, leading to Tuesday’s outburst, highly placed Ministerial sources told Daily FT. 

Last month, Namal Kumara, who calls himself the operations director of the Anti Corruption Front, claimed he had audio recordings of conversations with TID DIG Nalaka De Silva on a plan to assassinate President Sirisena and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Kumara is reportedly a police informant, who also claims to have been employed by the Presidential Drug Prevention Task Force. 

Yesterday, Cabinet Spokesman Minister Senaratne said the CID has yet to find evidence to support Namal Kumara’s claims of a plot, but he said investigations are underway. 

The Indian national arrested in connection with the alleged plot has suffered mental disturbance since 2000, the Indian High Commission clarified after his arrest. The CID has found no evidence so far to indicate the Indian – Marceli Thomas – was aware of a plot to assassinate VIPs in Colombo, Daily FT learned. 

R&AW deal in Sri Lanka — An Indian Viewpoint

For Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his majority UNP partner in the Sirisena-led Government, it is yet another embarrassing moment in their own relationship, and also in relation to India.

Oct 19, 2018

Oct 19, 2018

Following article was originally published on the official website site of Observer and Research Foundation, an alleged arm of the Research and Analysis Wing in India. However, the article has been removed from the website without any explanation when we checked on late night 18 October 2018.

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by N Sathiya Moorthy

( October 19, 2018, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Whether Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans can live without the northern neighbour India, they just cannot live without naming India’s external intelligence agency, ‘Research and Analysis Wing’, R&AW, popularly known as RAW, for most if not all their woes. This has been proved one more time this week with news reports alleging that none less than President Maithripala Sirisena has personally named the agency for attempts to assassinate him.

Better or worse still, media reports spoke about Sirisena naming R&AW in this regard, in the weekly Cabinet meeting, of all venues. The last time he mentioned the ‘assassination plot’, it was in public. It does not make any difference if anyone in the Sri Lankan politico-administrative hierarchy said anything of the kind in public or in a supposedly-secretive Cabinet meeting. Both have the same effect. The Cabinet stuff reaches the required constituency faster and deeper than any public announcement.

There is another reason why the President’s Cabinet pronouncement stirred the Palk Straits that connect the two nations and beyond, up to ‘distant’ Delhi and other capitals, too. In the public announcement a couple of weeks ago, Sirisena reportedly said that the intelligence agency of a foreign country was involved in the so-called assassination plot. Other than reporting it in a sketchy manner, no Sri Lankan newspaper or any other from any other interested country sought to follow it up. No ‘Exclusives’, no nothing, until this week’s Cabinet meeting. He had promised to come up with details as and when the investigators had more information.

This time round, Sirisena reportedly talked not only about the assassination plot in the Cabinet meeting. He also named names, and the name, ‘RAW’, a phrase more familiar in the Sri Lanka of the past three or four decades than possibly those like the CIA, KGB, Mossad and even ISI, put together. The Sri Lankan love with RAW started long before the alleged Indian role in Sri Lanka’s Tamil militancy, which followed ‘Pogrom-‘83’. It started with the ‘Bangladesh War’ and earlier.

For instance, no one knows the name of the Chinese intelligence agency, no one Sri Lanka has even cared to know if China has an intelligence agency on the lines of those mentioned. It is named the ‘Ministry of State Security’ (MSS). This does not mean that China and/or MSS is involved. It only shows the deep affinity and affliction for Sri Lankans towards India and RAW, whenever it comes to ‘negative publicity’ of the kind.

Identifying the ‘leak’

Thankfully for both nations and their friends in each other, and elsewhere, too, President Sirisena himself ended further speculation, both in the mainline media and the social media, within hours of the ‘news’ of his purported allegations at the Cabinet meeting made international headlines. Without losing further time, Sirisena called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and sought to clear the misgivings, if any. Going by Indian official reports of the telephone conversation, which is said to have taken all of 20 minutes, the mist has been cleared even before it had formed.

Good it is for bilateral relations. Neither nation can survive without the other. Sri Lanka has identified with India on a host of issues and arrangements. As has been acknowledged officially, it costs less for Sri Lankans to import drugs and food, cars and white goods from India than anywhere else, the friendly China with its ‘cheaper’ goods, included. India continues to need Sri Lanka as ‘the’ bulwark against sea-way aggression, if any.

So, naturally, there will be those who want to upset the improving bilateral relations, however halting and slow they may be. That is beside the point. It is also easier to blame it all on the ‘media messengers’, and leave it there. But the ‘sources’ of those ‘leaks’ and their motives need to be ascertained, if only to avoid repeats of the same in other contexts and circumstances, in relation to other ‘friends’ of Sri Lanka.

The immediate concern is thus for Sri Lanka and Sirisena to identity those that had leaked to the media what he says did not happen at the Cabinet meeting. Cabinet Media Spokesperson and senior Minister, Rajitha Senaratne, who does not always see eye-to-eye with his President, too was on the ‘denial-mode’, even after the ‘media reports’ had given the lead.

For Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his majority UNP partner in the Sirisena-led Government, it is yet another embarrassing moment in their own relationship, and also in relation to India. For now, the presidential clarification, in person to the Indian PM and also to their nations through media statements from both sides, may have saved the day for PM Wickremesinghe’s week-end India visit. But more needs to be done, to restore the good relations between the two nations.

‘Zone of Peace’ and more

There is no denying the hiccups in bilateral relations through the past decades. As coincidence would have it, it had all begun around the time that erstwhile ‘Ceylon’ re-christened itself as ‘Sri Lanka’. No, it is not about astrology or numerology or whatever. It is about the way Sri Lanka began looking more and more inwards, and began personalising every Indian decision and action in the collective neighbourhood.

It was thus that the ‘Bangladesh War’ of 1971 became an ‘experience’ for Sri Lankans of the time, viz India in particular. They began having nightmares about an impending Indian ‘intervention’ of the Bangladesh kind. But when one actually came, the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) came to Sri Lanka at the invitation of the host Government of President J R Jayewardene, not otherwise.

The IPKF, and India, felt cheated when successor President Ranasinghe Premadasa joined hands with the common LTTE military/terror adversary, to have the former out. As subsequent Sri Lankan experience with the IPKF would show, the latter left the moment the host Government wanted them out. It is anybody’s guess why President Premadasa, Sr, did not consider asking the IPKF out, if he had wanted it only as much, and see if it worked — before shaking hands with the nation’s internal enemy to have the external friend, out.

Before Premadasa, JRJ too committed the same mistake viz India. Taking off from where predecessor SLFP Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike had left, he steadily moved away from the Sri Lankan call for making the shared Indian Ocean a ‘Zone of Peace’. Instead, he moved closer to the US, and wanted to be seen as doing so, that too by India, and at the height of the ‘Cold War’, where India was caught in between, but Sri Lanka need not have involved itself otherwise.

Island ‘mind-set’

Sri Lankans at the time gave in, to the ‘island mind-set’, and began believing that South Asia, if not the whole of Asia and the IOR, revolved around Sri Lanka. So, India became a suspect at the end of the ‘Bangladesh War’, if not an outright adversary. The mind-set has continued to date, with minor modifications, now and again, but returning to the centre-stage, where it has otherwise remained.

India’s concerns at the time were much more and different, coming as it did mostly from the shared land-border with the ‘historic’ adversary, Pakistan. It is even more so for India now, what with China, a traditional and larger neighbourhood adversary becoming a bigger power than in the past. India, Sri Lankans need to acknowledge, would want all neighbours, including Sri Lanka, as friends, not as additional adversaries than those existing already.

That, however, is not happening, at least not to the levels India would like and need to see. The reported confrontation between President Sirisena and PM Wickremesinghe at the much-mentioned Cabinet meeting of Tuesday, over allocating certain infrastructure projects to India, as Sri Lanka over the past years has given away to ‘distant’ China, may be a case in point. India does not come into the picture, as it is not going around Colombo streets with money-bags, as is being pictured at times.

Inquisitive Sri Lankan…

The inquisitive Sri Lankan would thus be looking at the outcome of the week-end Modi-Wickremesinghe meet in Delhi, and the physical outcomes of the same, for drawing his own conclusions. By talking directly to PM Modi, President Sirisena has cleared all airs on that very count, avoiding for his Prime Minister, the attendant embarrassment heralding his arrival at Delhi.

It is another matter that long before even Bangladesh War, and India’s role in the same, Sri Lanka’s fledgling ‘Sinhala-Buddhist’ and yet ‘nationalist’ militant outfit in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramana (JVP) had prepared the nation for the anti-India mind-set. This has since dominated the domestic political discourse, from time-to-time. Including the miniscule JVP of the present, every party and leader has made it a habit to turn to India for diversion, bordering on sheer entertainment, whenever caught in their own acts of commissions and omissions, nearer home.

To date, neither the JVP has done it, nor has any other party or leader in the country has asked them, why it is not doing it – of withdrawing all references to India from JVP founder Rohana Wijeweera’s ‘Five Classes’. India, or ‘anti-India’ finds itself in the middle of the ‘Five Classes’ and continues to remain there. So, for ‘renegade’ Wimal Weerawansa, now heading the breakaway ‘National Freedom Front’ (NFF) for about a decade now, to shed the past behind is equally difficult, if not an unavoidable political necessity.

Weerawansa has since come out with what he claims to be the RAW identity number of M Thomas, the over-staying Indian, arrested in connection with the ‘assassination plot’, when President Sirisena first mentioned it a fortnight back. If the said Thomas is whom Weerawansa says he is, and he actually belonged to R&AW, and still carried an identity document on his person or belongings, then the Indian High Commission (IHC) was right in saying that he suffered from ‘mental instability’, after all!

The IHC said as much when the name of Thomas first made it to Sri Lankan media headlines, again a fortnight ago. If he was a RAW agent, staying in Sri Lanka almost since before the presidential polls of 2015, then the local media is challenging the abilities of their own intelligence agencies, which played a very critical role in ending LTTE terrorism, as much for India as for Sri Lanka.

