H. L. D. Mahindapala

Who said that Velupillai Prabhakaran is dead?

According to a report in TamilNet (Friday 19, March) his voice is still alive and screaming. In fact, his voice was heard again by a small gathering assembled at Veerasingham Hall on Friday. The message in the voice was so familiar they must have been wondering whether Prabhakaran went down in Nandikadal at all.. Leaving no ambiguity in the minds of the Jaffnaites the voice said:

1.      I will scrap all the military camps in Jaffna peninsula

2.      I will also scrap the High Security Zones

3.      I will appoint a commission of inquiry to find out to what happened to missing Tamils under Mahinda Rajapaksa

4.      The Sinhalese will have to beg forgiveness of the pain inflicted on the Tamils

5.      All paramilitary forces will be disarmed except the forces of the state.

Isn’t that the known voice of Prabhakaran? But due to unavoidable circumstances he couldn’t be there in person. So he sent his loyal alter ego. He sent Ranil Wickremesinghe who repeated his agenda verbatim. He, to all intents and purposes, seems to be very keen on keeping Prabhakaran alive and well. It seems that he likes impersonating Prabhakaran because he has no credible identity of his own.

According to the pictures published in TamilNet  Veerasingham Hall was occupied by about 200 – 300 people. That figure speaks loudly and clearly about Wickremesinghe’s appeal to the Jaffnaites. Obviously, he must be a joke to them because he is cutting a ridiculous figure when he pretends to be Prabhakaran. Which sensible Jaffnaite will believe that Wickremesinghe can do what Prabhakaran couldn’t do?

Besides, they must be sick to their back teeth with the big promises made by Prabhakaran. Even the stooges of Prabhakaran in the TNA have jettisoned his big dream of Eelam. But Wickremesinghe is imagining that he can do better than Prabhakaran. To be honest, the drummers in the nagasalam that accompanied him and his wife to the Hall made a bigger impact in Jaffna than all the nasal noises he made in his opportunistic speech.

In any case, the Jaffnaites would have taken all what he said with a pinch of salt because they know that his boasts ( example : CFA) never works. They are mature enough to know that to implement Prabhakaran’s agenda he must first have the power. But they know that his chances of becoming prime minister (forget April 8!) even in 2015 is as great as resurrecting Prabhakaran and make him walk on the waters of Nandikadal..

But this does not deter Wickremesinghe. He goes on like a wound up robot in a one-track route that goes straight to Nandikadal. According to some sociological statistics, the suicidal rate in Jaffna is the highest in Sri Lanka. Wickremesinghe opening his campaign in Jaffna and repeating Prabhakaran’s agenda is another way of keeping the suicide statistics at peak level.

As I said earlier, he has not strategies. He has only stunts. Repeating Prabhakaran’s agenda is his latest stunt. This stunt is to appease one community at the expense of the other without realizing that he can lose both. He says, for instance, that “we” (implying the state/Sinhalese?) must apologize to the “people” (Tamils?). Doesn’t he know that his President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, apologized publicly to the Tamils for acts of commission and omission? So how many more times is the state going to apologize to the Tamils?

Besides, which sole representative of the Tamils has apologized to the crimes committed in their name to the other communities? When Anton Balasingham apologized for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi his leader, Prabhakaran, distanced himself from it by maintaining a grim silence. In fact, when the crimes against the other communities were pointed out the theoretician Balasingham argued that “collateral damage” was inevitable in any war. 

However, he didn’t think that the same argument could be applied to the Sri Lankan forces. In their twisted logic, when war crimes and crimes against humanity are committed in the name of Tamils they are classified as “collateral damage” and when the Sri Lankan forces commit similar acts they are classified as “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

Wickremesinghe has joined the Tiger lobby pointing the finger at the Sinhala-Buddhists. As for apologizing shouldn’t he give the lead by apologizing for ridiculing and demeaning the forces when they were advancing with self-sacrificing courage to eradicate terrorism so that Wickremesinghe could go to Jaffna and campaign peacefully? Now, if he is a gentleman that some say he is, shouldn’t he publicly apologize to the soldiers who fought on behalf of all communities for them to live in a peaceful and democratic society, however defective it may be?

Without an ounce of shame, he even decided to make the General whom he ridiculed at the height of war as his president in peace time. After the war Wickremesinghe has no qualms in joining hands with the General who had sworn to take the soldiers who fought under his command to an international tribunal. So why isn’t Wickremesinghe asking his would-be president to apologize to the soldiers and the nation for his treacherous betrayal? Or is Wickremesinghe quite content with the General’s performance hoping that he could reap some benefit from it?

Another boast of his goes like this: “Once UNP comes to power our aim will be to restore normalcy of life and prioritizing development of the country and we will strive to achieve these goals.” In the first place, there is a big “IF” right in front of his claim. 

 Second, did he restore normalcy with his CFA or did he worsen it? He admitted in an interview with a Tamil radio in Europe that he is not responsible for the breakdown of peace but that they should blame Prabhakaran. But that is not what he said when he removed the barriers on the roads and allowed all Tiger terrorists to gain free access to Colombo and other strategic places. He was cocksure of solving the terrorist problem with his futile CFA.

 As for prioritizing development the Wijedasa Rajapakse report speaks eloquently about how Ravi Karuanayake & Co prioritized the development of their bank accounts when Wickremesinghe was in power.

 Finally, he says that all paramilitary forces will be disarmed except the forces of the state. Didn’t he say that jointly with Prabhkaran in the failed CFA? Of course, he went further. He even pulled up the Navy Commander for attacking an LTTE ship that was threatening territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation. He never had the guts to pull up Prabhakaran even when he committed the worst crimes against humanity and the nation..

 The upshot of all this is that we have Prabhakaran coming back to haunt us again with Wickremesinghe attempting to play the role of Prabhakaran better than Prabhakaran.  The moral: we must never assume that Prabhakaran is dead as long as Wickremesinghe is alive.

Ajit Randeniya

Any Sri Lankan preoccupied with implementing Zionist agendas such as instituting ‘accountability mechanisms’ to work out ‘who shot whom’ at Nandikathal lagoon, and restoring the special ‘Human Rights’ of Sarath Fonseka to air conditioned accommodation and mobile phones need to stop for a moment, please.

 It came to light last week that since leaving Downing Street back in 2007, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been paid more than £20million by the London and Wall Street Zionist money bags, under various bogus service contracts involving after-dinner speaking, consultancies with merchant banks, hedge funds and foreign governments.

 Blair’s paymasters constitute ‘who’s who’ of the global Zionist movement; it is arrogant actions such as these, committed with utter contempt to the entire world, that provide the strongest evidence for the existence of a global Zionist conspiracy to further their objectives through devious plots that corrupt, control and undermine the so-called ‘Western Democracies’.

 But don’t expect to read about it in Blair’s impending memoirs, for which £4.6million has been advanced; the full extent of his income is cloaked in secrecy through the construction of a complex web of shadowy companies and partnerships. Also, for nearly two years, Blair had objected to the public release of the information by the Westminster ‘Advisory Committee on Business Appointments’ that investigates former public servants using their contacts for private gain; Blair claimed that the information was ‘commercially sensitive’. The committee finally lost patience and decided to ignore his objections and publish the details. Blair is yet to explain to Whitehall’s business appointments committee as to exactly what services he is providing in return.

 Before we go in to the origins of Blair’s ‘ill-gotten’ fortune, we need to briefly look at his ‘contribution’ to Britain and the world during his tenure as British prime minister from 1997-2007.

 The ‘main event’ for which history will hold Blair accountable would, of course, be the disgraceful role he played in committing British troops, against the will of more than 90% of the British population, to the Iraqi invasion ‘project’ of ‘Bush the Idiot’. Blair claimed, using a fabricated ‘dossier’, that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMD). He also claimed sensationally, that Saddam Hussein was capable of launching WMDs within 45 minutes; his lies to the nation, and to the wider world, tainted his image for ever, and later events made him a war criminal by any one’s definition.

In addition to the murder and disfigurement of countless (millions) of Iraqi civilians, he is directly responsible for sending 179 British troops to their deaths in the dessert. Britain’s collusion in these war crimes further undermined an already tattered international reputation. Thanks to his actions Britain is also associated with abuse and torture of prisoners.

 Now it appears, Blair is profiting greatly from taking Britain into an illegal war on the false premise that the country was under threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

 These are the staggering figures: Blair is being paid by the Wall Street merchant bank JP Morgan (speak of conspiracy!) £2million a year; the London-based hedge fund Lansdowne Partners (managed by the former Goldman Sachs banker Paul Ruddock) will pay Blair the ‘bargain’ price of £1million to give some private speeches to its staff ; Zurich financial services consultancy will earn him £500000 a year; he is also listed in the books of Washington Speakers Bureau, with an asking fee of £180,000 for a 90 minute speech – about £2,000 a minute- on geopolitical matters; as consultant to the Kuwaiti Royal family he earns a cool £1 m a year.

 It was revealed last week that in August 2008 Blair took up another job, as advisor to the Korean oil company UI Energy, one of the biggest investors in Iraq’s oil-rich Kurdistan region made semi-autonomous following the invasion. UI Energy also hires the former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke and several prominent American politicians as ‘political advisers’. Reliable estimates of Blair’s undisclosed fee is in the region of millions of pounds. These figures make Blair’s annual government pension of £63468, together with the £840000 additional Office allowance, pale in to insignificance.

 This kind of obviously immoral and unethical behaviour is to be expected from Tony Blair in view of his history and background: he appeared ‘out of the blue’ in British Labor Party politics in 983, clearly through the sponsorship of leading Zionist figures of the Labor and Tory parties.

 As is usual, any one aspiring to progress in politics in the two-party democracies of the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada has to demonstrate strong loyalty to Israel, usually through activism in a bipartisan lobby group known as ‘Friends of Israel’. This would have been ‘natural’ for Blair because, according to the author of the Blair biography, ‘Blair’, Anthony Seldon, he had a deep feeling for Israel, “born in part from his faith”!

 Blair had been a long time ‘Labour Friend of Israel’, when in 1983, the new ‘safe’ constituency of Sedgefield was created, miraculously, near where he had grown up in Durham. Blair was elected as MP for Sedgefield despite the party’s landslide defeat in the general election! The next logical step, of course, was promoting him to the position of Opposition Leader so that he became the ‘natural choice’ as next prime minister, and this they did.

Blair is believed to have been groomed ‘directly’ by the global Zionist leader Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the corporate media giant News Corporation. The Commons register of interests shows that in 1995, while Leader of the Opposition, Blair was ‘a guest’ of Murdoch, in Hayman Island, Australia.

Michael ‘Levy’, the pop music mogul raised £12m for the financing of Blair’s 1997 election campaign. Levy was rewarded by Blair with a peerage, and in 2002, just prior to the Iraq War, Blair appointed Levy as his personal envoy to the Middle East. Levy praised Blair for his ’solid and committed support of the State of Israel’.

 At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Blair stated that his three top priorities on coming to office were “education, education, and education”. Following the 1997 elections victory however, he introduced university tuition fees, and more importantly, gave control of interest rates to the Bank of England. In his first six years, Blair had British troops ordered into battle five times — more than any other prime minister in British history.

 Labor Party elder statesman Tam Dalyell suggested in 2003 that Blair’s foreign policy decisions were unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers, including Levy and Peter Mandelson.

 With such deep and long-running connections to all levels of the global Zionist hierarchy, Blair’s enthusiasm for the Iraq invasion was to be expected: Cabinet Office documents obtained by Liberal Democrats’ Lord Avebury the day after Blair left office, after a three and a half year ‘freedom of information’ battle, reveal that Blair had frequent telephone conversations with Rupert Murdoch, including in the eve of the 20 March US and UK invasion. Lord Avebury said at the time: “The public can now scrutinise the timing of his (Murdoch’s) contacts with the former Prime Minister, to see whether they can be linked to events in the outside world.”

 In 2006, Blair refused to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, despite persistent calls of his cabinet who openly criticised Israel for murdering the civilians, especially the elderly .

 During his late-January appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry in to the Iraqi invasion, Blair arrived by the back entrance to the centre to avoid a protesters outside. During evidence, he demonstrated a disgusting lack of remorse for the mass killings he had caused, attracting uproar and shouts of ‘liar’ and ‘ murderer’ by the relatives of dead British troops in the public gallery.

 All decent sections of British politics have condemned Blair gaining personally through the sacrifice of nation’s reputation and lives of troops. Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott said: “Tony Blair is utterly shameless. He seems to be happy to take money from anybody. This man appears to have a total mental block where ethics are concerned – if they pay enough money he will not ask any questions.”

Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: ‘This doesn’t just look bad, it stinks. This is revolving door politics at its worst. It’s not as if Mr Blair has even stepped back from politics, because he is still politically active in the Middle East”.

 Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: ‘These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale – he is driven by making as much money as possible. ‘I think many people will find it deeply insensitive that he is apparently cashing in on his contacts from the Iraq war to make money for himself.’

 Will Blair be a happy man? Probably not. He already shows, despite ‘converting’ to Catholicism, he is carrying a dead soul.

 Money can’t give life!

Henry Jayaweera

Ranil’s statement about our debt of apology to the Tamil people.
 
Ranil’s latest statement about how we owe an apology to the Tamil people smacks of his latest attempt to hoodwink somebody, this time the Tamil voters into supporting him at the general election.
 
Sorry, Ranil. It is not the Sinhala people who have to apologize. The Sinhala people have been very accommodating as far as the Tamils are concerned, as will be confirmed by all those Tamils I personally have associated with these last decades including the thousands of students I have had the honor and privilege to teach. They’ve lived among us in great harmony and cordiality which I dare say has been unique, until the politicians on both sides began to manipulate for their own gains. Chief among them was the royal goon, JRJ, who opened the door to LTTE manipulations by not doing his job of protecting the Tamils who sffered at the hands of the UNP -the Matthews et al- goons. That was JRJ, Ranil’s mentor and patriarch, wasn’t it? Also, if the Sinhala people have to apologize to the Tamils, so, too, should the Tamil people apologize to the Sinhala people for all the terror, murder and Mayhem perpetrated by the terrorists led by their sun-god or whatever. But we don’t need an apology. We need toi live in peace and harmony in a united, sovereign Sri Lanka, PEASE!
 
As a Sinhalese, I and many others have outright condemned ‘our’ politicians for what they did. Unfortunately, however, I have yet to hear similar statements from our Tamil bretheren, who still live among us without fear or anything else.
 
Coming back to my basic contention, yes, Ranil, do apologize to the Tamils for what your uncle and others of their ilk, and theUNP government of the day did! And get of oyur high horse of hypocrisy, and do something to ensure that the Tamils and the Sinhalese continue to live in peace and harmony as they have done for many generations in the past.
 
Henry Jayaweera

By Shelton A. Gunaratne © 2010

(Background: I was an exchange instructor at Fullerton College in 1983 occupying the residence of my exchange partner, Larry Taylor, at 2903 Wellesley Court, Fullerton, a suburb of Los Angeles. I arrived with my family in California on 2 Feb. 1983, and we decided to make use of our weekends and the summer break to explore the West Coast to the fullest.)

Exploring the outstanding geographical features of the Sierra Nevada (“Snowy Mountain Range”), which stretches 400 miles (650 km) from Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south, became our primary recreational concern in the summer of 1983, though our tours extended to as far north as Corvallis, Ore.

My son Junius, who had become a seasoned traveler after the long coach tour of New Zealand, where we experienced the delights of crossing the Alpine passes in December 1981, had grown 1.5 years older when he faced the next challenge of crossing (at least a sample of the 13) mountain passes of the Sierra Nevada, which is bounded on the west by California’ s Central Valley and on the east by the Great Basin. The Sierras determine the boundary between California and Nevada. The mountain passes of the Sierra were higher than those crossing the Southern Alpines.

Those days we were very much dependent on the maps and tour books of the American Automobile Association and the tour routes prepared by the AAA specialists for road travel. The Internet and the World Wide were the preserves of the elite. Our desktops were not equipped to spew out customized maps, direction finders, distance calculators and satellite photographs of streets and places all over the world. (Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded Google in 1998, were just 10-year-olds in 1983!)

Thus, we planned our camping tour for the Sierra Nevada experience the old-fashioned way. We planned the trip based on three considerations. First, it should be a self-conducted camping tour. Second, it should be confined to the summer vacation, not during the school year. Third, it should include the following distinctive geographical features of the Sierra:

• Groves of giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum), the most massive trees in the world, populated along the narrow band of altitude on the western side of the Sierra Nevada.
• Lake Tahoe, the large, clear freshwater lake in the northern Sierra, with an elevation of 6,225 feet (1,897 m) and an area of 191 square miles (489 square km). Lake Tahoe lies between the main Sierra and the Carson Range, a spur of the Sierra. Water from Lake Tahoe eventually reaches Pyramid Lake, where it evaporates.
• Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the “Lower 48,” with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m), located on the eastern border of Sequoia National Park. Mt. Whitney ranks 11^th in the United States, after Mt. McKinley with an elevation of 20,320 feet (6,194 m) and nine other peaks in Alaska.
• Yosemite National Park, which is filled with stunning features, such as waterfalls and granite domes.
• The beautiful, glacially scoured canyons such as Hetch Hetchy Valley, Yosemite Valley, Kings Canyon, Kern Canyon and Tehipite Valley on the western side of the Sierra.

However, we soon discovered that reservation of camping sites in popular national parks during the crowded summer required very advanced planning or some luck.  Because we could not find back-to-back accommodation at Sequoia and Yosemite national parks at the same time, we had to make two separate trips to accomplish our travel goals.

As it turned out, the first trip was a 10-day excursion (15-25 July) of the Sequoia National Park, the King’s Canyon National Park, Lake Tahoe and western Nevada. It involved a driving distance of more than 1,500 miles roundtrip from Fullerton.

The second trip was a 22-day excursion (30 July-21Aug.) of a larger area of the West Coast, including five days (12-17 Aug.) of camping in Yosemite and four days (17-21 Aug.) exploring the Great Basin in the immediate vicinity of Mt. Whitney.

The Sequoia Experience

On Friday, 15 July 1983, we—Junius, Yoke-Sim and I—drove 286 miles northeast of Fullerton to reach the Ash Mountain entrance to Sequoia National Park. We reached our destination via Bakersfield, which lies parallel to the Tehachapi Pass at the southern end of the Sierra; Tulare, where we ate lunch at Zumwalt Park; Visalia, where we visited the 155-acre Mooney Grove Park; Lake Kaweah; and Three Rivers.

When we paid our $2 park fee at the Ash Mountain ranger station, we received a packet of literature, which included a copy of The Sequoia Bark that gave all the news about the park’s daily activities. After entering the park, we zigzagged   along the Generals Highway (SR 198), with brief stops at Hospital Rock and Amphitheater Point, and passed through the Four Guardsmen (giant sequoias) to make our way to the Lodgepole Campground on Lodgepole Road. 

It being 5 p.m., we set up our tent, not too far from the South Fork of Kaweah River. After dinner, we went to the Lodgepole Amphitheater to listen to ranger Jack Stitt’s talk on “Rock glaciers and running water.” The night was freezing cold.

Established in 1890, the Sequoia National Park covers 404,051 acres (1,635 square km).

Saturday (16 July) morning, we joined a small group of people led by ranger Gail Cording for a hike to Tokopah Falls. The trail followed the Marble Falls of the Kaweah River, a typical U-shape of a glaciated gorge. The falls is a series of cascades totaling nearly 1,000 feet in vertical drop. On the way up, Cording gave a simple account of the geological formation of the area, as well as of the flora and the fauna. She taught us to eat “fiddle nets.”

In the afternoon, we drove south and west past Wuksachi Village to see the Crystal Cave, nine miles from the Giant Sequoia Forest, along a narrow paved road. The temperature inside the cave was a constant 50 degrees. The cave had a remarkable gate built like a giant spider. The uphill return hike was quite arduous.

