Did scientists really discover evidence of new human species in the Philippines?

An international multidisciplinary team, co-led by a MNHN senior lecturer of the H & E department, Florent Détroit, discovered a new hominin species, Homo Luzonensis, during the excavation of Callao Cave, situated on Luzon island, Northern Philippines. Source: Florent DETROIT / AFP

April 11 at 2:26 AM 

THE announcement of a new species of ancient human (more correctly hominin) from the Philippines, reported today in Nature, will cause a lot of head-shaking among anthropologists and archaeologists.

Some will greet the publication with wild enthusiasm, believing it confirms their own views about our evolutionary past. Others will howl angrily, believing the declaration goes way too far with too little evidence.

Me, I sit somewhere in the middle of this spectrum of opinions. I’ve long promoted a pluralist view of human evolution and do see the hominin fossil record as strongly suggesting high species diversity.

There is no reason to expect human evolution to have been any different to the evolution of other animals where, for example, among our close primate relatives, diversity was and often continues to be the rule.

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At the same time, each and every new discovery has to stack up and must be judged on its merits, on the basis of the evidence presented. We can’t just accept the interpretation of a new discovery because it suits our strongly held views.

But we need also to keep a cool head, because the naming of any new species is still a scientific hypothesis, ripe for testing and far from set in stone, even if published in the esteemed pages of a journal like Nature.

The Philippine find

So, just what have they found? It’s dubbed Homo luzonensis, after the Philippines’ main island of Luzon, where it was recovered during excavations of Callao Cave in 2007, 2011 and 2015.

This new hominin is represented by a handful of heavily worn adult teeth from one or two individuals, one foot and two toe bones, two finger bones, and the fragment of the shaft of a juvenile thigh bone.

Its anatomy is argued to be a peculiar mix of features normally found in living humans, Homo erectus, the Hobbit (Homo floresiensis) and Australopithecus.

The similarities to Australopithecus are especially intriguing when one ponders for a moment on just who the australopiths actually were. A famous example is “Lucy” who belonged to Australopithecus afarensis living in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa. Another is Australopithecus sediba, from a cave in South Africa and found just a decade ago.

These and the many other Australopithecus species (and there are at least six described) lived only in sub-Saharan Africa, between about 2 million and 5 million years ago.

Members of Australopithecus were among the earliest hominins who gave rise to the human genus Homo. This makes them one of our own evolutionary ancestors. Yet, despite their definite bipedalism, they also seem to have spent much of their time climbing in trees, perhaps feeding, sleeping and escaping predators.

They were typically around 30-50kg, stood 1-1.5 metres tall, and had brain sizes around one-third the size of our own. They may have produced and used crude stone tools, but the evidence remains unclear. In a sense, they would have looked a lot like chimpanzees but with smaller faces and front teeth and with upright bodies.

A handout image made available by Florent Detroit and taken on August 9, 2011 shows a view of the excavation in the Callao Cave in the north of Luzon Island, in the Philippines, where an international multidisciplinary team discovered a new hominin species, Homo Luzonensis. Source: Florent DETROIT / AFP

Is it a new species?

The statistical comparisons made in the newly published research, led by Florent Détroit of the Musée de l’Homme, highlight a rather odd assortment of features in Homo luzonensis.

But the all-important type (or holotype) specimen, referred to as fossil CCH6, comprises just a few teeth from the upper jaw, all of which are rather heavily worn down or broken.

There’s not a lot of anatomy preserved here, and this leaves me feeling the case for this new species is a little flimsy.

How astonishing would it be that something resembling Australopithecus would have survived a long, long, way from the African Rift Valley as recently as 50,000 years ago?

Well, as it turns out, this is precisely the situation with the diminutive Homo floresiensis from Flores in eastern Indonesia, most recently dated between 60,000 and 100,000 years old.

Again, while the Hobbit might have prepared us philosophically for yet more radical discoveries, the case for Homo luzonensis needs to be judged solely on its merits.

I think I’d prefer to leave the fossil in what Kenyan archaeologist and anthropologist Louis Leakey used to call the “suspense account” until we have a lot more evidence.

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Dating the fossil finds

The thing that bugs me the most about the new research is the seemingly poor understanding of the age of Homo luzonensis. There’s not much new evidence presented here about the dating of the site or the fossils themselves, and the work that has been done previously needs to be interpreted with a good deal of caution.

The method used to date the actual fossils (called Uranium-series or U/Th Dating) can be notoriously unreliable when dating bones and teeth, and frankly, some of my colleagues simply don’t accept that it’s up to the task.