But then, beginning the mid-eighties, Sri Lankans are being told that India and RAW were behind the creation of LTTE-like Tamil militant groups. The fact was that those militant groups had begun operations long before ‘Pogrom-83’, which is being given out as the bench-mark for India and RAW getting involved in the ethnic issue, but visibly so in political and diplomatic terms.

If nothing else, LTTE’s Prabhakaran, who was then in his early teens, was known to have shot and killed then Tamil Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, as early as 1975. At least a couple of years before the Duraiappah killing, his and other Tamil militant youth groups had begun their operations, including robbing local banks to fund their militancy. The rest of it, including the PLA in Palestine, training Sri Lankan Tamil youth, in weapons-handling, followed, without India, without R&AW!

(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email:sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)

''RAW is trying to assassinate me.’ ‘Don’t allow even Sirisena’s wind to touch me’ Indian P.M. has ordered '' - HE Sirisena accuses at cabinet meeting !

(Lanka e News - 17.Oct.2018, 11.50AM) President Pallewatte Gamarala at the cabinet meeting today (16) made a disclosure that shocked the entire cabinet of ministers. He said , the RAW (intelligence service) informants of India are engaged in activities to assassinate him.

The usual cabinet meeting on Tuesdays chaired by the president commenced today ,and was concluded a little while ago. It is during this session the president startled everyone by making this baffling revelation.

The president who did not reveal how he received the information at the cabinet meeting , however later on responding to inquiries made by an SLFP minister had said , he had received information that Indian Prime Minister had told RAW organization ‘don’t leave even the wind of Sirisena to touch me.’

It is only a few weeks ago , the president who is by now best known for his demented and paranoid state alleged through a hired police informant of his who is receiving salary under him that there is a conspiracy to murder him. Though he tried his best to implicate the P.M. in that  , because the IGP did not pay heed to it and treated as frivolous , the president began venting his venoms and vengeances against the IGP. The president suffering from a mental disequilibrium then concocted and spread a fairy tale that the IGP is going to resign.

No matter what , the cabinet ministers had expressed their surprise and dismay over the incapacity of the president in spite of his most responsible position to understand the gravity of his wild accusation leveled against the intelligence service of a friendly neighboring country without any evidence . This is because even at the national security council meeting no such revelations were made by the state intelligence service , nor did any intelligence reports make such charges.

 

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by     (2018-10-17 06:41:37)

DIG Nalaka de Silva interdicted

Camelia Nathaniel-Thursday, October 18, 2018

The former TID DIG Nalaka de Silva has been interdicted on the recommendations of Law and Order and Public Administration Minister Ranjith Maddumabandara.

The Minister had issued the recommendation to the Police Commission yesterday to interdict the DIG who was implicated in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena and former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

The Minister’s recommendation was sent to the National Police Commission for implementation, bearing Law and Order Ministry Secretary Padmasiri Jayamanne’s signature, on the instructions of Minister Maddumabandara.

The Law and Order Minister said based on information that has been revealed regarding the alleged plot and the involvement of the DIG, the decision was taken to interdict him, to facilitate a more independent investigation. CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera said Nalaka de Silva has been summoned to the CID at 9.00 am today.

Although he was summoned to the CID last Tuesday, he had notified the CID through his lawyer that he was unable to attend due to a personal obligation.

SSP Abeysekera said a statement would be recorded from Nalaka Silva based on information they had derived from the phone call recordings and the information gathered from investigations conducted so far.

When shame and honour take the hypocritical centre stage

 Friday, 19 October 2018 

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE: A sitting president threw down the gauntlet at a public rally recently, challenging his fellow politicos on their corrupt culture. (‘Who can claim to be clean?’ etc.) While his fusillade did not earn a standing ovation among a sceptical public grown increasingly cold to political posturing, it begs the question. Plus makes us wonder why civil society does not warm to the hot button topic of keeping our elected representatives accountable. And whether in allowing savvy one-upmanship to steal the show, we are all not culpable in some way of perpetuating a society in which governors mouth off while voters grovel 99.99% of the time…

As human beings, we experience a gamut of emotions. These help individuals to express themselves, and authorities to exercise control over entire societies. The most common feelings engendered by our race span a spectrum from guilt and shame to fear. That the political animals who rule over rather than serve us lever these deep-seated anxieties says as much for them as for us.

We live in a ‘shame culture’. A shame culture hides its face behind a mask of honour. It takes much pride in receiving honour and concealing causes for shame. The threat of rejection always looms over societies skirting cautiously around this worldview. That appearances count more than actuality is a sad fact. Shame comes not from doing something wrong but from being found out – it is an ‘honour balance’ out of which we dare not slide ourselves, or let our graven images fall off the perches they roost precariously upon. A driving force is the constant concern how we look to other people. Savvy politicos use this to their advantage in making staged proclamations.
Born again cleanly 
It is why, for example, the president of our republic can clamber on a public platform and assert that he is Mr Clean reborn. He may not have said as such in so many words. But the implication was clear. That most if not all his peers are crooked in some way was the thrust of his recent assertion. It was posed to a less than smitten populace in the backwater of Mahara this week in the form of a question, as to how many politicians can claim they are not corrupt.

