Sudath Gunasekara

4.7.2018

First of all I request you all to read the following news report attributed to a living tigress, Vijayakala UNP MP and Minister for Women’s Affairs and Child care (Tamils only).

Vijayakala sees need for LTTE in N-E

2018-07-02 22:53:36

It is seen that there is a huge need of reorganization of the LTTE in the North and East, State Minister of Child Affairs Vijayakala Maheswaran claimed today addressing the ‘Janapathi Nila Mehewara’ event at the Weerasingham Hall in Jaffna.

She said that reports relating to traces of LTTE reorganizing are heard regularly as a result of the people in the North and the East not willing to discard the LTTE from their hearts.

Now we remember how we lived before May 18, 2009. In the present conditions our main intention is to bring back the LTTE If we want to live, if we want to walk freely, if we need our children to attend schools and return back.,” she said.

She pointed out that a 6-year-old child had been raped and killed and now people feel why they appointed the present President into power.

She said that they had committed a lot to appoint the President and despite protecting the people he is working to protect party matters.

She also questioned the development carried out in the last three years in the North and East.

We do not know what development they have done in our area. But I only thank the Government for one good thing and that is to release and return our lands to us. Other than that the Government had done nothing to us,” she said.

She also said being a minister in the present administration there is a limit that she can speak against their leader but had to cross the limit on some occasions. (Romesh Madushanka)

Comment

This again and again proves the stupidity and the double standard this Government adopts for the North and the South from the inception.

Why doesn’t the Government take immediate action against this woman on the following three counts at least?

• That she has violated the oath taken as an MP under the Forth Schedule of the Constitution
• Violated the 6^th amendment
• she is espousing the LTTE cause and instigating the youth to rise against the State

All these are clearly criminal offences and they amount to traitorous acts against the State

All these counts could be proved with what is on record as to what she said at that meeting. As such the police can arrest her even without a complaint. So my complaint is as to why the police don’t arrest this woman for treachery.

Now we remember how we lived before May 18, 2009. In the present conditions our main intention is to bring back the LTTE If we want to live, if we want to walk freely, if we need our children to attend schools and return back.” she said.”

Isn’t this statement alone is sufficient to arrest her

She pointed out that a 6-year-old child had been raped and killed and now people feel why they appointed the present President into power”.

Is she trying to say by this that the President has raped this little girl  The whole world knows it was committed  by aging of her own people for which the President has nothing to do or had no power over Vijayakalas own crowed who has done it

This is not the first time she has aired her true LTTE colours and opened her foul moth. She had done so several times even before. Once she has refused to raise the National Flag at a Government function though she is a Minister in the very Government that organized the function. Second she also once refused to honour the National Anthem at a public meeting.

She also has criticized the Government and the President at this public meeting. Had this stupid Government taken action when she did so at the very first time she would not have come out with this kind of rubbish any more?. All other Ministers who attended this meeting have kept dead silent. That implies that they all concurred with her.  I can understand Vignesvarana and Sumanthidaran here. But what I can’t understand is the behavior of other Government Ministers At least they should have objected then and there itself.  They may have done so for the fear of losing Tamil votes.

It is also high time that Government, particularly the President, must put an immediate stop to his duplicity between the North and the South in implementing the law. If his Government could sentense a Buddhist monk Galabodatte for 6 months for an alleged defamation against the court why can’t it takes action against this kind of the Government waiting till Vignesvaran, Sambandan, Sumantidaran and Vijayakala unilaterally declare North and East as Independent States, with the blessings of India perhaps?

The Government must either govern or depart. This is what all people in this country, including  even people like Vijayakala, of this country are asking you Mr President? Please go before a mirror and ask as to what you people have been doing for the past 3 ½ years other than trying to fix your enemies and infighting and taking the country to a no return situation.

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

It is after a long interval I am penning this article as I was bed ridden following a vehicle accident and underwent some surgeries.. During this period there were many articles, news reports and web postings related to the positive and negative socio-economic and political aspects of Sri Lanka which included fortunately Ranil Wickremasinghe becoming unable to force feed the Western, Indian and Tamil diaspora tailored federal and secular constitution, and the failure of the JVP hooligans to get their 20^th amendment to provide dictatorial powers to their buddy and puppeteer Ranil Wickremasinghe passed.

While ignoramus Sirisena made meaningless hollow speeches his bête noir Lanka E News website shreaded him exposing corruption activities of his family members Ranil Wickremasinghe blatently carried out his commitments through establishment of offices at Temple Trees under the directin of despicable individuals like Raeen Sally, George Soros and his IDU (International Democratic Uniion) and MPS (Mont Pelerin Society) colleagues to make Sri Lanka iast losing its economic sovereignty under which Policy choices are being ceded to the US Administration, IMF/World Bank, Western aid agencies, corporate-backed think tanks, transnational corporations, and a small clique of legal and financial consultancy firms in the multimillion-dollar privatisation business, giving advice, then profiting from that advice people and nation becoming dispensable commodities; their labour, wealth, natural resources, economic activities being on auction with foreign bidders determining their worth.

Then there was a blatent interference in the internal affairs of the country by the American Ambassador Atuel Ketchap warning against fielding Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the next Presidential candidate.

A well planned stage drama by Sirisena imprisoning his confidante Gnanasara thero attempt to jumper him and bailing him out while another 15 Buddhist monks are reported to be serving prison sentences wearing jumpers.

On top of all these, the sermon delivered  to a a private audience at Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’a residence on his 69^th Birthday by Ven Venduruwe Upali Thera, the Anunayake of the Asgiriya chapter became the subject of condemnation by neo liberal non practising pseudo Buddhists, reactionary mercenary journalists and quislings suffering from an ailment called Gota phobia despite Ven. Upali Thera issuing a statement blaming politicians for misinterpreting his remarks and those who extracted a couple of words” from his lengthy anusasana. He compared them to those who tried to determine the shape of an elephant by touching only its tail.

Among the protesters of Ven. Upali Thera’s speech blaming it as anti Buddhist included the agnostic Goebbles Mangala who gained notoriety by holding unashamedly and in utter disrespectfully a statue of Lord Buddha by neck at Pinchi Borella a few years ago, western slavish Ranil Wickremasinghe who make use of Buddhism only for political expediency, and a host of neo liberal non practising Buddhistswho are suffering from Gota phobia. The view expressee by these reactionaries had been fittingly countered by the patriotic writers such as Rohana R.Wasala (Island 29^th JUNE0 and Mr. M.P.D.Dissanayake (24^th JUNE – lankaweb) and several others in the Island newspaper and the Lankaweb. It was very strange that the Catholic Anura Kumara or any other JVP hooligans or the dud coin Chandrika, who is also a neo liberal did not make any comments on this matter

Ven Venduruwe Upali Thera

What Ven. Upali had actually meant by his sermon had been expression of his deep sorrow about the deterioration of the country and the need to arrest this trend even by grasping dictatorial measures and liberate this country,. This is the same admonition that had been given throughout the history of this country by the Maha Sangha to King Dutugemunu and other monarchs when they launched their expeditions to liberate the nation when it was in peril and was under foreign aggressiom. At that time fortunately there were no pseudo Buddhists and quislings to oppose such admonitions. .

Let us now examine the story about the alleged holocaust and murder of over 30 millon people by Hitler.  It has been proved that it was a fabricat3d claim by Zionist Jews to gain the land of Israel and the western world has ignored many challenges made so far disputing this claim and there had been several books claiming that Hitler killed only 6 million Jews and he would have brought the whole Europe under his control  if it was not for the intervention by the Russians under the leadership of Joseph Stalin.  This figure of 6 million shows that it is much less than taken altogether the number of  people massacred by the American, the British,  the Dutch. The Belgians, the French, the Japanese and Pol Pot.  For the Western world these are not atrocities against the humanity.

The Americans are responsible for massacring the whole population of the Japanese islands Hiroshima and Nagasakai and it is reported that still the children borne in these islands are borne with brain and physical inabilities.  Americans did not stop with that and wiped out the people in Indo China and North Vietnam wwas a testing ground to test their weapons such as Napalm bombs and attacks by B-52 bombers.  They did not stop with that and carried out massacre of people iunder concocted false pretexts n Iraq, Libya, and Syria and their Syrian mission failed due to timely intervention by President Putin.  Those responsible for these massacres George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Barak Obama are still alive and no action has been taken against them for their crimes against humanity.

In Sri Lanka the British massacred the total population of Uva Wellessa and in addition to that killed all cattles and uprooted all fruit bearing trees and soaked the soil of Uva Welless with blood.  They carried out similar killings in India and their neighbour Northern Ireland, Burma (Myanmar) and several West African nations such as Rhodesia (Zimbabwe),  Zambia, Tanzania, etc.  Similar atrocities were carried out by Dutch in Indonesia, French in Algeria and some East African nations and Belgians in Central Africa, and Japan in the Korean Peninsular and China.  .  It has bgeen reported thyat the Japanese buried Korean and Chinese people alive up to their neck in beach fronts and then chopped off their heads.

Dueing his 5 year tenure as the Defence Secretar Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has not shown any of these unhuman tendencies bu instead rescued neary 300,000 Tamil eople who were being held by LTTE terrorists as human shields.

The latest weapon being used by these enemies of humanity is the concept called neo-liberalism under which they take total control over the territory of nations, their wealth, natural resources and economic activity, national identity and culture will be dismantled,  the ability to determine domestic policy and foreign policy by the nativesw will be denied, and along with it independence and sovereignty through active collaboration of some local stooges such as Ranil Wiciremasinghe.

The horrendous nature of these attrocites is clearly articulated by one of our most distinguished diplomats, Tamara Kunanayakam which is bound to send shivers down the spine of any patriotic Sri Lankan. Based on a public lecture she delivered at the University of Colombo, three articles titled “Sri Lankan sovereignty, non-negotiable!”, appearing in ‘The Island’ from Monday 25th to Wednesday 27th, should be compulsorily reaad by any, who has even the slightest concern for the future of Sri Lanka.

It is under these circumstances that we need a firm personaliy like Mr. Gotabjaya Rajapaksa, the right choice made by Ven. Upali Thera to rescue this country from the domination of neo liberals.

By K. Ratnayake  Courtesy World Socialist Web Site
4 July 2018

Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, a professor at the University of Colombo, is conducting a thinly-veiled social media campaign for a dictatorship in Sri Lanka. Having previously postured as a supporter of democracy, Dewasiri is justifying his backing for a dictatorship by claiming it would be an inducement” for a democratic revolution.”

Dewasiri began his political career as a student radical in the mid-1980s and embraced postmodernism in the early 1990s. He is prominent as an opinion maker among academics, postmodernists, pseudo-lefts and sections of the media and has cultivated close relations with the Colombo political establishment. At the same time, Dewasiri openly opposes Marxism, socialism and the Russian Revolution.

In a Facebook comment, Dewasiri posed the rhetorical question: Why do we need [former defence secretary] Gotabhaya Rajapakse as next President [in Sri Lanka]?”

He then answered: The Sri Lankan democratic revolution would receive an inducement from a person who does not know an iota about democracy and, because of that, who does not hesitate to violate democracy, someone like Gota. Germany became democratic society, highly conscious about democratic values because Hitler came to power.”

The reference to Germany and the rise of the Nazis is telling as the Stalinist German Communist Party (KPD) employed the slogan After Hitler, our turn” to justify their passivity in the face of the danger posed by fascism. What emerged from Hitler’s coming to power, facilitated by the KPD’s splitting of the working class through its ultra-left denunciations of German Social Democracy, was not a turn to democracy but the systematic destruction of democratic rights and all workers’ organisations, and the opening of the road to war and the Holocaust that cost the lives of millions.

While Gotabhaya Rajapakse does not head a fascist movement, he is notorious for his wholesale abuse of democratic rights. An ex-colonel, he was installed as secretary of defence in December 2005 as his brother, former President Mahinda Rajapakse, resumed Colombo’s bloody communal war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

He is directly responsible for war crimes, including the massacre of tens of thousands in the final weeks of the conflict in 2009 and the activities of the military-backed death squads that carried out violent attacks, abductions and the murders of Tamils, political opponents and journalists. He also presided over the brutal crackdown on protests by workers and the poor, and would do so again if he came to power.

The only way of halting the drive towards dictatorship is through a political struggle to unify and mobilise the working class in a struggle for a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement a socialist program. However, just as Stalin and the KPD opposed the mobilisation of German workers, fearing it would trigger a movement of the Soviet working class, so Dewasiri is organically opposed to any fight for a socialist perspective by Sri Lankan workers.

Following up his initial comments, Dewasiri declared: Gota should be made president because he cannot be blocked.” He used an idiomatic term in Sinhala that means that one should kiss the hands of someone who one cannot defeat. He then blamed the Sri Lankan people who voted for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) of Mahinda Rajapakse in local elections in February, falsely claiming that the tendency of the society [in Sri Lanka] is towards a dictatorship.”

In reality, the bulk of the vote for the SLPP was not support for the Rajapakses but a protest against the current right-wing national unity” government led by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. It was helped to power by various pseudo-left groups and NGOs such as Citizens’ Power and the National Moment of Social Justice (NMSJ) in which Dewasiri was a leader.

These groups all campaigned for Sirisena against Mahinda Rajapakse in the January 2015 presidential election claiming that he would usher in a new government that would provide good governance, democracy and reconciliation.” It was a blatant lie. Sirisena had been a minister in the Rajapakse government and is thus responsible for all its crimes. His chief ally—the United National Party of Ranil Wickremesinghe—has a long history of authoritarian rule.

The ousting of Rajapakse was a regime-change operation orchestrated from Washington on the basis of a bogus human rights” campaign. The US, which had backed Rajapakse in his brutal war against the LTTE, was not concerned about democratic rights but the ties that his government developed with China. But the US, and its stooges in Colombo, could not have pulled off the operation without the assistance of figures like Dewasiri who dressed up Sirisena and Wickremesinghe in democratic clothes.

Three years later, the warnings made by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) have proven correct. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government has ruthlessly implemented the austerity demands of the International Monetary Fund and has not hesitated to use the military and the police against the mounting opposition, protests and strikes by workers and the poor. These struggles have produced a major political crisis within the government, which was compounded by its humiliating defeat in the February local elections by Rajapakse’s SLPP.

The response of Dewasiri is symptomatic of a sharp shift to the right by the various middle-class groups that backed Sirisena and Wickremesinghe. Terrified by the emerging struggles of the working class, they are all backing police-state measures to crush any opposition.

Wickremabahu Karunaratne, leader of the pseudo-left Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), is sticking by the government and calling on Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to use the police to silence his rivals. Karunaratne also supports the use of police against striking workers, who he has accused of being in cahoots with the Rajapakses.

Dewasiri has taken different track, throwing his lot in with Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who has issued a call for a strong leader” for Sri Lanka and is campaigning through his right-wing Viyath Maga movement to become the next president. He is backed by Sinhala chauvinist groups, along with sections of the military and big business elite, who are looking to him to crush the working class (see: Ex-Sri Lankan defence secretary calls for brutal big business regime”).

On June 20, Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s birthday, a top Buddhist prelate Vedaruvey Upali urged him: If they call you a Hitler, then be a Hitler and build this country.” The monk went on to declare that he should become even a military ruler,” in order to end the country’s instability. The reactionary Buddhist establishment is a major prop of capitalist rule in Sri Lanka and this leading monk is expressing the sentiments of sections of the bourgeoisie.

On the same day, Dewasiri displayed Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s photo with a beaming smile on his Facebook page and wished him happy birthday.” This obsequious greeting to an aspiring dictator makes clear that Dewasiri and the middle-class layers he represents are embracing Rajapakse, not because he believes that his victory will usher in a democratic revolution” in the future, but precisely the opposite. They hope that such a regime will viciously suppress the working class so as to maintain capitalist rule and their own privileged existence.

As the SEP alone has insisted all along, the only social force capable of defending basic democratic rights is the working class as an essential component of the political struggle for a workers’ and peasants’ government to implement socialist policies. It is this revolutionary perspective to which Dewasiri and his ilk are utterly opposed.

Source:Global Times Published:2018/7/4 18:13:40

Sri Lanka’s debt problem is a hot topic nowadays. Western media outlets like the New York Times are keen to find fault with the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative (BRI).

This time the South Asian island nation is their target. They are full of gloat when declaring that Sri Lanka was trapped by the loan taken from China for the construction of a port.

They want to send a warning to countries which borrowed from China, forcing them to think about their ability to repay and speculating that defaulting nations will have to forego their land to China as compensation.

They are probably forgetting that China suffered the same problem at the beginning of the 21 century when short-term foreign loans reached 45 percent of the total external debt, above the internationally recognized red line of 40 percent.

Some foreign experts then took the same line as the New York Times, sending a warning to the world and even proclaiming that China’s development would soon meet its Waterloo.

When we look back at the debt problem China experienced in 2004, it appeared as only a brief interlude in the nation’s long symphony of modernization.

By the first half of 2003, the World Bank had lent $36.6 billion to 245 projects in China, making the country its largest and most reputable client. The bank’s lending played a significant role in China’s success, particularly in the development of remote areas.