This is because bones and teeth can lose old uranium or take up new uranium when buried in sediments, like those contained in a cave, and there’s no way of really knowing if this has happened in the past. The method assumes that uranium was taken up just once in the past and then decayed giving us a radioactive clock but this is probably not the case in reality.

It would be usual practice to check the dating of a site with different methods and using various materials (charcoal, sediment, bone, cave flowstone, and so on) and there’s no explanation provided why this hasn’t been done for Callao Cave and Homo luzonensis, or if it has, how the crosschecks compared?

I think the best we can say is that the fossils would seem to be older than 50,000 years, but just how much older is anyone’s guess. They could be 55,000 years old or 550,000 years old, and this would make a very real difference in terms of their importance and place in human evolution.

Still, if Détroit and his team are right about Homo luzonensis, the new discovery would add to a growing picture of extinct human diversity in Southeast Asia, which we simply couldn’t have imagined a decade or two ago.

By Darren Curnoe, Associate Professor and Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of New South Wales, UNSW. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Three-person’ baby boy born in Greece

The baby was conceived using an experimental form of IVF

By James Gallagher-11 April 2019

Fertility doctors in Greece and Spain say they have produced a baby from three people in order to overcome a woman's infertility.

The baby boy was born weighing 2.9kg (6lbs) on Tuesday. The mother and child are said to be in good health.

The doctors say they are "making medical history" which could help infertile couples around the world.

But some experts in the UK say the procedure raises ethical questions and should not have taken place.

The experimental form of IVF uses an egg from the mother, sperm from the father, and another egg from a donor woman.

It was developed to help families affected by deadly mitochondrial diseases which are passed down from mother to baby.

It has been tried in only one such case - a family from Jordan - and that provoked much controversy.

But some fertility doctors believe the technology could increase the odds of IVF too.

• First 'three person baby' born
• Three-person babies IVF technique ‘safe’
• The girl with three biological parents

This is all about mitochondria - they are the tiny compartments inside nearly every cell of the body that convert food into useable energy.

They are defective in mitochondrial diseases so combining the mother's DNA with a donor's mitochondria could prevent disease.

But there is also speculation mitochondria may have a role in a successful pregnancy too. That claim has not been tested.

The patient was a 32-year-old woman in Greece who had endured four unsuccessful cycles of IVF.

She is now a mother, but her son has a tiny amount of his genetic makeup from the donor woman as mitochondria have their own DNA.

The structure of a cell

Nucleus: Where the majority of our DNA is held - this determines how we look and our personality

Mitochondria: Often described as the cell's factories, these create the energy to make the cell function

Cytoplasm: The jelly like substance that contains the nucleus and mitochondria

Dr Panagiotis Psathas, president of the Institute of Life in Athens, said: "A woman's inalienable right to become a mother with her own genetic material became a reality.

"We are very proud to announce an international innovation in assisted reproduction, and we are now in a position to make it possible for women with multiple IVF failures or rare mitochondrial genetic diseases to have a healthy child."

The Greek team were working with the Spanish centre Embryotools, which has announced that 24 other women are taking part in the trial and eight embryos are ready to be implanted.

In February 2018, the doctors in Newcastle who pioneered the technology were given permission to create the UK's first three-person babies.

The fertility regulator approved two attempts, both in families with rare mitochondrial diseases.

Some doctors in the UK argued the two applications - fertility and disease prevention - are morally very different.

Tim Child, from the University of Oxford and the medical director of The Fertility Partnership, said: "I'm concerned that there's no proven need for the patient to have her genetic material removed from her eggs and transferred into the eggs of a donor.

"The risks of the technique aren't entirely known, though may be considered acceptable if being used to treat mitochondrial disease, but not in this situation.

"The patient may have conceived even if a further standard IVF cycle had been used."

Dr Beth Thompson, from the Wellcome Trust, said: "UK regulation was based on strong public engagement and scientific evidence and allows the risks and benefits to be carefully weighed up.

"We're proud to be supporting the first UK study into the use of mitochondria donation techniques in a well regulated environment, but we're concerned about studies taken place without similar levels of oversight."

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Truth will come to light

Friday, April 12, 2019

Apparently a recent statement made by the LSSP is being misrepresented as a left wing position. In particular this has created misconception among Tamils which is quite damaging to Sama Samajists in Sri Lanka. One Sama Samajist said ‘I think we should slam Tissa Vitharana for this racist position and make it clear why his political faction that goes as LSSP does not represent anything close to a leftist ideology.