On the way back, we stopped at the General Sherman, a giant sequoia with a height of 275 feet (83.8 meters). (As recently as 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1,487 cubic meters, making it the largest non-clonal tree by volume. General Sherman lost its largest branch in early 2006, but that didn’t affect its status as the largest tree.) Thereafter, we walked on the two-mile long Cypress Trail that took us to the middle of the Giant Forest with numerous giant sequoias. We were very much the Lilliputians.

Back at the Lodgepole, I took Junius to a children’s campfire at the amphitheater. He and I also ambled along the riverbank. At 8.30 p.m., Yoke-Sim joined us for the Lodgepole campfire program. The highlight was ranger Vaughn Folkman’s slide presentation on “Tooth, fang and claw,” a look at the Sierra animals.

Clarification from Wikipedia

Lest there be confusion, I should explain that the Kings Canyon National Park, which lies to the north, is territorially contiguous with the Sequoia National Park. Wikipedia clarifies that Kings Canyon National Park consists of two sections:

One is the readily accessible General Grant Grove section, which preserves several groves of giant sequoia, including the General Grant Grove, with the famous General Grant Tree, and the Redwood Mountain Grove—the largest remaining natural giant sequoia grove in the world (covering 3,100 acres, with 15,800 sequoia trees measuring more than 1 foot in diameter at base). Both Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks share the Giant Sequoia forests.

Other is the remaining 90 percent of Kings Canyon National Park, lying to the east of General Grant Grove. This section forms the headwaters of the South and Middle forks of the Kings River and the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. Both the South and Middle forks of the Kings River have extensive glacial canyons. The park derives its name from the portion of the South Fork canyon called the Kings Canyon, one of the deepest canyons glaciers have carved out of granite. The Kings Canyon, as well as its developed area called Cedar Grove, is the only portion of the main part of the park that is accessible by motor vehicle. Both the Kings Canyon and its Middle Fork twin, the Tehipite Valley, are glacial “Yosemites” – deeply incised glacial gorges with relatively flat floors and towering granite cliffs thousands of feet high. The canyon also contains a cave formation called Boyden Cave. 

More of Sequoia Experience     

Sunday (17 July) at 7.30 a.m., we left Lodgepole to explore Cedar Grove and Grant Grove sections of the Kings Canyon National Park.

Back on the main drag (Generals Highway), we tarried at Lost Grove and stopped at Stony Creek Village for gasoline. A friendly old attendant served us. At Quail Flat, we took the scenic route northeast to nearby Lake Hume, which deserved a brief stop. Then we joined highway 180 heading east for the breathtaking descent to Kings Canyon. East of Boyden Cave, SR 180 snaked parallel to the South Fork of Kings River—a geographical formation similar to that of Yosemite Valley. (We could not spot the Tehipite Valley on the Middle Fork of Kings River, further to the north. Kern Canyon was further to the south on Sequoia National Park.)

SR 180 provides the only peek into the “Other 90 percent” of the KCNP for motor vehicle exploration. We stopped at Roaring River Falls, a drop of 80 feet through a granite gorge. Next, we walked around the famous Zumwalt Meadow (which offers “magnificent views of high granite walls, a lush meadow, and the meandering Kings River”) after turning back at Road’s End. The meadow featured a moraine deposited by a glacier. It overlooked the granite monoliths North Dome and Great Sentinel. We ate lunch on the riverbank. Then we headed west again on the Motor Nature Trail and stopped at the Cedar Grove Village. 

Finally, we backtracked SR 180 to visit the General Grant Grove, which has the second largest living thing in the world, the General Grant tree, also called “The Nation’s Christmas Tree.” There we ran into the family of an expatriate Sri Lankan, Francis Perera.  After visiting the Grant Grove Visitor Center, Junius and I explored the Big Stump Trail. It was 7.30 p.m. when we returned to the Lodgepole. I had a headache.

Monday  (18 July) was our last day at the Sequoia National Park. In the morning, we headed south on the main drag, and then turned east on Crescent Meadow Road, close to the Giant Forest Village. We exercised ourselves on the pretext of following the trails to Crescent Meadow and Huckleberry Meadow. Names such as Tharp’s Log, Chimney Tree, Squatters Cabin and Dead Giant aroused our curiosity that induced us to touch, smell or sit on them. 

We were disappointed that we were unable to get a view of Mt. Whitney from the western flank of SPN /KCNP because many of the snowcapped peaks in the Great Western Divide reached altitudes of 12,000 feet (3,657 meters) or higher.  It was, therefore, impossible to see over them to view Mt. Whitney from the 6,725 ft. (2,050 m) Moro Rock, a granite monolith overlooking the deep canyon of the Middle Fork of Kaweah River. Yet, it was most remarkable that we walked to the top of this rock (trudging each of the 400 steps of the stairway) to see the Castle Rocks and the divide.

The Sierra has no mountain pass in an east-west direction for 200 miles from Tioga Pass to Tehachapi Pass. Although no motor vehicle can access the eastern side of S/KCNP on this horizontal band, hikers and horseback riders can cross the forest through the Kaweah Gap on the 49-mile High Sierra Trail from the plateau of the Great Forest at Crescent Meadow to Bearpaw Meadow. Via this trail, the distance between Crescent Meadow and Mt. Whitney Portal is 72 miles.

We ate lunch on a log along Round Meadow, adjacent to the Lodge. On the return journey to Lodgepole, we stopped at the Visitor Center to watch a slide presentation of “Fungi in Sequoia” by John Taylor, a mycologist from UC Berkeley.

One of the delights of camping in U.S. national parks is attending a choice of ranger-led programs and activities. Therefore, even on the eve of our departure from Sequoia, we did not want to miss the evening’s post-prandial activity: a very interesting presentation on “Awareness in pictures” by ranger John Satnet and Kodak specialist John Greene.

 Next: Crossing the Sierra Passes to Lake Tahoe and Reno

 (The writer is a professor of mass communications emeritus, Minnesota State University Moorhead.)

Figure 1: Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park has two entry/exit points: A=Tulare/Visalia to the south or C=Fresno to the north. B=Lodgepole Campgrounds within the national park.

Picture 1: The author and his son at the Ash Mountain entrance (via Tulare-Visalia) to Sequoia National Park on 15 July 1983.

Picture 2: Lilliputians (author’s wife and son) at the feet of a Brobdingnagian (General Sherman) on 16 July 1983.

චන්ද්‍රසේන පණ්ඩිතගේ විසිනි.

අද අප හා  මනෝ දේශපාලන සාකච්ඡාවට එක්වෙන්නේ වර්තමාන ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණේ නායක සෝමවංශ අමරසිංහ මහතායි.
ආයුබෝවන් අපි ඔබතුමාව ඉතා සාදරයෙන් පිලිගන්නවා!

ආයුබෝවන්!

 මේ වනවිට ඔබතුමාගේ, දේශපාලන ජීවිත කාලය අවුරුදු කීයක් පමණ වෙනවාද?

සමාවන්න! මට පලමුව මගේ මව් බිම වෙනුවෙන් ජීවිත පූජා කල දේශප්‍රේමීන්ව ගෞරවයෙන් සිහිපත් කරන්න විනාඩි තුනක කාලයන් ලබා දෙන්න.

(නිහඩ කාලයක් ගලායයි.)

ඔබතුමාගේ දේශපාලන පක්ෂ‍ය පිහිටුවා ගැනීමේ අරමුණ, රාජ්‍ය බලය ලබා ගැනීමයි කීවොත් නීවැරදි යයි සිතනවා; ඒක එහෙමද?

ඔව් සැබෑ ලෙසම මෙරට රාජ්‍ය බලය ලබා ගැනීම අප පක්ෂයේ ඒකායන අරමුණයි..

හොදයි මෙවර ඔබගේ දේශපාලන පක්ෂය සන්ධානයක් වශයෙන්, මැතිවරණයට ඉදිරිපත් වෙලා තියෙනවා; මෙවරවත් ඔබ සන්ධානයට  බලය ලැබේවිද?

ඇයි ඔබ ඒ විදියට ප්‍රශ්නය ඇසුවේ? අපේ අරමුණ බලය ලබා ගැනීමයි. තීරණය තියෙන්නේ, ජනතාවගේ අතේ. අප ඉතා දැඩිව විශ්වාස කරනවා මෙරට ජනතාව අපට බලය ලබා දේවියයි කියා.

හොදයි ජනතාව ඔබලාට බලය ලබාදුන්නොත් පලමුව මේ රටට ලැබෙන ප්‍රතිලාභ මොනවාද?

පලමුව ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය මේ රටතුල ස්ථාපිත කරනවා.

ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය මුලු රටටම දෙන්න; එය ඔබ ලග තියෙන්න ඕනි. ඔබ පක්සය තුල ඔබ කියන ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය තියෙනවාද?

ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම අපි ලග ඇති තරම් ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදය තියෙනවා.

හොදයි දැන්ඔබ මේ රටට ලබා දෙන්න යන්නේ කුමන ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදයද?

මට ප්‍රශ්නය හරියට තේරෙන්නේ නැහැ. කුමන ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදයද යනුවෙන් ඔබ අදහස් කරන්නේ කුමක්ද?

මම දන්නවා ඔබට ඕනෑම ප්‍රශ්නයක් අහන්න අයිතිය තියෙනවා. ඒ වගේම මටත් අයිතියක් තියෙනවා, ප්‍රශ්නයට උත්තර දෙනවාද නැද්ද යන්න තීරණය කරන්න, බුදු හාමුදුරුවොත් අහපු හැම ප්‍රශ්නයකටම උත්තර දීලත් නැහැ. ඒ නිසා මම ඒ ප්‍රශ්නයට උත්තර දෙන්නේ නැහැ.

මම උත්තරදීම තරයේම ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරනවා.

හොදයි ඒක ඔබ සතු අයිතියක්. මම ඒ සම්බන්ධව තව එකම ප්‍රශ්නයක්වත් අහන්නේ නැහැ.
හොදයි ඔබලා මෙරට තුල දේශප්‍රේමී කාර්යය භාරයන් රාශියක් ස්ථාපනය කල දේශපාලන පක්ෂයක්; එවන් පක්ෂයක්,  යුද්ධය තීරණාත්මක අවස්ථාවේදී, මේ රටතුල සමස්ත මහා වැඩ වර්ජන කැදෙව්වේ ඇයි?

ඒක වැඩ වර්ජනයන් නෙමෙයි. සංකේත වැඩවර්ජනයක්.

ආ ඒ කියන්නේ, සංකේත වැඩවර්ජනයක් කියන්නේ, වැඩ වර්ජනයක් නොවන බවද? අනික අප අහල තියෙන විදියට සංකේත වැඩ වර්ජනයක් කියන්නේ දිනක වැඩ වර්ජනයකට, දින කීපයක් එක දිගට ගලා ගෙන ගොස්, අසාර්ථක භාවයට පත්වුන නිසා අත්හල වැඩ වර්ජනයට ඔබ කියන්නේ සංකේත වැඩ වර්ජනය කියලද?

මම ඔබේ ඒ ප්‍රශ්නයට උත්තරදීම ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරනවා. බුදු හාමුදුරුවොත් අහපු හැම ප්‍රශ්නයකටම උත්තර දීලත් නැහැ.

හොදයි ඒ වැඩ වර්ජනය තුලින් ඔබලා අපේක්ෂා කලේ මොනවාද?

මේ රටේ ජනතාව උග්‍ර ජීවන බර ප්‍රශ්නයකට මුහුණ දෙනවා. නමුත් මැති ඇමති වරු ඇති තරම් හොරකම් කරනවා. මේ සෑම හොරකමක්ම කරන්නේ යුද්දේ යන අතර තුරයි. ඒ නිසා ඒ අතරවාරයේදීම ජනතාවගේ ජීවන බර සම්බන්ධව රජයේ අවධානය යොමු කරවීම අපේ වගකීමක්, ඒ නිසායි යුද්දය යන අතර වාරයේ සමස්ත මහා වැඩ වර්ජනයක් කැදෙව්වේ.

හොදයි. ඔබ ඔය කියන ඇමතිවරු එදත් හිටියා; ඒත් ඔබ ඒ ඇමතිවරු ඉන්න දේශපාලන පක්ෂය සමග සන්ධාන ගතවෙලා රජයක් පිහිටෙව්වා. ඒ ඇමතිවරු ප්‍රමුඛ රජය, එදා සුනාමි සහන මණ්ඩලය දෙනවා දෙනවාමයි කියා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව තුල මොර දුන්නා. ඔබ පක්ෂය එම රජයෙන් ඉවත්වී, සුනාමි සහන මණ්ඩල පනත අධිකරණය තුලින් පරාජයට පත්කලා. ඊට පසු ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා සමග සන්ධාන ගතවී, එතුමාගේ ජයග්‍රහණය උදෙසා, ඔබලා සතු සෑම බලයක්ම යොදවා කටයුතු කලේ ඇයි?

එදා මේ රටේ තිබුණ බරපතලම ප්‍රශ්නය කොටි ත්‍රස්තවාදයයි. එය පරාජය කිරීමට දේශපාලන නායකත්වයක් අවශ්‍යව තිබුණා. ඒ සදහා, අප මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාව ජනාධිපති බවට පත්කලා.

ඔබ මේ වනවිට රටපුරා ප්‍රචාරය කරමින් යනවා යුද්ධයේ සම්පූර්න ගෞරවය සරත් ෆොන්සේකා මහතාට අයත් බවත්, මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා කල දෙයක් නැති බවත්; ඔබලාගේ ප්‍රකාශ එකිනෙකට ගැලපෙන්නේ නැහැ. ඒ ඇයි?

නැහැ, යුද්ධයකදී ඉතාම වැදගත් වන්නේ පාබල හමුදාවයි. මම කියන්නේ නැහැ අනිත් හමුදාවන් වැදගත් නැහැ කියල. ඒ උනාට වැඩියෙන්ම වැදගත් වන්නේ බිමින් ගමන් කරලා යුද්දේ කරගෙන යන පාබල හමුදාවයි. ඒකට නායකත්වය දුන්නේ සරත් ෆොන්සේකා මහතායි ඒකයි අපි කියන්නේ මේ යුද්දයේ ජයග්‍රහණයේ නියමුවා ඔහු බව.

ඔබතුමා, ගමන් බිමන් යන්න වාහනයක් හෙම පාවිච්චි කරනවද?

මට නම් වාහනයක් නැහැ. නමුත් පක්ෂයෙන් ගමන් බිමන් යන්න, පක්ෂයෙන් වාහනයක් දෙනවා.

හොදයි ඔබතුමා ගමන් යන වාහනයේ වැදගත්ම උපාංගය කුමක්ද?

වාහනේ වැදගත්ම උපාංගය ඒකේ එන්ජින් එකනේ?

 ඔබ ගමන් බිමන් යන්නේ එන්ජින් එකෙන් කියලා කාටවත් කියන්න බැහැ.  ඔබ ගමන් බිමන් යන්නේ කාරෙක නම් වූ යාන්ත්‍රණයෙන්. මේ යාන්ත්‍රණය තුල ඇති හැම උපාංගයක්ම එක හා සමානව වැදගත්. වඩාත්ම වැදගත් වන්නේ මෙවන් වටිනා යාන්ත්‍රණයක් තියාගෙන අවශ්‍ය නැති ගමන් යාමයි. ඔබතුමන්ලා 2005 ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී කලේ එම වාහනය තමන් අපේක්ෂා කරන ඉලක්කයන් කරා පැදවීමට දක්ෂ රියදුරෙකු තෝරා ගැනීමයි. ඒ රියදුරා අවශ්‍ය තැනට වාහනය පදවාගෙන ගියා. ඒ නිවැරදි රියදුරා තෝරාගෙන ඒ කාර්යය ඔහුට පැවරීම හරහා, අති බැරෑරුම්ම කාර්යය කරල තියෙන්නේ, ඔබතුමන්ලාගේ දේශපාලන පක්ෂයයි. ඇයි ඒ ගෞරවය ඔබතුමන්ලාට හිමි නොවුනේ?

කවුද කියන්නේ අපිට හිමි උනේ නැහැ කියල; ජනතාව දන්නවා ඒකෙ ප්‍රබල දායකත්වයක් අපට හිමි බව.

හොදයි අපි බලමු ඒක එහෙමද කියල ඉදිරියේදී.
ඔබලාට මේ ගෞරවය සදහා ඉදිරිපත් නොවෙන ලෙස බලකරනඅදෘෂමාණ හස්තයක් ඔබ පක්ෂය පිටුපස ක්‍රියා කරනවාද?

අප දන්නා අදෘෂ්‍යමාන හස්තයක් නම් නැහැ.
ඔබ ඔය ආකාරයට චෝදනා කරන්න පෙර, හොදට බලන්න මේ වනවිට යුද්ධය නිම වී මාස 10ක් ගත වෙලා; මෙරට මිනිසුන්ට මොනවාද ලැබිලා තියෙන්නේ, බඩු මිල අඩු වෙලාද?  පඩි වැඩි වෙලාද? මේ කිසිවක් සිදුවෙලා නැහැ.

ඔබ මේ කියන්නට උත්සහ කරන්නේ 2009 මැයි මාසේ 18 වෙනිදා යුද්ධය නිමවීමත් සමගම මේ රට යුද්ධය ආරම්භ වෙන විට තිබුණ තත්වයට පත්වුනා කියලාද?

නැහැ, මම එහෙම කියන්නේ නැහැ. නමුත් යුද්ධය සදහා ගිය සම්පූර්ණ වියදම් මේ වනවිට අඩුවෙලා තියෙනවා. ඒ මුදල් වලින් අවශ්‍ය නම් මෙරට ජීවන වියදම අඩු කරන්න පුලුවන්; නමුත් මේ රජය ඒ වගකීමෙන් පලායන බව කියන්නයි මම උත්සහ කරන්නේ.

ඔබ පිලිගන්නවාද ගැටලුවක් විසදන විට, ඒ හා බැදුන ගැටලු ගනනාවක් පැන නගින බව?
 මේ යුද්ධය ජාවාරමක් නොකරගෙන විසදීම නිසා ලක්ෂ 3කට ආසන්න සරණාගත ප්‍රශ්නයක් නිර්මාණය වුණා. ඔවුනගේ ආහාර, සෞඛ්‍ය, නිවාස, හා අධ්‍යාපන ගැටලු විසදීමට සිදුවීම, නවතම යුද්ධයක ඇරඹුමක්සේ ඔබට පෙනෙන්නේ නැද්ද? ගරා වැටුණ හිරෝෂීමාවක් හා නාගසාකියක් යලි ගොඩනැංවීමට රජයට බාරව තිබීම නවතම සංග්‍රාමයක් සේ නොපෙනෙන මනසක්ද ඔබතුමාට ඇත්තේ?

අපි දන්නවා මේ කාර්යයේ බරපතල කම ඒකයි අපි රජයට බල කරන්නේ දූෂණය හා නාස්තිය නැති කරල මේ කාර්යයන් නිසි ලෙස කරන්න කියල.

ඔබතුමාට මතකද 2004 දෙසැම්බර් මස 26 වෙනිදා මේ රටට සිදුවෙච්ච සිදුවීම?

ඔව් එදා තමයි සුනාමියෙන් මෙරට ජන ජීවිත මහා සංඛ්‍යාවක් බිලි ගත්තේ. ඒක අපි හැමෝටම ඉතා හොදින් මතකයි.