China was confident of its ability to repay the debt – by sheer hard work and riding on its manufacturing prowess.

China’s experience of overcoming its debt problem has lessons for developing countries.

First, if the bank provides you with a loan, you have the liberty to act according to your ability, but remember, if you are not indebted, probably you wouldn’t want to work harder. Debt puts you under pressure, but is also an incentive. People without debt are not motivated to work harder. Not working harder magnifies the burden of the debt, even if it is small.

Second, infrastructure is of immense importance in the early stages of industrialization. China made full use of the money borrowed from the World Bank for the construction of first-class infrastructure which facilitated FDI to flood in and finally helped create a “world factory.”

When discussing the debt problem of China’s Belt and Road initiative, Western media deliberately overlooked China’s experience and misled the developing countries.

When the loan and the project become a hot political issue, it points at another danger where the situation turns chaotic and different parties join the melee. After this, no one knows how long it is before the situation improves.

India is an example. Everybody knows India suffers from extensive shortage of electricity, but when the power projects were caught up in red tape, there was no end to the wait.

If a nation only concentrates on how much it borrows rather than how to use the money to create new value efficiently, it will be hard to pay it back.

The difference between China and many other countries is when borrowing money, we think how we can pay back by hard work and making more money from the borrowed capital. Debt is not a problem, the problem is the unwillingness to work harder.

In the future, China will pay more attention to the solvency of the recipient countries, but at the same time, under the Belt and Road initiative, the cooperation will not stop at the construction of infrastructure. It will expand to the industrial parks in those countries.

The New York Times report is a reminder that China may need to start building some of the industrial parks and transfer the manufacturing industrial chain more quickly, which will create conditions for the borrower to repay the loan.

It is impossible to replicate the Chinese model in its entirety, but it is not impossible to learn from China’s experience.

The Belt and Road initiative is in its early stages, but the New York Times is in a hurry to come to conclusions.

Could you be a bit more patient, sir?

The author is a senior editor with People’s Daily, and currently a senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. dinggang@globaltimes.com.cn. Follow him on Twitter @dinggangchina

By Ranga Jayasuriya Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The recent story by New York Times that China Harbour Engineering Company financed the 2015 election campaign of ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa has caused ripples in politics. That they are only ripples and not tidal waves may imply a degree of political maturity of the government, unseen when it came to power in 2015 and suspended most of Chinese funded projects. That the government has so far reined in its ranks from pouncing upon MR and more importantly China, the largest bilateral lender, is also a somewhat departure from the usual Sri Lankan politics where no stone is un-turned to sling mud at the opponent.

According to the New York Times story by its South Asian correspondent Maria Abi-Habib, ‘at least $7.6 million was dispensed from China Harbour’s account at Standard Chartered Bank to affiliates of MR’s campaign, according to a document, seen by The Times, from an active internal government investigation.’ Abi-Habib alleges that the Chinese loans and inducements effectively created a debt trap and led Sri Lanka to handover the Hambantota port to Beijing on a 99-year lease.

Both MR and the Chinese embassy in Colombo have denied the allegation.

This story does not tell much, other than trying to substantiate the old story of growing Chinese tentacles in Sri Lanka, or for that matter in much of the developing world, via insidious means of predatory loans disguised as development assistance given to autocrats.

• $ 7.6 mn dispensed from China Harbour A/c at SCB to affiliates of MR’s campaign 
• Abi-Habib alleges the Chinese loans, inducements created debt trap and led SL to handover H’tota port to Beijing on a 99-year lease
• MR and Chinese embassy in Colombo denied the allegation
• China’s economic presence, will sooner or later seek to influence domestic politics

That is however a subjective call with subjective geopolitical connotations. In fact, empirical studies of Chinese financing and those of other international lenders such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other regional institutions reveal that their main borrowers are the same countries. For instance, data compiled by Deborah Brautingam and Jyhjong Hwang revealed, three out of top five recipients of Chinese and Word Bank development aid to Africa during 2000-2014 were the same. Same applies in South Asia, where countries such as Bangladesh, which is heavily tilting towards China for infrastructure loans, still have more outstanding loans to Japan than to China. Same has been true for Pakistan until the influx of CPEC loans and Sri Lanka until the loss of access to concessionary loans due to its elevation to the lower middle income status. Other studies have revealed that the long term benefits of  China’s infrastructure loans and those by multilateral lenders in Africa were largely similar.

However, Abi-Habib’s story is important for one reason. She cites ‘an active internal government investigation,’ which allegedly details the disbursement of financing from China Harbor’s accountat Standard Chartered Bank to affiliates of MR’s campaign. Now if such a document exists, the government has a responsibility to reveal it. If it believes doing so would strain relations with China, which it probably will, leaking it to New York Times was not also the most sensible option. My hunch of this document is that its substance is no different from the earlier claims of billions of dollars of stolen funds that the government said it has found in the bank accounts in Dubai. Yes, there may be documents, but, as the past has proved those are an assortment of numbers concocted by a figment of imagination. They are nonetheless good enough to assail your political opponent, and take a swipe at MR as he is plotting to make a political comeback .

But, such gambles however have their own foreign policy cost as we know from the previous experience of the politically motivated suspension of development projects, and their immediate and still felt residual effect on the country’s economy.

This narrative of implied sinister implication of China’s power has concocted a new terminology: sharp power, which are mechanizations adopted by authoritarian states to manipulate and intimidate political and social institutions by preying on the very democratic structures of these societies. Unlike soft power, i.e. the ability of states to affect others by attraction and persuasion rather than the hard power of coercion and payment, sharp power is a sinister form of power that, according to those at National Endowment for Democracy who coined the term, ‘pierces, penetrates, or perforates the political and information environments in the targeted countries.’

However, rather than the power sources that are being used-or even their intended objectives- it is the internal characteristics of the states that set apart sharp power from soft power. So when China allegedly bribes politicians, that is sharp power, when India does the same, that is perhaps , discursive power, when George Soros does it, it is something else.

And then it lumps together, all potential civilian and non-coercive sources of power resources of these supposed authoritarian states into sharp power.

Effectively,  Russia orchestrated fake news that swung elections, Chinese students in Australia, Chinese companies in the West, and probably Chinese scholarships given to government officials, all could well be termed as potential vehicles of sharp power.

Of course, internal characteristics of states can influence their foreign policy as democratic peace theorists- those who claim democracies do not fight wars against each other, partly because their leaders are restrained by their societies and that they also have other means to resolve problems – have argued.

However, sometimes, these broadsided narratives are also part of a strategy of de-legitimization of a rising power, and they fit the template of off- cited description of revisionist power that could be destabilizing for its neighbours and the world.

We are indeed living in the same world. However, given our social economic conditions, we do have priorities different from those of Australians or Americans. Countries should conduct their foreign policy to advance, first and foremost, their self- interest. That would mean, in navigating those real and imagined claims of Chinese mechanizations, Sri Lanka has to assess the larger implications on overall national interest.

We also need to be realistic. Given the scale of China’s economic presence, it will sooner or later seek to influence the domestic politics. On the other hand, China’s regime friendly relations with whoever in power also exposes it to the ire of the opposition parties.

China is not the only country to vie for influence, others too do so through their own agencies, defence attaches and other influence peddling vehicles. There again, the problem here is the murky election financing in Sri Lanka, which needs to be regulated.

However, mingling foreign policy with cut- throat domestic politics is a dangerous gamble.

This is good time to take a swipe at the Rajapaksas, but that could come at the expense of Sri Lanka’s ties with China, and by extension, our long term national imperatives. The government should desist its back-benchers from opening a can of worms.

Follow @RangaJayasuriya on twitter  

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The Appeal Court today issued an interim order staying the proceeding of the Avant-Garde case at the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, against former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and 8 other defendants until October 3, 2018.

China Daily

China and Sri Lanka are committed to pushing forward cooperation on the Hambantota port project and realizing the goal of making Sri Lanka the logistics center of the Indian Ocean, said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.

“This is not only conducive to the economic development of Sri Lanka, but also conducive to regional interconnection and the common prosperity of regional countries,” Spokesperson Lu Kang told a press briefing.

Lu made the remarks in response to allegations that appeared in US media reports, which stated that China’s acquisition of the Hambantota port from Sri Lanka highlights its “debt trap” and ambitious use of loans to gain influence around the world.

Lu said such reports seriously distort the facts, which are either irresponsible or under the orders of people with ulterior motives, “We hope that the relevant media will not be keen on fake news.”

The construction of the Hambantota port is the wish of successive governments and people of Sri Lanka, said Lu, adding that China encourages its companies to cooperate with the Sri Lankan side according to commercial principles and on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

“According to the needs of Sri Lanka, Chinese financial institutions have provided support to Sri Lanka in solving the financing gap. Later, the Chinese side made efforts to adjust relevant asset allocation according to the wishes of the Sri Lankan side,” said Lu, noting that those arrangements will benefit the business cooperation between the two sides.

“If the fabricators of the so-called ‘debt trap’ can not give the developing countries real help, they can at least take a healthy attitude towards the sincere cooperation between other countries,” said Lu.

AMRIT MUTTUKUMARU Courtesy The Island

The brazen duplicity of our politicians unleashed on the people of this country with impunity makes one wonder whether we even deserve a vote. Under no circumstances is the writer advocating even a little bit of totalitarianism. What is amazing is that most of our present day politicians better known for their brawn are doing this to us on a regular basis. What does this say of us?

An excellent current example of such duplicity is the reaction of the UNP led yahapalana government to the ‘New York Times’ exposé, alleging that one of China’s prominent government owned entities – ‘China Harbor Engineering Company ‘(CHEC) had funded the 2015 re-election presidential campaign of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the tune of “at least $7.6 million”.

NYT Exposé

1) UNP parliamentarian Ajith P Perera – State Minister of Power and Renewable Energy states:

“We have reason to believe that Mr. Rajapaksa’s election campaign was funded by the Chinese company”

The company referred to is ‘China Harbor Engineering Company’ (CHEC).

2) In the context of the article alleging “The payments were confirmed by documents and cash checks detailed in a government investigation seen by The New York Times”, why did the government have to wait for the NYT exposé when it had the information necessary to go public?

3) Why did UNP minister Ajith P Perera reportedly inform the ‘Daily Mirror’ that the authorities concerned “could not disclose information on their investigations to the public” when it is obvious that the main source of the NYT article were government documents?

4) Despite having “reason to believe” that CHEC had at least partly funded the 2015 presidential campaign of Mahinda Rajapaksa, why did the yahapalana government continue to have CHEC as the source of funding and main partner in so-called flagship ‘development’ projects, which include the Hambantota Port and ‘Colombo Port City’ now renamed ‘Colombo International Financial City’?

5) UNP minister Ajith P Perera is not the only person to have misgivings on the integrity of CHEC.

6) Dr. Harsha De Silva – Deputy Minister, National Policies and Economic Affairs, whose minister is no less a person than Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, when in opposition while describing the ‘Colombo Port City’ (now renamed) as “Colombo’s largest land scam” alleged that CHEC was “banned by the World Bank” from 2009 to 2017 “after being caught in a string of corruption scandals involving the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Guyana, Papua New Guinea and Uganda.”

http://www.ft.lk/article/257776/Port-city–pump-and-dump–deal–Harsha

He is now a major proponent of the renamed ‘Colombo Port City’. Why is no one demanding that De Silva explain himself? When an ‘educated’ person such as Dr. Harsha De Silva is on record on this matter, what can be expected from the majority of our politicians?

Dual Citizenship

An acid test to determine whether the people of this country – particularly its leaders – political, corporate, professional, NGO and media are serious about combating corruption, is whether they will make a CLARION CALL to forthwith stop the practice of issuing dual citizenship at least until the country reaches an acceptable level of EQUITABLE development. This must be applicable to those holding (i) all elected political office (ii) senior bureaucrats at least at Secretary & Deputy Secretary level (iii) Chairpersons & CEOs of Corporations & statutory bodies (iv) Chairpersons & CEOs of regulatory agencies (v) Heads of entities responsible for law & order (vi)Directors of quoted public companies (vii) Sri Lankan Diplomats. It must also include IMMEDIATE family members of such persons. Any deviation will disqualify those concerned from holding office.

This writer believes that a fountainhead of egregious corruption is divided loyalties and ability to evade accountability. When Sri Lanka is the ONLY COUNTRY of which we can be citizens, would we not nurture the country with love?

The writer will appreciate having the views of others in the larger interest of the country. Howls of protest and castigation from vested interests is anticipated!

Conclusion

An issue that needs to be addressed is the whole gamut of campaign finance and accountability. For starters, will the authorities concerned in government forthwith release to the public domain the documents which allegedly were the source of the NYT exposé?

For a plethora of reasons, which include ‘insurance’ in the context of egregious corruption perpetrated by all sections of the political divide, it is obvious that successive governments will only make stifled noises now and then to give a veneer of hope for the people. For example, where is the opposition outrage in the aftermath of the egregious bond scam whose mastermind has still not been identified? Why is there no concerted demand to hold PM Ranil Wickremesinghe responsible for former CBSL Governor Arjuna Mahendran being able to leave the country and thus evade due process for his alleged role in the bond scam? Was it not the PM who hand-picked Arjuna Mahendran, a foreign national to be CBSL Governor, and was it not the PM, despite the widespread demand not to give Mahendran a second term due to his perceived role in the bond scam, who robustly endorsed him for a second term?

Just consider the ‘games’ being played even to release to the public domain all the documents relating to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which probed the Central Bank Bond scam. In this connection, the Attorney General is reported to have stated that “certain secret documents submitted to the Commission of Inquiry by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Monetary Board, recommendations should be sought from these institutions prior to releasing the documents”. Should not CBSL Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy clarify this?

AMRIT MUTTUKUMARU

By Dr. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA Courtesy The Island

July 4, 2018, 10:14 pm

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’
– WB Yeats, The Second Coming

Though that may change, this island has so far produced only one movement which qualifies as Fascist by international standards. When the LTTE was decisively defeated in May 2009, the prestigious journal The Economist (London) described it as “almost classically fascist”. This was not a journalistic flourish. In his 1999 book ‘The New Terrorism’, Emeritus Professor Walter Laqueur wrote that “in terms of its ruthlessness and fanaticism the only parallels for the Tamil Tigers I can think of are the European fascist movements of the 1920s and ’30s.” This of course meant Mussolini and Hitler. Prof Laqueur knew what he was talking about. When I was an undergraduate, the Penguin/Pelican Reader on Fascism was required reading. It was edited by Walter Laqueur.

Now that the New York Times is all the rage in Sri Lanka, it is worth recalling that John F Burns, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, wrote in the NYT that Prabhakaran was “South Asia’s Pol Pot”.

Vijayakala Maheswaran

So, Vijayakala Maheswaran has just called for a revival of a separatist movement, a terrorist movement and a totalitarian fascist movement. She is a member of the United National Party. She is a Minister of State. She was speaking at an official function. She is not a rehabilitated member of the LTTE Women’s Wing. The statement was not made in the Jaffna university canteen or in an off-campus boarding house after the shades of dusk had fallen. This was as open as it gets and Ms. Maheswaran is as mainstream as you get. Which tells us something about the Northern mainstream. As the late Izeth Hussein, literary critic and diplomat used to say, what do you do when the mainstream is a sewer?

Let us see whether the North passes the basic moral-ethical test, as the South still barely manages to. When a senior Buddhist cleric called for “even a Hitler” and “military rule”, there was immediate negative reaction, just as there were those others, arguably more numerous, who tried to whitewash the reference and spin the statement. What is important is that there was a continuing debate; a critique and counter-critique. So far there has been no negative reaction in the North to Vijayakala’s statement, or the illumined Tamil Eelam map at a religious ceremony in Anaikottai. Let us await the critical voices, but I for one shan’t be holding my breath. Just as there was resistance in the South to the authoritarianism of the regime in the 1980s as well as to the JVP’s Pol Potism, there has been a critique of the Southern Alt-Right’s flirtation, witting or unwitting, conscious or unconscious, with Nazi fascism. This means that the pluralist democratic political culture in the South remains alive. However, the political culture of the North has long displayed an addiction to totalitarianism, and has been morally and ethically dead for quite a few decades.

It is quite clear that there is a large pro-LTTE constituency in the North, which regards Prabhakaran as a hero and leader. This means there is a large fascist or neo-fascist sentiment in the North. In any western society this would be correctly criticized as neo-Nazi sentiment.

Vijayakala Maheswaran just did not care about the exquisite timing of her statement either. She called for a revival of the LTTE a week after a cache of Tiger weapons was intercepted in Oddusuddan and days after a festival at a Hindu temple in Anaikottai sported an illuminated map of Tamil Eelam as backdrop for the image of the deity. Something is rotten in the Northern Province. Something is sick in that society. The videoed glee at the slaying of the leopard was the smallest symptom, but symptom it was.

By her televised remarks, Vijayakala Maheswaran has suicide-bombed the UNP and the project for a new Constitution. The UNP will survive the bombing but has taken a heavy social hit. The new Constitution project which was highly unlikely anyway—as noted by that most intelligent and realistic of Tamil politicians, Dharmalingam Siddarthan—has just been blown to bits by this political suicide bomber, Vijayakala Maheswaran.