The phenomenon of political posturing is not new. Our island race did not invent it; it’s as old as civilisation. But the zany platitudes pronounced by sundry politicos on so many stages shows that the grand but empty gesture is not Greek to them. And when a once popular presidential figure feels like his star is waning, there’s no better way – he thinks – than resorting to the old shame shenanigan. “I’m Mr Clean. But my colleagues are as corrupt as they come. So you should consider only me as the only viable way forward for a socially acceptable leadership.”

This is the clarion call of a common candidate who’s burned his boats with the powers that be who brought him to the throne and is now desperately trying to build bridges with his erstwhile compatriots who might grant him the purple again.
That hiatus of civility
My concern in this column, however, is not about how power sharing will play out in the less than halcyon days ahead. It is more to do with why civil society lets such mountebanks off the hook. And the suspicion among anthropologists as much as apologists for realpolitik is that being a shame culture has a lot to do with it.

Our head of state publicly claims that the political culture he governs is rotten to the core. But rather than take up cudgels with him and his cabinet, the ranks of Tuscany close to safeguard the honour of the ruling class. Why?

For one, he is a democratically elected president; and democracy is such a sacred cow that civil society needs to nurture and feed that blessed beast until it is a bloated idol of our best hopes for ourselves: represented in a dream that we know subconsciously will never become a reality.

For another, we are all too busy anyway getting and spending – and if a dishonourable set of leaders want to indirectly blow their own trumpets about not feathering their nests, while at the same time adroitly manoeuvring for space at the next polls – why, it’s no skin off our back…

And last but by no means least, we – all of us: academics, professionals, business, ‘civil’ society, the ‘free’ media et al. – subscribe to the shame culture. “Let us honour if we can the vertical man / though we value none but the horizontal one.”

As a matter of interest, there are two other types of culture. And in the short space of a single column I hope to offer a glimpse of what’s above the Plimsoll line in terms of politicians who subscribe to each of these.
Guilty as charged!
A ‘guilt culture’ hangs on certain behaviours that are condemned as a means of exercising control. So a society based on such authority tends to focus on individual actions and the role conscience plays in expressing power. The key question to be asked is: “Is what I did fair?” That predicates punishment here and now or at a future time. A key to deciding matters is the rule of law and the role it plays in reinforcing a sense of guilt. That, it is assumed, will ensure true justice is done by all.

Our prime minister’s recent address to the Oxford Union underlines this truth. He reassured his august audience that it is by no means easy to gain access to – much less dominance over – the Indian Ocean, unless you’re a littoral state. No doubt piqued by having to eat humble pie at handing over the Hambantota Port to China on 99-year lease because his government defaulted on a $ 1.4 billion loan, the premier was at pains to succour his Western allies’ wounds and preempt their sense that the Eastern Dragon was not quite playing fair with its alleged ‘String of Pearls’ strategy to control key global waters. (“Really, my dear fellow – it’s simply not cricket, what?”) It is quite safe, he suggested. Wait and see, will you? That’s only fair, he might as well have added as a rider.

Well, slow and creeping imperialism rides a palomino horse these days. So much for safety’s sake… And if there is any lingering concern about whether it is fair, our de facto head of government only needed to remind his hearers that the ‘sale’ of Hambantota was not his fault; that other humbugs now out of office were guilty of gross negligence of national assets and mismanagement of regional wellbeing – to say nothing of overlooking international security concerns.

Of course, our would-be statesman might not think it fair or sporting if an Oxonian heckler reminded him of his role in a former tenure under a previous administration – way back in 2002 – that first brought the whole southern port issue to the table. Whose idea was it then? Much like the Colombo International Financial City, the Port City’s ostensible success has many fathers, but the dangers it poses to our ecology and the threats we will face down the line are all orphans. While the premier’s conscience may not be clear on much of this, since it was his government that first entertained the Chinese overture but went on to decry it when in opposition, it is a later president who will always be held accountable for selling the national family silver. (“Guilty as charged, m’lud!”)
I’m afraid it’s all over
In a fear culture the dominant mode of exercising authority is the fear of retribution. The powers that be seek to keep society as well as their opponents in check by constantly raising the spectre of repercussions. Savvy leaders insert the insidious questions – “What will happen if/if not? Will we get hurt?” – into the civic consciousness.

The former president is a past master at this enjoyable (to him) game. When in office, it was but a scowling look in the corridors of power or a growling threat at the podium that kept throats dry with keen angst and voices hoarse in clear bureaucratic assent.

(Some of those bureaucrats are clearly playing a high price now for their compliance with his whims and fancies then. Wish some of the other strongmen no less culpable were also in stocks – if only wishes were winged horses, we’d fly; but today, it’s just that pigs might as well…)

While in opposition, it’s been a threat by proxy tactic for this sabre-ratting rabble-rouser: will China buy us lock stock and barrel? are the Western powers as munificent as they seem? is India a big brother or a smiling assassin? – all with a straight face, this sterling son of the soil who operates in a shady spot and his stalwart scions, those latter-day paragons of virtue with short memories!
End-piece: coda
But we do not call them out – all these posturing presidents and premiers; past, present, and possibly future; or their sycophantic lapdogs. And we perpetuate (for what – for posterity? for prosperity’s sake?) the shame-honour nexus for which South Asian political economies are notorious. Shame on us!

