KAMALIKA PIERIS

Yahapalana eagerly compared its foreign policy with that of former President Rajapaksa. ‘During the last regime the Lankan mouse from its peephole was roaring at India Instead of fostering relations with India’, said Don Manu. India slammed the door in their face, similarly America, England, France, Germany and the rest of the powerful western world. Due to its anti Indian and anti west stance the island had no friend in the world except the       region’s superpower aspirant China, continued Don Manu. Lanka isolated and alone, with no friends, turned to China and gave it access to areas of strategic value. Rajapakse turned to China not because of a good foreign policy but because political survival depended on it, concluded Don Manu.

Foreign relations have been re-balanced from a ‘China weighted’ one, to one that has restored relations with India and the West, said Yahapalana. Under Rajapakse there was too much reliance on China, ignoring traditional friends like US, Europe and India. Now old friendships are restored and there is less reliance on China, said Razeen Sally.  Unlike the previous regime, the current regime has sought to balance its policy between India and China, giving India a stake in Hambantota airport, Colombo port project and a key expressway, besides preventing Chinese submarines in Sri Lankan waters , observed India’s Foreign secretary, S. Jaishankar.

Unfortunately, neither India nor America have a good public image in Sri Lanka today. The public see modern India as the enemy. Direct Indian involvement in operating Sri Lanka’s second international airport  at Mattala would be 100 times more dangerous than leasing Hambantota port to China said one critic. US is no longer considered a rich, happy, perfect country after the California forest fires and the shootings at Las Vegas and Texas.

Sri Lanka must learn to balance international relations, Sri Lanka cannot become a military facility of any one country,  Sri Lanka can’t play one country off against another,   said Jayanath Colombage. Dayan Jayatilleke warned, ‘Sinhala fundamentalists’ count on the rise of China as a counterweight to India as well as the combined weight of India and the US. India and US are the regional superpower and the world’s sole superpower, though admittedly it is in slow, relative decline. We are an easily blockaded, small island on India’s doorstep and unlike Pakistan, we have no land route to China.

Building and balancing military relationships with India, China,  US and Japan will be crucial if Sri Lanka is to remain ‘a friend of all and an enemy of none’, warned critics. It may be best therefore for Sri Lanka to take middle ground at this moment. We are located at a meeting point between the east and west in the Indian Ocean and our location is of significant geo strategic importance, said analysts. However, no analyst has pointed out that China is a rising power, USA is a declining power. It is ridiculous for Sri Lanka to link with a declining power instead of the  rising one.

The Yahapalana tilt to US has led to a couple of   issues at the UN. Sri Lanka shocked the Arab and Islamic world by not supporting a pro Palestine, at UNESCO, said critics.  They were referring to the Occupied Palestine Resolution passed in October 2016. The resolution condemned Israel for aggression against the Palestinian people. Sri Lanka abstained.

Island ran a headline, ‘Mangala denies being US lackey.’ Mangala Samaraweera, then Foreign minister, said that Sri Lanka’s stand on the Palestine issue was that both Israel and Palestine should find a negotiated settlement and Sri Lanka had not voted against Palestine, he said. Sri Lanka abstained because Sri Lanka had reservations about the text and not because Sri Lanka had changed its mind about Palestine, explained the Ministry of Foreign affairs. India had also opted to abstain, along with many other countries. ‘We have supported Palestine’s entry as observer state to the UN. Our position on Palestine has not shifted at all’.

‘Now it has refused to vote against a resolution on Iran in UN General Assembly’, howled critics in November 2016. Iran has stood by Sri Lanka with military aid and credit lines to buy oil and carry out development projects. Iran stood by Sri Lanka in Human Rights Council.  Sri Lanka position on the vote is eagerly watched. Sri Lanka abstained in this election too.

Sri Lanka is a small nation, surrounded by much larger countries, all with economic and military power, greater than its own. It is essential that Sri Lanka maintain mutually beneficial economic and political ties with them, but Sri Lanka has to take utmost care to ensure that it does not enter in to asymmetrical agreements of long duration with a super power. The damage to national interests will be irreparable, said Anura Gunasekera.