Liberals would of course say that Ms. Maheswaran’s statement shows the radicalization in the North and it is precisely to arrest (pun intended) such radicalization and revive the moderate TNA that a new Constitution is needed. Nice try, but it just won’t fly. Northern political behavior even under a politically permissive government at the Center has been utterly provocative, without even the excuse of resistance to repressive rule. It doesn’t get more liberal than this Government and it doesn’t get more precarious electorally than this Government’s current perch and prospects, but the Chief Minister, the Northern Provincial Council, politicians like Ms. Maheswaran, the Jaffna university student movement and sundry civil society organizations have cared so little as to indulge in raucous proto-separatist political discourse and behaviour. This has damaged the government and the UNP just as much as the LTTE’s behavioir did in 2001-2004.

The nature of Northern politics under a pro-Western liberal administration has resulted in a North-South trust deficit that cannot be bridged for years. It has generated a backlash just as the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years of weakness and appeasement generated one in Russian society.

Northern political behavior has created an atmosphere that is the least propitious imaginable for a new constitution. This is probably the worst time for such an experiment. It may not make it through the Cabinet leave alone obtain a two-thirds majority in Parliament. In fact the attempt to move a new Constitution through Parliament may be the trigger for defections on nationalist grounds (or excuses) that can overturn the governmental apple cart. If it makes it to a referendum, that would turn out to be a Brexit or a Chile 1988 moment. Certainly after Vijayakala Maheswaran’s performance, a new Constitution has less of a chance than an entrapped leopard in Kilinochchi.

The cross-party consensus among backbenchers against Vijayakala’s statement which included laudatory reference to the LTTE is a welcome development. Anything less from the UNP ranks and the party would have had a hole blown below its electoral waterline. The cross-party revulsion shows that there is zero-tolerance of the LTTE and para-LTTE sentiment even among parliamentarians who are not unsympathetic to the principle of devolution. Insofar as the Northern political mainstream has not renounced pro-LTTE sentiment, no real North-South consensus is possible, and without such a consensus, no Constitutional reform is imaginable. All that remains is the existing scheme of devolution. Even that is not a given. While there is still a sufficiently broad consensus to entrench existing devolution, a new Government is likely to respond swiftly and sharply to any continued manifestation of political militancy in the North.

The liberal atmosphere should have been utilized to make the Northern Provincial Council work as it was meant to in 1987-88. That was a real chance because of the confluence of two factors—peacetime and a liberal dispensation, unambiguously sympathetic to devolution, in Colombo. This chance was quite deliberately ignored and passed up, in favour of a new Constitution which would be “ekeeya” but not “unitary”!

Not only was the best the enemy of the good, the utopian was the enemy of the feasible and the imaginary of the real. Real gains in the now were passed up for a whole new Constitutional architecture in the supposedly near future. That is the narrative of Tamil politics: no notion of reforms as distinct from total transformation; no strategy of a “long march through the institutions”.

Any push for a new Constitution while Northern politics remains exhibitionistic and militant, is only likely to generate a backlash even against the existing Northern Provincial Council. The only prudent posture currently is a defensive one which can safeguard existing Constitutional arrangements for power-sharing and not an offensive one that drives for a new Constitution.

The nasty negativism of Northern politics, capped by Vijayakala’s unpardonable theatrics, has and will continue to mightily aid the rise of the New Right in the Sinhala areas, shifting the balance between Populism and ultra-nationalism in favor of the latter.

The ideological atmosphere on the island as a whole has never been more foreboding. To return to Yeats, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity”. As blues guitarist Robert Cray sings, “The forecast calls for pain”.

By Saman Indrajith Courtesy The Island

There was no need at all to revive the LTTE terrorist organisation, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament yesterday.

He said action would be taken against State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran for calling for the revival of the LTTE.

Making a special statement in Parliament, the Prime Minister said that what action should be taken against the State Minister would be decided after a meeting with her and listening to her explanation on the alleged statement she had made.

PM Wickremesinghe made this observation, announcing the UNP’s stance on the controversial statement made by Maheswaran.

The PM said the Speaker of the House had already taken steps to hold an inquiry with regard to the matter and the government had looked into the controversial statement made by Maheswaran. “Our political committee met immediately and discussed the matter. Maheswaran will be given an opportunity to tell us her side of the story. Necessary action will follow her explanation.”

Wickremesinghe said that people and the military had laid down their lives to protect the country. Many leaders of UNP, SLFP and Tamil parties had been killed during the time of war. The Parliament was attacked

“We will always safeguard the sovereignty of this country. The LTTE is already banned. There is no need for reviving it. We are still to reach a political solution agreed upon by all communities in the country.  The government under the leadership of President Maithripala Sirisena is currently carrying out the land releasing process. Development is essential for North and East.”

Referring to the commotion made by the Joint Opposition MPs in Parliament on Tuesday, Wickremesinghe said that strict action should be taken against their behaviour. He also suggested that JO made such a commotion to cover up the revelations made by The New York Times as regards the Hambantota port.

The PM said: “These are the very persons who gave party president portfolio to an ex-LTTE head Karuna Amman, who has killed over six hundred police officers. These are the same people who bribed LTTE leader Prabhakaran to win an election. These are the very people who sent the Army Commander who won the war to prison.  How rightful is it for them to make such a big fuss about this when they have acted like this?”

මහජනතාවට නිකුත් කළ සී 350‘‘ ලේඛනයේ ඇස්බැන්දුවක්.නිකුත් කර ඇත්තේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට දුන් පිටු 139 න් පිටු 127 යි.‘කෝප් සමාජිකයින්ගේ හා රවී කරුණානායක පවුලේ දුරකතන විස්තර නෑ.-මාධ්‍ය ඒකකය  CaFFE

ජාතික ලේඛනාරක්ෂක දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව විසින් අද දින මහජනතාව වෙත නිකුත් කරනු ලැබූ ‘සී 350‘‘ ඇමුණුමේ අන්තර්ගතව ඇත්තේ මහ බැංකුවේ නිලධාරීන් හා බාහිර පුද්ගලයින් පැවැත්වූ දුරකතන සංවාද පිළිබද කරුණු පමණක් ඇතුලත් වාර්තාවක් බව කැෆේ සංවිධානය නිවේදනයක් නිකුත් කරමින් පවසයි.

කෝප් කමිටුව පැවැත්වෙන කාල වකවානුව තුල කෝප් කමිටු සාමාජිකයින් හා අර්ජුන ඇලෝසියස් පැවැත්වු දුරකතන සංවාද පිළිබදවාර්තාවක් ද, හිටපු මුදල් අමාත්‍ය රවී කරුණානායක මහතා පැවැත්වූ දුරකතන සංවාද පිළිබද සවිස්තර වාර්තාවක් ද රහස් පොලීසිය විසින් බැදුම්කර කොමිෂන් සභාව වෙත ඉදිරිපත් කරනු ලැබීය. ඒ පිළිබද තෝරාගත් කරුණු පමණක් කොමිෂන් සභා අවස්ථාවේ දී අනාවරණය කරනු ලැබීය.  එම වාර්තා කිසිවක් මහජනතාව වෙත නිකුත් කිරීම සදහා ජාතික ලේඛනාරක්ෂක දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව වෙත ජනාධිපති ලේකම් ඔස්ටින් ප්‍ර‍නාන්දු මහතා අවසර ලබා දී නැත.

ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරයා විසින් ‘සී 350 සිට සී 359‘ දක්වා වන ලේඛනයක් ගරු කථානායකතුමා වෙත යොමු කර ඇත.  නමුත්, එම ලේඛනය මේ දක්වාම පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරුන් වෙත ලබා දී නැත.  පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ සභාගත කර ද නැත.   ‘සී 350 සිට සී 359‘ දක්වා ලේඛනයේ පිටු 139 ක් අඩංගු වේ.  එයින්, පිටු 127 ක් පමණක් ජාතික ලේඛනාරක්ෂක දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව විසින් අද මහජනතාවට නිකුත් කර ඇත.

අප වෙත ලබා දී ඇති වාර්තාවේ මුල් පිටපත ජාතික ලේඛනාරක්ෂක දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව සතුව නැත.  එහි සහතික කළ වාර්තාවක් ද මහජනතාව වෙත නිකුත් කර නොමැත.

රහස් පොලීසිය විසින් බැදුම්කර කොමිෂන් සභාවට ඉදිරිපත් කළ දුරකතන සංවාද ‘කෝප් කමිටු සාමාජිකයින් හා රවී කරුණානායක ගේ පවුලේ සාමාජිකයින්‘ පැවැත්වූ දුරකතන සංවාදන ඇතුලත්වේ.

බැදුම්කර වාර්තාවේ සංවේදී නොවන තොරතුරු මහජනතාව වෙත නිකුත් කරන බවට ජනාධිපති ලේකම්වරයා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට හා මහජනතාව වෙත අවස්ථා කිහිපයක දී ජනමාධ්‍ය ඔස්සේ ප්‍ර‍කාශ කර ඇති නමුත්, එම තොරතුරු කිසිවක් මේ දක්වා ජනගත වී නොමැත. සම්පූර්ණ බැදුම්කර වාර්තාව ප්‍ර‍සිද්ධිය පත් කළ යුතු බව කැෆේ සංවිධානය නැවත වරක් අවධාරණය කර සිටී.

මාධ්‍ය ඒකකය                                              2018 ජූලි 4

Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon
Executive Director/CaFFE
Executive Director/CHR-Sri Lanka
100/19 A, Welikadawatta Road,
Rajagiriya,Sri Lanka.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

The three Channel Four documentaries, Sri Lanka’s Killing fields”, (2011) Sri Lanka’s killing fields: War Crimes Unpunished” .(2012) No Fire Zone, the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka (2015))  are propaganda films intended to support the  war crimes charges against Sri Lanka. They were done to help UNHRC to target Sri Lanka. The films were aimed at gullible television audiences, equally gullible UNHRC members, and the foreign governments which bleat on behalf of the USA.

These three films are like Russian dolls, each film is an expanded version of the previous film. The footage consisted of three segments. The first segment showed the   summary execution of bound, blindfolded, and naked Tamils by Sri Lankan soldiers. Second segment showed images of dead females who may have been sexual assaulted and the third showed suffering civilians in the conflict zone.

The  films   also featured interviews with Sir John Holmes,   head of UN humanitarian operations, British Foreign Secretary David  Miliband, Benjamin Dix, a British UN worker based in Kilinochchi, Gordon Weiss, the UN’s official spokesman in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the civil war,  William Schabas, international human rights lawyer, Steve Crawshaw  and Sam Zarifi of Amnesty International.

The second film Killing fields unpunished”   was prepared because the UN had still not taken action. The ‘final’ film was ‘No Fire Zone’, directed by the prize winning Callum Macrae. This was described as something of an international phenomenon. Not just an agenda setting investigation, but a cinematic tour de force – a stunning and disturbing film in its own right.

It was described as “beautifully crafted and heart wrenching” by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting in Washington, “utterly convincing” by the Globe and Mail in Toronto – and in the UK, Empire noted: “It is vitally important that this feature reaches the widest possible audience”. One critic in Australia described it as the most devastating film I have seen”, whilst the London Film Review says “No Fire Zone shocks on every level. It shocks, it educates, and it convinces” the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said:”No Fire Zone is one of the most chilling documentaries I’ve watched

The leading western countries responded   to these films exactly as expected. British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt issued a statement on 15 June 2011 in which he expressed shock at horrific scenes in the documentary.^[Burt stated that the documentary, along with other evidence, constituted “convincing evidence of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law” and urged the Sri Lankan government “to give a serious and full response”.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd stated that “No-one watching this program could emerge from that undisturbed and we don’t either”. He called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to re-investigate alleged war crimes and examine whether the UNHRC’s original findings [resolution A/HRC/S-11/L.1/Rev.2 passed on 27 May 2009] “can any longer be regarded as well founded”. The Australian Senate passed motion number 323 on 7 July 2011 which, amongst other things, noted that the documentary was “further shocking evidence supporting allegations of war crimes committed during the 2009 civil conflict in Sri Lanka” and called for “allegations of war crimes to be investigated and verified”

In the United States, Congressman Jim McGovern, co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, described the contents of the documentary as “a gruesome example of humans at their worst”.^[39] He went on to say “These scenes provide much more than simply shock value, however: They also are powerful evidence of the need for an independent investigation to hold those responsible accountable for the crimes…If the Sri Lankan government is unable or unwilling to act, then the international community must respond in its place”.

This indicates that the films have achieved their purpose,   which was to catch the attention of the public all over the world, convince them that there was an evil regime in Sri Lanka,  and create a push for a war crimes probe at the UNHRC.  But these films went beyond the bounds of political documentary.   Centre for the Study of Interventionism    said that these films have brought political journalism to a new level, because the message communicated is so specifically interventionist.

The films repeatedly said that the persons directly responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity were Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother ‘Gota bear.’ ‘They were liars’, declared Miliband who came to try and stop the victory.   ‘ They are still in power ‘ moaned Snow,   The military  top  brass who handled the final victory, Prasanna de Silva, 55  division   and Shavendra Silva, 58  division are also specifically charged  with war crimes,

In this manner, these films insult and defame with impunity, a recognized sovereign state, its duly elected President, and its well trained military. Sri Lanka did nothing to squash these films. Channel Four would have taken legal advice for these films, certainly, but  if Channel Four had   tried   this  stunt with  say  a  powerful  corporate body, like a high ranking bank,  (unlikely)   Channel Four  would have been promptly taken to courts, sued for everything it had and made to close down.

Even before the film Killing fields” was shown, British broadcasting regulator Ofcom received 13 complaints about the film. These were rejected on the grounds that the documentary hadn’t been broadcast yet. Thereafter between 14 June 2011 and 4 July 2011 Ofcom received 171 complaints.  The majority of the complaints were that the documentary was misrepresentative and misleading. There were complaints of impartiality, offensiveness and misleading material. The government of Sri Lanka publically branded the video a fake and lodged a series of complaints with Ofcom.

Ofcom held an inquiry and dismissed the complaints. Ofcom concluded that “overall Channel 4 preserved due impartiality in its examination of the Sri Lankan Government’s actions”, “the audience was not materially misled” and that the images included in this programme, whilst brutal and shocking, would not have  upset its late night audience. It carried very clear warnings about the nature of the content”.

But criticism did not end there. Shyam Tekwani, an expert in terrorism & media at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies who has extensively covered the Sri Lankan conflict, compared the “tone and tenor” of Sri Lanka’s killing fields” to that of productions by the LTTE’s propaganda wing, the Truth Tigers. There is clearly an effort to sensationalize and shock with carefully selected and edited footage. The slant is pronounced, he said. But the attempt to provide a stomach-turning narrative is on shaky ground. The volume of testimony it uses as evidence is not enormous and most of it is derived from leading questions. The documentary invites an investigation into its own credibility and accountability to journalistic norms, concluded Tekwani.

Sri Lanka strongly objected to these films. Government of Sri Lanka stated that, the conduct of Channel Four has fallen well short of the standard and fairness expected of a responsible television channel.

Sri Lanka journalists confronted Channel Four reporters at Commonwealth Heads of State conference in Australia (2011). They said that the films distorted events, it was unethical reporting and a disgrace to journalism. The Channel Four representative  was  unshaken. When told ‘you put people in shadow’ came the bland reply, ‘they were scared.’  The Sri Lanka journalists were not named in the film, but I think it was  Rajpal Abeynayake with Shamindra Ferdinando joining him.  (”Killing fields unpunished”)

There was  some public  resistance too. Channel 4 film  crew had come to Sri Lanka during the CHOGM sessions in Colombo, (2013) but were forced to turn back on their way to Jaffna. The crew had come by train.  Protestors has sat on the railway line and not permitted them to proceed. The police had sent them back to Colombo by van.

Now let us look at the content of these films, starting with the title, Sri Lanka’s  killing fields”. Sri Lanka’s  ‘killing fields‘ were  not killing fields at all, they were the three NFZs created by the government , which the LTTE refused to recognize as NFZs. Channel Four ignored this important fact and declared, In these killing fields tens of thousands were destined to die, targeted by government fire,”

The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term “killing fields” for the fields in Cambodia where a million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime, between 1975 to 1979. There is no comparison between Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge forces and Sri Lanka‘s well trained armed forces. Eelam War IV was a civil war between the legitimate army and a secessionist group funded and supported by the west. In equating Eelam War IV with Cambodia, Channel Four is   also implying that this war was nothing more than a baseless killing of ‘innocent Tamils’.

The Channel Four films are pro-Eelam film. One film carries a map of Eelam, starting from Kalpitiya and ending near Yala. The films ooze sympathy for Tamil separatists. They present Prabhakaran and Balasingham in heroic mode, refer to ‘hardline Sinhala nationalists’ and give a twisted interpretation of the Eelam War. This was an unequal war. The government had aims from China. The final stages of the war were very bloody,  about 40,000 died.