එදා සුනාමිය ඉවරවුන වෙලාවේ; ආ දැන් සුනාමිය ඉවරයි, රජය ඉතිරි වැඩ කලයුතුයි කියල, ඔබලා වැඩ වර්ජන කලේ වත් උද්ඝෝෂණ පැවත්වූයේවත් නැහැ. රතු බලකාය පිහිටුවලා මුලු ලොවටම ආදර්ශයක් දෙන කාර්යයන් රාශියක් ඉටු කලා. මුහුදු බඩ රේල් පාර ගොඩනැංවීමම මහා විශ්කම් වැඩක් ලෙස මෙරට ජනතාව දැක්කා. එදා මෙවැනි දේ මෙම පක්ෂය සිදු කරන විට ඔබතුමා හිටියේ පිටරට;
යුද්ධය නිමවීමෙන් පසු අප ඉදිරියේ දිස්වෙන්නේ අවුරුදු 30ක යුද්ධය නම්වූ සුනාමියෙන් පසු ඉතිරිව ඇති නටඹුන් කන්දරාවයි. ඔබතුමා දැන් ඉන්නේ මේ රට තුලයි. ඇයි එදා සිදුකල ක්‍රියාකාර කම් මෙදා නැත්තේ?ඒ සදහා ඉදිරිපත් නොවෙන ලෙස බලකරන අදෘෂමාණ හස්තයක් ඔබ පක්ෂය පිටුපස ක්‍රියා කරනවාද?

මම ඔබේ ඒ ප්‍රශ්නය අපට හානිදායකයි. මම එයට උත්තරදීම දැඩිලෙස  ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කරනවා. බුදු හාමුදුරුවොත් අහපු හැම ප්‍රශ්නයකටම උත්තර දීලත් නැහැ.

ඔබතුමන්ලා පෙර සිටිය ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ මෙන් නොවෙයි. අධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන් සමග ආදරයෙන් වෙලුන පක්ෂයක් කියල මම චෝදනා කරනවා?

ඔබට ඕනිම දෙයක් කියන්න පුලුවන්. නමුත් අද ලෝකය එදා ලෝකය නොවෙයි. අද සිටින්නේ එදා හිටිය අධිරාජ්‍යවාදියා නොවෙයි. සමහර ප්‍රශ්න සාමකාමී සහජීවන ක්‍රමයකින් වුනත් අධිරාජ්‍යවාදීයයි කියන බලවේග සමග විසදා ගත හැකියි. අපත් අපේ පක්ෂයත් හැමවිටම ඉදිරියටම යන පක්ෂයක් එක තැන පල්නොවෙන පක්ෂයක්. බලන්න මේ වනවිට ඇමරිකානු තානාපතිවරිය අපේ පක්ෂ කාර්යාලයට එනවා; ඒ වෙලාවට මම කියනවා ඔබතුමියලා අපේ රටේ අභ්‍යන්තර ප්‍රශ්න වලට අත පොවන්න ආවොත්, එදාට අපි ඔබතුමියලාගේ කාර්යාලය ලගට ඇවිත් උද්ඝෝධණය කරන බව; බලන්න එතුමියගේ රාජ්‍ය තාන්ත්‍රිකභාවයේ අගය, එවිට එතුමිය කාර්යාලයේ උඩ ඉදන් අපට අත වනනවාලු.

ඒකම තමයි මේ රටේ හැම දෙනාම කියන්නේ, ඔබතුමා මේ සාකච්ඡාවට පැමිණියාට ඉතාම ස්තුථියි.

Dharma W – Auckland New Zealand

Is this man still deserved to hold this sacred position?

Doesn’t he have a moral obligation to listen to majority of membership?

How ethical his biased decision to go against its own members nation?

He must remember power of the truth which went against him once may go against him again !

Against the stiff resistance and opposition of 64% of the UN membership, that is from 124 (non aligned) countries out of 192 UN membership he is taking measures to appoint phony panel of judges to enquire human right violations in Sri Lanka during successfully completed brutal war against world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation and establishing democracy and working towards total restoration of law and order. He must remember there are powerful Security Council members to back Sri Lanka if they bring a resolution to remove him from office with fullest support of majority of membership consisting non aligned countries and few more friendly nations.

Isn’t he a lame duck secretary general?

Just an onlooker for many international issues  such as  financial crisis, international terrorism, climate change, illegal whaling in southern pacific, incessant abducting of vessels and crew in African waters, etc even without issuing substantially analytical statement against them he roam around the world and bestowing himself with honorary degrees. In many occasions when civilian ware killed in Afghanistan, pirates abduct and killed or ransomed to release crew, terrorists are forming floating governments trans nationally, lucrative illegal fundraising taking place as never before. Rich and powerful countries running  floating factories turning out whales in to food products in marine reserves of Southern Pacific even without world noticing it. Organisation and man appointed to run it is keeping quite as if such things never happen

Is he trying to please and protect the vested interest of his rich master countries?

 Since illegal or legal international weapon dealers losses their business when terrorism was completely wiped out many countries that has lucrative weaponry industries are against it. They only continue in doing lip service to war against international terrorism as long as their countries are not badly affected or if they are affected they export the theatre of terrorism to some other country. When they want to acquire or gain undue advantage from resources of other countries they go out and setup terrorism machinery and then fish in troubled waters. Some countries exploiting neutral nature of their member countries and abusing their (neutral friend’s) passports for terrorism or so called antiterrorist acts. Whether the issue highly relevant or not is not a matter to this head of sacred organisation. He looks as at the face of his powerful rich masters for directions then act like an obedient servant.

Sri Lanka doing UNs job

Fundamental reasons of setting up of UN are to take effective measures against such acts which individual country or group of countries could not do on their own. UN has turned in to larger scale Red Cross or St John confining its services to disaster relief. Very head this organisation making it worthless. Respect and dignity this organisation commands diminishing in the hands of ineffective leadership. Instead people is losing their faith on it and thinking going against it or departing it.

As whole world knows government, heroic arm forces, and peace loving population of all ethnicities and communities of Ari Lanka make immense sacrifices and wiped the 30 year long curse cast upon them, by totally wiping out world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation. There were many instances when many non government organisations sometimes even UNs subsidiary organisations mixing up their mandate and primary objectives and working with terrorists against very governments or people whom they are designated to support. But government of Sri Lanka was careful enough not to make any issues out of them as it is not good for the global body. After all she too was active member of it and in way has to protect the organisation despite the odds.

During the last lap of this anti terror war and humanitarian effort to rescue civilians forcibly held by terrorists, many organisations and countries individually or jointly made very determinist efforts to protect terrorist leaders and keep the terror campaign alive for some more time. These interested groups tried to corner and defame Sri Lanka by bringing in resolutions against democratically elected government of Sri Lanka trying and protect the terror leaders whom were at the verge of annihilation. In fact Sri Lanka was performing a duty of world body by trying to eradicate international terrorist group. With the seasoned excellence effort of international diplomacy and ardent support of friendly nations Sri Lanka was able to defeat.

Now the ugly head of the  interest group rising again through the very head of this world  organisation. This should not allow happening. Sri Lanka government and it’s able leader and foreign relations managing team must look for every rule in the book to prevent this effort even taking resolutions to remove the head of this organisation with the support of non aligned, other friendly nations and friendly members security council. Then Sri Lanka will become the first country to defeat international terrorism in its all forms.

Dharma  W – Auckland New Zealand

Sunil Vijayapala Oxley, Australia

As with most doctrines with the passage of time some important concepts in Buddhism too have been distorted and one of the most significant ones is the concept of Re-birth. According to Dhamma, everything of mind and matter of an Arahant or an ordinary human (Puthajjana) ceases to exist at the time of death. However in the case of a puthajjana, the cravings and clinging due to kamma of the past take a foothold in the new substratum in the form of a consciousness called pati sandhi consciousness, popularly known as re-birth linking consciousness. Conversely, in the case of an Arahant all defilements have being extinguished with no further continuation of the cycle of birth, with no new becoming.

The concept of re-birth is an aberration of what Lord Buddha actually meant. Its really a New Beginning or New Becoming or Bhava (punarbhava) which in turn conditions a New Birth rather than a re-birth. As at death (cuti consciousness) everything ceases to exist, with no continuation of mind and matter. What continues is Suffering through a new becoming and a new birth with the patisandhi consciousness, conditioned by kamma of past. Patisandhi consciousness needs to be correctly translated as a new-birth linking consciousness rather than a re-birth linking consciousness. Being or a self is categorically denied in Buddha dhamma and it�s fallacious to base a statement which connotes continuity of a being.

In Mahatanhasankhaya Suttra Buddha reprimands a bhikku who misrepresents Lord Buddha�s interpretation of the concept of consciousness and strongly believed in a continuation of consciousness. Buddha vehemently denies this and once again reiterates what he actually meant stating that NOTHING continues of a being after death through a new becoming. Even the concept of a being is denied in Dhamma and any logical deduction based on the concept of a being is categorically rejected, let alone a continuation or a re-birth of a being.

In the stories we have heard of people re-collecting their past lives (even Buddha did basically to explain kamma and its vipake) the theme is that in HIS or HER previous life he/she was born in such and such a place and ate such and such food and was engaged in such and such work etc. It�s a basic craving of any ordinary person to find about what he was in the past and what his immediate fortunes are and where he would end up after birth, wishing a heavenly one. As long as a puthajjana believes in a self or being or I or mine, he would certainly will tend to believe in HIS past life and HIS future life through a re-birth.

During the life time of a person while a person is awake, consciousnesses arise due to conditions constantly, to the tune of a billion consciousnesses at the blink of an eye!. Between two consciousnesses lies the bhavanga consciousness or life-continuum consciousness, sought of a baseline consciousness. However while one sleeps without dreaming his consciousness lies in a subliminal state of bhavanga consciousness. At the time of death, cuti consciousness arises and ceases ending the present life. There is no bhavanga consciousness for it to fall back to nor does it conditions the re-birth or new-birth consciousness which will have a foothold on the new substratum, as explained in Mahanidhana Suttra. The new-birth consciousness Pati sandhi consciousness is as a result of kamma of the past due to clinging conditioned by cravings. (Loba, Dosa and Moha).

The English translators of both in the west and the east did make errors when they came across Pali or Sanskrit words, especially in deep doctrines such as Buddhism. They had to depend on available dictionaries which were in turn erroneously translated by so called scholars. English being intrinsically an inconsistent language, prone to errors added more fuel to the fire. Unfortunately Re-birth was a concept born out of erroneous interpretation and we need to address this issue urgently to prevent further mis-representation of Lord Buddhas precious doctrine.

Ananda De Costa

Time for all patriots to wake up and unite setting aside differences has come.

These are the times bipartisan agreement is easily reached in Australia, Britain and other western democracies. Are we second to any of these countries? At the times of great concern over national sovereignty, politicians of even these countries get together as one.

This is not about fighting for protection of Rajapakse Brothers who, together with soldiers form poorest villages restored national pride of all Sri Lankans. It is about respecting the great sacrifices those innocent poor mothers and fathers did. It is about protecting the very sovereignty those young men and women fought for.

Everyone must wake up and protest the action of UN chief ( or “thief “one may opt to call , which is justifiable because these people are doing nothing but wasting tax payers money of the respective countries paying their salaries).

Fonseka knows that he is alive because there was a brave soldier who kicked the pregnant woman, not because of his own bravery. That man died defending sovereignty of his country giving opportunity for Fonseka to travel in a Mercedes and allowing Gota to wear a tie. Does Fonseka approve UN chief’s call to investigate the pregnant woman’s death for war crimes?

Silva is not the chief justice now. So, what should he be doing as a patriot? Finding reasons to allow UN to investigate according to lwar crime legislations or exploring avenues under international law to sue UN chief ?

Is there any patriot in Sri Lanka who cares about terrorist families, whether died holding a white flag or died wearing cyanide capsules ?

Even Mr. Wickremasinghe, should forget about past (for the meaning of your very surname’s sake) and wake up and send a message of protest- at least that will earn him some respect and may be some votes.

Sarath & Sarath who are waiting with great aversion in hearts to take revenge should show that they are fighting for Sri Lanka- not for their own well benifit. It is times like this that you can show the world how brave you are.

Respect the very democracy, freedom (you are saying) you are dying for! Freedom of your country, not the freedom to pocket public money and buy luxury cars!

Respect the truth you utter not the attire you wear or the tie knot!

People of Sri Lanka will have something to consider at polls if you do so.

By Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D. former Government Agent, Matara District

If I offered spot cash, I could have purchased it for less.. It was been despatched to Colombo and payment would be weeks later. Back in Colombo the price of a kilo was never below Rs. 80 a kilo- a massive 100% profit. This unfortunately is a global phenomenon. In 2009 I toured Spain and bought a bag of satsumas at a farmgate for a single Euro. In the nearby Supermarkets the price was four Euros- a mark up of 400%. In California the trees are laden with lemons and oranges and there is no system of selling at the farmgate. However an orange is sold at around thirty cents in the Supermarkets.

The private sector that handles the trade has to be blamed- be it in the USA, in Spain or in Sri Lanka. The motto of the Private Sector is to make a profit. Theirs is to Get Rich Fast.

However there is a difference as far as Sri Lanka is concerned. This is because Sri Lanka is the only country in the world that had the development infrastructure in place to ensure that the producer gets a fair price and simultaneously for the consumer to get the same goods at a fair price. Even Bangladesh and India, countries well known to me do not have this development infrastructure to combat inflation and poverty. To get to basic facts that system enabled the producer near Mahiyangana to get paid at Rs. 40 a kilo and also enabled the consumer in Colombo to get it at Rs. 50 or Rs 55 a kilo. This was the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing at work.

On the whole, in addition to the Marketing Department there were a number of Programmes that were aimed at controlling prices. This Development Infrastructure aimed at reducing the cost of living comprised:

1.the Rice Ration Scheme for people to be assured of a rice ration at very low subsidized prices

2. the CWE shops to import essential commodities that we do not produce and sell at reasonable rates,

3. the Guaranteed Purchasing Scheme to purchase paddy and other cereals at a premium price aimed at helping producers to invest more and thus for the country to become self sufficient. Later this function was handled by the Paddy Marketing Board.

4. the Rice Mills which produced quality rice,

5. the Vegetable & Fruit Purchasing Scheme of the Marketing Department, which included purchasing units in all producing areas, purchase of essential commodities at fair prices and having retail shops in all major cities where the goods were sold at cheap rates- aimed at increasing production to stave off imports as well as to provide goods at cheap prices to consumers,

6. the Canning Factory of the Marketing Department to produce jam, jelley, fruit juice- aimed at both providing the consumer with quality products as well as establishing an export trade,

7. the Bakery producing quality bread and short eats at cheap rates.

8. Controlling prices and ensuring that essential commodities are sold at the controlled price

The Rice Ration Scheme was aimed at providing a sufficient quantity of rice to the people at a reasonable rate. This helped the poor people as well as the middle classes. To the real needy the rice was at times given free. The Jayawardena UNP Government abolished this Scheme in 1979 and in its place established a Food Stamp Scheme which was given only to the poor people. The low income earners were ignored. In my own words:

“Many who were not in the poor category that were entitled to receive food stamps found that they could not afford to buy their food requirements. This was partly due to the devaluation of the currency by almost 100% and the high inflation that it brought about. This led to a situation of malnourishment The United Nations’ Human Development Report, 1990 states “In Sri Lanka some of the poorest people lack access to their main staple diet despite a Food Stamp Programme….

Inflation doubled the price of food between 1979 and 1982 and halved the purchasing power of the food stamps… After March 1980 no new applications were accepted. This disqualified all new borns and families that subsequently suffered income losses. The per capita calorie consumption of the lowest decile(of income earners) fell from 1335 calories to 1185 calories and that of the second lowest decile from 1663 calories to 1558 calories”.(From:How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka..(Godages))

The calorie requirement is around 2100 per person and the above statistics tells of the poverty created by abolishing Rice Ration Scheme. This was the Jayawardena Government in action.

The CWE Programme was for the Government to import essential commodities in competition with the private sector and distribute them to people through retail shops at a cheap price. The intention was to unofficially control prices because if the private sector shops sell at high prices people will not buy from them but will purchase from the CWE shops. The CWE shops were well stocked. The CWE was abolished and the CWE shops were closed down during the Ranil Wickremasinghe rule of 2001 to 2004 and this enabled the traders to make fat profits. The CWE was a shrewd mechanism to control inflation in all imported essential commodities.

The Guaranteed Price Scheme offered premium prices- at times even double the world market price for commodities like paddy in order to get farmers to increase production. The paddy was purchased only from genuine producers through cooperatives and the paddy was milled at Government rice mills and through private rice millers. Buffer stocks of paddy and rice were kept at Government Stores to ensure food security. The Jayawardena Government scrapped this paddy purchasing scheme. Farmers were thereafter at the mercy of the traders and rice millers and there was no incentive to increase production. In 1999 I wrote:

“Today, the rice trade is in the hands of five large traders. Today instead of developing our rice production we are actually destroying it. Instead of having exotic rices of our own we have Basmati being marketed. We are perhaps the only country in the world that does not play an active part in controlling and ensuring the production and supply of our staple diet. We have totally played into the hands of the USA because they will readily offer flour when there is a shortfall of rice. Our people will fall more and more into the bread trap and get used to eating wheat flour which we cannot produce. The net gainer is the USA, Canada, the EU-the producers of wheat.”

It will also help the multinationals that are waiting to supply rice if there is a shortage.

Rice Milling. Once in the Eighties I was passing through Ambalantota and I turned onto the Ridiyagama Road to see the Ambalantota Rice Mill where I had my office when I covered the Southern Province. It was the State of the Art Rice Mill, milling 4000 bushels of rice a day, providing employment to around a hundred people. The Stores had been neglected and sections of the premises had been cordoned off and perhaps sold. The Mill itself was vandalized and neglected. These days the Government is importing new rice mills- what an unnecessary expenditure due to our own folly of ruining out treasured assets. The State of the Art Rice Mills are no more and today people get paddy milled in local small rice mills that have outmoded machinery giving an outturn of only 47% or less of rice,while the Departmental Rice Mills got 52%.

The Vegetable and Fruit Marketing Scheme was begun during the World War II to provide vegetables and fruits at cheap rates to consumers. The cornerstones of this Scheme was to have Purchasing Units in all producing areas, a Central Depot in Colombo and Retail Units in all cities. The Central Depot at Tripoli Market, in the Maradana Goodshed, carefully surveyed the availability of vegetables in the Colombo market, studied the wholesale prices at which the vegetables etc were being sold to retailers. Based on this information, the Tripoli Market fixed the purchasing prices for all major varieties of vegetables keeping a very low margin. The Purchasing Units visited all major producer fairs in the island and purchased all the main varieties of vegetables.

My first job in 1955 was as an Assistant Commissioner in this Marketing Department. It was my task when I worked in the districts to advise producers what to produce and to ensure that the produce fetched a fair price better than what the traders offered and then get the goods transported overnight to Colombo and there it was offered to the public at a cheap rate. Generally the margin we kept was ten to fifteem percent. Thus a kilo of tomatoes we bought at Rs 40 a kilo was retailed in the Marketing Department shops in Colombo at Rs 50 or Rs. 55 per kilo. In this system the producer did get a fair price and the consumer too got a reasonable price.

In the Producer Fairs, the traders do know that if they hold on to the low prices the producers will at the tail end of the day have to give in and sell to them as otherwise they will have to transport the goods back home incurring transport costs and bring the same goods back the next Fair Day when they will meet the same traders and the same fiasco happens again. To add to this is the fact that vegetables and fruit cannot be stored because it is perishable. Thus in a normal scene the producers are held locked up and are at the mercy of the traders.

Economic theory has it that there is competition among traders- but not so in real life.

In comes the Marketing Department. We Assistant Commissioners had surveillance over all producer fairs in our area and my day began at four o’clock in the morning on at least four days a week to get to the Fairs in time. Unofficially the Marketing Department controlled the purchasing prices at all major fairs in the entire island. We had a mobile purchasing unit with a board exhibiting the prices we offered.