Once entrenched, the super power will not relinquish its hold, it will only ask for more. National interest will not be a consideration in their calculations. We have to bear in mind at all times that we do not have the wherewithal, to exert economic, political or military force to evict an undesirable occupant from our soil, warned Anura Gunasekera

The main military attraction in Sri Lanka is of course, Trincomalee. Trincomalee is one of Sri Lanka most valuable assets. Trincomalee is one of the largest deep water natural harbors in the world. It consists of approximately 2000 hectares of sea and 6000 hectares of land.  The entrance is four miles wide and five across.  The inner harbor which lies to the north covers about 12 sq miles and is securely enclosed by rocks and small islets.

Trincomalee harbor is very strategically located.  Also Trincomalee is a sheltered port unaffected by seasonal weather changes and tidal waves. A remarkable feature of this harbor is its great depth. It has an average depth of 25 m, which could accommodate even mega container ships carrying over 18,000 TEUs that requires a draught of 19 meters.

It has a submarine canyon with walls as high as 1350 cms and a depth of over 3350 meters.  This canyon is one of the 20 largest submarine canyons in the world. Trincomalee is therefore   ideal for nuclear submarines.  They can dive low in the inner harbor and effectively avoid radar and sonar detection. Therefore any power that controls Trincomalee   had a great advantage from naval and strategic perspective.

This has political implications. A fleet so protected is in a position to dominate the Bay of Bengal and the eastern Indian Ocean and   the foreign power owning such a fleet was at an advantage. Currently, it has been observed that Trincomalee can comfortably accommodate the Seventh fleet of the US Navy.

US does not hide its desire to get into Trincomalee. US is working towards establishing  its bases in Trincomalee for its Seventh Fleet and was making Sri Lanka military vacate strategically important locations in the port,  said a news report of 2015.    Accordingly, Sampur navy base was vacated in 2015. The entire camp was removed and its 400 sailors sent to Boossa navy camp in Galle. The reason given was that Sampur was going to be used for resettlement.

The government has decided to allow Trincomalee to be a US base for the 7th fleet said a news report in 2016. Speculation is rife that the Trincomalee Harbor, a portion of the Colombo Port and many other key resources will go to India and the US, said Sumanasiri Liyanage in January 2017.  In May 2017 Vitarana said that an American Naval camp is to be set up in Trincomalee, with the Trincomalee harbor as the focal point. A bilateral agreement has been signed secretly to establish an American naval camp in Trincomalee.

Several international conferences on the Indian Ocean have taken place  in Colombo and elsewhere. Yahapalana is going to lead in this as well. We will continue to take a leading role, in bringing our partners in the Indian Ocean together to deliberate on issues of importance to all of us, said Prime Minister Ranil  Wickremesinghe at the opening of the 2nd Indian Ocean Conference.

Pathfinder Foundation, Carnegie India together with Vivekananda International Foundation in India conducted a conference in Colombo discuss six major areas of connectivity in the Indian Ocean.  Pathfinder Foundation ‘s Centre for Indo-Lanka Initiatives  and National Maritime Foundation  based in New Delhi, India signed a Memorandum of Understanding to embark on research into maritime strategy and security studies in the Indian Ocean. Their first bilateral conference in February 2018 will be on maritime security.

Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKI) held a dialogue on the theme ‘Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy: Choices in a Changing World’  at this Dialogue, Mahdev Mohan, Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore, observed that Sri Lanka’s attempt to craft a dual identity as the centre of the Indian Ocean and a gateway to India would give it a competitive advantage. This was ‘a space that nobody had had the chance to exploit just yet.’

I end this series with a survey of Yahapalana utterances on the politics of the Bay of Bengal. These utterances range from the ridiculous to statements that show that Yahapalana is planning to lead Sri Lanka into war.