Civilians were herded into the NFZs, corralled into an ever decreeing area of land, and killed. ‘As the civilians fled the government followed/’ ‘Civilians fled away into what was left of the NFZ they were fired on as they went.’ The films imply that this was genocide. Tamil civilians are shown as an innocent group, facing a demonic President and a trigger happy army, firing left and right, and using heavy weapons as well. ‘The moment you stood up a bullet would hit you, said Vany Kumar. ‘This would be followed by a second bullet, so that anyone who ran to help the injured would also be hit. ‘So we only go to tend the injured half an hour later. ‘

If there really was carnage at the end of Eelam War IV, the LTTE     could have broadcast the event immediately to the world, in real time. They had the technology. Pulidevan was in touch with Frances Harrison of the BBC by satellite phone, right up to the last day of the conflict on 18 May 2009. He was also in contact with prominent South Indian on this satellite phone. On the evening of 17th May 2009 Marie Colvin, of The Sunday Times  had received a  phone call from the LTTE political head Balasingham Nadesan.

The real carnage in the Eelam war could be found in LTTE brutal attacks on the border villages where they killed with machetes, and knives. Those attacks were mass murder. It was ethnic cleansing, it was hatred. Photographs depicting the carnage, dead bodies, bloodied and spread eagled, appeared in the newspapers at the time. There were also the LTTE attacks at Anuradhapura and Arantalawa, both premeditated. Further, LTTE had tortured the Sri Lanka soldiers it took prisoner, eyes gouged out, tongues removed. Channel Four is silent about these  events.

The script writers of these films  first looked through Common Article 3 and Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions and made a list of the war crimes that could be applied to the last phase of Eelam War IV. The script writers  then structured the films around these ‘war crimes’. In the process, they taught rudimentary IHL to the watching audience.

The war crimes discussed in the films are (i) systemic killing,   (ii) arbitrary executions ,(iii) humiliation,   degradation and (iv) sexual assault of  prisoners,  (v)killing civilians, (vi) killing wounded and sick,( vii) killing those who  surrender, (ix) denial of  food and medicine to civilians not  yet killed and (x) firing ammunition at hospitals.

These war crimes were presented in a novel way. They are presented through first person reports, but  the speakers are both anonymous and invisible, like ghosts. These ghosts come out with statements which exactly match  IHL. They said that advancing troops tortured and shot civilians instead of evacuating them, that food and medicine was denied to civilians, and that PTK hospital was shelled and that there were 65 attacks on medical posts.

Channel Four caught the audience with one particular shot. A naked, blindfolded man with his hands tied behind his back is brought in, sat down on the ground and then shot. This was first broadcast on Channel 4 News on 25 August 2009. This had an immediate impact. Each succeeding film therefore elaborated on this scene, more and more naked , dead males were  shown. The final shot was of a collection of dead naked males, laid out in two neat rows, not piled up. (41.58. KF)  In all these shots, except for one or two, the private parts of these males cannot be seen.  They are angled out, as in posed photographs. One ‘dead’ person was covering his private parts with this arms. (36.40 NFZ).  In addition, the soldiers are  made to look sadistic.  One soldier kicks the head of a dead body. Others are shown dragging along naked bodies of women ‘This one has the best figure”.

Channel Four had to explain how they got this footage. Channel Four said that the video was authentic, it was  filmed by a Sri Lankan soldier on his mobile phone in January 2009. It was given to Channel 4 by members of the armed forces who were shocked at the some of the acts carried out due to orders from above. A ghost informant added that he had a collection of photographs of summary executions and killings of those who had surrendered.He claimed the photos were taken by a high ranking army officer on his personal camera.

The charge that the Channel Four films are a prize fake can be easily accepted. The films reek of bogus. Firstly, there is none of the tension and  panic that you would see in a true artillery attack. There is no indication of urgency,(  21.46 NFZ  ) or agitation.( 23.25 NFZ) in these films. Contrast this with the well known shot from the Vietnam War, of a  naked 9-year-old girl running for her life after a napalm attack in 1972.

There are no geographical markers at all. The NFZ scenes could have taken place anywhere. The endless hospital and patient scenes could have been filmed  at one go, in one place. They  looked posed, they are all are well centered and framed. The wounded are covered profusely in blood and bandages.

Certain shots are definitely posed. Father with dead child stops crying and assumes his normal  face, just before the shot ends (27.05 NFZ/ 20.45  KF). The man coming towards the corpses, at 23.25 NFZ,  is not at all agitated. A man and woman  are praying in fright, in the middle of a street, but  those around them are walking and talking normally, quite unperturbed. (16.39  KF)  A  girl  is running away from camera, but others are cycling leisurely towards the camera (10.35 NFZ) .

There is too much awareness of the camera. The ‘grieving’ man in ‘No fire Zone’  at 44.29  looks down, then looks up at the camera inquiringly and looks down again. A family is shown  departing but  the  children are  looking at camera. (22.48 NFZ) A group is huddling in a shallow trench. One person  is getting      ready to lie down, the other  is  looking back at the camera (  13.48  KF, 20.21 NFZ). Some shots   are most unconvincing. PTK hospital, after a severe artillery attack, emerges perfectly intact. (15.31 KF) A collection of vans near an artillery  strike are also  untouched and undamaged.

These films invent a nice story about Prabhakaran junior, the son of Velupillai Prabhakaran. The improbable story given in the film is that the LTTE sent the boy to surrender to the army, accompanied by five bodyguards. The army killed all five body guards, took Junior prisoner, questioned him about his father’s whereabouts, gave him a ‘bunis’ to eat, then killed him with, not one but five bullets. One would expect the military to be able to kill at close quarters with one bullet. The film included   two pretty shots of a fat contented boy. Then a photo of a dead boy.

Vany Kumar provides the female interest in the films. A British Tamil who has, improbably, bounced into the war zone at the height of the war from her safe abode in London, she appears in all the films, talking nonsense throughout. For instance she goes to assist at a hospital after an artillery strike and is surprised to see ‘so much blood ‘. She is the mouthpiece for Tamil hype and exaggeration. She says she has never seen anyone as beautiful and charming as the LTTE announcer Isaipriya. She contributes nothing to the film, except to confirm that it is a fake. (CONCLUDED)

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane  

Noise can have a pronounced physical effect on our brains resulting in elevated levels of stress hormones. Studies have proven that silence is good for your brain and by maintaining silence, one can feel less stressed, more focused, and more creative. Silence releases stress and tension in the brain and body, while noise bring about stress and tension. The brain can restore its finite cognitive resources in environments with lower levels of sensory input. When the brain is disengaged from external stimuli, one can tap into one’s inner stream of thoughts, emotions, memories, and ideas. Engaging this network helps us make meaning out of our experiences, empathize with others, be more creative and reflect on our own mental and emotional states. Silence and meditation practices help us think deeply and creatively. Research has revealed that two hours of silence daily lead to the development of new cells in the hippocampus, a key brain region associated with learning, memory, and emotions.  During silence, the brain actively internalizes and evaluates information and has the freedom it needs to discover its place in your internal and external world. This default mode of the brain helps you think about profound things in an imaginative way during silence.

Those who meditate on a regular basis, cite meditation’s ability to hone the mind, reduce stress and promote tranquility. Silence helps to enhance these same inner transformations. During silent meditation, one withdraws from the external world, not affected, or bound by thoughts, sensations, and their effects, and reach a state in which one feels at peace. With peace, comes the end to fears and expectations, anxiety and stress, and the ability to see yourself as you truly are. Self-reflection is important for human development and learning. We need moments of silence to reflect on our experiences, to discover who we are as individuals, what kind of relationships we desire, and what we value and believe about life. Tuning out the noisy world helps people to develop the ability to reflect and grow. Experiences alone are not enough. What is critical is an ability to perceive and then weave meaning from the threads of our experiences. Here, silence is of immense significance because it enables one to enjoy the gratification of the learning that emerges from within.

Self understanding at the deeper level, means complete awareness and understanding of one’s inner self”, and realization of the true nature of what one conventionally understands as oneself or self”.  This calls for silent contemplation, sustained effort, and wisdom. It takes practice, perseverance, and patience. It is such a quiet mind that can understand reality and states of mind which it has never experienced before. It is such a healthy mind that can lead one to a deep sense of well-being, serenity and flourishing.  

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane                                                                                                  

Lankaweb Weekly Editorial

July 2nd 2018

State Minister of Child Affairs Vijayakala Maheswaran  has had the audacity make a public statement to the effect that “the LTTE needs to be revived ‘ which is a mind boggling suggestion by her that is not only treasonous but also a violation which points to a suggested breach in National Security and incitement to the Tamil people to help  re – organize the LTTE  and calls for a full investigation.

There should be zero tolerance towards such irresponsible people especially those holding public office .It is treasonous as it suggests a revival of the malefecient terror group which almost destroyed the Nation but was quelled and annihilated with the brave and concerted efforts of a forceful President and his Armed Forces.

She has said in a public statement obviously with no decorum , insight nor intelligence that quote –

” It is seen that there is a huge need of reorganization of the LTTE in the North and East, while addressing the ‘Janapathi Nila Mehewara’ event at the Weerasingham Hall in Jaffna.

She  has said that “reports relating to traces of LTTE reorganizing are heard regularly as a result of the people in the North and the East not willing to discard the LTTE from their hearts”. However it needs to be said that it could well be an expression of her own sentiments where she has no right to such, as it portrays her as an LTTE sympathiser where her puerile dogma is plainly visible and  should never be tolerated remembering the attrocities of the LTTE.

She also saysNow we remember how we lived before May 18, 2009. In the present conditions our main intention is to bring back the LTTE If we want to live, if we want to walk freely, if we need our children to attend schools and return back.,” which has a touch of ingratitude to it considering how well the Tamils of Sri Lanka are treated today and perhaps a misinterpretation on her part  where she takes kindness for weakness.

She pointed out that a 6-year-old child had been raped and killed and now people feel why they appointed the present President into power.” a whole collection of worthless  albeit typical  LTTE jargon without a semblance of related truth to it beyond speculation and innuendo where the perpetrators of such attrocities could well be LTTE supporters.

She said that they ( presumably the Tamils) had committed a lot to appoint the President ( food for thought indeed ! ! ) and despite not protecting the people, he is working to protect party matters.

She also questioned the development carried out in the last three years in the North and East. We do not know what development they have done in our area. But I only thank the Government for one good thing and that is to release and return our lands to us. Other than that the Government had done nothing to us,” she  has said quite blatantly disregarding the full compliment of grants and considerations which have been extended to the Tamils as an accepted  part of Sri Lanka’s infrastructure.

She also said ” being a minister in the present administration there is a limit that she can speak against their leader but had to cross the limit on some occasions” probably without realising that she has already commited herself to an indictable offence violating the laws of the land and more than crossing the limit to openly support and call for the recussitation of the LTTE.

While it has been known for some time now that there are sources like the TNA and some underground covert operations attempting to revitalize the extinct LTTE, which hopefully they will fail miserably the Government has a responsibility towards the people of Sri Lanka that this debacle will be prevented as the Nation undergoes  development of a phenomenal scale and  rapid growth which needs to be recognized by all her citizens regardless of someone in the manner of an errant dog barking at the moon which is what the rhetoric of Vijayakala Maheswaran is tantamount to and it could cost her dearly ! !

චතුරංග ද අල්විස්, සභාපති, වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය.

ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයේ වාර්ෂික අලාභය සියයට 240 කින් ඉහල ගොස් ඇති බව පවසන විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලයේ නිළධාරි රටපුරා ජාතික විදුලිය පද්ධතිය අවභාවිතා කරන කල්ලි කණ්ඩායම් පිළිබඳව නිහඬ ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් අනුගමනය කිරිම සැකයට තුඩුදෙන කරුණක් බව වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය පවසයි.

මිනිස්විත අවදානමට ලක්කරමින්, රටේ ජාතික විදුලිබල පද්ධතියෙන් හොරෙන් විදුලිය ලබා ගන්නා කේබල් නාලිකා බෙදාහරින්නන් ගැන වහාම නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන ලෙස ඉල්ලා ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයේ සභාපතිවරයාට ලිපියක් ලබාදිමෙන් පසුව මාධ්‍ය හමුවේ අදහස් දක්වමින් එම ව්‍යාපාරයේ සභාපති චතුරංග ද අල්විස් සදහන් කළේ උතුරේ ක්‍රියාත්මක වන නීතිවිරෝධී කේබල් නාලිකා විකාශය කරන කණ්ඩායම් ජාතික විදුලි බල පද්ධතිය අනතුරේ දමා ඇති බවයි.

වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය පසුගියදා යාපනයේ කල සංචාරයකදි අනාවරණය කරගත් සාක්ෂි කිහිපයක්ද එහිදි මාධ්‍යයට අනාවරණය කලා.

“අපි පසුගිය කාලේ උතුරේ සංචාරය කළා.එහිදි අපි දැක්කා ජාතික විදුලි බල පද්ධතියට අයත් කණු භාවිත කරලා මේ අනවසර කේබල් නාලිකා කරුවන් තමන්ගෙ නාලික බෙදාහැරීම සදහා කේබල් ඇදලා තියේන හැටි.එක පැත්තකින් මේ කේබල් අදින අයට අවසරයක් නෑ .අනිත් පැත්තෙන් මේ වංචනික ක්‍රියාවේ යෙදෙන අය ජාතික විදුලි පද්ධතියෙන්ම තමන්ගේ ඇම්පිලිෆයර් සදහා විදුලිය ගන්නවා.සමාන්‍යයෙන් මෙම ඇම්පිලිෆයර් එකක් සදහා මාසිකව රුපියල් 1500-1700ත් අතර මුදලක් වියදම් වෙනවා.නමුත් ඒ මුදල ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයට ලැබෙන්නේ නෑ.”

“සමාන්‍යයෙන් මිටර් 250කට වරක් එක් ඇම්පිලිෆයර් එකක් බැගින් සවිකිරිම කේබල් නාලිකා විකාශනයේ දි අනිවාර්‍යන් කරන්න අවශ්‍යයි.හිතලා බලන්න උතුරු සහ නැගෙනහිර පළාත්වල තියේන හොර කේබල් නාලිකා පවත්වාගෙන යන අය රටේ විදුලි බල පද්ධතියට මොනතරම් හානියක් කරනවාද කියලා.” 

“සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවට බිලක් ගෙවා ගන්න බැරි උනාම රතු නිවේදන එවලා විදුලිය කපලා දානව…විදුලි කණුවක වැලක් බැන්දත් නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරනවා ඒ උනාට පොඩි මිනිස්සුන්ට නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක වුනාට හොරුන්ට නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙන්නේ නෑ “

“ඒ විතරක් නොවේ මිට සති කිහිපයකට පෙර නැගෙනහිර පළාතේ කල්මුණේ ප්‍රදේශයේ අනවසර කේබල් නාලික පවත්වගෙන යන අයෙකු කිසිදු අවසරයකින් තොරව ජාතික විදුලි බල පද්ධතියට අවහිර වනලෙස කණු හිටවලා.”

“නීතිවිරෝධී කේබල් සමාගම් වල කේබල් ඇදිම හේතුවෙන් අවස්ථා කිහිපයකම අනතුරු සිදුවුනා වඩමාරච්චි වල්ලෙයිවෙලි ප්‍රදේශයේ රූපවාහිනී කේබල් නාලිකා එකිනෙක ඇතිල්ලීමෙන් සිදු වූ විදුලි කාන්දු නිසා පසුගිය මැයි මාසයේ 23 වන දා පුද්ගලයින් දෙදෙනෙක් මිය ගිය නමුත් තවමත් නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක නෑ.”

“ඒ නිසා අපි බොහොම පැහැදිලිව ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයේ සභාපතිවරයාගෙන් මෙන්ම වගකිවයුත්තන්ගේන් ඉල්ලා සිටිනවා වහාම මේ නීතිවිරෝධී ලෙස රටේ ජාතික විදුලි බල පද්ධතියට හානී කරන් කණ්ඩායම් වලට එරෙහිව් නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන්න කියලා. “

වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයට ලබාදුන් පැමිණිල්ල සහ ඡායාරූප මේ සමග එවා ඇත.විඩියෝ කොටස් කිහිපයක්   CD  මගින් මාධ්‍යවේදීන් හට ලබාදීමට කටයුතු කර තිබේ. 

ඩබ්ලිව්. බී. ගනේගල මහතා

සභාපති,

ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලය, 

අංක 540, ශ්‍රිමත් චිත්තම්පලම් ඒ ගාඩ්නර් මාවත, 

කොළඹ 02, 

02.07.2018

සභාපතිතුමණි, 

මිනිස් ජිවිත අවදානමට ලක්කරමින්, රටේ විදුලි බල පද්ධතියෙන් හොරෙන් විදුලිය ලබා ගන්නා කේබල් නාලිකා බෙදාහරින්නන් ගැන වහාම නීතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරනු!  