The vegetables etc that were purchased were despatched by rail or lorry overnight. The Tripoli Market received on the average twenty wagon loads and twenty lorry loads of vegetables every morning. Work starts at six in the morning, receiving the goods, grading them and packing them off to the Retail sales Units where they were sold at fair prices. The private traders had to sell at the same prices if they were to be in business. Unofficially the Marketing Department controlled the sale prices. The System , on my own words was, “To pay the highest possible price to the producer and sell at the lowest possible price to the consumer, a creation of Administrator Basset and B.L.W.Fernando. We as Assistant Commissioners tried hard to walk on this tight rope. At the end of each month a profit and loss account was made and I have had to bear censure if I had incurred a loss or achieved a profit of over 10%”.(page 256)

I was in charge of the Triploi Market in 1956. I and Oswald Tillekeratne another Assistant Commissioner worked round the clock because work commenced at six in the morning and continued minute by minute with unending phone calls calling for supplies from the various depots and we had over fifty. It was a hard task replenishing stocks that get sold fast. A hundred lorries were on the incessant move. I had three officers having survelliance over the Central Market in Colombo and they relayed the prevailing prices and available quantities, which helped me to fix the purchasing prices. Tripoli Market was a hive of activity with a staff of over a hundred.

The working of the Marketing Department was very demanding. I can remember an instance regarding the sale of red onions in Galle. I covered Galle and wagon loads of red onions came from Jaffna. We sold to the traders at a reasonable price and also sold at a cheap rate in our retail unit at Galle. It was my task to see that traders were provided with red onions and also to see that our retail shop never ran out of Red Onions. I was in Galle on a certain day and everything was in order. I got back to Ambalantota my headquarters.

The next days a telegram came from head office. It read “MP for Galle Dahanayake reports shortage of Red Onions in Galle. Proceed immediately, inquire and report.” I hooked into my car= it always had my toiletries and extra clothes. I was back on my way to Galle. I went to a number of private retailers observing whether they had red onions and finding the sale price. I went to our retail unit and found they had stocks. I had my network of private informants whom I contacted and was satisfied that our shops functioned well. I always built up a private spy service of friends. Then I went to meet Mr Dahanayake. He was not at home and I waited till he came. It was hours but I had to meet him. He came home at around ten o clock in the night and was surprised to see me waiting for him. I showed him the telegram and told him that there was no shortage of red onions at all in Galle. He looked hard at me for a moinent. I knew him well and was in constant touch with him.

” You know, Garvin we have to please our voters. Some fellow came and told it to me and to keep him happy I sent a telegram to your Ministry”, I asked for the name of his informant and was told that he cannot remember.

I pointed out that this telegram gave the impression to my Ministry that I was not doing my work well.

“That is politics” he said. Next time I go to the Ministry I will tell the Minister that everything is satisfactory. Tell me if you have any problem.”

That was all. I submitted a report of my investigation and what Mr Dahanayake told me. And the Ministry took no further action. Evidently Mr. Dahanayake had contacted the Ministry. We Assistant Commissioners were always on pins.. It would interest people to know that in many cities in 1955- in Kandy, in Ratnapura and in Nuwara Eliya, the Assistant Commissioners worked from sheds made of wood. They were called Vegetable Packing Sheds.

We included fruits for this scheme and purchased oranges at Bibile. We fixed floor prices for eggs and as a result Sri lanka became self sufficient in eggs. The Marketing Department established a large Canning Factory which enabled the Department to fix floor prices for pineapples and red and ash pumpkins. These were canned and made into jam and juice and Sri Lanka became self sufficient and was able to stop imports. Red Pumpkin was the base for Golden Melon jam. The Marketing Department even built up an export trade in pineapple.

In addition, the Assistant Commissioners in the Districts advised the producers what varieties should be produced- this was based on the demand. We laid a dragnet covering all producer fairs in the island and visited them to see that the traders offered reasonable prices to the producers. We were known to the traders and they were aware that if they offered low prices, one of our mobile purchasing units will be sent the very next week. Overall the Marketing Department did purchase less than ten percent of the crop, but we really ruled the day to determine the prices for the producers as well as the prices in the cities.

The Marketing Department was abolished because it interfered with the free trade and the private traders were allowed to do anything they want. The Canning Factory was privatized and instead of buying goods from producers they now import fruits and produce jam. The UNP regime was thus responsible for canceling this Scheme which had taken decades to establish.

The Marketing Department was always making a small loss and was totally decimated by the UNP Government of Jayawardena at the behest of the IMF. The achievement of the Marketing Department to offer fair prices to the producer, to enable city dwellers to obtain goods at cheap rates, to enable the country to become self sufficient in vegetables., fruits, fruit juice, jam and thereby save foreign exchange by avoiding imports, the creation of employment in our country was not the concern of the UNP Government. The IMF’s intent was to create trade and jobs for the Developed Countries. The poverty and unemployment created in the Third World was to be accepted as an essential factor for the well being of people in the Developed Countries. Take any advice or policy of the IMF and this will be revealed as their motive.

A Bakery was established in Colombo which produced bread, cakes and short eats and sold to consumers at reasonable rates. This Bakery was closed down by the UNP Government.

Price Control.

In order to make essential commodities available to consumers at reasonable rates, the prices were controlled and there were Price Control Inspectors that conducted inspections to ensure that traders sold at fixed prices. Price Control was abolished by the UNP Government. This has been brought back by the Rajapaksa Government.

The above details of how Sri Lanka had built up an effective infrastructure to combat inflation and at the same time to enable the development of production and how this entire infrastructure was vandalized through privatization details how the UNP Governments are responsible for creating poverty.

Thus the blame for the price increases in essential commodities, shortages in the supply of fruits and vegetables, the shortages in rice in Sri Lanka have all to be laid at the door of the United National Party, because it is they that abolished the entire development infrastructure that we administrators and enlightened politicians had built up over the Forties, Fifties and Sixties. The UNP axed the Rice Ration Scheme, the Marketing Department, the Paddy Marketing Board and the CWE. The CWE was abolished and sold off during the 2001-2004 reign of Ranil Wickremasinghe. The rest were sacrificed during President That ruin is the record of the UNP and what can we expect of Ranil Wickremasinghe. He is bound to be the undertaker for what is left in the country.

It is a moot question as to what one can expect if the UNP wins at the general election. The prices will escalate further and the rich will become richer and there will be higher unemployment due to the system of free trade and reducing import tarrifs which encouraged imports while our people remain unemployed. That was the policy of the UNP.

Already in Sri Lanka the rich are stinking rich with salaries of a million or more a month in a country where the masses get only a paltry twelve or eighteen thousand a month. In Golden Key the Deputy Chairmen- seven or eight of them are alleged to have drawn salaries of three million rupees plus perks a month.

The Rajapaksa Government has attempted to re establish these activities, but once entire Departments are sold off and dismantled they cannot be easily set up again. It was the process of privatization and the reduction of public sector activities as advised by the IMF, which was followed by the UNP that caused this disaster. President Rajapaksa has decided that there will be no privatization, but the damage has already been done by the UNP –

by President Jayawardena and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe.As an Administrator who struggled hard to establish this development infrastructure and also to make it work efficiently to serve the public I am saddened by the destruction that has been done by the UNP during the period it was in power. It was a difficult task to attend to development work. It pains me that all what we fought for then were really undone by the UNP rule. It will takes not years but decades to re establish the lost development infrastructure. People have to be thankful to the Rajapaksa Government for trying to build up the lost infrastructure. People have to live in hope that President Rajapaksa will re-establish this lost developmental infrastructure in full.

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.D.

Former Government Agent, Matara District. 19/03/2010 All quotataions are from my book:How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternate Programs of Success, Godages

orpheus perera

Happiness and peace. Those are really the prime issues in human existence. That is what all of us are seeking. This often is a bit hard to see because we cover up those basic goals with layers of surface objectives. We want food, we want money, we want sex, possessions and respect. We even say to ourselves that the idea of ‘happiness’ is too abstract: “Look, I am practical. Just give me enough money and I will buy all the happiness I need”. Unfortunately, this is an attitude that does not work. Examine each of these goals and you will find they are superficial. You want food. Why? Because I am good. Ah ha! Feel good! Now there is a real item. What we really seek is not the surface goals. They are just means to an end. What we are really after is the feeling of relief that comes when the drive is satisfied. Relief, relaxation and an end to the tension. Peace, happiness, no more yearning.

So what is this happiness? For most of us, the perfect happiness would mean getting everything we wanted, being in control of everything, playing Caesar, making the whole world dance a jig according to our every whim. Once again, it does not work that way. Take a look at the people in history who have actually held this ultimate power. These were not happy people. Most assuredly they were not men at peace with themselves. Why? Because they were driven to control the world totally and absolutely and they could not. They wanted to control all men and there remained men who refused to be controlled. They could not control the stars. They still got sick. They still had to die.

You can’t ever get everything you want. It is impossible. Luckily, there is another option. You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of this endless cycle of desire and aversion. You can learn to not want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them. This does not mean that you lie down on the road and invite everybody to walk all over you . It means that you continue to live a very normal-looking life, but live from a whole new viewpoint. You do the things that a person must do, but you are free from that obsessive, compulsive drivenness of your own desires. You want something, but you don’t need to chase after it. You fear something, but you don’t need to stand there quaking in your boots. This sort of mental culture is very difficult. It takes years. But trying to control everything is impossible, and the difficult is preferable to the impossible.

Wait a minute, though. Peace and happiness! Isn’t that what civilization is all about? We build skyscrapers and freeways. We have paid vacations, TV sets. We provide free hospitals and sick leaves, Social Security and welfare benefits. All of that is aimed at providing some measure of peace and happiness. Yet the rate of mental illness climbs steadily, and the crime rates rise faster. The streets are crawling with delinquents and unstable individuals. Stick your arms outside the safety of your own door and somebody is very likely to steal your watch! Something is not working. A happy man does not feel driven to kill. We like to think that our society is exploiting every area of human knowledge in order to achieve peace and happiness.

We are just beginning to realize that we have overdeveloped the material aspect of existence at the expense of the deeper emotional and spiritual aspect, and we are paying the price for that error. It is one thing to talk about degeneration of moral and spiritual fiber in America today, and another thing to do something about it. The place to start is within ourselves. Look carefully inside, truly and objectively, and each of us will see moments when “I am the punk” and “I am the crazy”. We will learn to see those moments, see them clearly, cleanly and without condemnation, and we will be on our way up and out of being so.

You can’t make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes flow naturally. You don’t have to force or struggle or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. You just change. It is automatic. But arriving at the initial insight is quite a task. You’ve got to see who you are and how you are, without illusion, judgement or resistance of any kind. You’ve got to see your own place in society and your function as a social being. You’ve got to see your duties and obligations to your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to yourself as an individual living with other individuals. And you’ve got to see all of that clearly and as a unit, a single gestalt of interrelationship. It sounds complex, but it often occurs in a single instant. Mental culture through meditation is without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding and serene happiness.

The Dhammapada is an ancient Buddhist text which anticipated Freud by thousands of years. It says: “What you are now is the result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the result of what you are now. The consequences of an evil mind will follow you like the cart follows the ox that pulls it. The consequences of a purified mind will follow you like your own shadow. No one can do more for you than your own purified mind– no parent, no relative, no friend, no one. A well-disciplined mind brings happiness”.

 Quotations from “Mindfulness In Plain English”  By Ven H. Gunaratna Mahathera

Sri Lanka News

Ranil Wickremasinghe, addressing a UNP election campaign meeting held in Jaffna Veerasingham Hall Friday,  said that all the military camps in Nothern peninsula will be scrapped except Palaali Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp, which will be converted into an international airport.

“High Security Zones are no longer necessary in the peninsula and the people evacuated from these places will be immediately resettled in their own properties if UNP becomes the ruling party in the general election,” he further said.

Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has also pledged to set up an effective resettlement program in the North by removing all unnecessary high security zones while keeping only the essential ones in strategic areas in the country. He said his party has also finalized a plan to develop the Palali Airport into an international airport.

Ranil Wickremasinghe announced that a Commission of Inquiry will be established and it will immediately begin to find what had happened to the persons gone missing in Jaffna peninsula during the present government, apparently, in line with the international demand for war crime investigation.

Ranjit Wickremeratne

My Motherland is just a tear drop in the vast ocean of ours with around 20 million inhabitants. We Sinhalese were living with other races for many many years. This is our country. A Sinhala nation with 75% Sinhalese and 25% other races living side by side as citizens of Motherland Sri Lanka. We were invaded by Potuguese in 1505 then by dutch in 1602 and then by one of the evil empires English in 1803. Before and after we sinhalese battled with all our enemies in the battle field and won and the last one was the mother of all battles which we won not by the help of others but by ourselves the mighty Sinhalese.

Our courageous Sinhala Lions bravely faced the enemies of our Motherland and freed our nation from the evil local and foreign parasites who tried to divide our beautiful paradise island of Sri Lanka my homeland. Though we got our Independence in 1948 people of our land felt the actual Independence after we freed the nation from the clutches of evil terrorism created by our own and financed by outside enemies of our land. Now every citizen feels Love and proudness towards the homeland except the traitors and calloborators of the white masters of the evil empires.
 
Every Government after the independece govern the country  as it was owned by them the politicians.We just listened to what they say and ate and drank what they gave, every politician except few killed the opponents and insulted each other to stay in power by this we lost some very good inteligent useful political figures in our land. Now we feel a difference atmosphere in the country,everyone feels that this is my beloved country and we all must be part of it and should help to build this land of a gem together as one nation. In 12th century our Sinhala nation was ruled by a true Sinhala king called Parakrama Bahu and later on we were ruled by so many gallant noble Sinhala kings and make our land a prosperous and a beautiful land of peace.

We had traitors to the Motherland in those days too like nowadays. They were given money and land for their treacherous acts of evil against our homeland and now too happens the same with our own traitors and calloborators who were paid in millions of dollars to do acts of evil against our Motherland. Those days traitors were hanged until death now too our leader should be strong as ever like our ancient kings and hanged these if any found guilty of treason to the motherland until death like rats.

Our country cannot be divided or allow any human being or organization to come and disturb our newly born freedom and peace in the land. 20 million is a very small population for a country and of that 74% inhabitants in my Motherland is Sinhalese who has only this land to be called it home so from that we have a small percentage of traitors like Sarath fonseka,Sarath Silva two womanizers, Ranil the joker, and the gay brothers Avamagala,Somahansa,Mano and Hakeem the two tone losers who were paid by their International masters to create problems which allows them something to put their fingers in to our country’s affairs. International vultures like Blake,Monkey moon, Solheim, Miliban, ,Pillai the witch, and many more like them in the International community who were paid by International terrorists organizations around the world to create unneccessary problems in small countries like ours.

They dont talk the truth or see the truth because of money paid in millions by some evil organizations, they always do the opposite and they think they can do what ever they can in any country around the world because they are white and the most powerful people on earth.Sorry Mr.Whites we Sinhalese are not afraid of you people. We are a sovereign and a democratic country ruled by a democratic goverment led by our true Sinhala son from the south. He is the only President who spoke in Sinhala and Tamil language in the UN forum in front of millions of viewers in the world. He is the only President who speaks the main two languages and freed our nation from 30 bloody years of war. He is the only president who travels to the north and east and look in to the griveinces of the Tamil people and talk to them in their own language and take action to solve their problems which no other leader has done for so many years. We should be proud as citizens of our Motherland to have such a leader to lead us for the future. These foreign parasites should visit our land now and see for themselves how we Sinhalese treat other races and religions in our homeland without accusing unfairly by sitting in their luxury chairs inside luxury buildings far away from our land. 
 
Now the time has come to teach a lesson to these foreign and local parasites after the parliament elections. If our citizens who loves our tiny nation,who loves freedom,who loves democracy,who loves their children, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters and all human beings irrespective of color,race or religion wants to have better life, better living conditions,better health care ,better jobs,better peaceful enviroment without violence, terrorism, corruption, drugs, etc should blindly vote for the party led by Hon.Mahinda Rajapaksa to give him a strong parliament to carry on his Mahinda Chintanaya next phase of development. We suffered almost thirty long years,many of our sons and daughters, mothers and sisters in the armed forces sacrificed their lives to liberate our land with their lives and many of our places of worships,government offices,banks,bridges,rail tracks etc were destroyed by the cruel war which started by one cruel monster by the name Prabakaran financed by our neighbourly big brother India. Thanks to our President,His fearless brother Gotabaya and the gallant forces of our land,sea and Air for liberating our Motherland and getting rid of Prabakaran and all his gang of murderers.

Unfortunately one hero in the war became a traitor to the Motherland and to the leaders of the land by becoming a mouth piece to the white evil International community for vast some of money and better living in the most powerful country on earth. To punish all these traitors and to say “back off” to the cruel International community who wants to punish our Motherland unjustly the President should have two third majority in the parliament to change the laws of the land to suit our own democracy and punish those who are against the land of their birth. These local parasites like Sarath Fonseka,Sarath Silva,Avamagala etc doing a big damage to our country by giving false information to the International community therefore these people should be brought to justice and punish them for treason without a pardon for any reason.

 Those who are complaining to world forums like UN,Human rights about our country should and must be brought to justice how much powerful they are in our public service. In Cambodia one star General was suspended for one year and send him to jail for ten days for assaulting a 10 year boy and two teachers. In Turkey the government has arrested nearly fifty generals and officers in the Armed Forces for plotting against the Government. So why not in my country why so much hew and cry about our traitors like Sarath Fonseka,Sarath Silva by the International community. We have our own laws and a justice system and these cowards should be tried according to our laws and should punish them without any delay.They should be inside the cage and they deserve it without a doubt.
 
 We should thank from the bottom of our hearts to the President,His brother Gotabaya and our heros in the Armed Forces for freeing our land and made it a peaceful place to live with harmony among all citizens in our paradise island of Sri Lanka after the brutal war of thirty years and the vultures and parasirtes in the International community should understand that there is no truth in their accusations towards our Motherland at all. Our citizens walks freely from south to North and East and enjoy the beauty of our land with joy in their faces. Before May 2009 we saw only dead bodies and carnage all around us.

Thanks to our gallant war heros of all sections of our peoples we celebrate our freedom in dignity and in respect to each other. My dear citizens say NO to violence and division and say Yes to Unity,Peace and Prosparity. HANDS OFF SRI LANKA and allow our peoples to live as human beings together as one nation under the lion flag. It’s a shame to those who are in the most powerful countries like America,Canada,Europe,Norway,Australia to bully a small country of twenty million innocent habitants unneccessaraly because you are powerful.   Nobody can buy our freedom and faithfulness to our Motherland.

 TRAITORS WILL BE TRIED AND SENTENCED IN THE NEAR FUTURE for the benefit of our land of birth because there is no place for traitors and calloborators in our new world. If you parasites want to be our friends come in good faith and help us to build a new tomorrow. We welcome our friends with open arms as we Sinhalese are very kind hearted with a rich culture who lives with Tamils,Muslims,Malays,Burghers as one family in harmony for many years.
 
 Give the President what he is asking for in the next General elctions the two third majority and lets see how the parasites, traitors and the enemies of our land will act and do. We hope long time peace will prevail and people will have a new prosperous lanka in the future. Thanks to our HEROS. God Bless SRI LANKA.
 
 May Lord Buddha protects our land of peace.
 
 Love your country and safeguard your country from all evils.
 
 Show your appreciation to the President for ending the brutal war of thirty years.
 
 Live happily with your family in our dreamworld.
 
 
 Ranjit Wickremeratne

By Dr.Levins T.C.Rajaratnem

PATRIOT

It is a fallacy to think that only a selected few can be Patriots. We have had great many patriots from the UNP. The first in independent Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) was Rt.Hon.D.S.Senanayake. Then, Dudley Senanayake and  the others who defected and formed the SLFP. The then UNP did not accuse the defectors as Traitors and unpatriotic elements. A careful study into the political career of Ranil Wickremasinghe (RW) would reveal the rare combination of experience, expertise and knowledge of the Leader of the opposition.

RW is a Patriot by his own right. We must learn to respect and honour those whom we see as having made valuable contribution to the country and society. He is well respected within the country and in other countries.