If only civil society insisted that the president be made to name and shame (and prosecute) his corrupt colleagues, or that a former president be told to quit while he’s still behind, we could all live in peace with honour. As for our premier, we do hope his conscience is clear. And that recent rumours of a ‘great train robbery’ to snap at the heels of the bond scam are only scurrilous social media and meme-hounds doing the rounds.

In today’s milieu of aiming for civilising sainthood or cultural canonisation but settling for another presidential term, it’s not news that separates the men from the boys… but fake news, false premises, and fantasy on a public platform or prestigious forum – and only shame be to him that thinks evil of it!

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)

Johnston threatens to sue FCID

Kurunegala District MP Johnston Fernando addresses the media in Colombo yesterday. He is flanked by Podujana Peramuna (PP) leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, PP Chairman Prof. G.L.Peiris and Namal Rajapaksa MP. ( Pic. by Kamal Bogoda )

by Zacki Jabbar-October 18, 2018, 11:15 pm 

Kurunegala District UPFA MP Johnston Fernando said yesterday that he would sue the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID), for getting him remanded on what he termed a false allegation.

Johnston Fernando along with his private secretary Sakeer Mohamed and former SATHOSA Chairman Nalin Fernando, were acquitted by the Kurunegala High Court on Wednesday of a charge of misappropriating SATHOSA funds worth Rs. 5.2 million in 2013.

Fernando, addressing a press conference at the Wijerama residence of Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, said that he would decide on appropriate legal action against those responsible for persecuting him after discussing the matter with his lawyers. "The FCID is a UNP office that takes orders from Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The campaign to sling mud at political opponents began the day Mangala Samaraweera joined the UNP in 2009.

The old cases should be heard first, but hearings are being fast tracked through the Special

High Courts. The Attorney General’s Department and the IGP are playing politics. Businessman are openly accusing Ministers of demanding bribes. To cover all this, people like me are hauled up before courts on false charges. I was in remand for 74 days, but did not seek transfers to hospitals."

SLPP Chairman Prof. G. L. Peiris said that the Kurunegala High Court had deemed that Johnston Fernando had done no wrong and acquitted and discharged him without calling for his witnesses.

The FCID, he alleged, had submitted false evidence. "They can go to jail for this. A witness was asked to give false testimony. Documents were falsified. Mr. Fernando was in remand for 74 days and is entitled to damages for the mental anguish and deprivation of physical freedom he suffered. Who will take responsibility for the civil and criminal liability ?"

Mahinda Rajapaksa said that a person who was found with a bottle of water at a meeting attended by President Maithripala Sirisena had spent one-and-a-half months in remand custody. That, he noted ,was the type of justice prevalent today.

Asked by a journalist if it was correct for him to have removed former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike in an arbitrary manner, Rajapaksa claimed that due procedure had been followed.

At this stage Wimal Weerawansa, MP interjected to say that the journalist should be talking about what happens now and not three years back. Mahindananda Aluthgamage MP claimed that the removal of Mohan Peiris, from the post of Chief Justice and not Shirani Bandaranaike was questionable. But the journalist persisted, saying that the wrongs committed by the Rajapaksa government were of a far more serious nature than what happened now, which led to the press conference being terminated.

Mangala And SLTDA Step In To Remove Habaraduwa “Cultural Police” Dress Code For Tourists

OCTOBER 18, 2018

Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera and the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) has questioned the senior Police authorities on the ridiculous notice put up by the Habaraduwa Community Police Unit requesting tourists to dress according to the “Sri Lankan culture” when travelling in the area.

Government Information Director Sudarshana Gunawardena said Samaraweera yesterday brought the matter to the attention of Law and Order Minister Ranjith Madddumabandara and asked him to intervene in removing the notice. Maddumabandara has agreed to the request, in principle, and promised to take necessary action, Colombo Telegraph learns.

The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority also tweeted that it took up the matter with all relevant authorities as such demands were detrimental to the tourism industry of Sri Lanka.

In a strongly-worded tweet, the SLTDA said it was concerned about the notice displayed by the Community Police Unit in Habaraduwa.

“Dress code policing” is unneeded and unwarranted for tourists enjoying the scenic beaches of Sri Lanka. SLTDA has taken this up with all relevant authorities. We expect to see progress soon,” it also said.

Following interventions by the Finance Minister and the SLTDA, IGP Pujith Jayasuriya has asked for a preliminary report from the regional Police authorities about the incident. The notice is expected to be removed today.

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While we waste food 800 million people go hungry

2018-10-18

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Tuesday marked World Food Day and in a statement the world body revealed the intolerable wrong of hunger where one person in nine does not have enough to eat. 

UN Secretary General António Guterres in a statement says that at present more than 815 million people do not have enough to eat. Some 155 million children under the age of five or 23 per cent are chronically malnourished and stunted and may endure the effects of it for the rest of their lives. Worldwide, one in two infant deaths is caused by hunger. This is intolerable. Zero hunger is about joining forces,” the UN Chief says calling for stronger political will and more financial support until everyone has enough and quality food. 