These slimy groups which are aligned with Mahinda and worship this fascistic leader and follow and absorb every dirty political frank he does, cannot be classified as a party at all. This ‘LSSP’ joins with several other Sinhala chauvinist political groups and called for the resolution to be withdrawn. “It is inconceivable that the UNP government, instead of refusing to be a co-signatory and rejecting the Resolution outright, is content to ask for time to implement it under the supervision of the UNHRC,” said the statement of LSSP.

It went on to call the decision of the government, not to object to the resolution, a “grave mistake.” In chauvinist manner it said the government has “permitted the international community to interfere in our internal affairs, thereby surrendering our sovereignty”. They have forgotten that when Mahinda Rajapaksa was in power, foreign military help to fight Tamil armed fighters was bought violating completely Lankan sovereignty!

UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

The recent act, the appointment of commissioners to the Office for Reparation, an independent authority created by the Office for Reparations Act passed in Parliament on October 9, 2018, has given hope to the democratic movement that brought the victory of Premier Wickremesinghe after 53 days of unrepentant struggle. Liberals claim this is the second step of the transitional justice mechanisms for reconciliation process agreed upon by the government and international community. Coming shortly after the conclusion of the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, it is an indication of Yahapalanaya to continue commitment to the implementation of the resolution of the UNHRC. It agreed to this resolution in October 2015, co-sponsored facing racist fascist opposition. However this opposition cannot see the unconditional support given by US and India to wipe out the Tamil liberation struggle.

The responsibility of the Office for Reparation is to identify aggrieved victims qualified for reparation and provide appropriate compensation individually or collectively to them. With the appointment of Commissioners, the office will commence its functions.

At the recently concluded session of the UNHRC, the Yahapalanaya achieved what it demanded. The government obtained the concurrence of the international community to extend the implementation period of the co-sponsored resolution by a further two years. This created much criticism from both sides of the nationality divide. On the one hand, the criticism that the process is too slow and there is a need to speed up implementation made by Tamils, but without any proposal for pushing Lanka forward.

They indicated the reconciliation mechanisms that the government established, the Office for Missing Persons, has yet to commence finding those who went missing. When United States and India supported erasing the Tamil army physically, will anybody eagerly look for the missing persons! On the other hand, of course there is criticism by the Sinhala fascistic groups that the government continues to be subject to pressures from the international community with regard to post-war reconciliation.

Post-war reconciliation

Experience in implementation of post-war reconciliation, anywhere in the world, whatever measures taken, shows that the process is invariably a slow one. At a recent discussion organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Colombo, the example of Cyprus was raised. In Cyprus, (CMP) was established; the Committee on Missing Persons in 1981 by an agreement between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities with the backing of the United Nations (UN). It was to determine the fate of persons reported missing in inter-communal fighting in the 1960s, and as a result of the events of 1974. “The CMP does not attempt to investigate, or attribute responsibility for the deaths of missing persons or make findings as to the cause of such deaths. Its mandate is a humanitarian one of bringing closure to thousands of affected families through the return of the remains of their missing relatives.”

“After the end of the conflict, which ran from December 1963 until August 1974, 2003 people were reported missing: 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,511 Greek Cypriots. Relying on information from the public, the CMP has excavated some 1,254 sites across the island, finding human remains at 1,200 of these. Each site is carefully searched and where found; the remains exhumed and brought to the laboratory for testing. Families of the missing have provided DNA samples to help identify those found.

The CMP reached an important milestone in July 2007, when it began returning the first remains of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot individuals to their families. Since then the remains of 681 Greek Cypriots and 246 Turkish Cypriots have been found and returned to their families, while hundreds more await identification.”

The important point to note here is the direct involvement of world powers was missing in this conflict, but that it took 26 years for the first body of a missing person to be identified and returned to their family. The problem of dealing with the past is made difficult when those who were part of the structures responsible for the disappearances continue to remain in positions of power. Sri Lanka has undergone democratic revolution which continued up to the recent struggle of 53 days to re-install Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. A far reaching change in either the structures of the parties responsible for the disappearances and other human rights violations has not taken. Those who have a close connection with the events of the past, such days, those who supervised the white vans that caused enforced disappearances or enjoyed impunity during the war period in order to eliminate the LTTE at all costs would be concerned about the issues of accountability that could arise from the facts that are unearthed. Even USA and India were involved in eliminating LTTE as a terrorist organisation.

The problem of missing persons brings to the fore the continuing divide in Sri Lankan society. Sinhala majoritists would prefer to gloss over the problem and move forward without dealing with the past, whereas the minority Tamil speaking would be determined to get to the root of the problem and to ensure accountability.