 FAMILY & PROFESSIONAL LIFE

Ranil Shriyan Wickremesinghe was born on March 24, 1949. He was Prime Minister of Sri Lanka twice, from May 7, 1993 to August 19, 1994 and from December 9, 2001 to April 6, 2004. A member of the United National Party, he was appointed as party leader in November 1994. He is also the leader of the United National Front.

RW, the second son of Esmond and Nalini Wickremasinghe and was educated at  Royal College, the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo and the Sri Lanka Law College. He took oaths as an Advocate in 1972. He is married to Dr.Maithree Wickremasinghe, a scholar and Author.

POLITICAL CAREER

RW was elected to Parliament in 1977. He was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of J. R. Jayawardene, and was later appointed as the  Minister of Youth Affairs and Employment. He was later  given the portfolio of  Minister of Education.

He was appointed as the Minister of Industry, by President R.Premadasa  and he initiated industrial reforms and established the Biyagama Special Economic Zone. He was appointed the Leader of the House of Parliament  in 1989. On May 7, 1993 RW  was sworn in as Prime Minister after the assassination of President R.Premadasa when Prime Minister D. B. Wijetunge was appointed President.

In the Parliamentary general election 2001 UNF, led by RW won 109 seats and PA was able to obtain 77 seats.  Consequently he was able to form a new UNF government and was sworn as the 17th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on 9^th  December 2001. However the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga still remained as the President of the country. This led to a check mate position where the President and the Prime Minister were from two opposite parties. Although, according to the Constitution, both head of state and head of government was the President, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe(RW) was able to appoint his own cabinet and he had the control over the government. The then President Chandrika Kumaratunga also chaired cabinet meetings as de facto head, but her influence over decision making was strictly limited.

CBK’S CALLOUS DISREGARD FOR DEMOCRACY

President Chandrika Kumaratunga sacked three ministers of the cabinet and took over the ministries using her constitutional powers ending the uneasy coalition between her and the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe while he was out of the country. Addressing the nation she claimed that this decision was taken in the interest of national security. Ranil moved out of Temple Trees like a gentleman.

In the Parliamentary elections held in 2004, RW’s UNF lost governmental office. Despite the expectation of a full six year term, and planned projects cut short by the defeat, the UNP was optimistic that it could regain power in a future election. Within 14 months of UPFA’s victory, the radical JVP wing’s (composed of over 30 members) parting of ways with the government, left the UPFA’s parliamentary composition well short of the required majority.

In December 2004, RW was nominated by the United National Party as  its Presidential candidate for Presidential Elections due in late 2005. The Supreme Court decided in August 2005 that the elections should be held that year despite the then President’s argument that her term would end in 2006. The, then Prime Minister, was nominated as the Presidential candidate of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

In the Presidential election held on November 17, 2005, RW was defeated narrowly by  President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who gained 50.29% of the vote to RW 48.43%. A large number of the minority Tamil population in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, who were largely expected to back  RW were prevented from voting by the extremist Terrorists, which had enforced a boycott of the polls.

DEMOCRATIC IDEALS

Ranil Wickremasinghe has been observed as a cool and patient person with dignified manners worthy of his upbringing and not avaricious and as a politician who observes the decency, decorum and norms of democracy. Unfortunately for RW numerous members who were elected through the UNP defected from the Party for reasons best known to them. These are the traits of politics and the loyalty syndrome lacks its credibility.

ELOQUENCE & STRENGTH

RW is an eloquent speaker- Concise and precise. There is no beating around the bush. He goes straight to the point. No pretences. Absolutely honest and dignified in success and in defeat. His own party men have betrayed him but he remains calm and cool. Never perturbed by defeat but gathering momentum and strength each time he experiences new ideals by defeat. As Swami Vivekananda has said “What are failures and stumbles…they are the poetry of life”. RW has become an astute, mature and dignified Politician who never gnashes his teeth to his opponent.

My memory of Ranil Wickremasinghe dates back to Jeyaraj’s words which depicted that he  found him to be a splendid conversationalist, a man who had read nearly everything  and who remembered everything he read.

He is a politician who did not clamor for attention  and rarely struggled to get his name attached to publicity.

He speaks with confidence and with clarity in his own style. He is a great and fascinating orator. He was immensely tolerant of other people and looked after his friends, whether they had something to celebrate or much to fear.

 Let me quote Rudyard Kipling’s poem on IF which  illustrates the characteristics of  RW

 If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

The writer can be contacted on levinstcrajaratnam@gmail.com 

By Janaka Alahapperuma

The construction work on the Norochcholaya Coal Power Plant Phase II in the Puttalama District was inaugurated by President Mahinda Rajapaksa on 18^th March. The contract was awarded to the China National Machinery & Equipment Import & Export Corporation (CMEC), a Chinese Government owned company.

 The total capacity of the power plant (Phase I, II & III) will be 900 Mega Watts and each phase will generate 300 MW of electricity. Phase I of the project is scheduled to be completed by November this year and it will add 300MW to the national grid and also build a jetty for coal handling, a transmission line from Norochcholaya to Veyangoda and substation at Veyangoda. It was implemented under the Chinese Preferential Buyer’s Credit loan of U$$ 300 million and a Buyer’s Credit loan U$$ 155 million, a concessionary loan.

(Pix By : Sudath Silva)

 The main objective of the project is to cater the increasing demand for electricity and also to supply steady and low cost electricity to the national grid. According to the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) the Norochcholaya power plant is expected to be completed by 2013 and it will reduce electricity unit from Rs.11.00 to Rs.5.00 per unit.

However the government has already started to upgrade the Lakshapana, Ukuwela and other hydro power stations in the country and the Kerawalapitiya power plant also added 300MW to the national grid last week.

 Representing Chinese Government, Ambassador of China for Sri Lanka Mrs Yang Xiuping was present at the ceremony. Ministers W.J.M. Senevirathne, Milroy Peiris, Niyomal Perera, Vice President of CMEC Mr. Hang Gang, Sri Lankan and Chinese engineers, higher officials of the Chinese Embassy and the Power & Energy Ministry also were present.

Sri Lanka News

Sri Lanka’s first commercial wind energy plant owned by Senok Wind Power is scheduled to start operating this month. The 10 Mega Watt plant is located in the North Western coast of the isalnd in the Kalpitiya area of the Puttalam district.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

Ranil Wickremesinghe’s entire political career is comparable to that of a man who takes a strong dose of laxative after dinner and then takes a sleeping pill before going to bed. Needless to say, the mixture of the two ill-conceived and contradictory prescriptions invariably ends in total disaster.

 For instance, he agrees to take a dose of peace by swallowing the Norwegian laxative packaged in the CFA and then he takes the worst kind of sleeping pill of lulling himself and the nation into a false sense security before going to bed with the sworn enemy of the nation who not only had no intention of keeping any part of the agreement but also was waiting to stab him in the back eventually. In short, he has been sleep-walking throughout his doomed career without his knowing that the strong dose of laxative is running down his legs, forcing even his own followers to run away from him.

 All this makes it plain that his politics consists mainly of stunts and not viable strategies. Consider, for instance, his latest stunt to start his election campaign in Jaffna. This is like R. Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, starting his election campaign from Matara. Does Wickremesinghe think that he can sweep the north and the east by starting his election campaign from the north? What is the message he is hoping to deliver to the rest of the nation through this stunt, particularly at a time when the political temperature of anti-separatist politics associated with the north is at its peak? Also, at a time when the most rational and realistic Jaffnaites are running away from Nanthikadal why is Wickremesinghe sleep-walking into that watery grave? 

 It is pretty obvious that he hasn’t learnt one bit from the sea changes dominating the post-Prabhakaran polity. Everything around him is changing and he is staying put in the belief that the world will change according to his gospel. He has been pinning his hopes basically on the two non-productive geographies: the north and the West. He refuses to recognize that the only geography that can save him is in the south. He has paid dearly for this blinkered view and he will pay again on April 8.

 Appeasing the north and the West were his main objectives when he blindly gambled by signing an agreement with Prabhakaran. What did he get in return? Leaving that aside, he should know by now the ethno-centric voting pattern of the north since Donoughmore Commission introduced universal franchise in 1931 has never changed.

 By and large, peninsular politics has been determined by mono-ethnic politics. If, after all this, Wickremesinghe still believes that he can get the Tamil people to vote for him you begin to wonder whether there is anything between his ears other than thick layers of wax which invariably makes him tone deaf to the sea changes swirling around him. His campaign posters have juxtaposed his face with that D. S. Senanayake, Ranasinghe Premadasa, J. R. Jayewardene etc., hoping that some of the glory of the past national patriots will rub off him. But which one of them would commit the anti-national blunders that follow Wickremesinghe like his shadow?

 If he looks back he will also realize that the Jaffna Tamils rejected the most genuine champions of their cause from the Left who were committed ideologically to back them all the way. They were happy that Dr. N. M. Perera, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, Pieter Keuneman ( and now Comrade Vikramabahu Karunaratne)  were fighting for them facing all odds, risking their political futures. But the Jaffna Tamil failed to reciprocate in kind. They stuck to mono-ethnic extremism that was embedded inflexibly in the peninsular political culture.

 Besides, Wickremesinghe’s own political experiences should open his eyes to the ingrained political culture of Jaffna which will not change in the immediate future. In fact, in his usual blundering way, he went beyond the Left to concede their demands for power and territory. The CFA was just that: granting power and territory to the fascist from Jaffna. The gratitude he got from the north was a big kick in his pants.

 So what makes Wickremesinghe think that the Jaffna Tamils are going to make a revolutionary leap to embrace the Right-wing of the south led by a leader who holds the world record for losing elections? His decision to open the election campaign in Jaffna may help him to write a report to the Right-wing IDU that he is a liberal fighting for the minorities. But how many votes have the IDU even in Jaffna?

 In the post-Prabhakaran era old dogmas are giving way, slowly but surely, to new realities and perspectives like the TNA dropping the cry of Eelaam. But does this mean that Wickremesinghe is going to be the beneficiary of these changes? Fat hope he has if he thinks that he can get the margin he needs from the north or the east to form the next government.

 All the winning cards – power, people, prestige and popularity – are with Mahinda Rajapakse. Even if Wickremesinghe drives a ten ton truck into Mahinda’s body politic he will still fail to make the slightest dent. But he talks glibly of forming the next government. Not surprisingly, Tissa Attanayake, his lieutenant general, is also talking like Wickremesinghe and Gen. Fonseka. Tissa says that he will throw out the Mahinda Rajapakse within six months of the UNF forming the next government. It is rather difficult to understand why he is uttering this nonsense, particularly because he has not changed his name – at least not yet – to “Pissu” Attanayake.

 They know that they don’t have a ghost of chance of winning the coming election. Once again Wickremesinghe is well positioned to lead his party into defeat. There’s going to be another parliamentary election in 2015 with President Rajapakse still riding high as president. As I said earlier, he is “the indispensable man” for the next decade. Wickremesinghe’s last hope is to do a “JR”: hang on doggedly hoping that an opportunity will come his way some day. But by the time of the next parliamentary election is held in 2015 the political culture of the “Mahinda Chintanaya” would have taken root and what can Wickremesinghe offer as an alternative? More powers to the north and the east?

 “Pissu” Attanayake is still talking of handing over police powers to the north and the east. Mahinda Rajapakse is standing firm on this issue and says that there will be only one Army, one Navy, one Air Force and one Police under one flag. In his interview with the Strait Times (March 18, 2010) President Rajapakse  explained that he has learnt good lessons from the Indian experiment. Here’s his reply to journalist Ravi Velloor: “As for police powers, knowing my people, I would say, please do not devolve that power. See what happened when Sonia Gandhi went to Uttar Pradesh (and Chief Minister Mayawati, who is opposed to the Congress party, denied her permission to enter her constituency). They are fighting for control of the police. You know, chief ministers are chief ministers.

“I have learnt from India. You think I would make the same mistake? See what happened in Mumbai (when terrorists attacked it). It took eight hours to fly in the National Security Guard commandos because they needed the requisite permission,” said President Rajapakse.

 This clearly represents the difference between sense and nonsense. The people can relate to the pragmatic sense of Rajapakse which has been a winner all the time. So what chances have “Pissu” Attanayake and sleep-walking Wickremesinghe to win the election even in 2015?

A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA.

The prat-fallen JVP, knowing very well that they will be decimated at the forthcoming General Election made gigantic efforts to create turmoil and mayhem in the country, stating that the election was fraudulent and results were manipulated by a computer “jilmart” and then over the arrest of Fonseka by the army, under the Army Act, for violating rules and regulations of the Army. The incessant agitations being made by them despite the unprecedented lead obtained by people’s President Mahinda Rajapakse and the unfurling evidence of Fonseka’s conspiracy attempt and violation of foreign exchange rules forewarn that the JVP’s continual baseless agitations are aimed to steer the country into another anarchist period similar to 1971 and 1987-1989, and it needs to be stemmed timely and firmly by the patriotic and peace-loving population of this country.

JVP leadership knew very well that may get maximum two seats including one seat from the national list, if they contest alone under their party symbol, the soundless bell. This is the last thing that they wish to see as such a result would dissipate even the few misled individuals following them and scattered in various parts of the country with the blind belief that they are the saviors of this country. To hide their political nakedness they made every effort to mislead the UNP facing the election in the name of UNF in an alliance with despicable communal gangs, and Liliput political desperados, to accommodate them in their nomination lists and even attempted to force the UNP not to contest in their party colour green and with the symbol elephant, hoping they could gain some additional parliamentary seats by contesting in this manner, as they managed to fool Chandrika during the 2004 election and managed to obtain 39 seats and prevent equal number of SLFPer getting elected. Having failed in all their wicked attempts they have finally come out to contest the election with a readymade Alliance called Democratic National Alliance (DNA) with power hungry SF (Stupid Fonseka) as the leader of this Alliance. By contesting under this readymade Alliance they attempt to achieve two objectives. To continue with their anarchist agitations in the guise of demanding the release of Fonseka and thereby provoke the government and the security forces in order to create mayhem in the country and make maximum effort to get the votes of persons who still show some sympathy to Fonseka and thereby get some of their members elected, and camouflage their real political strength. From the nomination lists they have submitted in various districts it is clearly evident that the JVP leadership has accepted the reality that they do not command votes anymore and hence they depend on Fonseka in the Colombo District and similar individuals in other districts to get their votes increased. Many prominent pundits in the JVP are avoiding contest including the gutter-mouthed Somawansa Amerasinghe, General Secrretary Tilvin Silva and the former Parliamentary Group Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake who crazily thinks that he is omniscient. This guy has fled Kurunegala District unable to face his apparent defeat in Kurunegala and seeks refuge in the National List to grab the solitary National List seat they may gain on account of islandwide tiny percentage of votes they would get.

Incapable of facing the electorate they are forcing Anoma Fonseka to mount their stages and shed tears so that at least a few kind hearted womenfolk would cast their votes in sympathy. This is the first time in the history of the JVP that they are scared of facing election. In the meantime, the stupid Anura Dissanayake is talking of an Interim Government they would be forming for a period of three years, along with other parties in the opposition. Even the remotest possibility of the whole opposition together coming anything near to forming a government is sheer daydream as it is evident throughout the country that the government is moving towards a massive victory as in the last Presidential Election, and speedily approaching the target of getting the two thirds majority. Even the UNP leader, and the General Secretary have conceded their defeat and only calling for the voters to avoid giving a two third majority to the government.

The JVP atrocities since its inception and destruction caused to government properties and murder of our politicians, the professionals, the student population and the innocent masses is almost equivalent to the destruction caused by the terrorist LTTE.

The forthcoming General Election is a golden opportunity for the patriotic and peace loving masses of this country to annihilate JVP menace from the soil of this country akin to annihilation of the terrorist menace by our gallant security forces, and prevent:

· Our Universities becoming a den of political thugs who force innocent poor students to be used as cats-paws to achieve their political agendas to transform our Universities as warring grounds shattering the hopes built by innocent parents through hard labour and their savings to see their children becoming educated and valuable partners in the country · Creation of unrest in the Government Departments and State Corporations to paralyze State Services with unwarranted and baseless strikes and work stoppages for the sole purpose of bloating up JVP strength.

· Attempts made to mislead, force and drive the student population to attain their political objectives and infringe their educational careers · Planning of politically motivated turbulence in private sector industries, hamper production activities and even force the industries to the verge of closing down their activities with utter disregard for the consequences that may result from such actions to the work force and to the national economy.

· Obstruction of holding examinations and blackmail the authorities with utter disregard for sufferings that may befall on students and the anguish to be experienced by the parents · Driving the staff of Government Hospitals to work to rule and other form of sudden work stoppages and make the poor patients to suffer and even cause untimely deaths, as most of the patients who get admitted to Government Hospitals are either unable to afford getting treatment at Private Institutions or suffering from chronic diseases, or subjected to severe accidents.

· Making attempts to disrupt rail and road transport at their whims and fancy, and cause hardships to commuters. The twin atrocities of JVP and LTTE drove this country back by several decades and it is the duty and responsibility of all peace loving population to wipe out the JVP menace and create an atmosphere for this country to rise once again and march towards self reliance and ushering in a bright future for our posterity.

Sri Lanka News

Sri Lanka has received another nod as a top travel destination. National Geographic has listed Sri Lanka 2nd in its “25 Best New Trips for 2010.”

Ranked 20 in the list, Sri Lanka was one of only three other South Asian nations to make the list. Bhutan clinched the number one spot while Nepal was ranked 15.

In January, The New York Times chose Sri Lanka as its top pick in its list of “31 Places to Go in 2010.” The article itself attracted a lot of attention, both positive and negative. Topping the list of a prominent publication gave Sri Lanka much-needed recognition for jump-starting the tourism industry, a major economic sector, following the end of the war.

But the writer’s description of the “conflict” (as opposed to the war) as having “finally ended last May” and others such as the country being “one big tropical zoo” attracted criticism for portraying an unrealistic image of the South Asian nation that is recovering from decades of war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-WfXSacm84

Ben Silva

Introduction

 The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navaneetham Pillay has been infiltrated and influenced by the LTTE operating under the guise of Tamil human rights activists. To sustain its anti-Sri Lanka government campaign globally, the LTTE has also obtained the services of Mr  Bruce Fein, a US lawyer, Bruce Haigh, a former Australian diplomat, and other foreign nationals. Although terrorists are the worst human rights violators,  Ms. Pillay, an ethnic Tamil, has whitewashed the LTTE of its brutal atrocities.

 Brief outline of LTTE   and its activities

 When Prabhakaran  started off as the head of a  small group  in the 1970s, no one could believe that Velupillai Prabhakaran would one day be the world’s most dreaded terrorist.  No one also thought that  LTTE would be one of the deadliest terror groups with an army, Navy,  Air force, with a spy network and with suicide bombers scattered around, ready to blow themselves up on command.

The following is an extract of a FBI publication  (01/10/08 ).

Ref: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/jan08/tamil_tigers011008.html 

‘ As terrorist groups go, it  (LTTE)  has quite a résumé:

• Perfected the use of suicide bombers;
• Invented the suicide belt;
• Pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks;
• Murdered some 4,000 people in the past two years      alone; and
• Assassinated two world leaders—the only terrorist organization to do so.

Needless to say, the Tamil Tigers are among the most dangerous and deadly extremists in the world. For more than three decades, the group has launched a campaign of violence and bloodshed in Sri Lanka, the island republic off the southern coast of India.

Its ultimate goal: to seize control of the country from the Sinhalese ethnic majority and create an independent Tamil state. Along the way, it has launched suicide attacks, assassinated politicians (including a government minister this week and even the Sri Lankan President), taken hostages, and committed all of kinds of crimes to finance its operations. The resulting civil war has taken the lives of nearly 70,000 Sri Lankans on both sides of the conflict since 1983 alone.’