Sri Lanka is a small island right in the middle of a large world. For thousands of years we have benefitted from being located strategically. Unfortunately, we seem to have forgotten this competitive advantage of the location. Our vision is to reclaim that mantle of international connectivity, said Prime Minister Ranil  Wickremesinghe

The Government of Sri Lanka has a clear vision of what it wants Sri Lanka to be said Minister Harsha de Silva in January 2017, we would like to position Sri Lanka at the centre of the Indian Ocean.  Sri Lanka is going to be the Hub of the Indian Ocean said  Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in May 2017. Sri Lanka will be the Hub in the Indian Ocean announced Yahapalana in September 2017.

The notion of Sri Lanka as  a Hub is not as absurd as  I had  initially thought. Jayanath Colombage  made out the following case for Sri Lanka . Colombage  pointed out  that Sri Lanka has a  unique advantage in its geographical location.  Sri Lanka is located in the centre of the Indian Ocean, almost equal distance from the eastern and western Indian Ocean littorals. Sri Lanka is located just 12 nautical miles from the busiest east-west shipping route across this ocean, linking Europe, Americas, Far East, Middle East and Asia, which is considered a key shipping lane in the 21st century. .Further, Sri Lanka is blessed with deep-water ports and deep navigable waters around the country and especially along the approaches to major ports.. Port of Colombo is the only port in the region which is capable of docking and handling even the latest version of mega container ships.

Sri Lanka is well connected digitally to the world and possesses an advanced telecommunication network. Sri Lanka is also enjoying well connected aviation network linking major cities in the region and beyond.  Sri Lanka maintains a balanced and equi-distance diplomatic posture and is considered to be a friendly country by many countries. . Sri Lanka is the only country in this region, where all states arrive without any restrictions, be they  Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis or Americans. Sri Lanka has already taken leadership roles in the India Ocean with Indian Ocean as Zone of Peace initiative,  its role in creating SAARC and creating of UNCLOS. Sri Lanka has presently taken the initiative to discuss a Code of Conduct for Major Maritime Users in the Indian Ocean region and a new Indian Ocean Order.  

Therefore  the   ‘Hub’ possibility  is based on Sri Lanka’s strategic location as well as the availability of ports on all coasts and two international airports with good land connectivity. Colombo will also be a center for offshore finance and business, said Yahapalana . Once it becomes a Hub, Sri Lanka future  will depend on how well the country leverages its geo strategic location as an Indian Ocean hub, said analysts.

‘We don’t want the Indian Ocean to become a militarized arena for great power rivalry. We don’t see here maritime and territorial disputes like those in the South China Sea, said Frances Adamson, Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia. However, a maritime build up is taking place in the Indian Ocean, which includes  nuclear capability. India , USA and China are increasing their naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Very soon, countries will compete for naval power and control of the sea in the Bay of Bengal.  Naval power will play an important role in the region said analysts.

The US is interested in creating partnerships in the Indian Ocean. The U.S.-India-Japan ‘Malabar’ naval exercise in July 2017 was ‘our largest and most complex to date, involving over ten thousand personnel’ said US.  US is also interested in building the coast guard capacity of ‘our Indian Ocean partners’. US says it wants to see greater naval cooperation in the Indian Ocean. US wants to Improve community policing, aviation security, and forensics analysis in the region as well,    in order to combat terrorism, transnational crime, human trafficking and illicit drugs. There is no mention of war.  Analysts however say that US will not be fighting in the Indian Ocean, the fighting will be done on behalf of USA by its partner states.

Maritime security in the Bay of Bengal is now a matter of much concern, said analysts. No single power or coalition will be able to rule on their own in the Indian Ocean. South Asia will need to build military alliances  to effectively counter security threats. Small nations such as Sri Lanka, with comparatively limited maritime resources also can become an integral element of maritime security in the region, said Minister Harsha de Silva. Sri Lanka  should  carve out a role for itself in the region, said  admirers.