This fascist-anti fascist perceptions have manifested itself in the contrary opinions being expressed about the need for international participation in the special judicial mechanism, which is the third of the mechanisms that the government committed itself to implementing in terms of the UNHRC resolution. The debate on a hybrid court for accountability has been reignited once again by the UN High Commissioner’s recent report which specifically recommends the establishment of a hybrid court in Sri Lanka.

Office of Missing Persons

The Office of Missing Persons has been active throughout the country. That is great. It has been provided with information relating to the approximately 16,000 civilians and 5,000 Security Forces personnel missing during the war. There are many more who have not registered with any authority, including the families of LTTE cadre who went missing. However these would not dare to report that to any government authority.

As nationality consciousness has entered into the state structure during the period of war; problem has got complicated. From a humanitarian perspective this is the most serious problem in the country which requires an urgent solution. “At a HR discussion in Colombo the concept of ambiguous loss was discussed. This is the loss that has no official verification, no certainty or clarity and therefore no closure. It is an unending ache and a hope that the missing person will one day reappear. Finding the truth about them will require greater support from the governmental system and manifestation of political will.”

Land-grab surveyors blocked by Mandaitivu protest

A protest in Mandaitivu prevented government officials from surveying land intended for appropriation by the Sri Lankan navy.

The navy has been occupying the island since 1990 with its camp based on over 18 acres of land belonging to 11 Tamil owners.

 11 April 2019

The owners and residents of the island, who were notified of the permanent land-grab attempt last year, vowed to fight against the properties being seized.

The protest on Thursday saw government officials turning back without surveying the lands.

A petition was also submitted to local authorities, objecting to the land-grab.

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Sinhala Avurudu from Dravidians, Now owned by Sinhala Buddhist

 12 April 2019 

Tomorrow will fade off giving way to the New Year that begins a day after Sunday, April 14. In between, there is a “pause”; a sort of empty space. 
In Sinhala, it is called Nonagothaya and also Punya kalaya. 
A short period that allows People to leave aside all routine work and maybe if they wish to, attend quiet religious practices. In 1953 when the Samasamaja Party decided on a Harthal protest on August 12, the question was, what they should tell people to do during harthal. 
Dr Colvin R. de Silva then said Harthal is like the Nonagothaya. 
People should leave all routine work and indulge in nothing. This year Nonagothaya is from morning 7.45 hours till 20.33 hours in the night, when it precedes the arrival of New Year.  
The Sinhala and Hindu New Year is not Sinhala and TamilNew Year. Even though Sinhala Catholic and Christian communities do not practise New Year rituals as Buddhists do, it is yet Sinhala. But for the Tamil people, it is Hindu New Year. 

Over the past two decades or so with an emphasis on peace-building and national unity, there was some effort to name it Sinhala and Tamil New Year. 
That nevertheless is not how the Sinhala Buddhist society accepts this New Year. It is still Sinhala New Year for them. There is certainly a historical reason for such ethno-religious demarcation while sharing the same Sun, as the common factor of the New Year. 
Within the Sinhala Buddhist community, it is the Lunar Calendar that still prevails in socio-religious events and festivals. Sinhala Buddhist culture is fundamentally a Lunar Based culture. Thus, all full moon days are declared public holidays as Poya Days.  
Months are decided from one full moon to another. Horoscopes are etched according to the Lunar Calendar. Auspicious times are also calculated on the Lunar calendar juxtaposed with the Gregorian Solar calendar. 
Often the mother is compared to the Moon (T.M. Jayaratne’s popular song “Mother is the moon in your world, where I remain the Sun) in this culture. The stepping stone in temples is the Moonstone. 

Yet, the New Year on April 14 remains the only nationally accepted popular festival of Sinhala Buddhists that is based on the Sun, moving from the House of Pisces (Meena) to the House of Aries (Mesha), heralding a New Year.  
The question that still remains without a clear answer and with many hypothetical conclusions is how and when this Sun festival came to be part of the Sinhala Buddhist culture. 
There is no evidence of this type of a popular festival with the Sun at its centre being held in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa eras. 
This Sun festival has been in ancient South India as a Dravidian culture associated with agriculture and harvesting. From around March, they begin their major harvests no different to our Maha harvest during the same period. 
In ancient traditions where scientific understanding and logical interpretations were not the order of the day, nature was a key factor in life. 
The Sun was unexplainable in its impact on people who knew no major discipline in life other than agriculture. That created the Sun God and the festival with traditions and rituals to end harvesting. 