උතුරේ ක්‍රියාත්මක වන  මාධ්‍ය මර්දනය ඇතුළු කරුණු ගණනාවක්  සම්බන්ධයෙන් සොයා බැලිම සදහා පසුගියදා අපි, වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය යාපනයේ සංචාරයක නියැලුන අතර එම සංචාරය ඇතුලත විශේෂයෙන්ම අප සංවිධානය විසින් දිගින් දිගටම අනාවරණය කළ නීතිවිරෝධී කේබල් රූපවාහිනි නාලිකා සම්බන්ධයෙන් දිර්ඝ වශයෙන් සොයා බැලිමට අපට හැකියාව ලැබුණි. 

උතුරේ සිට ක්‍රියාත්මක වන නීතිවිරෝධී කේබල් රූපවාහිනි සේවාවන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය දිගින් දිගටම කරුණු අනාවරණය කල අතර විදුලි සංදේශ නියාමන කොමිසම් සභාව ඇතුළු සියළුම වගකිව යුතු ආයතන වෙත එම නිතිවිරෝධි නාලිකා නාමයන් හා ඒවායේ ලිපිනයන් ඇතුලත් ලිපිගොනුවක්ද මේ වන විට භාර දී ඇත්තෙමු.  එසේම එම කේබල් නාලිකා විකාශය කිරිම හරහා එක් පැත්තකින් රටේ ජාතික ආරක්ෂාව අනතුරට හා තර්ජනයට ලක් කර ඇති ආකාරයද අනිත් පැත්තෙන් ඒ හරහා රටට අහිමිවන බදු මුදල් සම්බන්ධයෙන්ද අපි පෙන්වා දී ඇත්තෙමු.

රටේ සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාව රටේ විදුලි බල පද්ධතියෙන් ඔවුන් පරිභෝජනය කරන විදුලිය වෙනුවෙන් බදු මුදල් සහිතව ගෙවීමක් සිදු කරන අතර ගෙවීම් අතපසු වීම යම්හෙයකින් රතු බිලක් දක්වා දිග්ගැස්සීම, ඔවුන්ගේ විදුලිය විසන්දිවීමට පවා හේතු වන අවස්ථාවක උතුරු, නැගෙනහිර මෙන්ම කදුකරයේ ඇතැම් ප්‍රදේශ වල නීතිවිරෝධීව කේබල් හරහා රූපවාහිනි නාලිකා විකාශය කරන කණ්ඩායම් ඒ සදහා විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලයට අයත් විදුලි කණු යොදා ගන්නා ආකාරය අපි නිරීක්ෂණය කළෙමු. එපමණක් නොව එම නීතිවිරෝධී කණ්ඩායම් විදුලි කනුවෙන්ම ඇම්පිලිෆයර් සදහා අනවසරයෙන් මෙන්ම කිසිදු ගෙවිමකින් තොරව විදුලිය ලබා ගැනිමට කටයුතු කරමින් සිටින ආකාරය ද අපි දුටුවෙමු.

මෙම නීතිවිරෝධි නාලිකා වල කේබල් ඇදිම් කාර්යයන් හි නිරත වන පුද්ගලයන්ගේ ජීවිත නිරායාසයෙන්ම අනතුරට ලක් වී ඇති බවත් ඒ කාර්යයන් ඉටු කිරීමේදි  එම සේවකයන්ගේ ජිවිතවලට වගකීමක් හෝ වටිනාකමක් ද  අදාළ ආයතන විසින් ලබා නොදෙන බවත් අපි දනිමු. ඊටත් වඩා විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලයට අයත් කණුවකට මණ්ඩලයේ අවසර ලද පුද්ගලයන්ට හැර වෙනත් අයෙකු නැගිම නීතියෙන් දඩුවම්  හැකි පවා වරදකි. තත්ත්වය එසේ වුවත් පසුගියදා අපගේ යාපන සංචාරය අතරතුර පේදුරු තුඩුව දක්වා ඇති නීතිවිරෝධී නාලිකාවකට අයත් කේබල්, ලංකා විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලයට අයත් විදුලි කණුවල අදිමින් සිටි පුද්ගලයන් නිරික්ෂණය කිරිමට අපට හැකි වු අතර ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඡායාරූප සහ විඩියෝද අප සතුව වේ. (අදාළ ඡායාරූප මේ සමග අමුණා ඇත.)

මිට අමතරව අප කල නිරික්ෂණයට අනුව විකාශයට භාවිතා කරන ඇම්පිලිෆයර් සදහා අවශ්‍ය විදුලිය ද නීතිවිරෝධී ලෙස එම කණුවෙන්ම ලබාගෙන ඇති අතර එම මාර්ගය ඔස්සේ කිලෝමීටර කිහිපයක් ගමන් කිරිමේදි ඒ ආකාරයේ ඇම්පිලිෆයර් කිහිපයක්ම දකින්නට හැකිවු බවත් සඳහන් කිරීමට කැමැත්තෙමු. කේබල් තාක්ෂණය අනුව සාමාන්‍යයෙන් මිටර් 250කට වරක් එක් ඇම්පිලිෆයර් එකක් බැගින් සවිකිරිම කේබල් නාලිකා විකාශනයේ දි අනිවාර්‍ය වේ.

ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් අප කළ සොයා බැලීමේදි තහවුරු වූයේ කේබල් හරහා රූපවාහිනි නාලිකා බෙදාහැරීම හැකි  ඇම්පිලිෆයර් එකක් සදහා අවම වශයෙන් මාසිකව විදුලි වියදම ලෙස රුපියල් 1400-1500ක් වැයවන බවයි. සභාපතිතුමණි,  එසේනම් ඒ හරහා මාසිකව ඔබ ආයතනයට අහිමි වන මුදල අති විශාල බව අප ඔබට අමුතුවෙන් පැවසිය යුතු නොවේ.

නීතිවිරෝධී ලෙස කේබල් හරහා අනවසරයෙන් නාලිකා බෙදාහරින කණ්ඩායම් තමන්ගේ කේබල් විදුලි කණුවේ ඇදිමට අමතරව ඒ සදහා රජයට පාඩු කරමින් හොර රහසේම විදුලිය ලබා ගැනිම ඉතා භයානක බව අපගේ හැගීමයි.

නීතිවිරෝධී කේබල් සමාගම් වල කේබල් ඇදිම හේතුවෙන් අවස්ථා කිහිපයකම අනතුරු සිදුව ඇති අතර වඩමාරච්චි වල්ලෙයිවෙලි ප්‍රදේශයේ රූපවාහිනී කේබල් නාලිකා එකිනෙක ඇතිල්ලීමෙන් සිදු වූ විදුලි කාන්දු නිසා පසුගිය මැයි මාසයේ 23 වන දා පුද්ගලයින් දෙදෙනෙක් මිය ගිය ගොස් තවත් පුද්ගලයෙක් තුවාල ලබා රෝහල්ගත කිරිමට සිදු වුණි.

සභාපතිතුමණි, 

කේබල් රූපවාහිනි නාලිකා විකාශය කිරිම සදහා නිසි බලපත්‍රයක් ලබා ගෙන ඇති ආයතන සදහා අදාළ විකාශන කටයුතු කිරිම වෙනුවෙන් කේබල් ඇදිමට අවස්ථාව ලබාදිම සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපගේ විරෝධයක් නොමැත. ඒ  සමඟම ඒ හරහා ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයට මාසිකව අමතර ආදායමක් ලබා ගැනිමට මෙන්ම විදුලි බල සේවකයන්ට ඒ සම්බන්ධයෙන් විශේෂ පුහුණුවකටද හිමිකම් කිමටද හැකියාවක් ලැබෙනු ඇති බව අපගේ විශ්වාසයයි.

ඒ හේතුවෙන් රටපුරා ක්‍රියාත්මක වන නීතිවිරෝධී කේබල් නාලිකවන්  ලංකා විදුලිබල මණ්ඩලයට අයත් විදුලි කනු භාවිතා කිරිම සම්බන්ධයෙන් මෙන්ම අනවසරයෙන් රජයට පාඩු කරමින් විදුලිය අවභාවිතා කිරිම පිළිබඳව වහාම පියවර ගන්න ලෙස වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය ඔබගෙන් හා මේ සම්බන්ධයෙන් වගකිව යුතු පුද්ගලයන්ගෙන් ඉල්ලා සිටිමු.

ස්තුතියි, 

මෙයට,

විශ්වාසි,

චතුරංග ද අල්විස්,

සභාපති,

වෙබ් මාධ්‍යවේදීන්ගේ ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරය. ජි

Chandrasena Pandithage

Moving clouds bring them news

Spread darkness throughout the state

Bam! Bam! Bam! a new song

Make people run, singing run run run

Oh, our dear heroes!

You are the prominent figures who love the country

Dark clouds are removed

Open the pathway to see Sun, Moon and stars

Sun, Moon and Star rays began to flow back

Blood and flesh smells vanished

Blooming flowers spread freshness

Parties, kinds of music uprooted past

Liberation has no long life.

Satan stand and demand a change

And they override the society

Satanists are released and compensated

You are openly insulted

Liberation is still far away

Prison gates are open

The dark high walls are sadly waiting

Our history nominated a person for this stage

Where is he now?

Dear leader, where are you?

Prince “Diyasena ” come soon, people are ready!

වෛද්‍ය රුවන් එම්. ජයතුංග

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has requested President Maithripala Sirisena to temporarily remove State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran from her ministerial portfolio until inquiries are completed.

An investigation is being carried out regarding certain controversial comments made by the State Minister regarding the now defunct LTTE, during an event in Jaffna yesterday

Several MPs from both sides today requested the Speaker of Parliament to relieve State Maheswaran from her post as an MP.

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya informed Parliament that an inquiry will be carried out with regard to the statement and an appropriate decision will be taken afterwards.

Joint Opposition members charged that Maheswaran has no right to continue to represent the Parliament as she has committed the grave crimes of promoting terrorism and violating the Constitution.

Leader of the House, Lakshman Kiriella, also stated that the United National Party (UNP) will be conducting a disciplinary inquiry regarding the State Minister’s speech.

The Speaker has informed the Attorney General to investigate whether State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran’s controversial statement has violated the Constitution or any laws and to take necessary legal action.

Speaking during a state event held in Jaffna yesterday (2), Maheswaran had said that the LTTE should be resurrected for the freedom of the Tamil people.

If Tamil people want to live freely, the LTTE should raise their hand again, she had reportedly said.

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Colombo, July 2: The allegation by New York Times (NYT) that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had accepted a contribution of US$ 7.6 million from the Chinese government owned China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) ahead of the 2015 Presidential election, is creating a sensation in Sri Lanka.

But according to informed sources, the allegations are unlikely to have the desired impact, which is the destruction of the Rajapaksa family’s prospects in the 2019 Presidential election and the creation of a rift between Sri Lanka  and China.

The reason for thinking so, does not lie in any belief that there was no Chinese contribution to Rajapaksa’s campaign. There could well have been contributions, as foreign entities and agencies are known to fund select politicians in countries in which they have interests.

Reports in the last few days have quoted official sources to say that there had been apprehensions about Chinese contributions to Rajapaksa in 2015 itself. The former Indian National Security Advisor, Shiv Shankar Menon, had written in his book Choices in 2016 that Rajapaksa had built a political machine with Chinese money.”

With the West, and some other powers, openly backing the then opposition to bring about a regime change in 2014-15, armed with a policies like Right to Protect”, it is conceivable that Rajapaksa might have accepted aid from China to counter the West’s machinations.

But in a statement issued on July 1, the former President stoutly denied any Chinese contributions and had told newsmen that he plans to sue the NYT.

Political Effectiveness

Be that as it may, there are a number of reasons for doubting the political effectiveness of the NYT’s allegations. Quite clearly the article was aimed at jeopardizing the chances of the Rajapaksas in the 2019 Presidential election and driving a wedge between Sri Lanka and China, whose expanding footprint in the island nation scares the Western powers and their allies.

Firstly, corruption is not an issue which agitates the Sri Lankan public and the voter at this point of time. Ever since the Good Governance Government” of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe came into being in January 2015, a slew of investigations were launched against  the Rajapaksa family and its  cohorts. But nothing has come out of these in the past three years.

There was an allegation by Minister Mangala Samaraweera that  billions of dollars were stacked away in Dubai by Rajapaksa but efforts to prove it failed.

The NYT’s allegation about Chinese contributions is but one more in a series of allegations before by  the Financial Crime Investigation Department  (FCID).

But even with all the humongous allegations and the remand of his brother Basil and son Namal,  Mahinda Rajapaksa’s  popularity graph has only been going up. His newly formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) swept the local government elections in February, relegating the Prime Minister’s  United National Party (UNP) to a poor second position, and the President’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to an abysmal low third position.

Clearly, the people wanted the Rajapaksas’ functioning, development-oriented and strong government back in place of the non-functioning Good Governance Government”.

The need of the hour for the Sri Lankan electorate is a functioning government which will promote the interests of the common man and not just those of an elite or some foreign powers. The Rajapaksas personify a functioning, nationalist government which will not bow to foreign powers needlessly. The corruption charges which tarnished their image and threw them out of power in 2014-2015 are now a distant memory.

A source close to the President said that the issue will peter out because no sensible political leader will use it as stick to beat Rajapaksa with. Most Sri Lankans are anti-West because of its interfering ways. Making an issue of this allegation will actually end up generating sympathy for Rajapaksa,” the source said.

Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka, political scientist and former Ambassador, also expects the issue to fizzle out because the NYT article is not substantive enough to make a political impact in Sri Lanka.

According to him ,the article’s  content did not  merit the huge play it  got in the paper. He suspects that certain elements,  including a pro-Western section in the Sri Lankan government, with a political axe to grind, might have led the reporter into the story and assisted in getting some material. And at the US-end, some very influential elements might have persuaded the editors to use the story in the way they did.

Jayatilleka feels that the government might not pursue the case beyond a point partly on account of the fact that China is involved. The Good Governance Government has mended its fences with China to make it the dominant partner in its infrastructural development projects.

Other sources pointed out that at the time of the transfer of power in January 2015, Wickremesinghe had promised Rajapaksa that he and his family would not be victimized. That is why the issue of Chinese payments had not been taken up when it came to light first in 2015, the sources said.

Sino-Lankan Relations

The fourth and the most important reason for feeling that the issue would die out is the adverse impact it could have on Sino-Sri Lankan relations.

After about a year of hostility to China’s involvement in Sri Lanka’s economy, based on the suspicions that graft and flouting of regulations were rampant under the Rajapaksa government, the Chinese government companies including China Harbor Engineering Company, were cleared of any wrong doing and work on major projects like the Colombo Port City resumed.

The company involved in the Port City project is the one which allegedly paid Rajapaksa during the elections.

The  Hambantota Port was given to another  Chinese government company (not the one which allegedly paid Rajapaksa) on a 99 year lease. The Chinese loan of US$ 1.2 billion was turned into equity to China’s advantage.

Chinese companies now account for 40% of the housing projects in Sri Lanka. And according to the Chinese Ambassador, China has so far executed US$ 15 billion worth of projects in Sri Lanka. China has replaced India as the biggest investor and financier in Sri Lanka.

A reversal of the situation is well neigh impossible at least in the foreseeable future.

Add to this, the Chinese embassy’s unusually sharp  reaction to the NYT story and one cannot but feel that China will not take the allegations lying down.

The Chinese Embassy said in a statement on Saturday, that the New York Times article was full of political prejudice and completely inconsistent with the fact.”

The statement said: The Embassy stresses that China has always been pursuing a friendly policy towards Sri Lanka, firmly supporting the latter’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and opposing any country’s interference in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka.”

It is encouraging that all sectors of the Sri Lankan society highly appreciate China’s tremendous support and selfless assistance for ending the civil war and post-war reconstruction in the Island nation.”

Despite any interference from a third party, China would like to work together with Sri Lanka to actively implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, and concentrate unwaveringly on our fixed goals, continuously promote the pragmatic cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiatives following the golden rule of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, to better benefit the two countries and the two peoples.”

With China officially committing itself to continued involvement in Sri Lanka and its assertion that it has the support of the present government and the people of Sri Lanka, there is no likelihood of the Sri Lankan government’s pursuing any investigations even if they are formally launched.

Perhaps no investigations might be launched, despite a complaint being filed in the FCID by a UNP MP and the Minister of Social Empowerment, Ranjan Ramanayake. The FICD is yet to take up the case, having asked the police for their opinion.

Moreover, while junior ruling party leaders have made statements about the issue calling for investigations or an explanation from Rajapaksa, the top most government leaders, including President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, have been totally silent.

According to Dr.Jayatilleka,  while Wickremesinghe is careful in such matters, Mahinda Rajapaksa himself may  not make an issue of it unless political circumstances warrant it.

(The featured image at the top shows the Rajapaksas: brothers Basil, Gotabaya, Mahinda, and Chamal, and Mahinda’s son Namal)

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Colombo, July 3 (newsin.asia) – The New York Times, on Tuesday called on Sri Lankan authorities to ensure the safety of its journalists in the island country following allegations of intimidation from the Rajapakse faction.