At the World Food Day ceremony in Rome speakers echoed the UN chief’s call to action to governments, companies, institutions and individuals. 

“People frequently ask me if I really believe that it is possible to eradicate hunger by 2030. My answer is yes, I do,” FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva said noting that his own country, Brazil, had been able to almost eliminate hunger in less than 10 years, from 11 per cent of the population in 2001, to about two per cent in 2010. 

“The struggle against hunger urgently demands generous financing, the abolition of trade barriers and, above all, greater resilience in the face of climate change, economic crises and warfare,” Pope Francis said in a message read on his behalf. 

Since its early years of existence, the UN has made tackling hunger and malnutrition one of its key priorities. Here are some of the ways the organization is contributing today to achieving zero hunger tomorrow;  Help small farmers produce more with less, Provide emergency food rations in humanitarian crises, End malnutrition, Focus on local economic systems, Develop vulnerability projections and analysis, Empower rural women and girls and Raise awareness and galvanize change. 

Despite the UN’s noble objectives and Pope Francis’ call for all major religions to work together and give top priority to the crisis of poverty alleviation what we see in the world today is the horror of about ten super billionaires having more than 50 per cent of the world’s wealth and resources. Even in Sri Lanka we see not only the super rich but even middle class people indulging in waste, luxury and extravagance including five-star weddings where they pay more than Rs.10,000 for a meal. Even some lower middle class people, influenced by this bad social example, borrow money at high interest rates to have five-star weddings and end up paying back the loans and interests for several years later thereby not having enough money to provide three meals a day, basic healthcare and education for their children. 

Several special events were held in Sri Lanka to mark World Food Day. President Maithripala Sirisena, who has taken a special interest in this subject, even held a meeting of the National Economic Council, which includes top Cabinet ministers and economists. A directive was issued to the Finance Ministry to compile and submit within a week a list of non-essential imported food items so that the imports could be stopped and measures taken to grow these items here. 

One area that the NEC needs to address is the import of powdered milk which reportedly costs a staggering Rs.100 million a day. Highly qualified nutritionists have said that powdered milk is largely fake or artificial though marketing agents mislead the people by claiming that if a particular brand is not given, the child’s knowledge cells will not work properly. This nonsense must be stopped and the government needs to take steps to revive our dairy milk industry which thrived till the 1980s when a big transnational company came here and systematically destroyed it. 

Not only milk, Sri Lanka has hundreds of nutritious vegetables and fruits which could be grown locally with organic fertiliser. The government needs to promote this on a large scale while eco-friendly and responsible citizens need to develop their home gardens by growing vegetables or fruit trees with the use of organic fertilizer. We hope the World Food Day will give us some food for thought.   

Beto O’Rourke: progressive except for Palestine

Beto O’Rourke meets with AIPAC representatives in 2017. (via Facebook)

Nashwa Bawab- 17 October 2018

Beto O’Rourke has become Texas’ progressive golden boy in his fight to oust Senator Ted Cruz in the upcoming midterm elections. But when supporters of Palestine asked O’Rourke – a Democratic member of Congress – about his stance on the issue, he sent a response that could just have easily been issued by a Republican.

The email from O’Rourke’s campaign described him as “a proud advocate of Israel.”

“[O’Rourke] believes that Israel is critically important to the United States, because it is the home of the Jewish people, because it is an exemplary democracy that shares our values, and because it is a crucial contributor to our national security measures in the region,” his campaign stated in the email.

O’Rourke met the Israel lobby giant AIPAC in 2017, according to a photo posted on Facebook. The AIPAC representative he met, Stuart Schwartz, was the very man who accused O’Rourke of siding with “the rocket launchers and terror-tunnel builders” a few years earlier.

Schwartz made the allegation after O’Rourke was one of only eight Congress members to oppose rushing a bill authorizing extra military aid to Israel during a major assault on Gaza in 2014.

Ted Cruz has blasted O’Rourke for accepting some $172,000 from the liberal Zionist group J Street. The Democratic candidate, as Cruz pointed out, has promised he will not take money from political action committees.

J Street insists that candidates it backs support a “two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Cruz lambasted the group, which opposes the right of Palestinian refugees to return home, as “anti-Israel,” apparently on account of its support for a Palestinian state.

Israel’s “number one partner”

Although Texas is thousands of miles away from Palestine, pro-Israel support in the state manifests itself legislatively.

Dima Khalidi, director of the civil liberties organization Palestine Legal, said “we’ve seen some of the most egregious enforcements of these laws in Texas,” referring to recent bills that have come out of the state.

In 2017, the Texas legislature passed House Bill 89 which prohibits state agencies in Texas from having business ties to companies that boycott Israel.

There have already been cases of contract workers and freelancers not getting paid for their work because of their support for Palestine and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

After the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, reports detailed that Dickinson, Texas, residents were being required to confirm that they do not boycott Israel in order to be eligible for relief.

According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the state is “Israel’s number one trading partner in the United States.”