This also provides people with a break from the long toil before the next round of cultivation begins. With time, they created their own traditions and rituals to usher in the New Year before life once again begins its routine. This perhaps was the same among agricultural communities in ancient Ceylon, where they may have organised festivals around harvesting and ushering in the New Year though without Royal patronage.    
In the 17 Century Kandyan kingdom, there seems to have been some Royal recognition for the New Year, from what Robert Knox has written with his long experience as a captive living in the Kandyan kingdom. 
There he has made mention of the King and festivities. 
“His great festival is in the month of March at their New-years tide”. 
-An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies - Part III - Chapter IV, page 81
And then later adds:
“These Astronomers (he perhaps means astrologers) tell them also when the old year ends to the very minute. At which time they cease from all work, except the Kings, which must not be omitted. They acquaint them also with the good hour of the new year, they are to begin work. At which time every Man and Woman begins to do somewhat in their employment they intend to follow in the ensuing year.” (Ibid – Part III, Chapter X – page 111) 

• "Within the Sinhala Buddhist community, it is the Lunar Calendar that still prevails in socio-religious events and festivals"
• "This Sun festival has been in ancient South India as a Dravidian culture associated with agriculture and harvesting"

This is certainly the influence of the Tamil speaking South Indian Nayakkars of Telugu ancestry, who dominated Kandyan palace politics even before the Nayakkars took over the Kandyan throne in 1739 with the death of King Veera Narendra Sinha. 
King Narendra Sinha’s first queen was a Princess from Madurai Nayakkar dynasty. With no son as heir to the throne, her brother was crowned as King Vijaya Raja Sinha giving way for the last four Nayakkar kings in the Kandyan kingdom. 
Even before Narendra Sinha, it was a tradition for the Kandyan Kings to have their consorts from the Suriyawamsa lineage to grace their coronations. 
Thus, the introduction of Dravidian Hindu culture to Kandyan life over a long period of time assimilating with the Sinhala lifestyle with Royal patronage. 
Accepted by the nobility, this gave way to mixed traditions and rituals both within Buddhist temples and in community life. Thereupon, the Sun festival in April as the “New Year” is perhaps the most popular community-based tradition that became “Sinhalised” and is now owned by Sinhala Buddhists as their national cultural event with State patronage.

That has its evolution. When the Sinhala society was religiously an unmixed Buddhist society before the Portuguese and the Dutch landed, all traditions were “Sinhala” traditions. The New Year for them was “Sinhala” New Year. So was it with the Tamil society in the Vanni and the North? They were all Hindu Tamils and they called the New Year the “Hindu” New Year. Though both societies became “multi-faith” societies subsequently with Christian and Catholic conversions, the New Year remained as it was; “Sinhala and Hindu New Year”. Meanwhile, the British trying to appease the Kandyan Sinhala nobility after the 1817 and 1848 rebellions, the New Year was declared a holiday in 1885 by the British colonial rule. But what they called this New Year is not quite clear. What is clear is the fact that all through Colonial rule, the Sinhala Buddhist urban elites tried using the past, glorifying its history against colonial rule. 
That resulted in a common Sinhala social psyche, and not anti-colonial nationalism the Indian freedom movement was enriched with. Within that social psyche, the Sinhala New Year was the most privileged festival that drew Sinhala families and communities into collective celebrations with entertainment for the young and the old alike.  
We are now living with this Sinhala New Year with pride as a tradition the Sinhala Buddhists have created by itself. We have turned everything related to the New Year into a Sinhala national event among the Buddhist society and left Tamils for themselves. 

Even the best performers at the Grade V exam in Sinhala medium would not know that Tamils celebrate the same New Year as the New Year. 
Most in the Sinhala South would not bother to know the link between Sinhala and Hindu New Year. 
It is time for those who live on funded Reconciliation projects and Media Programmers looking for colourful events to at least begin an open discussion about the richness of the Sinhala Buddhist culture due to assimilations from other cultures. 
It is a wonderful and entertaining exercise to get into such discussion while it gives this insecure Sinhala Buddhist psyche the confidence it could be richer and the gainer with cultural exchanges and assimilations. To sum up this short essay for the Sinhala and Hindu New Year, let me produce in English an excerpt from a Sinhala essay of mine. 
“At times I go through crazy thoughts. Once I thought if we did not have our own Tamil society in the North, if the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British did not come, and if the Malays were not brought, how could we be Sinhala?

If those Europeans did not come, we would not have bread or parippu. No cars and no buses. 
We wouldn’t have Celestinas and Siyadorises in the village carrying gossip. We wouldn’t have the Kamise or the Shirt nor the Kalisama. 
Without Malays, we wouldn’t even have the Sarong. If they did not come, Sinhala New Year would not have Asmee and Kokis. 
There would not be Rambutan, Delum and Mangostein. 
Thanks to the Tamils, end of the month we get our Padiya and then go to the Kadey. 
We who had very liberal shared marriages, now register the marriage to live as a nucleus family or depart with a divorce. It is now like a Malay pickle. 
Well, if none of them happened, whom do we call a Sinhalaya?” 
The Postwar Reconciliation is wholly absent and is meaningless without any of these discussions to open up the rich Sinhala culture as one that had remained to gain from many cultures including much from Tamil. And that is best discussed during this New Year if Reconciliation is to de-polarise Sri Lanka.