The evil and deadly nature of racist Tamil terrorism is illustrated by  the Kent and Dollar Farm massacres  where a large number of innocent  Sinhalese  civilians, including women and Children were killed by Tamil terrorists Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_and_Dollar_Farm_massacres

Key issues related to the  abuse of human rights in Sri Lanka

 The main issues related to the human rights crisis, that affected all Sri Lankans include:

1. Tamil terrorism that  produced  orphans, disabled persons, blind persons,    causing death, fear, mental illnesses and stress.
2. Ethnic cleansing by racist Tamil  terrorists, depriving livelihood and homes of  innocent  Sinhalese and Muslim people
3. Loss of life of law enforcement officers and security forces, killed by racist Tamils.
4. Loss of life, innocence and childhood of children due to forced recruitment  of child soldiers by LTTE
5. Fund raising in the West, by bogus refugees that caused terrorism, death and  destruction in Sri Lanka.
6. Loss of Right to life of valuable  Sinhala and Tamil  Sri Lankan National leaders.
7. Brain washing of Tamil children by racist Tamils.

 Factors that fuelled terrorism 

 The following are some of  important factors that fuelled terrorism:

       1  Fund raising by LTTE in the West,

       2. Tax evasion using bogus charities

       3.  Human trafficking and bogus refugee scams.

       4.  Arms purchase  and arms trafficking.

       5   Export  and trade of terror technology.

       6   Credit card fraud,

       7   Money laundering.

       8   Identification fraud.

       9   Counterfeit trade.

       10  Passport fraud.

 Apathy of UN and Ms Pillay towards LTTE terrorism

 The above issues related to terrorism, was hardly considered by UN or Ms Pillay. Sri Lanka was left to  defend itself to battle against terrorism, funded by Global Tamils, that brought misery and living, a nightmare to ordinary Sri Lankans. Sri Lanka managed to end human rights abuses in Sri Lanka by eliminating terrorism decisively and without any help from UN or Ms Pillay. Acknowledgement to FBI for the help given to Sri Lanka to defeat terrorism. If terrorism was not eliminated decisively, then there would still be human rights abuses by terrorists, death and destruction, lawlessness, living in fear  and so on. The present HR boss of UN, an ethnic Tamil,  certainly knew what she wanted – to support Tamil terrorists and to discredit Sri Lanka. Ms Pillay attempted to equate a terrorist group with a legitimate Government and she spent more energy harassing Sri Lanka, which was a victim of terrorism, than fighting terrorism.

 It appears that UN or Ms Pillay has not taken any practical measures against terrorism, which was the prime cause of human right abuses in Sri Lanka. Now  it appears that she is   hounding the victim Sri Lanka. It is very similar to a rape victim, who appeared to defend herself  being harassed and charged.

 Pro LTTE and anti Sri Lanka stand of Ms Pillay

 Ms Navi Pillay has been  anti Sri Lanka  and pro LTTE for a long time. Even when UN member states voted in favour of Sri Lanka, she continued her anti Sri Lankan stand. She did nothing to eliminate  Tamil terrorism  and empire building, which was the main cause of human rights abuse in Sri Lanka, but she did every thing in her power to act against GOSL which eliminated terrorism. It has to be investigated, if her reluctance to act against Tamil racism is due to her Tamil ethnicity. She did nothing against USA that continue to abuse human rights in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 UK PM, Mr Brown  says  that terrorists will be hunted down (Guardian 4-06-09). Sri Lanka  simply hunted down the terrorists, but only Sri Lanka is to be investigated, whilst countries responsible for over a million civilian deaths in Iraq go unchallenged. What sort of hypocrisy is this?  Or is this Tamil racism in UN in action ?

Due to  regular bullying  and harassment of Sri Lanka by Ms Pillay and her apathy in dealing with major human rights violators such as USA and UK (in Iraq and Afghanistan), many see her as a Tamil racist, sympathising with Tamil terrorists. These serious allegations ought to  be investigated  by UN. It appears that she is abusing her position and playing the Tamil tiger tune.

 Because  Ms Pillay is a  Tamil, with potential to be anti Sri Lanka, she should not be allowed to get involved in issues related to Sri Lanka. The ethnicity of Navi Pillay,   and the potential for bias should be conveyed to UN members.

 Let us examine Ms Pilay’s statement  that  demands an ‘ independent investigation into alleged atrocities by both sides in Sri Lanka’s civil war ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8068905.stm.

 She surely cannot be that ignorant or stupid not to realise that LTTE leadership  does not exist any more. Assuming that she is fully aware that the leadership of LTTE does not exist any more, then by demanding an investigation, she is clearly hounding the victim of terrorism Sri Lanka. Due to her conduct many suspect that she is a Tamil racist, sympathetic to LTTE and many question if she is fit to be in UN. In fact there should be an investigation by a panel appointed by Mr Moon, to determine  if there is institutional racism against the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka in UN, because of people such as Ms Pillay, other Tamils and  persons such as Alan Rock. Many see UN as a Tamil tiger infested, Tamil racist den.

 If she is unable to disregard her ethnicity and do her duties as a professional, her position in UN has to be considered.

There is clear  evidence that Ms Pillay has abused her position to harass and bully Sri Lanka. It is even possible that Ms Pillay has influenced Mr Moon.. Most believe, that her actions are due to her Tamil ethnicity. UN is well known for corruption and their pro terrorist officials. UN officials have been expelled from Afghanistan due to links with terrorists . The  allegations against Pillay should be investigated  to prevent further tarnishing of UN as a corrupt,  terrorist sympathising, pro imperialist  organisation.

 Threats  to Sri Lanka  from LTTE fronts   and countering LTTE propaganda

 The Sri Lankan army, one of the most disciplined militaries in the world defeated the LTTE but the Sri Lankan foreign ministry and Information ministry failed to portray the ground reality. As such the West is lobbied by LTTE propaganda. Many writers have previously indicated the need to have proper machinery to combat Tamil propaganda.   In addition to some organs of the UN, some Western politicians dependent on the minority vote, have ignorantly or knowingly supported the LTTE. A few British politicians, in need of the ethnic vote, have been attending LTTE events such as the  events of the Global Tamil Forum, which many suspect is the  LTTE’s premier front organisation. It is essential to identify LTTE fronts  and expose them, before they are able to mislead the world and cause extensive damage to Sri Lanka.

Vajeera Warnakulasuriya

Hon.Mr.Stephen Smith,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Federal Government of Australia
Canberra

Dear Sir,

Ministerial Statement on the 17th March in Federal Parliament

It was encouraging to see that the foreign minister of Australia reading a balanced report on Sri Lanka at the recent Parliamentary sitting. All over the Globe we hear, read, biased reports “prepared by anti Sri Lankan agents” being articulated or printed by the influential leaders of Governments.

Sri Lanka is a developing country that needs every encouragement, guidance and financial support. The country after recovering from three decades of destruction both materially and economically is making a genuine effort to rebuild the country providing all basic requirements to her citizens and ushering ever lasting PEACE by wining the hearts and minds of those who believed that they have been deprived of rights.

These weaknesses were exacerbated by the Western World who still try to create a “Kosovo” or East Timor” type separation without fully understanding the History of the Country. They must understand this country which has a written history for nearly three thousand years is quite capable of solving its internal problems with local solutions. The only country that has never killed its citizens for the sake of a religion! When the savages destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan Buddhist did not issue a fatwa unlike Islamic fundamentalists.

Since the eradication of the terrorist group, the expatriate Sinhalese all over the Globe started sending funds and various types of material support towards the IDP welfare. However it is very sad to mention, that the expatriate Tamil Diaspora instead of helping their kith and kin, have started forming Transnational Eelam Governments in exile with the help of misguided Parliamentarians, Academics and media to introduce violence in a subtle way. This would allow legalizing the collection of funds.

We see on TV frequent arrival of boat people from Sri Lanka, there’s was no reason even in the past for the Tamils in Sri Lanka to flee from the country under the false pretext that they have been harassed or ill treated by the Government. Sri Lanka has never differentiated its citizens due to their ethnicity. Some flee the country to avoid the harassment and abduction of their children by LTTE, and some to capitalise the situation just to migrate to a developed country.

Now the country is safe for all citizens, no one needs to risk their life in boats, no country should accommodate them at the expense of genuine refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Tibet to name a few.

In conclusion I extend my sincere gratitude in appreciation of your balanced presentation in the Federal Parliament.

 Yours Sincerely,

Vajeera Warnakulasuriya
Melbourne

Press Release   Media Secretary- 18/03/2010

Kharithathu Ththareeq, a Road Map to address issues affecting the Muslim community in Sri Lanka was presented to the President of the All Ceylon Jammayathul Ulama, AlHaj M.I.M. Rizwe Mufthi, by Minister Milinda Moragoda, Leader of the Sri Lanka National Congress (SLNC) amidst a large gathering of Muslim community leaders at Marine Grand hotel, Marine Drive, Wellawatte. This roadmap was developed by the Muslim Affairs Circle of the SLNC.

Alhaj Rizwe Mufthi speaking on the occasion, praised Mr. Moragoda for the support he has extended to the Muslim community in strengthening social and educational institutions. He pointed out that by improving the quality of people’s lives, harmony and understanding between different communities can be achieved.

The Muslim Affairs Circle of the Sri Lanka National Congress under the leadership of Mr. Milinda Moragoda has assisted in the release of two mosques (in the Batticola district, and in Trincomalee) from the Security Forces. Minister Milinda Moragoda together with the Defense Secretary Mr. Gothabaya Rajapaksha, and other relevant authorities, has had extensive discussions regarding the use of the Tamil language in police stations and other government institutions in areas predominantly inhabited by Tamil-speaking populations. The Kharithathu Ththareeq is an extension to the above and will help address issues affecting the Muslim community in a more systematic manner.

Picture shows Mr. Milinda Moragoda presenting the Road Map to Alhaj Rizwe Mufthi President All Ceylon Jammayathul Ulama.

Kharithathu Ththareeq
Road Map to address issues affecting the Muslim Community 

Sri Lanka belongs to all of us: Diversity is Our Strength:

1. Help create a Political Culture which leads to mutual respect between all Communities.

2. Educate other communities on Muslim culture and the Muslim way of life.

3. Enhance the standards of Muslim National schools and also make available Vocational Training for those who do not wish to pursue academics.

4. Support the All Ceylon Jammayathul Ulama to obtain authority in all matters related to Halal Certification.

5. Assist in the Resettlement of Muslims in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and the restoration of Normal Life with Housing and Economic Activity.

6. Assist in the Return and Restoration of Mosques, Schools, etc., in the Northern and Eastern Provinces for the benefit of all.

7. Assist in arranging a monthly meeting with the Security Forces and the Police to discuss and resolve on-going issues and problems faced by the Muslim Community.

8. Assist in obtaining Prayer facilities in Public and other Institutions.

9. Ensure the implementation of the Government circular, which permits the wearing of the Muslim Dress (Hijab) in Schools, Hospitals, and other Government Institutions.

10. Assist in addressing the Drugs & Narcotics related issues faced by the community.

11. Assist in the training of staff in Tamil Language proficiency in Government Institutions where the General Public will interact.

12. Facilitate and address grievances faced by Muslim Tsunami victims.

For Further Information Contact: Reza Sulaiman on 0777 486 299 (m), reza_sulaiman (email)   Sri Lanka National Congress, Muslim Affairs Circle

 Gamini Sarath Godakanda
Media Secretary

18.03.2010

Lankaweb Editorial March 17th 2010

In the turn of recent events transpiring in Sri Lanka a few plain truths are becoming more and more painfully obvious about the difficulties being encountered by the Rajapaksha Administration towards motivating the best interests of the Island Nation and guiding it in the right direction towards prosperity and development as it is being constantly interfered with by individuals who take it upon themselves to be officiously judgemental over issues they seem to know little or nothing about beyond hearsay and even if they did, have no right to the privilege of summary execution withi Sri Lanka.

 One of the chief culprits in this capacity is UN chief Ban Ki Moon who also seems to have some vested interest if not coercion by the Tamil Diaspora anti Rajapaksha lobby where one does not have too far to look if one interpreted the body language and rhetoric of Naveen Pillai of the UN, as well as a  Ban Ki Moon family connection to another individual whose contempt for the Rajapaksha Administration is well known in global circles.Perhaps the man himself needs an investigative panel!

 Ban Ki Moon should tread cautiously on the issue of attempting to appoint an investigative panel for human rights violations in Sri Lanka, something he neither has a mandate for, nor any tangible evidence even if there was a mandate to back his demand hypothetically for such a panel towards rights violations.

 He seems oblivious to the fact that based on the forcefulness of his efforts  the end result could be a conspiracy against Sovereign Sri Lanka with the backing of anti national elements with him as the ringleader which cannot be ruled out.

 Moon should be reminded in case it has slipped his conscience and cognizance that there are places in the world where the real need for such investigations seem imperative to which the UN constantly turns a blind eye and  that his constant bickering about Sri Lanka is turning into a meaningless scenario where his own transparencies seem to overshadow any credibility towards the cause and  needs to be asked to back off unless he wants to make the UN organization the laughing stock of the world with his comical and meaningless posturing about Sri Lanka.

 His greatest transparency according to many legal analysts is that he is portraying the veiled image of being a spokesman for Sarath Fonseka and is meddling into the internal affairs of  a rock solid as well as an established Legal Justice System ensconced within a caste iron Constitution protecting the rights of all Sri Lankan Citizens and consequently Sri Lanka does not need his myopic overviews about her internal affairs, the handling of which in fact continues admirably with President Rajapaksha at the helm and has been commended by many assertive Nations around the world for his effort in the aftermath of theTamil Tiger( LTTE) defeat and the landslide Presidential victory at the polls.

 It seems a distinct possibility that Mr. Ban is responding to the recent turn of events in the aftermath of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers as well as the  defeat of Fmr. Gen Sarath Fonseka at the presidential polls ~both events being of huge concern to the anti Government bandwagon of the pro LTTE diaspora also linked to some western countries whose disgruntled responses to both events have surfaced from time to time and Ban rather than being diplomatic and cautious over his direction to related issued has thrown himself in head first into a morass of indecisive decision making by virtue of his status as UN leader in the manner of a Bull In A Chinashop.

 He really should back off and confine his efforts to more crying needs around the globe or risk being “Ban ned” from a Sri Lankan perspective for incompetence as the leader of the prestiigious organization  he is attempting to convert into a media circus with mere token aspirations towards settling the world’s woes and getting laughed at for his pitiful efforts!

A distinguished and presigious legal analyst within Sri Lanka Senior Counsel Gomin Dayasiri has expressed a scathing as well as judicious opinion which attests to interference by external forces into Sri Lankan affairs motivated by internal pundits with intent to cause mischief that “Former Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva’s ( a former ally of the President now turned rebellious critic!) statement on the arrest of General Sarath Fonseka is contrary to law and has given an extra motivation to certain international forces to interfere with the internal matters, threatening the sovereignty of the country.( Ban seems to have been paying attention to this exact availability of motivation!)

He further explained that as a legal expert and distinguished counsel( with a touch of duplicity now!) former CJ is well aware that in any country national law supercedes international law. So, any matter should be settled within our legal provisions and everybody is equal before the law. It is very unfortunate that being a former CJ, he is criticizing his successor’s decisions. ( somewhat indiscriminately and recklessly!)Once he sent people to jail under a contempt of court order when they criticized some court decisions.

People will now think the verdicts given by him when he was in office were with political motives. He has been a spokesman for General Sarath Fonseka who is in military custody. If Sarath Fonseka is not satisfied with the verdict to be given by the court martial, he can appeal to the appellate court and thereafter even to the Supreme Court.
He said the move taken by the Government in this respect is correct and no outsiders should interfere with internal matters. They should be settled within Sri Lanka.

India is a fine example not giving any opportunity for the involvement of international forces.
Even during the tsunami they safeguarded their sovereignty with dignity. So, testifying before an international tribunal is a betrayal of the sovereignty of the country” having more than a ring of truth to these observations.
 
Ban Ki Moon should take these assertions to heart, dwell on them and apply them to his future moves on Sri Lanka if he wishes to maintain his credibility and withdraw in his best interests any aspirations to set up investigative panels in Sri Lanka or risk the possibility of an investigative panel on his own movements and decision making relative to a huge conflict of interest as well as bias in some of his executive decision making and conduct his pursuits in keeping with proper UN Policy!

P.A.Samaraweera, Australia

Dushy Ranetunge’s (DR) in an article ‘Missing the wood from the trees’ to an English Daily  of 14th March, supports an investigation for war crimes and bring about accountability and says, “…All that the western powers and the UN are demanding is consistency on our part in investigating war crime allegations…”
 
We have no qualms about DR’s comment that, “…It was the US which first listed the LTTE as a terrrorist organisation…” But it was only on paper and that was also after immense pressure brought by Sri Lanka that the LTTE as a terrorist outfit is worse than the Al Qaeda against whom the US and the allied forces were fighting.
 
There is no doubt that the western governments ‘have consistently’ trained our forces but they never armed them. Further, they never expected the Sri Lankan forces to defeat the LTTE and it gave them an absolute shock. Because the west with their most advanced arms and armaments were still not been able to defeat Al Qaeda.
 
The UK had been training Army cadets since Independence. Subsequently they were sent to India and more recently Army and Air Force officers were trained in Pakistan. The latter got UAV’s which played an important role in the war and other sophisticated equipment from Pakistan and not from the west.
 
The west stopped the sale of  military hardware because of the war against the LTTE. Therefore, if China had not come to Sri Lanka’s rescue, the story would have been different. China was fore-most, along with other neutral countries, in supporting  Sri Lanka against the UN resolution brought by the west. If given the choice, would DR prefer Chinese galleons boosting the economy or LTTE arms ships floating around the coasts of Sri Lanka to devour the country?
 
During the height of the war if Sri Lanka had taken the advise given by the west, which made a hue and cry to stop the war against the terrorists, the LTTE would have been back on the saddle and we would be under the jackboot of the terrorists. This may ofcourse not matter for terror supporters  masquerading as peace nicks  or those enjoying the luxury of greener pastures.
However, even though the UK was safe from the LTTE it was not from the Al Qaeda!
 
DR argues that it is the tradition to investigate war crimes. If so why are the war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan by the west and the allied forces not investigated. The US and UK invaded Iraq and killed Saddam Hussein accusing him of possessing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ , which were never found. Further, the inhuman treatment and torturing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay had been swept under the carpet.
 
The observation that, “… war crimes committed by a few individuals who have betrayed the Sri Lanka Republic is abusing the powers…” is an accusation put forward by LTTE backers and those who are treacherous to the armed forces who valiantly fought to preserve the sovereignity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.
 
The war in Sri Lanka was against the world’s deadliest terrorists who were supposed to be invincible and not against its citizens as claimed by DR. The LTTE forcussed  on ethnic cleansing, political assassinations, suicide bombings, fund-raising, civilian massacres, child-recruitment etc., and against these the so called Human Rights Activists and the west were only passive on-lookers. Therefore, it could be argued that the war crimes accusation is only to avenge the defeat of the LTTE.
 
Finally, with regard to the comment on ‘war crimes and accountability’ DR may note that the 118 member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) chaired by Amabassador Mageed Abdelaziz of Egypt has expressed deep concern over the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s unilateral decision to appoint an ‘Advisory Panel’ on Accountability issues in Sri Lanka. The NAM has accused him of (a) Attempting to violate the UN Charter (b) Trying to interfere in the domestic affairs of a member state.
 
He has also condemned selective targetting of individual countries which is contrary to the UN Charter. The NAM has unanimously agreed to protest against the Secretary General’s decision. Ofcourse, Ban Ki-Moon is doing his best to appease the west as his term is coming to a close.

By Dr.Levins T.C.Rajaratnem

Almighty God , thou art great but men created by thee are in conflict
War is over they say, but we are more miserable than ever before
There is confusion and chaos. There is want and hunger.
There is power but yet the need for more power has arisen
There is hate in the home, the family and friends
Foes become friends and friends become foes

 We pray to thee O Lord for thy mercy to liberate the truth
Those who stand in judgment should be given wisdom and independence
We remember your 10 commandments to Moses every one of them is blatantly broken and divine justice is not seen by us in Sri Lanka.