Sri Lanka is well positioned  to play a strategic role in the Indian Ocean, due  to its strategic location in the international maritime route.  Sri Lanka  is   also at the crucial entry points of the Bay of Bengal, observed analysts. ,Sri Lanka  has an important responsibility for regional security in addition to national security, announced Yahapalana   we share responsibility in keeping its waters safe said  Prime Minister Ranil  Wickremesinghe .

It was the duty of the Sri Lanka navy to protect the entire Indian Ocean region without limiting its operation to the exclusive economic zone of Sri Lanka, said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.  Critics pounced on this remark. This comment is cause for grave concern said Vitarana. Sri Lanka navy was been asked to protect the entire Indian ocean. Our navy cannot even protect us from the Indian fishermen. If Sri Lanka navy is to carry out this huge responsibility, then US ships will have to be berthed in Sri Lanka.   The US 7th fleet will come to Trincomalee.  (CONCLUDED)

Chanaka Bandarage

The current Northern Provincial Council (NPC) is a racist government. The NPC discriminates against the Sinhalese in the North.

At the moment the NPC does not have the Land and Police powers (under the 13^th  Amendment, the Land and Police powers were granted to the provincial governments; but JR Jayawardane, realising the danger, effected measures to stop the final grant). At the moment the central government holds these two powers.

Even without having these two powers, the NPC discriminates against the Sinhalese hugely in the  North. It is not difficult to imagine what would happen when those powers are formally granted to the NPC  – that would be the creation of the Tamil Eelam.

LAND

• NPC opposes Sinhalese people from living in the North. It even blocks the 2^nd and 3^rd generation Tamil speaking Sinhalese from returning to the North. Sri Lankan parliamentarians maintain a mum on this blatant discrimination.
• NPC Chief Minister openly campaigns against the settlement of Sinhalese in the His actions amount to contravening local and international laws including human rights laws. The Chief Minister has single handedly stopped the establishment of Sinhalese settlements in the North . He has done this with impunity; since establishment of the NPC in 2013. A fear psychosis has been created among the Sinhalese that they should not contemplate settling down in the North. The sad irony is that the NPC, since its establishment, has received the implied consent to do so from the central governments.
• There is hardly any land available in plenty for the growing populations of Sri Lanka to live except in the North and the East. The NPC and the central government instrumentalities (like the Tamil speaking Grama Sevakas) have imposed ‘red tape’ upon the Sinhalese from settling in the North. As it was impossible to comply with the stringent (unlawful) rules, the Sinhalese who wanted to settle in the North returned to the South (note, the North and the South have been traditional homelands of the Sinhalese).
• NPC has a huge budget and spends lavishly on the upliftment of the Tamil citizens in the North (funds largely provided to them  by the central government), it has basically done nothing to uplift the lives of the very few Sinhalese living in the North. Lots of the Northern Sinhalese still live in half built houses or tin sheds.  The roads in the areas where they live have been neglected.  The NPC has shown no desire to attend to repairing these roads.
• The Madu Road Sinhalese who were the first settlers of that area have been overlooked when allocating recently built shops. The Sinhalese in Silawathura have not been provided with proper drinking water (until the NGO that the writer is involved with went ahead to build wells and provide them with clean water). Kokilai Sinhalese (including the Buddhist monk) are constantly facing legal action in relation to land matters; the sinister objective is to evict them from those areas. Tamil speaking Navatkuli Sinhalese have been asked to return to the South alleging that they are illegal squatters. No attempts have been made by any government to rebuild the ‘Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya’ in Jaffna, flattened by Prabhakaran’s bombing in the early 1980s (it had over 2000 students and was considered to have one of the best school laboratories in the North). This prime land, adjoining the Jaffna Hospital, has been encroached by squatters, to a certain extent.
• The former TNA MP Suresh Premachandran (presently the Leader of EPRLF) threatened Navatkuli Sinhalese that they must return to the South (youtube.com/watch?v=fKfrUS–twIs). This is a good forewarning as to what we can expect from a future TNA or other Tamil government when they have full Land (and Police) powers in the North.
• After the war, the Madu Road Sinhalese were given 20 perches of land by the then central government to resettle, new Tamils who were brought into the area, probably under the instigation of the NPC, to live next to them were given 40 perches of land. The Sinhalese understand that they were discriminated against on the ground of race. In Madu Road, a prime block of land belonging to the central government was acquired by a Tamil businessman to establish a new business.
• NPC opposes and sometimes prevents the few Sinhalese Buddhists in the North from practising Buddhism. Even to build a ‘chaithya’ within their temple premises, the Sinhalese in the North had to seek orders from the Court of law. We are aware of incidents where Buddha statutes placed in public places in the North had been damaged by subversive elements.
• Sinhalese living in the North have been denied the right to practice their livelihoods – due to this some Sinhalese left the North and returned to the South. We are aware of incidents where self-employed Sinhalese have been harassed by the NPC officials imposing unfair conditions and restrictions on their businesses (Tamils doing the same businesses have not been imposed with such unfair restrictions and conditions). A Sinhala shop owner in the North was frequently harassed by errant officials alleging he had encroached into the pavement,  other adjoining non-Sinhalese shop owners, did not even receive a warning for committing the same offence.
• TNA runs the NPC. TNA was the LTTE proxy in the Sri Lankan parliament.
• TNA politicians have worked to chase out Sinhalese from lands and give those land to Tamils (eg. after the war, about 100 Sinhalese were chased out from the land (up to 1000 acres) in Dehiwatte in Trincomalee district (Eastern Province) and those lands were given to new Tamil settlers. A high level public servant of the Trincomalee District Registry related that the ‘order’ to evict the Sinhalese from the lands had come from a prominent TNA parliamentarian (who is ‘venerated’ in the South).