Sampanthan insists on implementing UNHRC resolution, adopting new constitution as top priorities for Lanka

April 8, 2019, 9:32 pm 

Former Opposition Leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan told Parliament, on Budget 2019 voting day, last Friday, that implementing of the UNHRC resolution and the adoption of a new constitution are two issues of utmost importance to the country today.

Sampanthan’s statement: Before I commence my speech, may I say that the Government and the Opposition have both agreed to give me five minutes each which means I would have 30 minutes. But, let me commence and go along, Sir. We are on the final day of the Budget Discussion. As I have often stated earlier, the future of the country is not purely an economic issue. It is a very multifaceted issue. Even the future economy of the country is dependent upon several issues; it is dependent upon its unity and its strengths based upon the unity; it is dependent upon the reputation that it enjoys both domestically and internationally. The two issues of utmost importance to the country today, in my view are; the implementation of the Resolution co-sponsored by the Sri Lankan Government and unanimously adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 1915, 1917 and 1919; and the adoption of a new Constitution for the country as unanimously decided by Resolution adopted in this Parliament in 2016. With regard to the first matter, the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution is also based upon two investigations; the first, conducted by an independent panel appointed by the Secretary-General of the UN comprising of three experts from different parts of the world and the second, an investigation conducted by the UN Human Rights Council itself. Both have come to the conclusion that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed, that there were violations against international humanitarian and human rights laws during the civil conflict and that the matter needs to be further investigated upon and determined. Sri Lanka has conducted no investigation of any sort, not even a domestic investigation and persists that it will not implement certain aspects of the UN Human Rights Council Resolution. From the point of view of Sri Lanka, there was only one report, the Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission; even that Report has not yet been implemented. I have spoken on this civil conflict, Sir, in Parliament in 2009 and before that -the conflict came to an end in May 2009 -without being contradicted by the Government and in fact, not merely me, but many others-both those in this Parliament and other personalities -have referred to at least some of the matters that happened during the course of the conflict.

It is my intention, Sir, to make reference to some of these matters to demonstrate what was stated in this Parliament and by others at the time the conflict took place without any contradiction by the Government. I will read, Sir, from the position that I stated in Parliament in 21st January, 2009.

"What has been happening to the Tamil people as a result of the war that is being waged in the North and the East? There is constant aerial bombing, continuous aerial bombing, sometimes several bombings per day. There is constant multi-barrel rocket launcher fire, constant artillery fire, all into civilian populated areas. Is this happening in any part of the world? Are civilian- populated areas being bombed aerially and are multi-barrel rocket launchers and heavy artilleries being fired into civilian populated areas in any other part of the world? I got some statistics here. They are short of food; they are short of medicine; they are short of shelter; they are short of drinking water; they are short of sanitation facilities. People are undergoing immense difficulties in the Vanni. There are about 350,000 to 400,000 people now in the Mullaitivu District, in a part of the Mullaitivu District, running helter-skelter from one place to another depending on where the bombing is taking place, where the shelling is taking place."

That was the position in this area when I spoke in this Parliament in January, 2009, a position which was not contradicted by the Government.

"Nobody knows what is happening in this area. There are no United Nations agencies in this area. There are no International Non-Governmental Organizaitons in the Vanni. They were all asked to get out of that place in September last year and since then, they are not stationed there permanently and they cannot act freely and independently as they wish."

So, Sir, that was the position that prevailed in the Vanni in 2018 and 2019.

So what do we see in the statements made by Madam Navanethem Pillay who was the Head of the UN Human Rights Commission at that point of time, the statement made by Madam Louise Arbour, who was also the Head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights a little earlier, and the statement made by Justice Bhagwati -the Chairman of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons, a retired Chief Justice of India who was in Sri Lanka in order to assist in the investigations that have been conducted by the Udalagama Commission in regard to several human rights violations. They have all made their position very clear, Sir, in the statements they have made.