International Editor of the New York Times, Michael Slackman said a group of Sri Lankan parliamentarians allied with the former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, held a news conference to publicly criticize two journalists who contributed logistical assistance to a rigorously reported and accurate” New York Times investigation into the Hambantota port, published on June 26.

It is unacceptable for journalists to be intimidated in this way. This action appears intended to silence critics and curb press freedoms, and ultimately deprive Sri Lankans of information in the public interest.”

The Times expects the Sri Lankan authorities to ensure the safety of journalists working for our — or any — news organization.”

If Mr. Rajapaksa takes issue with Times reporting, we have encouraged him to contact senior editors at The New York Times rather than intimidating Sri Lankan journalists.”

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Beijing, July 3 (Xinhua/newsin.asia): The spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Lu Kang, told the media here on Tuesday that US media reports about  China putting Sri Lanka into a debt trap are fake news.”

Such reports seriously distort the facts, which are either irresponsible or under the orders of people with ulterior motives. We hope that the relevant media will not be keen on fake news,” he said.

The construction of the Hambantota port is the wish of successive governments and people of Sri Lanka,” Lu said,, adding that China encourages its companies to cooperate with the Sri Lankan side according to commercial principles and on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

According to the needs of Sri Lanka, Chinese financial institutions have provided support to Sri Lanka in solving the financing gap. Later, the Chinese side made efforts to adjust relevant asset allocations according to the wishes of the Sri Lankan side,”

Hde noted that those arrangements will benefit business cooperation between the two sides.

If the fabricators of the so-called ‘debt trap’ cannot give the developing countries real help, they can at least take a healthy attitude towards the sincere cooperation between other countries,” Lu suggested.

China and Sri Lanka are committed to pushing forward cooperation on the Hambantota port project and realizing the goal of making Sri Lanka the logistics center of the Indian Ocean, he said.

It is not only conducive to the economic development of Sri Lanka, but also conducive to regional interconnection and the common prosperity of regional countries,” he added,

Lu made the remarks in response to allegations that appeared in U.S. media reports, which stated that China’s acquisition of the Hambantota port from Sri Lanka highlights its debt trap” and ambitious use of loans to gain influence around the world.

උදයන්ති මුණසිංහ උපුටාගැණීම  මව්බිම

විජයකලා මහේෂ්වරන් ඇමැතිවරිය කළ ප්‍රකාශයට අනුව තවදුරටත් ඇමැති ධුරයේ කටයුතු කිරීමට ඇයට නීතිමය අයිතියක් නැති බව පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රි මහාචාර්ය ජී.එල්. පීරිස් අවධාරණය කළේය.

රජයේ කැබිනට් ඇමැතිවරු දෙදෙනෙක් ඉදිරියේ නිල උත්සවයකදී එවැනි ප්‍රකාශයක් කිරීමට තරම් එඩිතර වීම හුදකලාව තක්සේරු කළ නොහැකි බවත්, මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතා බලයේ සිටින විට මෙවැනි ප්‍රකාශයක් කළේ නම්, වත්මන් ආණ්ඩුව මෙන් තුෂ්ණීම්භූතව බලා නොසිට දැඩි ක්‍රියාමාර්ගයකට අවතීර්ණ වන බවත් ඔහු සඳහන් කළේය.
ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂයේ ආර්ථික පර්යේෂණ ඒකකය මඟින් ඊයේ (03දා) පුංචි බොරැල්ලේ පිහිටි වජිරාශ්‍රමයේදී පැවැත්වූ මාධ්‍ය හමුවට එක්වෙමින් ඔහු මේ බව සඳහන් කළේය.

වැඩිදුරටත් අදහස් දැක්වූ පීරිස් මහතා,

ඇමැති ධුරයක් දරන්න කලින් දිවුරුම් ප්‍රකාශයක් කරන්න ඕනි. ඒකීය රජයට පක්ෂපාති වෙනවා. භූමිය තුළ වෙන කිසිම රාජ්‍යයක් ස්ථාපිත කරන්න කිසිම සහයෝගයක් වචනයෙන් හෝ ක්‍රියාවෙන් දක්වන්නේ නැහැ කියලා. එතකොට විජයකලා මැතිනිය මේ ප්‍රකාශය කළේ ප්‍රථම වතාවට නෙවෙයි. දිගින් දිගටම එතුමිය මේ ප්‍රකාශ කරලා තියෙනවා. මේක ඉතා බැරෑරුම් ප්‍රකාශයක්.

ඔඩ්ඩුසුඩාන්වලදී හමුවුණා භයානක ගිනි අවි වගයක්. ඒ විදියේ පසුබිමක් තුළ තමයි ඇමැතිවරිය මේ ප්‍රකාශය කළේ. මේ ආණ්ඩුව බලයට පත් කරපු බලවේගවලට විරුද්ධව කිසිම ක්‍රියාමාර්ගයක් ගැනීමට ආණ්ඩුවට පුළුවන්කමක් නැහැ. ඒක තමයි භයානකම තත්ත්වය.
ඇත්ත වශයෙන්ම එම අමාත්‍ය ධුරයේ කටයුතු කිරීමට දැන් ඇයට නීතිමය අයිතියක් නැහැ. එතුමියගේ දිවුරුම් ප්‍රකාශයට සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම පටහැනි විදියට තමයි එතුමිය කටයුතු කරන්නේ. මේ හැමදේටම විසඳුම උසාවියට යෑම නොවෙයි. මේ ප්‍රශ්න ඇතිවීමට මූලික හේතුව තමයි බෙලහීන ආණ්ඩුවක්, කිසිම කෙනකුගේ ගෞරවයට පාත්‍ර නොවන ආණ්ඩුවක් පැවැතීම. මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ ආණ්ඩුවක් අද තිබුණා නම් මේ පිළිබඳව උසාවි යන එක නෙවෙයි කරන්නේ. ක්ෂණික විසඳුමක් ගන්නේ. එය කිරීමට ඕනෑ තරම් බලතල රජයට තියෙනවා. ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව ඇතුළේ තියෙන බලතල පාවිච්චි කිරීමට ශක්තියක් නොතිබීම නිසා තමයි කිසිම දෙයක් කරන්න ගන්න බැරි තත්ත්වයකට මේ ආණ්ඩුව පත්වෙලා ඉන්නේ.

අනුරාධපුර දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ තලාව ප්‍රදේශයේ බැංකුවකින් රුපියල් ලක්ෂ නවසිය හැටක් කොල්ලකාලා. දිගින් දිගටම හැම දවස් දහයකටම වගේ සැරයක් අපිට අහන්න ලැබෙනවා බැංකු කොල්ලකෑම් ගැන. බැංකු බිඳීම ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරයක් බවට අද පත්වෙලා. මේකට කදිම පූර්වාදර්ශයක් ආණ්ඩුව ස්ථාපිත කරලා ඉවරයි.

පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රි බන්දුල ගුණවර්ධන

විජයකලා මහේෂ්වරන් ඇමැතිනියගේ ප්‍රකාශයේ තියෙන විශේෂත්වය තමයි ඇය එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂයෙන්, යාපනය තරග කරලා, එජාපය වෙනුවෙන් ලංකාවේ පාර්ලිමේන්තුව නියෝජනය කරන දෙමළ මන්ත්‍රිතුමියක්. එයින් ගම්‍ය වෙන්නේ එජාපයේ වගකිව යුතු ඇමැතිවරු දෙදෙනෙක් ඉදිරිපිට එජාපයේම මන්ත්‍රිවරියක් ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කරනවා අපිට නිදහසේ ජීවත් වෙන්න නම්, නැවත එල්.ටී.ටී.ඊ.ය බලයට එන්න ඕනි කියලා. මෙය කිසිසේත් ලඝුකොට තකන්න පුළුවන් ප්‍රකාශයක් නෙවෙයි. එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය මේ ප්‍රකාශය සම්බන්ධයෙන් සම්පූර්ණයෙන් වගකිව යුතුයි.

දවස්වල නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පත හරහා මඩ ව්‍යාපාරයක් ආරම්භ කරලා තියෙනවා. පොඩි මුදලක් ගැන තමයි මෙවර මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමාව ඉලක්ක කරන්නේ. ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 7.6ක්. මීට කලින් මංගල සමරවීර චෝදනා කළා මහින්ද මහතා ඇතුළු ඔහුගේ පවුලේ වත්කම ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් බිලියන 18ක් කියලා. එය මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂගේ ජාත්‍යන්තර ගිණුම්වල තියෙනවා කියලා මංගල සමරවීර කිව්වා. ඒක රුපියල්වලින් බැලුවොත් රුපියල් බිලියන 2880ක්.

මේ රටේම පේදුරුතුඩුවේ ඉඳලා දෙවුන්දර තුඩුව දක්වා සමස්ත ලාංකේය ජනතාව තුළ කාසි හා නෝට්ටු ප්‍රමාණයේ වටිනාකම බිලියන 598යි. මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේ ගිණුම්වල මේ වගේ පස් ගුණයක් තියෙනවා කියලා තමයි මංගල සමරවීර කියන්නේ.
ඉතින් මේ ගැන වහාම රහස් පොලිසිය, පොලිස්පති සියලු දෙනා එකතු වෙලා ජාතික කර්තව්‍යයක් විදියට සලකලා ඒ මුදල් අරගෙන එන එක තමයි කරන්න ඕනි. රටේ සියලු දෝෂ නිවාරණය වෙන්න ඒ දේ කරන්න ආණ්ඩුවට පුළුවන් එහෙනම්.

ආණ්ඩුව දැන් නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් අල්ලගෙන ගල් පැළෙන අසත්‍ය ප්‍රකාශ කරලා මේ කරන්නේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාට පහර දීමක් නෙවෙයි. චීනයට එළව එළවා පහරදීමේ ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් තමයි එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය අනුගමනය කරන්නේ. එජාපය මුල ඉඳලාම චීනයට අපහාස කළා. මේ නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතේ තියෙන චෝදනාව ගැන රටේ රාජ්‍ය නායකයා වන මෛත්‍රිපාල සිරිසේන මැතිතුමා අගමැති රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ මහතා මේ පිළිබඳව ලෝකයට ප්‍රකාශ කළ යුතුය
මෙහිදී අදහස් දැක්වූ අනුරාධපුර දිස්ත්‍රික් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රි ෂෙහාන් සේමසිංහ,
අපි රන්ජන් රාමනායක ඇමැතිවරයාට කියනවා මේ මහ බැංකු වංචාවේ වංචාවට අහුවෙලා තනතුරු අහිමි වෙලා ඉන්නේ රවි කරුණානායක, අර්ජුන් මහේන්ද්‍රන් කියන එජාපයේ අය. අපි රන්ජන්ට කියනවා කරුණාකරලා අනෙක් අයට මඩගහන සුපුරුදු ව්‍යාපාරය ගෙනියන්න එපා. හිටපු ජනාධිපතිතුමාට සහ අපේ පක්ෂයේ ඉන්න අනෙකුත් අයට කරන මඩගැසීම් අපි තරයේ හෙළා දකිනවා.

උදයන්ති මුණසිංහ
ඡායා – වෙනුර චන්ද්‍රමාලිත

ආචාර්ය නාලක ගොඩහේවා

පසුගිය ජුනි මස 25දා ඇමෙරිකාවේ නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතේ ‘චීනය ලංකාවෙන් වරායක් උදුරාගත් හැටි යන නමින් පළවූ ලිපියක් ලංකාව තුළ වර්තමානයේ මහත් ආන්දෝලනයකට ලක්වී ඇත. එම ලිපිය මඟින් පසුගිය ආණ්ඩුවට එරෙහිව බරපතළ චෝදනා කිහිපයක් ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබෙන අතර හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ අත්තනෝමතික තීරණ, ජනාධිපතිවරණයට ලැබුණා යැයි කියන ආධාර මුදල් වැනි අංශ කීපයකටම ලිපිය මඟින් අවධානය යොමු කොට තිබිණි. බැඳුම්කර මගඩියට අදාළ චෝදනාවලින් ගුටි කා හෙම්බත් වී සිටි රජයේ දේශපාලනඥයන්ට මෙම ලිපිය ඉඩෝර කලක ලැබුණු මහ වැස්සක් මෙන් වූ අතර මේ ලිපිය පදනම් කරගෙන ලහි ලහියේ මාධ්‍ය සාකච්ඡාවක් කරන්නට ගිය එක්තරා පුරවැසි සංවිධානයක පිරිසක් මාධ්‍යවේදීන් සමඟ ගැටීමක් ඇති කරගන්නා ආකාරය පවා ජනතාවට විද්‍යුත් මාධ්‍ය හරහා දකින්නට ලැබිණි.

මේ වාර්තාව ලියා තිබුණේ දැනට නවදිල්ලියේ සිට නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතට ලිපි සපයන ඉන්දීය සම්භවයක් ඇති වාර්තාකාරිනියක විසිනි. වාර්තාවට කරුණු එකතු කිරීම සඳහා ඇය කාගේ හෝ වියදමින් ලංකාවට පැමිණ ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂයෙත් විපක්ෂයෙත් හිතවතුන් කිහිපදෙනකුම සමඟ සාකච්ඡා කර තිබුණද ඇගේ වාර්තාවේ ඇය විසින් තොරතුරු සැපයූවන් ලෙස නම් කොට තිබුණේ ආණ්ඩු පක්ෂයේ කණ්ඩායම පමණි. විපක්ෂයට සම්බන්ධ අය ලබාදුන් තොරතුරු නොසලකා හැරීමට ඇය කටයුතු කිරීම තුළ ලිපිය ලිවීමේදී ඇය පක්ෂග්‍රාහී ආකල්පයකින් කටයුතු කළ බවට සැක මතුවේ.

ඇමෙරිකානු ජනාධිපති ඩොනල්ඩ් ට්‍රම්ප් විසින් බොරු ප්‍රවෘත්ති නිර්මාණය කරනවා යැයි නිතර චෝදනා කරන මාධ්‍ය ආයතන අතර නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතද ඉහළින්ම සිටී.
හම්බන්තොට වරාය ගැන ලියා තිබුණු මෙම ලිපියේ ඇති සමහර කරුණු වැරැදි බව සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාවට පවා වැටහෙන නිසා එම ලිපියේ සඳහන් සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාව නොදන්නා කරුණු ගැනද සාධාරණ සැකයක් මතුවේ. අපි ඉන් කිහිපයක් සලකා බලමු.

මෙම ලිපියේ චෝදනා කරන ආකාරයට හම්බන්තොට වරාය හිටපු ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේ පෞද්ගලික සිහිනයක් සැබෑ කර ගැනීම සඳහා ආණ්ඩුව විසින් කළ අනවශ්‍ය ආයෝජනයකි. ලිපියේ සඳහන් ආකාරයට හම්බන්තොට වරායක් සෑදීමට නුසුදුසු බවට යෝග්‍යතා අධ්‍යයන වාර්තාවකින්ද කියැවේ. එහෙත් මේ කියන යෝග්‍යතා අධ්‍යයන වාර්තාව කවුරුන් විසින් කවදා සෑදූ වාර්තාවක්ද කියා ලිපියේ සඳහන් නොවේ.

රටේ ජනතාව දන්නා ආකාරයට හම්බන්තොට වරායක් ඉදිකිරීමේ මුල් අදහස හිටපු ජනාධිපති මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මහතාගේ නොවේ. ඔහු බලයට එන්නට පෙර රජයන් ගණනාවක් මෙවැනි වරායක් දකුණු මුහුදු තීරයේ ඉදිකරන්නට සැලසුම් සකස් කරමින් සිටියහ. හිටපු ජනාධිපතිවරයා කළේ ප්‍රමාද වී තිබූ තවත් බොහෝ ව්‍යාපෘතීන් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ක්‍රියා කළාක් මෙන් මෙම ව්‍යාපෘතියත් තමුන්ගේ පාලන කාලය තුළ ආරම්භ කිරීමයි.

හම්බන්තොට වරාය සඳහා මූලික යෝග්‍යතා අධ්‍යයනයන් ආරම්භ කරන ලද්දේ චන්ද්‍රිකා බණ්ඩාරනායක හා රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ රජයන් විසිනි. රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ රජය ආරම්භ කළ යෝග්‍යතා අධ්‍යයන වාර්තාවක් 2003දීත් චන්ද්‍රිකා බන්ඩාරණායක රජය ඉන්පසු ආරම්භ කළ යෝග්‍යතා අධ්‍යයන වාර්තාවක් 2007දීත් නිකුත් විය. මේ වාර්තා දෙකෙන්ම යෝජනා කොට තිබුණේ හම්බන්තොට වරායක් ගොඩනැඟිය යුතු බවය. ඒ අනුව හම්බන්තොට වරායක් සඳහා නුසුදුසු බවට යෝග්‍යතා අධ්‍යයන වාර්තාවේ සඳහන් වී යැයි කවුරුන් හෝ නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් වාර්තාකාරිනියට පල් බොරුවක් කියා ඇත. මෙය කළේ ඇය සමඟ පැයක් දුරකථනයෙන් කතා කළා යැයි කයිවාරු ගසන කුප්‍රකට නළු ඇමැතිවත්ද යන සැකය ජනතාවට මතුවේ.