 The Tamil Terrorists and militants who have murdered the innocent Buddhist Priests, policemen army, Tamil,Sinhala and Muslim civilians and extorted money and robbed are to become legislators.  O Lord, Mahatma Gandhi said “Truth will triumph”. When will it triumph O Lord? Is it after this generation?

 Where art thou O Lord? We pray to thee to have mercy on us and hear our prayer. We see tears amidst joy and misery amidst victories.

 Man and wife are in conflict, parents and children are in conflict, brothers are in conflict, sisters are in conflict.

 There is confusion all around.

 O Lord have mercy on us, we are a Nation who have suffered from natural and man made calamities.

 Liberate us and develop our country. Help us O Lord to elect a Good Government of righteous men and women and not murderers and rogues. We need a Government  for Good Governance and strengthen the hands of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Insight By Sunil Kumar 16th March 2010

There appears to be curious similarities between a combined Police ~ Military Coup d’ Etat  in the mid 1960s and Fmr. General Sarath Fonseka’s current incarceration by the Sri Lankan Authorities as the charges in both cases appear to be a misinterpretation of assigned power and the arrogant beleif that the power vested in them whether previously or subsequently relative to term of office  gave them carte blanche to go against the Legal Justice System on the instigation of opposition politicians eager to topple the incumbent Administration and in both cases the end result is bound to be very similar also.
 
Sri Lanka’s former military chief and defeated presidential candidate retd. General Sarath Fonseka appeared before the first of the two scheduled court martial proceedings held today at the Navy headquarters in Colombo amidst protests by some factions of instigative political opponents  of the Rajapaksha regime who some seemed to think was a large number of protester  by way of  head count but in the overall picture of things, miniscule relative to the vast number of Sri Lankans who believe that the actions taken by the law against the General were within legal statutes and hence justified. 

It is pitifully transparent in Sri Lanka that there are two political factions involved in the Fonseka scenario~ one which has legitimately moved to bring to task a way out of line Fmr. General who beleived he was beyond the arm of the law by virtue of his track record with the Army( one which seems to be revealing certain cracks and indiscretions today conrtrary to the knight in shining armour some thought he was). Misguideed bravado perhaps  which spurred on his foolish repartee judging by the the tone of his rhetoric against the President and his Administrators which is a no no in any situation! unless the controllong power was within his grasp which foreseably  and quite obviously was not!

 As the the first court martial for the General’s alleged involvement in political activities while in active service commenced today at 9:30 this morning there still appeared to be misguided defiance in the tone of Fonseka’s voice which prompted him to call the President “a rogue, someone who cheated at the polls” and even compared him to the worthless and now deceased Ugandan despot dictator Idi Amin little realising that the comparison may have been more appropriate, indicative and perhaps befitting Sarath Fonseka himself as there are many analysts who beleive he could easily have tirned out to be a ruthless dictator in the same vein as Amin had he by some unforeseeable circumstance gained control of power in Sri Lanka for which the Nation needs to thank the overall perceptive and patriotic majority voters for!

 Curiously Ranil Wickremasinge’s cronies too were probably spared of some unforeseeable ignominy had there been an incumbent dictator in the form of Fonseka taking the highest office  where the collective role of former aspiring albeit now rehabilitated terrorists in the form of the JVP could have had a pivotal role to play and the Wickremasinghe bandwagon perhaps sent to’ boot camp’ or worse which of course is mere hypothesis!

 It must also be pointed out to those unaware of the realities of the recently concluded  Presidential Elections, its eventual statistics and related implications that despite certain pockets of media hype which portray Fonseka’s  popular votes as significant, that it was miniscule relative to the total votes polled for the President and a portrayal distorted as well as blown out of proportion by those who championed Fonseka in obvious derision.One only needs to bear in mind that Sri Lanka has a population of close to 20 million and hence the Fonseka total vote count a drop in the ocean compared to the Rajapaksha landslide!

 It would be more appropriate to conclude that the President’s victory over Fonseka and his allies was of a crushing and overpowering nature by way of head count as well as the emotional surge most patriotic Sri Lankans showed at the polls and to those who count Fonseka’s total polls voted as significant they need to be pooh poohed! that theirs is a fantasy based assumption on wishful thinking far removed from the realities of the polling environment in Sri Lanka which will in all probabilities be repeated at the forthcoming General Elections contrary to the whim and fancy of certain Colombo based wheeler dealer politicos with maternal links to the 1965 Coup d’ Etat!.

 Getting back to the issue of Court Martials~ the  first court martial appointed to try General Fonseka commenced today for participation in political work while in active service. Three separate charges under the above category according to the provisions of Army Act were heard today according to breaking news reports where the Fmr.General Fonseka appeared with his legal representation before the panel of three judges while representatives of the Attorney General appeared for the prosecution. Today’s hearing has been adjourned until April 6.

 The second court martial against Gen. Fonseka  for offences related to military procurement while in active service, will be a separate one to hear the charges against him and will be heard tomorrow where both court martials are  being presided by the same board headed by Major General H.L.Weeratunga.

 As expected the General’s lawyers  are contesting the validity of the military court to hear the cases since he was a civilian when he was arrested which seems a feeble offer of protestation where the legalities of the issues at hand will eventually overrule the rhetoric that emanates from a former military leader with a hopeless ring to it involving a conflict of interest relative to status and staus quo as  well as pointing to a neglect of his duties, actions and behaviour unbecoming of his capacity together with disregarded liabilities to his Chief Executive Commanding Officer where regardless of status, logically there hardly seems to be a case for the defence based on Fonseka’s protestations but a matter for the Law of the Land to decide eventually whether under Civil or Military Jurisdiction or both!

Towards further strengthening the case for the prosecution, according to existing Military Statues any military personnel can be arrested under the Military Act within six months after leaving the service.

Regretably for Gen. Fonseka, agitating through the means he has chosen to while in custody for crossing the fine line between violating  legal statutes and misinterpretation of his authority only seems to compound his chagrin and point to culpability based upon his arguments as the Prima Facie case for the prosecution appears to be a very strong one at this point.

H. L. D. Mahindapala

Among other things the former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva told the media on Monday at the Galadari Hotel that Sri Lanka is not a democracy. Coming from the ex-CJ, this should be stunning news to those who are concerned about Sri Lanka. But this also raises some relevant questions: When did he discover this? Was it when he was on the bench? Or was it after he joined the losers in the JVP-Fonseka gang hoping to be the next Prime Minster if Fonseka won, undercutting Ranil Wickremesinghe? Considering the fact that there is hardly any difference in the political realities of the nation since he left the bench there couldn’t have been much of a difference in the quality and the quantum of democracy in the nation. If, however, there was no democracy when he was on the bench why was he presiding over a judiciary that was not a democracy? But since he is now a great champion of democracy we have to assume that he wouldn’t be a part of a non-democracy. If so he has to prove how democracy lost its status after he left. Well, his main argument is that the arrest and detention of the defeated presidential candidate General (Retd.) Sarath Fonseka, who has plans of making him the prime minister is no longer there to fulfill his ambitions.

Of course, he also brings up the argument that the arrest and detention of his Godfather had violated the Sri Lankan Constitution, Code of Criminal Procedure Act, Army Act, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The intriguing aspect of this is that, rightly or wrongly, Fonseka is not the only person seeking remedies from the law on these issues. For instance, the Tamil lobby states that so many suspected LTTErs too have been held without a trial. So why is Sarath Silva making a song and dance about Fonseka only? How come he did not invoke all these acts in statute books, international covenants and declarations in defence of others like Fonseka when he was on the bench? Was it because he was too busy closeted inside cars parked in lonely places and chasing away policemen who were probing into his awkwardly horizontal activities?

His current public performances are so transparent that one can see that he is not doing it out of commitment to democracy or a determination to uphold the law. Underlying all his public performances there is a clear political objective: it is an overbearing tactical move on his part to virtually intimidate the judiciary to follow his line, imagining that he is still the CJ who can lay down the law. Unfortunately for him he is sitting on the wrong bench. What power is there in the benches of the JVP? He might as well go and fly a kite at Galle Face Green instead of wasting his breath in nearby Galadari?

In any case, his utterances is not the law speaking objectively, holding the scales evenly. This is Sarath Silva speaking for Sarath Silva. After leaving the bench he pinned his hopes and future on Fonseka. He got on his platform and campaigned for him on the understanding that Fonseka would make him the prime minister, leaving Wickremesinghe to whistle in the winds. This alone was sufficient to reveal his character, integrity and his hidden political agenda. He was backed by the JVP who was plotting with Fonseka to undercut Wickremesinghe. For him to jump from bench at Hulftsdorp into the lap of Soma-hansa is not the kind of leap that would win the admiration and respect of the general public. Besides, he is now openly playing a partisan role to save his would-be Godfather. But hanging around with the Soma-hansas is not the way to convince the public that he has the law on his side.

It must be stated that his judicial activism in some instances, though controversial, had its good side. If he was to retain his respect from the people he should have retired gracefully and become a social activist in Buddhist circles, as he pledged once. Instead, he made the same mistake of his Godfather, Fonseka, who never knew when to call it a day. Rather late in the day Fonseka has learnt that old soldiers never die. They just go to face a court martial! And old judges like Sarath Silva too hope never to die. They just continue to dig holes for them go down unceremoniously into oblivion. Right now he seems to very busy cutting the last sod of his own grave. In between he is left with only the last remaining tactic of throwing whatever books he can pick up from the Law Library in Hulfstdorp at his political opponents.

An overview of his legal arguments confirms that the law is a silly ass. Consider this from the news report: “The former CJ said that only commanding officers could make charges against their officers according to section 40 of the Army Act. There were no commanding officers in the army above Gen. Fonseka.”

Going by this asinine law Fonseka could get away with blue murder because there are no commanding officers in the army above Gen. Fonseka who could make charges against their superior officers. (Article 40, Army Act).

Here’s another gem: “If Fonseka committed an offense,” says Sarath Silva, ”there are no provisions to arrest him under the military law because he is the senior-most army commander with four-star general status. However, according to section 36 of the Army Act, only a senior officer can arrest a junior officer, but Gen. Fonseka was arrested by junior officers.” The operative words are “If Fonseka committed an offense…” So let’s assume that Fonseka has committed a crime. According to Silva, no matter what crime Fonseka commits the law can’t touch him because there is no provision in the law for juniors to arrest seniors. Silva considers this law of seniority as an inviolable principle and until the Army produces another five or six generals no one should touch Fonseka.

In other words, Silva is saying that an Army with only one General can get away with any crime because there are no other officers of equal rank. As they say in the vernacular, this must be the law of King Kekilay. This is not law but a loophole which he is trying to exploit to save his Godfather. It is big for elephants and criminals to go through with the least inconvenience. But with his legal experience he should know that judicial activism has invariably stepped into the fill the gap whenever such glaring unjust loopholes come up. After all, isn’t a crime a crime irrespective of the seniority of the criminal? What kind of justice will exonerate a criminal purely on seniority?

The news report also said: “The former CJ said that only commanding officers could make charges against their officers according to section 40 of the Army Act. There were no commanding officers in the army above Gen. Fonseka.” So if there is no commanding officer above Fonseka does it mean that he is above the law?

Clearly, the law is an ass in this case. It is an ass because the Army Act was not amended to be with the changing times and the evolving needs of the Army. It is still frozen in the colonial times in which it was drafted, according to reports. As I understand it, the acts governing the navy and air forces are changed to suit the new circumstances. There is, therefore, an urgent need to change the Army Act. That’s for sure. In any case, what is the worth of an Army Act (1) if the crimes of a General are not brought within the ambit of the law and (1) if there is no defined law to meet the consequences of his acts of commission and omission?

Amending the law may take time. But, in the meantime, the lacuna in the law should not be made an excuse to let anyone in the army to get away Scot free. The law interpreted in narrow technical terms does not deliver justice. The law also must be applied equally to all ranks, irrespective of seniority. The army cannot march on crooked interpretations of laws.

Sarath Silva should know that the law in this case is an absolute ass. But what is puzzling is why the ex-CJ is blindly following this ass? Could it be that he has become an honorary member of that breed?

Ajit Randeniya

The death last week of David Kimche, one of Mossad’s more celebrated spies fortuitously attracts the limelight to the dirty and unethical foundation on which its largely undeserved reputation as an invincible spy organisation with a legendary record of almost super-human, and at times thrilling, achievements is built on.

 The botched murder of Hamas leaders Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January and the 1997 debacle in Jordan, of the attempted murder of Khaled Mashaal by injecting a poison in to his ear, ending in the capture of its agents by a civilian, started a process of world examination of the immoral and unprincipled manner in which Israelis carry out criminal activity around the world. These ‘failed’ crimes highlighted tthat the “dirty tricks” employed by Mossad are not particularly clever or complex; they simply show that the madness of Zionism removes adherence to any moral or ethical standards.

 David Kimche (pronounced KIM-khee), who died of brain cancer at 82, is a spy despised by other spy agencies including the CIA and MI6,  by some of his colleagues at Mossad, and the more liberal Israeli politicians. In addition to many murders and massacres he was responsible for, Kimche is guilty of erasing the boundaries of espionage that confined it to the necessary, but inherently dirty, national security operation it is: Kimche changed the rules that had lasted since Chanakya and Sun Tzu, that espionage is a national ‘defence’ tool to be deployed without unnecessary provocation.

 Firstly to the man’s background and personal history: David Kimche, the youngest of nine siblings, was born in London to a Swiss Zionist family who escaped to the UK in the 1920s. Kimche immigrated to Palestine in 1946 when he was 18 years old, and graduated from Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he also read for a doctorate later. He also studied at the Institute for African and Asian Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris.

 Kimche chose a career as a journalist at the ‘Jerusalem Post’ newspaper from where he was recruited in the early 1950s by Mossad to work overseas under journalist ‘cover’. According to Israeli sources, Kimche got closely involved in the design of Mossad doctrine and method of operations at this early stage of development of the organisation.

 The Mossad sent him abroad where, in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly to Africa and Asia, as an Israeli diplomat with the cover name “David Sharon” and at times as a British businessman. He had developed advanced skills in deceiving people with a British English accent and courteousness necessary to conceal a devious, cruel and cunning personality and plans: behind the facade of the urbane British gentleman lay a compulsive conspirator.

 Kimche’s major ‘contributions’ to Mossad are considered the refinement of the use of journalistic cover and false ‘official’ identities, and political and economic destabilisation of ‘Third World’ countries by influencing the internal politics using corporate media, Fifth Columns (Sayanims, or Jews living outside Israel as foreign citizens) and other disaffected groups. Later he helped indoctrinate the American establishment including the CIA, especially during the Reagan years, to adopt the same techniques. He rose in the ranks of the Mossad to the position of deputy head (for external relations) but resigned in 1979 due to personal enmity with superiors.

 In 1953, Kimche worked under journalistic ‘cover’ in Paris, specialising in developing clandestine links with the armies and secret services in Morocco and Iran. In 1957 he was in Germany, under the Nazi guise, recruiting Germans with a Nazi background to be sent to Egypt as Mossad spies. By using such agents he organised the firebombing of US diplomatic missions in Cairo and Alexandria in July 1954, in order to poison US-Egyptian relations

 In the 1960s, Kimche refined the business of undermining poor developing countries when he worked undercover in Africa when the continent was seen as a key to Israel’s security, posing as a journalist again,.

 His primary ’modus operandi’ was based on shoring up the power of Christian ethnic groups, and other disaffected minorities in Africa by befriending military cliques affiliated with them. He used Israeli aid which included military training and support (financed by the CIA) to establish Israeli foothold. One of the African leaders Kimche helped to groom through this process was Col. Idi Amin of Uganda!

 Leon T. Hadar of the American University in Beirut wrote, that Kimche was “the man with the suitcase, who would appear in an African country a day or two before a major coup and leave a week later after the new regime was firmly in control, often with the aid of Israeli security teams.” Kimche is widely believed to have been behind the 1965 coup in Zanzibar that toppled the pro-Arab Muslim government. He was in Zanzibar during the coup.

Kimche later supervised Mossad agents who infiltrated Arab countries, was involved in the unit responsible for the security of Jews around the world, and was a founder of Mossad’s research department. Kimche’s activities were part of an Israeli effort to establish ties with non Arab entities on the “periphery” of the Middle East such as Iran, Egypt and Turkey, and the Maronite community in Lebanon, a role that would come to haunt him later.

 A few months after the former Irgun terrorist Menachem Begin came to power in Israel in the 1977 election, Kimche utilised his ties with the Moroccan secret service to convince King Hassan to play the role of middleman between Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had been deceived through concocted Mossad ‘intelligence reports’ concerning an assassination attempt by elements within the Egyption army, and a Libyan campaign against his regime.

 Together with such shadowy figures as Adnan Khashoggi, Kimche formed an Israeli-Saudi-Iranian alliance under US sponsorship, purportedly to counter radical forces in the region, but greatly enriching the alliance’s creators through arms deals to Arab governments. Kimche initiated relations between Lebanese Christians and Israel in the 1970s.

 Kimche’s role as one of the architects of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon destroyed his reputation as a cautious operator. Though he tried, with little success, to distance himself from some of the murderous policies of Aerial Sharon, the Lebanese invasion and the Sabra and Shatila massacres of more than 3500 innocent Palestinian refugees put the first nail in Kimche’s professional coffin.

 The Iran-Contra affair under which he sold weapons to Iran under the guise of rescuing American hostages, but in reality to fuel the Iran-Iraq war and to strengthen Israeli agent and former President Ali Akhbar Rafsanjani, destroyed what was left of Kimche’s career. Kimche was subpoenaed by the U.S. federal grand jury investigation in to the affair, but with the support of the US Zionist lobby he avoided having to testify.

 In 1994, Robert C. McFarlane, Head of the US National Security Council  wrote in his memoir “Special Trust”  that Kimche in 1985 proposed the assassination of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in order to clear the path for a more moderate Iranian faction. McFarlane told the “60 Minutes” that Mr. Kimche told them that “there was a way of gradually infusing poison, that [Khomeini] would consume presumably in food.” Mossad later allegedly poisoned Yasir Arafat with the help of his personal chef.

 Kimche rose to Mossad’s second-highest post but left in 1979 over a dispute with his superior. He was appointed director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry by his old friend Itshak Shamir. He held the job until 1986 when he resigned to enter “private business” of international arms dealing. Kimche entered in to partnership with Shaul Eisenberg, veteran spy who became a weapons dealer and the richest man in Israel.

 Shaul Eisenberg who died of a heart attack in Beijing in 1997 and referred posthumously, simply as Shaul Eisen, is an ‘interesting’ pariah in his own right: Eisenberg, settled in the Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II, helped form the future Jewish terrorist groups Irgun and the Betar.

After the war Eisenberg became the owner of network of Israeli Aircraft, Navigation and shipping companies and other trading corporations in Israel, engaged in secretly exporting Israeli military equipment and weapons to insidious dictatorships around the world such as Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Pol Pot in Cambodia. The weapons were later known to have been diverted from Cambodian government warehouses to guerrilla groups throughout Asia, including the Tamil Tigers, Hmongs in Laos, the US-backed reactionary ‘Free Vietnam Movement’, and Burmese tribal guerrilla groups by Mossad and Cambodian criminal syndicate.

 Some in the so-called ‘Intelligence’ community do not believe that, as announced ‘officially’, Kimche  died of brain cancer: knowing the man, they believe that his hatred for the former  employer may have motivated him to ‘time’ his exit so that the public scrutiny of Mossad would continue a bit longer.

 Nothing will save David Kimche!

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1

March 15, 2010

Hon. Deepak Obhrai, MP  
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of  Foreign Affairs
Government of Canada   
House of Commons, Ottawa  
 Dear Deepak:

This is a continuation of my letter to you of March 13, 2010, on ‘Canada asks Sri Lanka to start talks with Tamil Groups’  when you had requested Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara – “Canada has asked Sri Lanka start talks and the reconciliation process with the Tamil groups, saying such a step is crucial for lasting peace in the country.”