Madam Navanethem Pillay said, Sir, "Certain actions being undertaken by the Sri Lankan military and by the LTTE may constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. We need to know more about what is going on, but we know enough to be sure that the situation is absolutely desperate." She went on to say, Sir, "Despite the Government’s designation of safe or ‘no fire’ zones for civilians, repeated shelling had continued in those zones. Other areas holding civilians had also been shelled, she claimed. Credible sources had indicated that more than 2,800 civilians may have been killed and more than 7,000 in these zones in the past few days. Even after the Government’s announcement on 24 February that heavy weapons would not be fired into the no-fire zones, close to 500 people were reportedly killed and more than a thousand injured in these areas."

That is what Madam Navaneetham Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights had to say in regard to the situation in this area. There are limited quantities of food, reports of severe malnutrition, medicines are unavailable even in the one makeshift medical facility that is still functioning.

Madam Louise Arbour, Sir, was also the Commissioner for Human Rights in the UN. She urged the Government of Sri Lanka to establish in Sri Lanka an Office of the High Commission for Human Rights to be in a position to monitor what is happening in Sri Lanka. That was declined, refused, rejected and this is what she had to say. I quote"

"There was a culture of impunity which had so deeply permeated into the Sri Lankan society, that if we wanted to eradicate the culture of impunity, there was an urgent need to set up a human rights mechanism, a human rights office in Sri Lanka under UN auspices to monitor the human rights situation in Sri Lanka."

Sir, that was the position expressed by Human Rights High Commissioners in regard to the situation prevalent in this area.

Justice Bhagwati, the Chairman of the International Independent Eminent Group of Persons (IIGEP) a renowned jurist, who had been responsible for extreme changes in India pertaining to human rights had this to say. I quote:

"Summary executions, massacres, disappearances, wanton destruction of property and forcible transfers of population can never be justified. No efforts should be spared to uncover responsibility, including recognition of command responsibility, for such actions. The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons has, however, found an absence of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka in the present inquiry to investigate cases with vigour, where the conduct of its own forces has been called into question"

This was the position, Sir, that was stated by the different persons of repute, who are international personalities.

The reason why I am reminding the House of these matters is that you cannot sweep everything under the carpet. Your current approach can do immense harm to this country. Much has been said about the fact that there is a complaint that 40,000 people have been killed and as to how that can be accepted. There were at least 350,000 people in this area, probably around 400,000 based on our own investigations, only 290,000 people came out. What happened to the balance? Your estimate was that there were only 60,000 to 70,000 people who lived in this area at this point of time. You sent food, medicine and other supplies only for that number - 60,000 or 70,000. When the number was as large as 350,000 why did you restrict the number to only 60,000 or 70,000?

We conducted our own investigation in regard to this matter and we were satisfied that there were at least 350,000 to 400,000 people in that part of Mullaitivu at that point of time.

I want to make it very clear, Sir, that no one is saying that all the Armed Forces who fought the LTTE on the instructions of the Sri Lankan State should be blamed or punished. The Armed Forces acted on the instructions of the Sri Lankan Government, but those responsible for domestic and international crimes including those responsible on the basis of command responsibility and the chain of command should not be allowed to get away scot-free. I say this, because that would be extremely harmful to the future interests of this country, the long-term interests of this country. It is absolutely essential, Sir, that the truth must be ascertained.

The second matter I referred to was the Constitution. We all adopted a Resolution in this Parliament unanimously to frame a new Constitution, but we seem stuck. I do not know why, but we seem stuck. I want to refer, Sir, to something which President Barack Obama, the first black American President said shortly after he was elected as the President for the first time in the United States. He said, "The American people must be true to our founding documents, the documents on which America came into being. American people must be true to their founding documents, the document on which America came into being." Do we, in Sri Lanka, have any founding document, any Constitution to which we can go back and say, "This is our founding document; this is the document on which the country is built, our society is built, which we cherish, which we value, which is the ultimate law of the land? Do we have any such founding document? How can we survive as a nation? How can we survive as a country, when we do not have in this country a constitution which has been accepted by the majority of the people in this country based upon a consensus as much as possible a national consensus? And, this Parliament adopted a unanimous Resolution to frame a new Constitution. Much work has been done in regard to that matter, in fact, the constitutional process has been going on from 1988 for almost 30 years. There was a "Mangala-Moonesinghe Select Committee Report during President Premadasa’s time; there was a Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike’s Report during her term as President- August 2000 Constitutional Proposals; there was a proposal made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Tissa Vitharana Report -the APRC Report. With all these being available to us, we are still unable to frame a Constitution. And, do you think, that is a good thing for the country? Is it good for the country to go on like this? Can you go on like this indefinitely? Is it not harmful to the country? In regard to the national question, Sir, your position appears to be that you have brought about a military solution and there is no need for a political solution now.