Texas is a central battleground in fights over school textbooks with longstanding concerns regarding how it teaches about the Civil War and slavery. A part of the curriculum even requires students to explain how “Arab rejection of the state of Israel has led to ongoing conflict” in the Middle East, according to a report from The Dallas Morning News.

And fervent support of Israel from an aspiring senator does not only shape Texas politics.
A bill pending in Congress would criminalize Americans who support BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in support of Palestinian rights.

“[O’Rourke] could have a direct effect on that law if he wins,” said Dima Khalidi of Palestine Legal. “Senators have a great deal of influence over our foreign policy and this type of support for Israel is in line with Trump’s agenda – anti-free speech, anti-immigrant and anti-human rights.”

According to O’Rourke’s email, “he opposes efforts, economically and diplomatically, to boycott or delegitimize Israel.” That indicates he is opposed to free speech for supporters of Palestinian rights.

“Disappointment after disappointment”

Palestinian groups and organizers in Texas are not standing by idly. Texans for Palestine recently launched a petition condemning O’Rourke for his support of Israel’s rights abuses and urging him to meet groups supporting justice for Palestinians.

“Beto, your progressive supporters expect better of you; your positions on Palestine/Israel need to be consistent with the values you profess,” the petition states.

Asad Shalami, an organizer with the Dallas Palestine Coalition, is one of several activists who have been confronting O’Rourke at town hall meetings and other events since his campaign began. O’Rourke is often seen in the North Texas area so Shalami said he makes it a point to show up and ask a question or confront O’Rourke on his stance.

“One time, he asked his assistant to get my information and he promised he would look into it, make a decision and get back to me … and after that, I never heard from his office,” said Shalami. He was referring to a moment when he asked O’Rourke why he didn’t sign onto a resolution that would prohibit US money from being used to jail and torture Palestinian children. “It was just disappointment after disappointment after that.”

O’Rourke isn’t the only politician in recent memory touted for their “progressive” politics only to leave Palestine behind.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned an Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza earlier this year, but after her dramatic win in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th congressional district she backed away, asserting her belief in Israel’s right to exist – apparently as an apartheid state – and her support for a two-state solution.

Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator, also made waves when he ran for president. He promised a non-hawkish approach to foreign policy and argued that Palestinians must be treated with “respect and dignity.”

But Sanders has subsequently denounced the BDS movement and signed on to a letter condemning the “continued targeting of Israel by the UN Human Rights Council.”

In 2015, O’Rourke was part of a six-day Congressional junket to Israel and the occupied West Bank which met Israeli and Palestinian leaders, according to The El Paso Times. This was after he voted against US funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile interceptor in 2014.

Shalami said he’s not sure if O’Rourke will go back to being as critical of Israel as he seemed to be in 2014, but he said he still might vote for him anyways. These days, Shalami said, he is mostly a one-issue voter – that issue being Palestine – but he said he can’t ignore other promises O’Rourke has made like improving healthcare and ending wars abroad.

“I was quite excited [about O’Rourke] in the beginning, but this whole thing has really turned me off, so I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “If I have to choose between him and Cruz he’d be the obvious choice, but I don’t believe we should blindly follow any politician just because they aren’t a Republican.”

Nashwa Bawab is a Palestinian-American journalist based in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia bars Palestinian refugees in Lebanon from visiting Mecca

#Hajj

Some fear new visa restrictions are part of broader Saudi pressure to push forward US 'deal of the century'


Nearly 175,000 Palestinians are estimated to be affected by the decision effectively preventing them from performing the Hajj pilgrimage (AFP)

Mustafa Abu Sneineh-Wednesday 17 October 2018

Saudi Arabia has stopped issuing pilgrimage visas for Palestinians in Lebanon who hold refugee travel documents, effectively barring tens of thousands of Palestinians from visiting Mecca and Medina, the two most important religious sites for Muslims, Middle East Eye can reveal.

An official at the Saudi consul's office in Beirut confirmed to MEE that following a decision by the Saudi Foreign Ministry in Riyadh, they had informed tourism companies in Lebanon that no Hajj and Umrah visas would be issued to Palestinians on their refugee travel documents - a decision that became effective on 12 September.

"The Palestinian refugees [in Lebanon] can now get visas on a Palestinian Authority passport," the official said.

"There are Palestinians who already applied for Umrah visas on their PA passports after the decision was made and they got visas to travel [to Saudi Arabia]. I do not have an exact number for them," the official added.

The official said that the Saudi Foreign Ministry had informed the occupied West Bank-based PA of its decision.

It is not true that we will issue Palestinian passports for any refugee in Lebanon to get a visa for Umrah or any other sort of visa. The PA did not issue a decision to issue passports for Palestinians in any Arab states

- Ashraf Dabbour, PA ambassador to Beirut

Ashraf Dabbour, the Palestinian Authority ambassador in Beirut told MEE that the embassy knew about the Saudi visa decision through unofficial channels by word of mouth from Palestinian local figures.

But he denied that the PA would issue travel documents for refugees in Lebanon wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia.

"It is not true that we will issue Palestinian passports for any refugee in Lebanon to get a visa for Umrah or any other sort of visa. The PA did not issue a decision to issue passports for Palestinians in any Arab states," Dabbour told MEE.