මෙම ලිපියෙන් අඟවන්නට උත්සාහ කරන තවත් දෙයක් නම් චීනය සමඟ මේ ව්‍යාපෘතිය කිරීමේ දැඩි අවශ්‍යතාවක් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂට තිබුණාය යන්නය. එයද අසත්‍යයකි.

මන්ද පසුගිය රජය මේ වරාය ගොඩනැඟීමට හවුල් වන ලෙස මුලින්ම ආරාධනය කරන ලද්දේ ඉන්දියාවට බැවිනි. ඉන්දියාව එයට එතරම් උනන්දුවක් නොදැක්වූ නිසා තනිවම හෝ මේ ව්‍යාපෘතිය ආරම්භ කරන්නට පසුගිය ආණ්ඩුව තීරණය කළ අතර ඔවුන් චීනය දෙසට හැරුණේ ඒ සඳහා අවශ්‍ය ණය ලබාගන්නටය.

ලිපියෙන් තහවුරු කිරීමට උත්සාහ කරන තවත් තර්කයක් නම් චීනය විසින් විටින් විට පොලී අනුපාතයන් ඉහළ දමමින් වරාය හරහා ලංකාව ණය උගුලක පැටලුවා කියන යන්නය. මෙයද අසත්‍යයකි. හම්බන්තොට වරාය සඳහා චීනයෙන් ගත් මුළු ණය මුදල ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 1250 පමණ වේ. ඉන් පළමු මිලියන 300 ලබා ගන්නට සිදු වූයේ සාමාන්‍යයෙන් ඉහළ පොලියකටය. යුද්ධය තදින් පැවැති ඒ කාලයේ කවුරුවත් අඩු පොලියට ලංකාවට ණය දුන්නේ නැත. නමුත් ඉන් පසු ගත් ණයවලට චීනය විසින් අය කළේ ඉතාම අඩු පොලී අනුපාතයකි.

වරාය සෑදීම සඳහා චීනයෙන් ණය ලබා දී තිබුණේ දීර්ඝ කාලීන පදනමක් මතය. ඒ අනුව ලබාගත් මූලික ණය හා අදාළ පොලිය යන සියල්ල එකතු කොට 2036ට පෙර ආපසු ගෙවන්නට නියමිතව තිබුණු මුළු මුදල අමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 1761කි. මේ ණය ලබාගෙන තිබුණේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා රජය විසින් නොව වරාය අධිකාරිය විසින් නිසා ණය ආපසු ගෙවීමේ වගකීම තිබුණේ ලාභ ලබන ආයතනයක් වූ වරාය අධිකාරියටමය. මෙහිදී ජනතාවට වැදගත්ම තොරතුර ලිපිකාරිනිය ලබාදී නැත. ඒ ගෙවන්නට තිබුණු මුළු මුදල වූ ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 1761න් ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 500ක් 2014 වන විටත් වරාය අධිකාරිය විසින් ගෙවා අවසන් කොට තිබුණු බවයි. එම ගෙවීමෙන් පසුවත් 2014දී වරාය අධිකාරිය රුපියල් මිලියන 8800ක් ලාභ ලැබූ බව රජයේ විගණකාධිපතිවරයා තහවුරු කොට ඇත. ඉතුරු මුදල ගෙවන්නට තවත් වසර 22ක් ඉතුරුව තිබුණු අතර ලාභ ලබන ආයතනයක් වූ වරාය අධිකාරියට වසර 7-8ක් තුළ මේ මුළු ණය මුදලම කිසිදු අපහසුවකින් තොරවා ගෙවා අවසන් කිරීමට හැකියාව තිබිණි.

නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතේ මේ ලිපියේ ඇති තවත් චෝදනාවක් නම් චයිනා හාබර් සමාගම විසින් පසුගිය ජනාධිපතිවරණය කාලයේ ඇමෙරිකානු ඩොලර් මිලියන 7.6ක පමණ මුදලක් ඡන්ද කටයුතු සඳහා රාජපක්ෂ රජයට ලබාදුන් බවයි. මෙවැනි චෝදනාවක සත්‍ය අසත්‍ය භාවය ගැන තර්ක කිරීමට සාමාන්‍ය ජනතාව සතුව කරුණු නැත. එහෙත් සාමාන්‍ය බුද්ධිය භාවිතකොට ඇසිය හැකි ප්‍රශ්නයක් ඇත. ඒ වාර්තාකාරිනිය ලිපිය සඳහා තොරතුරු ලබාගත්තේ කොහෙන්ද යන්නයි.

බළලා මල්ලෙන් එළියට පනින්නේ එවිටය.

නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතේ වාර්තාකාරිනිය මහා ආඩම්බරයෙන් වාර්තා කරන්නේ යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුව විසින් ඇයට ලබාදුන් අභ්‍යන්තර වාර්තාවක අඩංගු කරුණුය. එය ලිපියේම පැහැදිලිව සඳහන් වේ.

ඒ මිස ඇය විසින් අමුතුවෙන් සොයා ගත් කරුණක් නැත.

ජනතාවට බොරු කීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවට සම කළ හැකි කිසිදු ආණ්ඩුවක් ලංකා ඉතිහාසයේ නොවූ බව මේ වනවිට රටේ බොහෝ දෙනකු වටහාගෙන ඇති සත්‍යකි. දේශපාලන ප්‍රතිවාදීන්ගේ චරිත ඝාතනය සඳහා රාජ්‍ය ආයතන හා සමත් භාවිත කරමින් පසුගිය වසර 3 1/2ක කාලය පුරා වත්මන් ආණ්ඩුව මොනතරම් බොරු ගොතන්නට ඇත්ද?

සමහර ඇමැතිවරු ඇසින් දුටුවා යැයි කී පිටරට බැංකු ගිණුම් අද වනතුරු සොයාගත්තේද? යාපනෙන් පැන්නුවා යැයි කී රත්රන් කන්ටේනර් ගැන අද කතා නැත්තේ මන්ද?

ලැම්බෝගිනි කාර් හෝ බකිංහැම්වලින් ගෙනාවා යැයි කී රත්රන් අශ්වයන් හමුවීද? රාජපක්ෂ පවුලේ හැම සාමාජිකයකුටම එක බැගින් තිබෙනවා යැයි කී හෙලිකොප්ටර් අද කොහේද? රාජපක්ෂලාට අයිති යැයි රට පුරා කතා පැතිර වූ මන්දිර, ගොඩනැඟිලි, වතුපිටිවලට අද වෙනත් අයිතිකාරයන් ඉන්නේ කෙසේද? තාජුඩීන්, ලසන්ත,එක්නැලිගොඩ ඝාතකයන් වසර 3 1/2කට පසුවවත් හෙළිවී ඇත්ද? සුදු වෑන් එකකින් ඉස්සුවාය කියන එක පුද්ගලයෙක් ගැන නඩුවක් අසන්නට තිබෙනවාද, මිනී මෝරු සොයාගත්තාද? බැඳුම්කර හොරුන්ගෙන් මුදල් ගෙන අසුවී අද රෙදි නැතුව සිටින සමහර දේශපාළුවන් එදා රූපවාහිනියේ ෆයිල් ලෙළවමින්, මෙගා ඩීල් කියමින් අභියෝග කළ අධිවේගී මාර්ග, තාප බලාගාර, වරාය, ගුවන්තොටුපොළවලින් යමෙක් කොමිස් ගැසුවා කියා එක නඩුවක් තිබේද?

නිව්යෝර්ක් ටයිම්ස් පුවත්පතේ වාර්තාකාරිනියට තොරතුරු සපයන්නේ ඉහත කී බොරු නිර්මාණය කළ පිරිසමය.

චෝදනා කළ ආකාරයට චීන සමාගමක් විසින් මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂගේ ඡන්ද ව්‍යාපාරයට මුදල් දුන්නා නම් එය සොයා බලා ඔප්පු කිරීම වත්මන් ආණ්ඩුවට ඉතා පහසුවෙන් කළ හැකිව තිබිණි. මන්ද ඔවුන්ට ප්‍රශ්න කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය කිහිප දෙනකු පමණක් බැවිනි. මුදල් දුන්නැයි කියන අයත්, එසේත් නැත්නම් මුදල් ගත්තා යැයි කියන අයත් ඉන්නේ ලංකාවේ නිසා ඔවුන් ප්‍රශ්නකොට අත්අඩංගුවට ගෙන නඩු නොපැවරුවේ මන්ද? ඒ වෙනුවට මේ කියන රහස් තොරතුරු විදේශීය වාර්තාකාරිනියකට දී වාර්තාවක් ලියවා ගැනීමද ආණ්ඩුවක් විසින් කළ යුත්තේ?

බුද්ධියෙන් විමසා බැලූ විට පෙනී යන්නේ මේ වත්මන් ආණ්ඩුවේ සුපුරුදු මාධ්‍ය සන්දර්ශන මාලාවේ තවත් ජවනිකාවක් පමණක් බවය. තිර රචනය, නිෂ්පාදනය, අධ්‍යක්ෂණය සියල්ලම කළේ කවුද කියා සිතා ගැනීම අපහසු නැත. ඒ සඳහාත් වියදම් වුණේ රටේ ජනතාවගෙන් කොල්ලකෑ බැඳුම්කර මුදල්මද කියා පසු කලකදී හෝ සොයා බැලිය යුතුය.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

July 3, 2018, 11:59 pm

Top constitutional lawyer Manohara de Silva, PC, yesterday said that the Attorney General could file an indictment in accordance with Article 157 A against State Minister for child affairs, Vijayakala Maheswaran.

President’s Counsel De Silva said so when The Island asked him what action the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government could take against Maheswaran for call for the revival of the LTTE.

The senior lawyer emphasised that the Attorney General could act on his own. Vijayakala successfully contested the Jaffna electoral District on the UNP ticket after the LTTE assassinated her husband MP T. Maheswaran on January 1, 2008, at Kotahena.

Maheswaran’s assassin was sentenced to death by Colombo High Court Judge Sunil Rajapaksha on Aug 27, 2012.

Vijayakala made the declaration in Jaffna in the presence of foreign minister and former Attorney General Tilak Marapana and Public Administration Minister Vajira Abeywardena.

Manohara de Silva said that in case the Attorney General refrained from acting in this instance, the Court of Appeal could be moved by an interested party.

The Attorney General could be made to fulfil his obligations by filing a writ of mandamus, Counsel De Silva said.

Responding to another query, the lawyer said that in accordance with Article 157 A, indirectly supporting secession was also an indictable offence.

The police could not take action as only the Attorney had the power to indict a person.

Manohara de Silva pointed out as there was sufficient evidence that the primary objective of the LTTE was to divide the country on ethnic lines, reviving the terrorist group therefore amounted to encouraging terrorism.

The State Minister had made controversial statements previously. In Dec 2017, the State Minister had alleged in Jaffna the massacre of 200,000 Tamils along with their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the final phase of the war in 2009, he noted.

Former UPFA MP and retired Navy Chief of Staff Sarath Weerasekera told The Island that the government couldn’t ignore the timing of the provocative statement. Weerasekera said that a deliberate attempt was being made to influence the community close on the heels of weapons detection at Oddusudan, east of the Kandy-Jaffna A9 road. Weerasekera alleged that the minister was making an obvious attempt to identify herself with the LTTE for political reasons.

Weerasekera said that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government and the UNP owed an explanation to the country.

The naval veteran said that the government should be held responsible for the rapid deterioration of the situation in the North.

https://youtu.be/LNsh-us-Dzk

https://youtu.be/V6N_oGz7pHY

H. L. D. Mahindapala

The predictable response of the 108 individuals and NGOs objecting to the appointments of Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka as the next ambassador to Russia is not only deplorable but also laughable. It is deplorable because the criteria on which they oppose the appointment consist of a whole heap of garbage surpassing the totality that piled up at Meetotamulla. This Gang of 108” has suddenly woken up overnight to the necessity of upholding high criteria in appointing diplomats abroad even though they can’t name a single ambassador/high commissioner among the current lot who can match the competence and the qualifications of DJ in protecting national interests” under right conditions. For instance, which one of the signatories will step forward to say that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s aunty appointed to St. James Court in London can defend the national interests” better than DJ in any international fora, combating the macro global forces ranged against the nation?

Of course, this controversy revolves primarily round the definition of national interests” and who can serve it best – an issue which will be dealt with in due course. Until then consider which one of the mediocre appointees handpicked from the pool of yahapalanaya relatives, friends and henchmen can face the challenges that are out there against those serving national interests” at the global level. These appointees may be able to serve the national interests” as defined in the pro-West foreign policy of Ranil Wickremesinghe and approved by the Gang of 108”. The appointment of DJ certainly signals a different approach to the current pro-West policy of the Prime Minister. DJ represents the national interests” that is more close to the President Maithripala Sirisena than the West-leaning foreign policy of Wickremesinghe.

Normally, stable and constructive regimes run on one, undivided foreign policy. But the protest of the Gang of 108 goes to underline that there are two foreign policies : one pro-West policy led by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and the other led by President Sirisena which is struggling  to steer a more independent line.

That apart, it should be noted that Dayan comes in at a critical time when the foreign policy is at cross-roads. The Foreign Ministry is in shambles. The Gang of 108”, however, is promoting the idea that Sri Lanka’s image and standing in the international arena has reached Himalayan heights and the return of DJ will bring it down. If the standing of Sri Lanka is as high as the Gang of 108” thinks why is Ranil Wickremesinghe running after China instead of cashing in on the international standing” available in the West? If the standing of Sri Lanka is that great, as stated by the Gang of 108”, would not the Western investors flock in droves to park their dollars in Sri Lanka? Wickremesinghe, in his first flush of excitement as Prime Minister, made a bee line to George Soros hoping he could persuade him to invest his billions in Sri Lanka and save him. He also thought that the national interests” would be served by aligning himself with the West. But he had to do a U-turn and run to China. So how big is the international standing of Sri Lanka”, as stated by the Gang of 108”?

According to this Gang, the invitation to attend G7 in Japan is a big deal. What did it amount to in real terms? It was meant primarily to massage the ego of President Sirisena and not to give him the goodies and services he needs to lift the nation to new heights, or serve the national interests”, as indicated by him so far. All what happened in Japan was to raise his hopes with a feel good factor that failed to serve his national interests”. He was made to feel that he was one of them in the G7 and to impress upon him that he would not be invited next time if he behaves badly at home, or swings too far into the emerging camp led by China.

If the G7 was committed to lift Sri Lanka from the doldrums in which it is now then it is obligatory to demonstrate its good intentions with substantial contributions to help the national interests” without being subject to unwanted external pressures. On the contrary, the invitation to attend the G7, it is clear in hindsight, was to exert subtle external pressure to keep President Sirisena tied to Western interests than to free Sri Lanka to pursue its national interests”, as known at the grass root levels.

Pursing national interests” means, in one sense, the untrammelled right of  a nation to exercise its free will without foreign interventions exerting unwanted pressures. President Sirisena was invited not to give that critical assurance. He was invited to drive home their point that he has been a good boy so far by following their commands at home and not shifting too far into the Chinese camp abroad. They want him to be in their camp and to achieve that goal they have given some patronising lollies to keep him in line. This is thdden meaning in the text of then Gang of 108” when they boast about the international standing and image” of Sri Lanka.

Everyone can agree that the nation has not gained what it needs most after President Sirisena was allowed to hang around in the corridors of G7 powers meeting in Japan. In the colonial era the natives were tamed by conferring on them imperial titles like knighthoods to make them feel that they are respected and accepted member of Empire. In the neo-colonial period they are invited to hang around in the corridors of power with an occasional handshake and a pat in the back for good behaviour.

While patting him in the back in Japan they have been squeezing his vital parts in Geneva. They have refused to let him off the hook on charges of human rights violations. Compare this with the international standing and image of Israel. It is not invited to G7 but it gets all that is needed to protect its territorial integrity and security. The international community” even allows Israel to violate all the known human rights in the UN charter and let it get away with it without any economic sanctions or any other repercussions. Now that is the hard, if not blunt, meaning of obtaining international standing” in realpolitik. It means getting away with impunity even if the UN rises to condemn you.

Symbolic gestures like getting invitations to hobnob in the sidelines do not add up to anything meaningful that would advance national interests”, as understood by the people. In fact, in the case of Sri Lanka the Western alliance has treated the nation with utter contempt. DJ’s highpoint is in defeating the Western alliance and scoring a victory that lifted the international standing of the nation to a brave new world.  He brought home tangible, visible and meaningful results. How many such results have Mangala Samaraweera and Ranil Wickremesinghe brought home as convincing and substantial contributions to consolidate the national interests”? The thrust and the tone in the protest of the Gang of 108” define national interest” as implementing servile policies that serve the Western powers, aka international community”. This is why their protest is laughable, as I said at the outset.