සංහිඳියාව (Reconciliation)

NPC has shown least regard to සංහිඳියාව (reconciliation), though the Central Governments preach this non-stop to the people in the South. In the North, government work is conducted in Tamil exclusively. The Sinhalese in the North who are unable to speak Tamil find it extremely difficult to obtain services from government offices. The Jaffna Railway station had not regularly announced the arrival of the train from Colombo in Sinhala language. Huge bill board advertisements in the North (eg on A9) are being confined to Tamil and English languages only (some advertisements are displayed by banks and leading businesses housed in the South).  To a traveler to the North, it is obvious that Sinhalese signage is largely lacking. This is not the situation in the South. A Northern Sinhalese Buddhist monk related to the writer that when buses are crowded, he had to travel standing on them as no one would offer him a seat.

Future

• Once they have the Land power, the NPC not only would be able to legally block the Southern Sinhalese from settling in the North, but also from visiting the North. The NPC may be able to impose a law that without its permission no person can enter the Northern lands, say, beyond Vavuniya. This means the Sinhalese can be asked not to enter the North.
• The very few Sinhalese who are already in the North could be repatriated to the South.
• Once the Land power is given, it will be easy for enemies of Sri Lanka in Thamilnadu, like Vaiiko, Nedumarann and Seman et al to set up anti-Sri Lankan establishments/institutions in the North.
• Tamilnadu people may have easy access to enter the province. Their fishermen may freely poach on our waters.
• As the land will be theirs, without Sri Lanka’s consent, the NPC would be able to negotiate with India and build a bridge to connect the two lands.
• With the Land power legally granted to them, the NPC can impose more pressure on the Army to vacate its camps (note even the Leader of the Opposition in the recent past trespassed into  the Kilinochchi Army camp and demanded that the Army should vacate that land). The NPC can agitate people to conduct hartals etc demanding the military to entirely vacate from the North. Such actions can endanger the lives of the military and the Sinhalese police (if any) stationed in the North. With Land powers fully in their control,  basically the NPC will be able to do anything in relation to land – sell, transfer, lease, mortgage, donate, acquire in any way it likes – without even paying just compensation to the land owners (note, there will  be some land still vested with the central government).