Dabbour said that the Palestinian embassy was "surprised" by the Saudi decision and that it was "solving this matter" with the Saudi embassy in Beirut, as well as through the Palestinian ambassador in Riyadh, Basem Abdullah al-Agha, who he said has been in contact with the Saudi Foreign Ministry.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are estimated to number 174,422, according to the country's first and only census of the community in December last year.

They hold refugee travel documents issued by Lebanon's General Directorate of the General Security and currently have no access to any other form of travel documents allowing them to go to Saudi Arabia.

They could apply for a Lebanese travel document that is valid for one, three or five years, and the application fees are similar to that of the Lebanese passport, which costs $40 for each valid year.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon hold a travel document issued by the General Directorate of the General Security (Screengrab)

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have no political rights of citizenship to vote for parliament or local municipalities.

They are also prohibited from practising 20 professions including law, medicine and engineering, and are not allowed to work in government institutions because they are designated as "foreigners" under Lebanese law.

The Lebanese political system is based on a sectarian structure dividing power among the main religious communities.

While a number of Christian Palestinians who fled to Lebanon in the wake of the creation of the state of Israel and the Nakba in 1948 were granted Lebanese citizenship, Lebanon has been particularly reluctant to integrate Palestinian refugees and alter its population's already tense confessional makeup.

The PA's Dabbour said that the Palestinian embassy in Lebanon had previously issued PA passports for undocumented Palestinians in Lebanon, known also as non-ID refugees, whose numbers are estimated at around 5,000, to facilitate their travel abroad and obtain visas and residency in other foreign countries.

"This is a particular case in which we issued Palestinian passports because those non-ID refugees were not registered with the UNRWA nor the Lebanese state, and they could not travel anywhere," Dabbour explained.

The Palestinian embassy has not yet issued a statement regarding the outcome of its talks with Saudi officials.

Saudi Arabia is one of the funders of the Palestinian Authority, and it uses its financial leverage to put political pressure on the PA. In 2017, the kingdom contributed $92.1m to the budget of the PA - a nearly 50 percent decrease from its $180m contribution a year earlier.

'It is not practical'

Speaking to MEE, several Lebanese tourism companies confirmed that they have not been able to obtain visas for their Palestinian clients who hold refugee travel documents. 

The decision was conveyed to them by the Saudi consulate through the Lebanese Committee for Hajj and Umrah Affairs. Ibrahim Itani, the director of the committee, told MEE that the Saudi consul, Palestinian ambassador and the Lebanese General Security all confirmed to him that Palestinian refugees needed Palestinian Authority passports to enter Saudi Arabia.

Itani was asked by several tourist companies to speak with the Saudi embassy to see if the decision could be reverted.

"The case is now with Abu Mazen," Itani told MEE, referring to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. "I have been told that this is an issue between states, that was the answer."

Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut, home to thousands of Palestinian refugees (MEE/Dominika Ożyńska)

In September 2017, Saudi Arabia backtracked in a similar case over visa issues for Palestinians on their refugee travel documents, following pressure from the PA and some Palestinian figures in Lebanon.

An owner of a Hajj and Umrah travel office in the southern Lebanese city of Saida, who wished to remain anonymous, told MEE that the Saudi decision was "not practical," and they were looking for the cancellation of this decision.

"If you issue a Palestinian passport, you then need to apply for a residency in Lebanon and this is another problem for Palestinian refugees," he said. "You could then apply for a visa for Saudi Arabia, but then the refugee travel document will become void."

Palestinian refugee problem

MEE reported in September that Saudi Arabia had banned Palestinians holding temporary Jordanian passports from entering the country, a measure directly affecting almost 634,000 Palestinians living in Jordan and Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

Several travel agents who spoke to MEE at the time said they had been told at the start of September that they should not apply for visas for anyone seeking to travel on a temporary Jordanian passport, although no official Saudi announcement had been made.

The Jordanian temporary passport is a document valid for five years issued to Palestinians who live in occupied East Jerusalem by the Civil Status and Passports Department in Amman.

The holders of temporary passports do not have a national identification number and are therefore not entitled to the full rights of Jordanian citizenship.

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Saudi Arabia bars 600,000 Palestinians from Hajj and Umrah with passport ban

Palestinians living in East Jerusalem use the passport merely as a travel document to move from one country to another, especially in the majority of Arab states that do not recognise Israel or Israeli-issued travel documents.

Some Palestinian and Arab media have linked the Saudi move to US President Donald Trump's as-yet-unannounced "deal of the century" proposal, amid rumours that Washington sought Saudi support for measures that would revoke the right of return of Palestinian refugees displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948 and subsequent Arab-Israeli wars.

The measures would see Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan fully naturalised and granted national ID numbers.

Israel Katz, Israel's minister of transport, tweeted on 11 September welcoming Trump's "initiative" regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees, saying that the Palestinian refugee "problem" in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq "would be good to disappear from the world".

MEE could not confirm if Katz's tweet was related to Saudi Arabia's new restrictions on Palestinian refugee and temporary travel documents.