And I asked you, “Did you let the High Commissioner know which group(s) that Canada wishes Sri Lanka should engage in talks with?”

I am not sure whether the Canadian government really knows what it is getting into when you try to dabble in Sri Lankan politics.  I really don’t think you all do.  In case your researchers missed this comment by the spokesperson for the Canadian Tamil Congress who said on Saturday in Toronto that “…The TNA (Tamil National Alliance) has not abandoned its four co-principles which include a separate homeland for Tamils”.

Now you got two Tamil groups, the Tamil National Alliance and the Canadian Tamil Congress that you may want to choose from  among others (will mention later) to ask the Sri Lankan Government to “start talks with”.

I hope you noted that the Canadian Tamil Congress has told explicitly that they want a “separate homeland for Tamils,” too.

This was the very reason  why – Sri Lanka was involved in a 27 year war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE aka Tamil Tigers);

This was the very reason why – by the end of the war which happened on May 18, 2009, the world saw  over 100,000 Sri Lankan citizens killed including the combatants;

This was the very reason why – the Tamil Tigers recruited over 5,300 child soldiers, boys and girls for combat and saw a whole generation wiped out at war as they fell along the frontline like poppies scythed, sent in as cannon fodder by the adult Tamil Tigers, and UNICEF could do sweet nothing about it other than counting the numbers that were recruited;

This was the very reason why – the Tamil Tigers assassinated two Heads of States, Rajiv Gandhi former Prime Minister of India  (21 May 1991) and President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka (1 May 1993);

This was the very reason why -  the Tamil Tigers assassinated Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Laksman Kadirgamar (our Hon. Lawrence Cannon);  Ranjan Wijeratne, former Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister and State Minister of Defence (our Hon. Peter MacKay) ( 2 March 1991); assassinated former Opposition Leader and leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front A. Amirthalingam 13 July 1989 (our Hon. Michael Ignatieff); assassinated  Sri Lanka’s Minister of Industries C.V. Gunaratne (our Hon. Tony Clement); assassinated three Mayors of Jaffna Alfred Duraiappah, Sarojini Yogeswaran, P. Sivapalan (like our Mayors of Quebec City);

This was the very reason why – Canada during the Liberal administration of 13 years let the Canadian Tamil Diaspora collect two million dollars a month for 13 years to stuff the Tamil Tiger war chest to buy  sophisticated weapons;

This was the very reason why – the Canadian Tamil Tiger sympathizer front group  cut a 7 ½ million dollar cheque from a bank in Vancouver in 1994 to purchase 50 tonnes of TNT and 10 tonnes of RDX explosives from the Rubezhone Chemical Plant in the Ukraine;

This was the very reason why – these explosive materials were used in a truck bomb to bring down the Central Bank Building in Colombo on 31 January 1996 killing 114 and maiming 1,400 others for life;

This was the very reason why – the above explosive materials were used to bomb the Buddhist Temple of the Buddha’s Tooth in Kandy the most revered Buddhist precinct in Sri Lanka;

This was the very reason why – the Tamil Tigers ethnically cleansed the North of Sri Lanka by stoning and chasing 400 Sinhalese students and lecturers from the Jaffna University campus in August 1977; and chased 100,000 Muslims in October 1990 giving them just 24 hour to leave town making Idi Amin of Uganda look like an angel who had a heart to give Ugandan Indians three months to get out;

This was the very reason why – the human suicide body pack was invented by the Tamil Tigers which is now being used as an effective weapon by Taliban and other terrorists organizations around the world, and by April 2009, the Tamil Tigers had their 388^th  human suicide bomb detonated killing hundreds;

This was the very reason why – we saw the Tamil Tigers having a naval wing, the Sea Tigers;

This was the very reason why – we saw 11 Tamil Tiger arms ships, all owned by  this terrorist outfit detected  scuttled or destroyed by the Sri Lankan and Indian navies : MV Sun Bird (Dec.1990), MV Tongnova (Nov.1991), MV Ahat (Jan.1993), MV Horizon (Feb.1996), MV Fratzescom (Nov.1997), MV Mariamma (Mar.1998), MV Showamaru (May 1999), Thai authorities discovered half-built mini submarine in Phuket, unarmed vessel off Kalmunai (Sept.2006), unarmed vessel off South of Dondra (Feb.2007), unarmed vessel off South East of Arugam Bay (Mar.2007) and the fishing trawler Sri Krishna (May 2007);

This was the very reason why – the world saw the first terrorist organization in the world, the Tamil Tigers have an air wing with four Czech ZLIN 143 planes which were converted into night bombers;

This was the very reason why –  the Tamil Tigers built seven air strips in the North of Sri Lanka for the use of their air wing of which two were long and wide enough with the intention of  landing large cargo planes at night filled with war weapons;

This was the very reason why – we saw the brutal riots on July 25 1983, when the 12 bodies of the soldiers who were assassinated in the North in an ambush by the Tamil Tigers were brought to Colombo for burial, the Sinhalese went berserk and went after the Tamils.  This was the culmination of a decade of killings, harassing and ethnic cleansing of the Sinhalese by the Tamil Tigers.  In that riot 345 Tamils were killed, Tamil businesses were destroyed and thousands were made homeless. What has not been mentioned in the media is that during the riots thousands of Sinhalese homes took in their Tamil friends and guarded them for days from their own angry Sinhalese rioters. My family took in and guarded three such Tamil families who were our neighbours. That was when the Tamils came out of the wood work from every nook and corner of Sri Lanka to get on planes and fanned out around the world bypassing their Homeland Tamil Nadu just 18 miles away over the Indian Ocean where 61 million of their Tamil brethren live, searching for greener pastures and 250,000 landed in Canada saying that they were scared to live in Sri Lanka where they were discriminated and persecuted.  But when each one of them got their Canadian passport, the scare to walk on Sri Lanka’s soil and breathe Sri Lanka’s air vanished and they all got on a plane and flew back to Sri Lanka for holidays and visit their relations singing their anthem “O! Canada, what a bunch of fools you are….”;

This was the vey reason why – a horrendous prison riot broke out on July 25, 1983 at the Welikade Prison in Colombo when angry Sinhalese inmates wielding clubs and iron rods broke into the wards housing the convicted Tamil terrorists and  killed some of them;

This was the very reason why – leaders of the competing Tamil terrorist organizations were assassinated by the Tamil Tigers to take supremacy for the cause of getting their mono-ethnic, racist Tamil state, Eelam – Uma Maheswaran (PLOTE, 16 July 1989); Sri Sabaratnam (TELO,  May 1986) and Kandaswamy. Pathmanabha (EPRLF, 19 June 1990); “Oberoi” Thevan (TELA, 14 August 1983);

This was the very reason why –  the Canadian Parliament sat on 4 February 2009 at 6:30 in the evening to have an ‘Emergency Debate on Sri Lanka’ ( I called it the Tamil Tiger Blarney Gong Show) when NDP’s Paul Dewar accused the Sri Lankan Government for using ‘cluster bombs’ which was an out right lie; when Liberal Jim Karygiannis asked, “My question to my learned friend is this. Is this not something similar that would require the R2P, responsibility to protect, and especially of the Tamil nation? In Sri Lanka, there are two diasporas, two nations: the Tamil and Sinhalese (Deepak, that’s a load of cods wallop); when Liberal Albina Guaneiri said, “The, the darkest moment, July 1983, over 3,000 Tamils were killed, many burned alive” (Deepak ,where the hell did she get these numbers? She has multiplied the deaths by 10. Wow Lady!  The Tamil propaganda is certainly working well in the Canadian parliament corridors); when Liberal John McKay said “This conflict cannot be won militarily even if the Government of Sri Lanka is under the illusion that it can win this war militarily” (How wrong he was.  The Tamil Tigers were wiped out completely militarily 3 months later on May 18, 2009);  when Liberal Maria Minna said, “…what we have today which is the horrible humanitarian crisis which has trapped 240,000 people in an area that they cannot get out of at the moment…” (Deepak, was she sleeping since July 2006 to suddenly wake up when she realized that the Tamil Tigers were going to be wiped out soon.  No tears flowed down her cheeks for  these 240,000 Tamils as they were herded like cattle from the west coast in Mannar to the east coast as a human shield by the Tamil Tigers while they were pushed back by the  Armed forces into oblivion).

This was the very reason why – we had several thousands of Tamils harassing the public in Ottawa and Toronto during rush hour demonstrating with a sea of Tamil Tiger red flags for days last April and May, and we did not have the guts to ask them to go back home and not take the rights and  freedoms of the other citizens away.  Deepak, my wife who normally gets home after work at 5:30 from down town Ottawa arrived around 7:00 in the evenings at our home in Gloucester during those days and I was livid.  Pocks on all of you bastards for taking away my quality time with my wife, I cursed.) .

Deepak, it does seem that our parliamentarians have a very short memory on our recent political history when we showed our resentment when an outsider tried to interfere in our internal affairs, and yet we try to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs.  Hypocrisy at its best, I think.

To nudge your memory here’s what happened.

On an official State visit to Canada in July 1967 to celebrate Canada’s 100 years of nationhood, the French President General Charles de Gaulle ignited a storm of controversy in the Anglophone world when he stood before a crowd of 100,000 Quebecois in Montreal and declared Vive le Quebec libre!  While this implied support for Quebec’s independence was a monumental diplomatic blunder and interference into another country’s internal affairs, it was one that inflamed the passion of some nationalist Quebecois and inspired members of the secession movement.

Following de Gaulle’s remark, the Prime Minister of Canada, Lester B. Pearson cancelled plans for de Gaulle to visit the capital Ottawa and the seat of government, and requested the French President to leave Canada.  Critics of this incident also drew the parallel for interference between Quebec independence and past Franco-German consternation of ownership of Alsace-Lorraine.  Deepak, wouldn’t you say that our interference in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs and telling what to do is a bit of arrogance and an attitude to say that “We are Holier than Thou”?

And here is another for you to recall.   While Canada seems to be overly concerned about the Sri Lankan government wiping out the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world, the Tamil Tigers with no help from NATO, with no help from anyone to be exact, while we are still helping NATO to try and wipe out the Talibans in Afghanistan, our parliamentarians keep forgetting how Canada evoked the WAR MEASURES ACT with draconian powers during the October  Crisis of 1970 to nip in the bud the FLQ separatist movement.

Remember, Canada only had to deal with a separatist armoury of a grand total of 33 firearms, and 21 other offensive weapons including 3 smoke grenades, 9 hand knives and 1 sabre and we had to deploy the Canadian army to walk the streets of Montreal and Ottawa with assault rifles  on the draw ready to shoot to get these few Quebec separatists who were dropping smoke bombs in mail boxes and killed one,  Pierre Laporte, the Quebec’s Labour Minister.  Remember?

But then we saw how the Canadian Parliamentary Gong Show on February 4, 2009, was damning the Sri Lankan Government for going after the Tamil Tigers who had an armoury of millions of land mines and bullets, thousands of claymore mines, AK47s , RPGs,  SAMs, light and heavy machine guns, 15-18mm guns and suicide bomber body packs, etc.

Aren’t we Canadians a bunch of hypocrites, especially the parliamentarians, the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and the Bloc who only see the 100,000 Tamil votes dangling in front of their eyes?

You did ask Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner Chitranganee Wagiswara to tell her government that it should engage in talks with the Tamil groups which you said was a step towards lasting peace in the country.

Perhaps you may want to let her know which Tamil group(s) Canada would like Sri Lanka to engage in talks, as it may be difficult for the Sri Lankan government to pick one as they all want their separate mono-ethnic, racist Tamil state Eelam carved out of one-third of its territory bordered by 66 per cent of the coastline for the present 3.9% of its population among the 22 million peoples of all ethnic groups.

Let me present to you Deepak the ‘dogs breakfast’, and you may want to use the child’s game  – ‘Eenie…Meenie…Mynee…Mo…catch the Tiger by its toe, if it bites you let him go…Eenie….Meenie….Mynee….Mo”, to eliminate one group by one group.  Pick the one  that Smart Alec Canada would like Sri Lanka to talk with from this crowd of Tamil separatist groups – Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC), Global Tamil Forum (GTF), World Tamil Movement (WTM), British Tamil Forum (BTF), Australian Tamil Congress (ATC), House of Eelam Tamils of France, European Tamil Union, Norwegian Council of Eelam Tamils (NCET), Swedish Tamil Forum (STF), Danish Federation of Tamil Associations (DFTA), Tamil Relief Fund (TRF-Malaysia), New Zealand Tamil Society, Wellington Tamil Society, and United States  Tamil Political Action Council. I may have missed a dozen or more.

Perhaps, you may want to play the game of Eenie…Meenie…Mynee…Mo with the Liberals like Maria Minna, Judy Sgro, Albina Gurnieiri, Jim Karygiannis, Derek Lee, John McKay, Bob Rae, John Cannis and Robert Oliphant who have a direct interest in providing their Tamil constituents a separate patch of land in Sri Lanka to form their separate state Eelam.

Once you make the choice on behalf of Canada let me know as I am curious.

Good luck, Deepak.

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe

Conservative Party Member C11255047/Sustaining Donor 11255047

PS: Here is a NEW FLASH which you may wish to share with your Cabinet colleagues –  Hon. Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship & Immigration; Hon. Vic Toews, Minister of National Security & Hon. John Baird, Minister of Transport.

THE LTTE ARE PLANNING TO SEND ANOTHER SHIP WITH INTENDED TAMIL REFUGEES AND WILL LAND AT A COASTAL ENTRY POINT SOMEWHERE. I BELIEVE THAT IT IS IN THE WORKS. AW

ALI SUKHANVER

It is not the gun but the gunner that hits the target. A very sophisticated weapon becomes useless when it comes to unskilled and inexperienced hands. Skill and experience joined together with wisdom can do miracles. Wisdom is the only element which is always important from beginning till the end, in all problematic matters of life. In spite of having a lot of strength and a lot of resources, the USA is still not even near the brink of success in Afghanistan; the only reason behind is the lack of wisdom. The situation is going to get more confusing, more entangling if the US authorities don’t stop preferring the use of force to the application of wisdom. They will have to come out of the dilemma of their misunderstandings first if they want their efforts in Afghanistan bear fruit.

The first and the most grievous misunderstanding of USA is about the Pashtuns. It is almost a criminal point of view that all Pashtuns are Taliban. It might be true to some extent that some of the Taliban have their hide-outs in the frontier area surrounding Pakistan-Afghanistan borders, they have their sympathizers and well wishers there but it does not mean that all people who belong to the Pashtun origin, living in that particular belt, are the supporters of Taliban and they must be crushed brutally with the help of drones.

It has been clearly mentioned in different books on the history of Afghanistan that the tribes living in southern Afghanistan, particularly between Herat and Qandhar and who speak Persian are called Afghans while others living in the rest of Afghanistan, NWFP and Balochistan speaking Pashtu language are called Pashtuns. These Pashtuns are in a clear majority in Afghanistan. According to a recent calculation provided by the CIA, the total population of Afghanistan is 28,396,000. This population is a mixture of different ethnic and linguistic groups. Pashto is spoken most widely in the south, east and south west as well as in western Pakistan. The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group. The Pashtuns and the Afghans have altogether different cultural and traditional values but the US authorities are mistakenly mixing up these two entirely different identities. At present there is a very clear cut division between the Pashtuns and the Afghans. The Pashtuns are aggrieved that in spite of being in majority, they are not given their due share and authority. The US hi-ups and the Indian conspirators are providing full support to the Afghans whereas the Pashtuns are being crushed and maltreated simply because the Taliban belong to the Pashtun origin according to their analysis. More pathetic is the fact that President Karzai is intentionally ignoring them and favouring the Afghans. He has very successfully proved himself a dummy and a rubber stamp. He has ever been trying to stabilize his government by using money to buy loyalties of the Afghan war lords. He is ignoring the fact that this ‘purchase’ of loyalties is a costly affair with limited outcome. As per their tradition, the Afghans may remain loyal to the fund-providers till the time money keeps flowing up to them. When the flow of cash stops the loyalties will shift automatically and the effort will go futile. The Pashtuns are in majority in Afghanistan but the US led Afghan government is never ready to let them play the leading role. The situation can be easily tackled with if the Pashtuns are given a chance of forming a legitimate government in Afghanistan. Such type of government would surely succeed in playing a vital role for a long-term and deep rooted peace in the country.

Taliban are neither a generation nor a race; they are a philosophy. Philosophies are never limited to material boundaries. The US authorities must get rid of this misunderstanding that all Pashtuns are the Taliban. According to a recent survey, the Taliban are losing their popularity in all those areas where just a few years back they were very much popular and lovingly admired. The reason behind this loss of public support is nothing but the cruel terrorist activities going on in the name of Taliban. Suicidal attacks on innocent Pakistanis and Afghanis, the bomb blasts in the mosques and a whole sale massacre of the innocent Namaziz particularly during the Friday prayers have caused a grave loss to the Taliban mission. Moreover as a result of terrorist activities hundreds of Pashtuns living in Peshawar and adjoining areas have lost their lives. If the Taliban were Pashtuns, how could they deprive their own people of their lives in such a painful manner?

In fact the situation is very much confusing and ambiguous. Afghanistan has become a battlefield for various groups of fighters; some of them are striving for the safety of their motherland; some are doing jihad and so many others are taking care of foreign interests. No one is clear what is going to happen next. That is the reason that there are still countless people in Pakistan and Afghanistan who are not ready to accept that Taliban can be involved in such heinous kind of brutalities .They think that all this blood-shed is the artistic work of CIA and Raw and the motive behind is simply to defame the Taliban movement. It is also a fact that the supporters of Taliban are not willing to embrace the Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as the representative of the original and actual Taliban movement. Be it the Afghan Taliban or the TTP, the USA is measuring all of them with the same yard stick, taking them as Pashtuns. Sometimes US war on terror seems the war against the Pashtuns. USA could have been successful in its war against terror if this war were not ‘the war against Pashtuns’. This prejudice approach of the US policy makers towards the Pashtuns is giving birth to a reactionary disliking and unending anger in their hearts .It is the result of this anger and disliking that most of the Pashtuns go with the Taliban in spite of their ideological differences with them. Moreover the drone attacks are adding fuel to fire.

In such a horrid situation all policies of the USA and the Afghanistan government need to be revised. America is still following the old policy of spending money on warlords and old Mujahideens of eighties. All such efforts will once again go waste unless the Pashtuns are given their legitimate right to form government in Afghanistan. Hence change of present government and change in US policy is imperative to succeed in Afghanistan. Pakistan can play a positive role in Afghanistan but unfortunately the authorities that matter have created an environment of distrust between US and Pakistani leadership to manage affairs in Afghanistan. There is a need to overcome such misunderstandings by attending to Pakistan’s concerns and interests if USA is serious and sincere with reference to its objectives in Afghanistan.

The writer is a Pakistan based bilingual analyst on national and international strategic and defense affairs.

LankaWeb Weekly EditorialMarch 16th, 2010

 
No references to ancient history and the inceptions of the Legal Justice System of Sri Lanka nor garbled analytical jargon is acceptable as norms towards defending the guilt of Retd. General Fonseka who has fallen from grace due to his own lack of self preservation, insight and the wisdom to conduct his administrative duties with patriotic benevolence and has furthermore to add insult to injury been baited by the enemies of the State.
 
It is painfully obvious that the Nation of Sri Lanka is rife with undesirables who constantly attempt to undermine what the present Administration does with every good intent but no amount of lobbying for what these types envision as what’s best for the Nation( most often mired in circumspect confused idealogy bordering on the sublime to the ridiculous at times) will ever be accomplished as long as they fail to recognize the great heights reached by the present Administration where even the victims of the horrors of the Elam Insurgency now envision the President and his forces as their saviours and a healthy majority of Sri Lankans uphold his Administrative capabilities !