POLICE

• Historically the majority of the Policemen and Police women in the North have been Sinhalese. This is the situation even now. Once the Police powers are given, the new Northern Police Force may be comprised exclusively of Tamil speaking officers. If the NPC wants, it may be able to impose a condition that all police officers must speak Tamil fluently.  This would eliminate most Sinhalese police personnel from serving in the North.
• The NPC police will be like a para military force, it will bear arms. As the central government will have no control over recruitment to the NP police force, ex-Tigers may be able join. After the two powers are given, if the Sri Lankan military continues to remain in the North, it is possible that confrontation may occur between the two ‘armed’ forces.
• A Police officer from the South may not be able to enter the North without the permission from the Northern Chief Minister. If a federal Police Officer is allowed permission to enter the North, he/she could be asked to remove his/her federal uniform and wear civilian clothes.
• As the Northern Provincial Police Commission will come under the control of the NP Chief Ministry, it will be the Chief Minister who will appoint the head of its police force, not the President.
• It will be very difficult for the central government Police force (federal) to investigate offences committed by criminals; it will be largely the duty of the provincial government police forces (imagine, having nine separate Police forces, wearing nine different uniforms + a federal police force in this tiny Sri Lanka! – we are less than 1/3 of the population of Tamilnadu).
• The central government Police force (federal) will become a minute Police force who will be confined to duties in federal institutions like the Airports (2), Ports (about 4 or 5), Defence installations, Federal Parliament, Foreign Ministry, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, Post Offices, SLBC/Rupavahini and the Customs etc. As the provinces are likely to get the powers currently in the concurrent list (still unsure); majority of the country’s public establishments/ buildings will be manned by the provincial police forces.
• A person who would commit a crime in the South, like planting a bomb (eg, a future Pottu Amman), can flee to the North and stay hiding there. It will be up to the Northern Police whether or not to arrest him. The Federal Police will have to seek an ‘extradition order’ from the NP Chief Minister to receive and prosecute the person in the South. Whether or not to issue such an order will be the prerogative of the NP Chief Minister.
• In 1991 Vartharaja Perumal (co-founder of EPRLF) used his paramilitary force like an ‘Army’ and unilaterally declared the ‘Tamil Eelam’ in Northern Sri Lanka. This led the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa to dissolve the provincial council and impose a direct rule on it. Such a scenario can recur; next time the situation would be more serious, given that NPC will have a police force in its command and under the proposed changes the Governor’s powers are likely to be severely curtailed.

TNA  has not given up on the separate state, it is foolish to think otherwise

• When overseas, TNA politicians speak in a different language and tone – they espouse separation. There are instances where the TNA has openly stated that they do not believe in a unitary Sri Lanka. In Geneva in the past, they have lobbied for the Tamil right for self- determination (ie, separate state).
• When overseas, TNA politicians make fabricated claims that Tamils are being discriminated in Sri Lanka, including the accusation that Tamil women are currently being raped by the military (this writer has confronted them in foreign western forums, the TNA leaders have then retracted).
• Tamil separatists follow their leader, Chelvanayakam’ s teaching – ‘little now, more later’ (please refer to my earlier article ‘Tamil demand for unfair and unreasonable power – due to Sinhala stupidity, complacency, ignorance and infighting).’
• NPC has openly indicated that they are not afraid to breach the country’s Constitution. That is why they have shown a desire to seek foreign aid and direct foreign participation (by passing the central government) to build the NP. According to the Constitution the NPC does not have the Foreign Affairs powers, it is vested with the central government.
• TNA, though leads the opposition in the current parliament shows little regard to issues relating to the whole of Sri Lanka. They are predominantly focused on Tamil rights. This should not be the behaviour of a responsible opposition.
• It is likely that the parliament will give 2/3 majority to further amend the Constitution (among other things to grant the Land and Police powers to all the nine provinces). Afterwards like JR Jayawardane did in 1987, sanction may be obtained from the Supreme Court  to the proposals (subject to the Supreme Court’s approval). If the matter is referred to the People at a Referendum, it is likely that the proposals would fail. Whatever the outcome of the Referendum,  TNA will use the results to show that in the North and the East they received a majority vote which shows that those people support the proposals. Based on the Referendum results, the NP Chief Minister may call for an UDI (unilateral declaration of independence). Given that the West (US and the European Union) and India are now in good terms with Sri Lanka, it is interesting to note whether or not they would accept the call or stick its loyalty with Sri Lanka. Whatever the situation, it is quite probable that a Tamil Eelam would be dawned one day as a new nation within Sri Lanka (Kosovo was accepted in that manner). The only way to defeat this is to have Sinhalese and Muslim people settled in the North (this is also the solution to the country’s land scarcity in order for people to live comfortably), and try to preserve as many as possible Army camps there.