I want to in this context, refer to a Statement made by Srimati Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India. When the new State of Bangladesh came into being in 1971, the late Prime Minister of India, Shrimathi Indira Gandhi, in a letter to President Nixon on 15th December, 1971, in regard to the situation in Bangladesh stated as follows. I quote:

"The fact of the matter is that the rulers of West Pakistan got away with the impression that they could do what they liked, because no one, not even the United States, would choose to take a public position that while Pakistan’s integrity was certainly sacrosanct, human rights, liberty were no less so, and that there was a necessary inter-connection between the inviolability of states and the contentment of their people."

If you cannot keep the people contented, if you cannot give the people their legitimate rights, then, the sustainability of your unity and your territorial integrity become gravely questionable. Are we not in the same state? How long has the Tamil question remained unresolved? For the last 70 years? And the Constitutional process that we started in 1988 -we are today in 2019 - 30 years down the road. - has not yet been completed and you are unable to complete it. We do not know what is happening. You do not have the will to complete the process and you want to keep the Tamil people as second-class citizens and you want to suppress them militarily even if they were to rise again. Through civil disobedience based upon ahimsa and sathyagraha, you think they can be suppressed. More than 50 per cent of the Tamil population who lived in this country have left this country. Is it your belief that if you proceed with your military course of action even the balance 50 per cent would leave? Is that your position? Is that your thinking? We are committed to a solution within the framework of a united, undivided, indivisible Sri Lanka. We are firmly committed in regard to that. We want to evolve a solution within the framework of a united, undivided, indivisible Sri Lanka. But, if you do not accept that, please do not expect us to live in this country as second-class citizens. We will not live in this country as second-class citizens. We have our own sovereignty to which we will be entitled. In that situation, on account of your lapse, on account of your default to ensure that we are able to exercise our sovereignty within a united country you will create a situation harmful to the country.

Before I conclude, Sir, I want to say a few words on North-Eastern development. I have just sent the Hon. Minister, our good Friend, Mangala Samaraweera a copy of the letter I gave the Prime Minister yesterday. The North-East, Sir, was neglected in the matter of development even prior to the war commencing. We were backwards. We were not given equal treatment. We suffered in development. When the war commenced, the North-East was devastated and destroyed both by the Army and by the LTTE. When we were trying to rebuild the North-East, I and my Colleague, the Hon. Sumanthiran met the Hon. Minister of Finance and impressed upon him the need to start a special fund for the rebuilding of the North-East in the field of agriculture, in the field of fisheries, in the field of livestock development, in the field of industry, in various other activities, employment generation and skills development to enable our youth, our women, our widows to be able to recommence life and lead a respectable life.

We wanted the Minister to start a fund and the Minister promptly agreed and said, "I understand the need for it and we will start a North-East development fund with an initial allocation of Rs. 5 billion from the Ministry to which we add more funds. We will ensure that more funds go in."

Mangala Samaraweera: I am happy to say that we have also started drafting the Bill which will be brought to Parliament and the fund will be called "Palmyrah Fund". It will be open for donations from the private sector as well as the diaspora.

Sampanthan: Minister, when we met you, you assured us that you will transfer Rs. 5 billion this year for the commencement of development activities in the North- East. We have eight districts in the North-East. I do not have to give you the names. The Prime Minister started a mechanism under his chairmanship; coordinators have been appointed; they have consulted our people; they have consulted us and come up with proposals. Each district has come up with proposals up to about Rs. 3 billion. We need in all for a start Rs. 24 billion. We are not demanding the whole thing now. But, kindly give us a substantial percentage, at least 60 or 70 per cent of the Rs. 24 billion, to be able to commence the activities that must be given priority, to ensure that we are able to carry on those activities and to have them fully implemented. I have not a slightest doubt that you will be very sympathetic and very understanding in regard to my request. I would urge you to kindly discuss this matter with the Prime Minister.

After all, Jaffna is an important district, a peninsula; there is the Vanni; there is the Eastern Province which is a large area, comprising of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara where all people have suffered. Tamil people, in particular, have suffered a great deal. There is much development that is urgently required, particularly, in agriculture, fisheries, livestock development, industries and employment. Women, widows, ex-militants and ex-LTTE cadres who have come back to civilian life need to be looked after. All these things cannot be done if there is no money. We are formulating programmes so that we will be able to deal with these issues expeditiously. That is necessary. There is no purpose in talking about national reconciliation and there is not purpose in talking about goodwill and harmony unless you are able to make a contribution to uplift these people and to improve the standard of living of these people. That is what we are asking for.

So, I would kindly urge you respectfully to enhance your fund for the development of the North-East. Thank you, Sir.