I don’t have the space in this short article to deal with all the issues raised in the Gang’s” protest.    So I have decided to pick only on two prominent signatories – Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, and Dr. Pakiasothy   Saravanamuttu,  — who take the high moral ground regularly to pontificate to the nation and its main political actors on how they should conduct themselves and public affairs on high-sounding political principles, which they invoke and cite interminably, more to show off their familiarity with fashionable and marketable theories than to serve the high end of the quoted principles.

If you compare their past like the way they refer to DJs past it would be clear that the latter has served the national interests” at a commendable level than the mercenary and chrematistic careerists in academia and NGOs. In essence, it is apparent from the tendentious protest that their objections to the appointment of DJ stem from his controversial politics, including his past history, which does not jell with the Gang’s” current political agenda.

For instance, Dr.DJ stands firmly on 13 A without even yielding a decimal point beyond that. But all the signatories, I presume, are for 13 +. Clearly, DJ and the Gang” are in two opposing camps and it is in their interests to keep him out of any strategic position that could hinder or undermine their political agenda. Their protest also reveals unequivocally that they have not forgiven him for undercutting their moves to drag Sri Lanka to the international guillotine in Geneva.

In any case, how can Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu  put his signature to a protest that is  concerned with national interests” when he was leap-frogging from Western city to city in his mad rush to stop the last stages of war against the Tamil Pol Pot, Velupillai Prabhakaran? This leads to a critical question: Is DJ’s blocking and reversing of the Western attacks on Sri Lanka against national interests”, or is Paki’s” desperate bid to save the Tamil Pol Pot against national interests”?  The answer is buried in Nandikadal!

Of course, Paki’s” cover would be to say that he was not protecting Prabhakaran but civilian lives. That is the kind of fiction he spins to maintain his high life style as a whiskey-guzzling party animal. How can ending the war to save the life of the worst killer of Tamils serve human rights? Would saving Hitler in the last stages of the World War II have saved lives?  Ending the war has saved more lives than keeping Prabhakaran alive. Eliminating him was the only way to save human rights and lives, after the failure of numerous peace deals in the 33-year-old war. That Paki” can’t deny!

Take also the case of Prof. Uyangoda. With what kind of conscience could he put his signature to serve national interests” or human rights when he has a record of leading a group of 200 school children to capture Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike dead or alive”? Was he serving the national interest” when he was a part of the brutal gangs that tortured and massacred innocent civilians who disagreed with his brand of fascist politics?

So why drag DJ’s past when he is not guilty of this kind  of violations of human  rights. By the way, this piece should not be read as a defence of DJ’s political tergiversations but only as an exposure of the hypocrisy of the hired moralists allied to NGOs in particular. DJ’s ability to slide from one political pool to another beats that of an eel any day. His shift from Varatharaja Perumal to Maithripala Sirisena would have been seismic if it happened overnight. But it happened incrementally and each time he drew closer to the central national identity. I consider this as a positive sign of maturing politically. His redemption is in coming closer to the people and the ground realities, though, perhaps, he and others may deny it.

Anyway, if you compare the past of the two Gangsters” mentioned above with that of DJ’s past it would be clear that the latter has served the national interests” at a commendable level than the mercenary and chrematistic careerists in academia and NGOs. Besides, the President has decided to appoint him to the most critical place for the national interests” next to China. Even Donald Trump find it necessary not only to mend fences with Russia but also to cultivate new relations as a future strategic partner, if possible, ditching  America’s old allies.

If it is important for the mightiest power on this planet to go to Moscow in person and make  his presence felt, shouldn’t we also send the best man available for the job? And who else can better the expertise of an old Stalinist in Moscow, eh?

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

The verification of religious messages whether they are true or false is an impossible task because philosophical aspects of religions seem to be related to life after death.  This means that nobody can correctly test the accuracy of religious beliefs as the life would be ended at the time of death, which means the beginning of the destruction of matter or material body of a human. The material body which is the supportive substance to ensure or to investigate on the religious philosophy was accurate or not, will be attainment with the death.  In such a situation, anybody attempts to insist that one religion is true and others are false is a stupid generalization as it is impossible to conclude as a living human.

According to ancient Greek and many other religious philosophies, human being comprises of a form and matter (body and soul) and at the death of a person, matter begins to destroy but the soul has an eternal power to exist, but the soul will separate from the body at the time of death.  Although the living human body has a relationship with the soul, at the time of death soul gets away from humanness.  After the death of a person, the soul is not regarded as a human or a part of humanness.

The religious descriptions imply that soul has no ability to observe or understand or touch anything as it is a form like a spirit and religious philosophies do not undoubtedly expound that soul can feel or behave like a human body. Many religious stories attempt to describe that soul is like a spirit, which can perform mysterious functions that might be good or bad for a human. The concept of consciousness in Eastern religions does not interpret that it is working like a human body, which is visible and has ability of feeling and making humanly decisions.

In terms of scientific interpretation, the feeling is effective in the human body as a part of the functions of the brain, which is subject to destroy at the time of death. Therefore, it is probable to conclude that soul has no feelings in the way the human body was experiencing.  This clears that human has no ability to clearly interpret or predict or explain what will happen after death or how soul would function after the death of a person. Religions believe that if a human does good things in this world soul would go to a good place (heaven) otherwise it will go to a bad place (hell).  The concept of consciousness interprets that if a person does good things in this world, the person after death will reincarnate as a human or a god otherwise, the person gets rebirth as an animal, which will subject to suffering.

Many mythical stories express that spirits can perform similar functions of the body or more evil or divine type functions although it is not visible to human eye. However, religious teachings do not catechize that soul and spirit are a similar concept or similar things.  It seems that the concept of soul or spirit is beyond the scientific comprehending to humans as they are not material objects but non-material airily things.

Some religions have no faith in the existence of soul but they interpret that consciousness is the one moves from the body after the death and reincarnate in another life.  However, the scientific interpretation is also clear that consciousness operates in the human body with the assistance of brain.  Therefore, the concept of soul and consciousness are difficult subject or concept to distinguish or comprehend.

In this situation, human beings need to understand that all religions are carrying messages that are beyond the testable capacity of human and anyone attempts to give a superiority to a particular religion is not an accurate judgment because we have no after death experiences.  However, the practicality in the world is that religious believers are always attempting to give superiority to individual’s own religion and likely to condemn others’ religions without factual evidence.  This reflects the stupidity of human and ignorance of them. The most important role is to equally respecting to all religions as people doesn’t know which religious philosophy is true and accurate.

Anthropologists believe that homo sapiens were beginning human, who colonized and moved from one place to other during the last ice age and whether they had a faith in religions is not sure.  However, some researches, who did researches on the origin of religions stated that early human had a fear to feely live in the world and to get peaceful mind without fear, they attempted to worship animal or things believing that such worshiping concept or materials or animal could bring abetment and that was how religions began in this world.

The other significant experiences appear in the world is that a single religion has divided into different sects. The operation patterns of these sects indicate that they are motivated to fighting with each other with a view to reflecting one sect is the superior or accurate interpreter of the religion than other sects. The truth is the religious leader invented a religious philosophy based on previous beliefs or without such beliefs and it is believed that constructed religion is a concrete philosophical idea or a foundation that religious leader was built.  Can these philosophical aspects or concepts be changed by others in the future creating different philosophical aspects within a religion in the future?  In the current world, we can observe that religious leaders invented their religions and later they were changed into different aspects based on sects and as a result of adulterations of religions, our world is experiencing a never-ending tragedy.  All regions have divided to sects and most serious problems to the world are being created by Muslim in which the supporters are fighting each other sects killing innocent people.

On this background, many people raise questions whether religions are on the hands of wrong persons.  This is a vital question that has to be openly debated by the community as some current religious leaders or administrators are subject to prosecution and some of them are subject to severe criticism due to wrongdoings. Majority of current religious leaders are appeared to be not following the way religious inventor expected to be behaved.  Many people have a general feeling that religions are on the hands of wrong people or subject to controlled by wrong people and religions are not actively working in modern society as expected by inventors of religions.  All religious leaders in the world believed that people are in a fallen stage and the role of religion is to change them to a convincing grace.

The clear difference between a religion and science can be identified as a religion carries a philosophy, which does not change due to any effect of the world but science is authentic facts, which were concluded after long-term practical experiments. The foundation of science might change over the time as an effect of different circumstances or new findings from experiments.  However, the fundamental philosophy of a religion could not be changed by others than the inventor, if it happens there is a question who authorized to change the original philosophy.  The religion inventors are non-existence in the modern world. Sometimes we can see that administrative councils of religions enthusiastic to change certain matters of religions on the basis of practical circumstances of the world or thinking that they are the authority of the religion. The ordinary people like us feels that there could not be an authority for religion because the religious teaching demonstrates that each person is responsible for own will, but religion can play a role to change the will through religious advices.  According to all religions in the world, there cannot be an authority to a religion.

In terms of past experience in the world, we can see that religions have made a highly valuable contribution to this world.  The human civilization was sophisticated and adorated by religious participation and human culture consists of moral values, rules, regulations, and laws for a good society by the influences of social philosophies of religions.  Therefore, nobody can undermine the contributions of religions, but some criticized religions as opium on the basis of behavioural nature of religious administrators, who are fallen stage human and never attain to a convincing grace.  The story of opium to define a religion is an unreasonable definition, which made on narrowly looking at religious administrators’ behaviour.  As religions were invented by human being there might be mistakes in religious philosophy and the message.  The environment and the experience in the world at the time of inventing religious philosophy would have influenced to the religion but changed circumstances in modern world need to admit that certain parts of religions were mythical or beyond the truth in modern terms.  The factual situation is that when religions were invented people had less knowledge about the universe, human, science, and technology.  The background knowledge existed at that time highly influenced to building the religious philosophy.

How religions originally manifested to this world is an unresolved mystery and it is a belligerent question.  There were different perceptions or stories of the beginning of human beings and the universe.  Many religions attempted to indicate that religions emerged into this world at the beginning of the universe and human beings were thinking that they had a fixed beginning. However, the beginning of the world and human beings was an evolutionary function and the ending of the world and human beings too would not be a fixed activity. In the same way, religions also manifested to this world as an evolutionary process and the thinking patterns of human in the history massively contributed to the beginning and the practices of religions.

Many religions attempt to interpret the beginning of human being and universe was a religious event. There is no argument that the origin of universe and species were marvellous events that human is unable to disclose the truth about it. What we can see in the world is that any event, which cannot apparently comprehend the cause of the event relegate as a religious matter in the history when human beings were scientifically and technologically less advanced. But in the modern world, many wonderful things are eventuating but they do not regard as spiritual events because we know the causes for them many occasions.

To what extent we can accept the view that there was a positive or absolute relationship between the beginning of universe and religion. Was it an actual religious mystery?  What is scientific or material evidence to confirm such views is also an arduous assignment? There is no positive relationship or link between the beginning of human beings and the religions.  It is not logically acceptable concept that human being emerged into this world as a result of a religious event or when human being manifested to this world they were belong to a particular religion.

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

It seems that many religions have done a mistake attempting to interpret beginning and end of the universe as a religious event.  If religions were limited to preach only the social philosophy there wouldn’t be many religions with different philosophies. The social philosophy of all religions seems to be very similar. As the social philosophy purely focuses on the practical policy and the implementation of such aspects, we could have seen more different world today and no many religions exist in the world at present and there wouldn’t be conflicts between religions or the sects of them and the world would be more peaceful and the best place to live.

Current researches have revealed that when human beings manifested to this world, they were living with fear due to the threat from outside. Human has a unique power of thinking as they have a brain which supports to think on a broader spectrum of abstraction and a capacity to understand possible threats as well as working out strategy to problem solving.  The behaviour of other animals reflects that animals also have an ability to understanding threats, but human has a superior power of thinking and consciousness to workout successful strategies to avoid threats. Animals have no such thinking power and strategic wisdom to avoid threats although they have purposes such as a bird to fly and fish to swim.

Using the thinking power, human attempted to worship things, manipulate ideas, adulate images or animals or spirits to get out of fear believing that such worships could be influenced to human life and gain relief to minds from the unrest or anxiety created, which subjected life threating or changing human to deceases. As a result of such thinking, religions originated to this world and later they were differentiated with a variety of philosophies invented through thinking and beliefs of different personnel. The ascendency of religions was that they were supported to achieve the purpose of human being at the high extent and the existence of religions also bolstered to develop highly regarded moral values in the human society.  Therefore, nobody can undermine the role of religions though they have many differences from each other.

A religion is a way of helping and training human to civilized practices in the society and an apparatus for socialization.  It controls human attitudes, which are related to actions of human and judging the right or wrong of the attitudes.  Sometimes religions might teach incorrect and harmful philosophies and actions as they were invented by humans without practically testing how practically impact such philosophical views in the world, despite the invention of religious philosophies the science practically test the way experiment results concussion in the society before authentic its findings.  But the social philosophy of religions tremendously supports to build a right-thinking pattern of human and to prevent the possible wrongdoing of human and to build a just society.

Religions have originated to this world as a spiritual support to a successful life, which could be interpreted by different people prioritizing the attitudes. The true story is that religions originated in this world as a result of humans’ thinking power and a supportive mental instrument to provide security to human beings. According to this point of views, religious believers must use their thinking power to avoid insecurity among human beings and to maintain peace and stability of the world.  The role of religion is to maintain peace and stability of the world whilst providing mental reliefs, comfortability, and patience to human society.  Current experience in the world appears that religions in the world are working against the originally expected role of religions. Sometimes, the actions and attitudes of religions are visibly harmful humans as they are involved in philosophical myths.

As a result of the operational patterns of religions in the modern era, it appears that many people are distancing from religions without trust in them.  In Australia, 30% of the population expressed that they are not affiliated to a religion at a recent census conducted.  Why religions have faced with a declining trend, the factual interpretations or reasons have given to the declining trend is many believe that religions are on the hands of wrong people who become administers or an authority of religions despite the original purpose and role of the religions. Current administrators or authority of religions work against the fundamental objectives and the roles of religions.  Religious inventors haven’t had such intention to convert the philosophy into a commercial enterprise or corporate institution, which gives prominence to desires.  It was observed that at Sunday mass in churches collect donations disturbing the religious practice of devotees. Many activities of Buddhist and Hindu temples are related to business, politics and dividing people against the unity. As in the modern era, religions become commercial enterprises with profit motives they would not fulfil the expectations of people from a religion.  It also seems that religious administrators are having a more comfortable life than the majority of the followers of the religions. In Sri Lanka recently revealed that many Buddhist and Hindu Temples collect Rs billions as a donation from devotees but nobody knows how much volume of money actually used for the benefits of humans. There are  many stories expressed about behaviour of religious priests, Buddhist monks, Muslim Mullahs and clerics and Hindu curates.  The lives of religious inventors were related to fasting, praying, meditating, preaching and helping human beings and they refused comfortable living conditions.

Religion inventors did not intend to use religions as human disasters.  The original philosophy of religions attempted to find solutions to human disasters and problems through peace, justice, and liberation. However, modern religious authorities attempt to interpret religious philosophies in the way to destroy human beings.  Current Middle East experiences clearly indicate that religions are using as an instrument to destroy the human.  They would not bring necessary peace and stability to human.

Religious believers do not want to divide religions into sects and launch wars between sects to destroy human and make collateral damages.  Many religions have this type of internal struggles openly or silently, but religious leaders or administrators of religions have not taken any actions to prevent such internal wars and to unite believers under the philosophy of the religion.  Therefore, it is obvious from the current actions of the religions that modern operations of religions are not confined to religious inventors’ wishes and religions are managing consistent with administrators’ attitudes. The nature of humanity is that it is subject to commit mistakes.  As leaders of religions are human, their decisions might not accurate always and there is a possibility of human errors and erroneous judgments.

All over the world, we can observe that religious leaders involved in politics and believers do not like this political involvement of religions. Religions can make comments or act against political judgments if such decisions are fundamentally contradicting with religious philosophy, what we can see in the modern world is that religious leaders are willingly participating political process and support to political parties for own advantages.  The consequences of such political process are to spread hate against a human being and working against the original purpose of the religion.

There is no argument that religions have made a tremendous contribution to human civilization and the existence of human beings.  Religions had a single origin when it manifested and later it was divided into many faces.  Greek philosophy indicates that when the universe was created knowledge also with it and human has a responsibility to discover the knowledge.  The role of discovering the knowledge is done by the science and technology and we can see that science and technology also play a destructive role as a part of the process of discovering the knowledge.  For example, we can see that science and technology have invested weapons, which could be used to destroy human being as well as the universe.  Therefore, religions need to join hand with science and technology then the original purpose of religions would be fulfilling a highly effective role-playing for human civilization.

Science, technology, and religions need a coexistence with a view to discovering the knowledge with practicing moral values and to direct the science and technology to go ahead right way.  When the coexistence of developing between three factors, it would remove religions from the hands on wrong people.

The modern world is highly dependent on money, someone can argue that religions cannot play their role without money.  That idea is correct to a certain extent.  Religions need money to survive its administrators and to help human but obvious experience in modern time is religious administrators use religion to get rich them.