Our weak fight thus far against the proposed amendments to the Constitution  (six subcommittee reports and the interim report)

Our fight has largely been confined to the below mentioned misguided areas (in bullet points). When the masses realise that these fears that we try to portray  are actually not there, they may consent to the new proposals (at the moment there is lukewarm interest in the South about the Constitutional debate):

• That the prominence currently being given in the Constitution to Buddhism may be removed. It is quite evident that the proponents of the proposals are not stupid to remove this prominence already given in Chapter II, Article 9 of the Constitution. Even the Cardinal of the Catholic Church has stated that that should not be done.
• We fight tooth and nail whether it will be ‘orumiththa nadu’ or ‘Otriyatchi’. In this debate does it really matter?  Surely, this should not be the key issue of the debate.
• We continue to argue that the proponents of the proposals are trying to convert the country into a federal state (even the proponents have sometimes stated that federalism would be the outcome!). It was the Banda-Chelva pact in 1957 that first tried to create a federal state in Sri Lanka.  In the mid 1990s the country attempted to do this again. But, in 1987 we in fact became a federal state (created by the 13th Amendment in 1987). Therefore, rather than making the shallow argument that the country will become a federal state as a result of the current proposals ; we must  demonstrate that they may lead to a much more sinister end – secession.  We have failed to understand that many ordinary Sri Lankans now believe that it is alright to grant federal status to the provinces, believing that the country will still remain a single nation.  There is justification to this belief. They know that countries that have federal governments such as Canada, Australia, India, France, Mexico, Brazil, Germany have remained a one nation. What we must also stress is that unlike those countries, in Sri Lanka, we deal with Tamil politicians most of who have the hidden agenda to create a separate state – Tamil Eelam.
• What we must do is to highlight the real damage these proposals might do to the country. Giving the Land and the Police powers to the NPC, the federal (central) government giving up its concurrent list powers are the most dangerous and scary proposals. They are changes that can lead us to lose our sovereignty and territorial integrity. Unfortunately, in our fight thus far, we have given less deference to them.
• Finally, the populace must be educated about the grave danger  that we will face if these powers are given to the NPC. To overcome the problem, we must all work together. Like our other problems, if we continue to  look at them as a UNP/SLFP/JA issue,  we would never win. What we ought to understand is that this is a National problem; we must disregard our party affinities and all of us must work as united Sri Lankans to defeat the threat we now face to our sovereignty and territorial integrity.
• This time, once we lose sovereignty and territorial integrity, it will be permanent. It will be impossible to regain them. Again, that is why  we must fight with full force and vigour to defeat the adverse proposals.

By Garvin Karunaratne

I enclose a Paper I wrote way back in 2008 detailing what has happened to Zimbabwe, to illustrate how the Superpowers strangled Mugabe. This provides the background to understand  what is currently happening in Zimbabwe.

The conclusion deals with what was happening to the economy of Sri Lanka in 2008. That also helps us to understand our predicament of today. It is high time our leaders take charge of the economy of Sri Lanka before following the IMF any further.

Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Today: The Stranglehold of the Superpowers & the IMF in action. Lessons for Sri Lanka.

Mon, 2008-07-21 01:03 — admin

By Garvin Karunaratne

Many of my friends and contacts have been surprised at my statement about President Mugabe, showing him as a victim of the Superpowers- how they have actually strangled him in my paper: Zimbabwe’s Election Results; The Double Standards of the Superpowers(Asian Tribune 20/04/2008). I wrote:

Why are the Superpowers so angry with Mugabe? When Mugabe came to power the Whites were ruling the economy. They had established plantations on most of the ideal cultivable land which was taken over from them virtually by force. Earlier this land was controlled by the communities and worked for the welfare of the people. This happened in every country that was colonized and this included countries like Sri Lanka and Kenya. The British did this in a subtle manner by declaring all unoccupied land as belonging to the Crown. In pre-colonial days the forest land near habitations belonged to the villages as common land used for water retention, firewood collection, for forest produce, for habitation as the populations grew, for cattle enclosures during the cultivation season etc. The land was thereafter sold to the white planters for a song and in Kenya, within the forest sold were entire villages, including the people.

In Out of Africa Karen Blixen documents how the planters sold their land including full villages with the people. In Sri Lanka it is on record that the Police were used to throw out villagers when their villages were situated in forest extents sold to the planters.

When we think of the Third World countries today we tend to forget that the Third World was entirely conque red by the Colonial Superpowers. In the words of Cecil John Rhodes, the aim of the British Empire was to bring the whole of the uncivilized world under British Rule”. The colonial masters changed the self reliant economies to become economies that brought about an income for them. The colonies were made to produce raw materials required for their industries and the goods manufactured were sold to the masses in the colonies. In this process the Third World countries were exploited with riches accumulating in the Countries of the Colonial Superpowers. Zimbabwe, earlier Rhodesia, was thus exploited to the maximum.

Mugabe was a guerilla fighter who fought tooth and nail against the colonial domination of his country. At last in 1978 the guerilla forces forced the British to cede independence. Under the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, Britain, the country that had ruled Rhodesia from 1890 to 1965, when Ian Smith declared independence unilaterally, agreed to pay compensation to white famers who will be dispossessed of their land when the land will be taken over and distributed to the indigenous people. This was argued necessary because the colonial ruler, the British had taken over these lands from the communities that controlled these unoccupied commonly held lands without the payment of any compensation and had thereafter sold these lands to foreign-mainly British planters at nominal- very low rates and they had established plantations and had thereby amassed fortunes over decades. The prosperity of the UK was brought about by the profits that came from the plantations The vast bulk of the cultivable land of Rhodesia was in this process bought and occupied by 6000 white farmers. The dispossessed local people had no employment. It was an attempt to make these impoverished landless people farmers that made Mugabe argue for the plantations to be taken over for distribution.

However this takes over of plantations was to be done on a willing seller” basis. In fact the question of compensation payments rocked and almost aborted the Lancaster House Agreement which took three months of discussions to complete. An important premise of this agreement was that no repossessions out side the willing seller concept could be done for ten years. In 1981 Britain pledged to pay GB Pounds 630 millon, but there was continuous disagreement and haggling and ultimately in 1997, the British Government of Tony Blair, reneged on its commitment and paid only pounds 44 million. According to a Report from the Zimbabwe Government the amount paid was only Pounds 17 million.

Independent Zimbabwe under President Mugabe did well initially after independence. Little land was taken over because of the terms of the Lancaster House Agreement to find willing sellers and the White Farmers continued to work their farms. The indigenous population continued to be landless. There was rapid growth in the Eighties. and then came the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which Mugabe embraced in 1990. However it did not take long for Mugabe to realize that the Structural Adjustment Program did not bring about any development and he ditched the SAP in 2001.. IMF withdrew balance of payments support in 1999 and withdrew providing Aid in 1999.

During the period of the Structural Adjustment Program loans were made available even for consumption. T he tenet of the SAP was to allow free trade, deregulate and reduce or abolish tariffs on imports on the basis that the IMF will provide easy loans to bridge budget deficits. In this process the foreign debt ballooned to $ 4,500 million in 2001 to the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank. Earlier Zimbabwe was not an indebted country at independence. It was the IMF that ruined Zimbabwe.

In the words of Richard Saunders, “Loan agreements emanating from the Structural Adjustment Programme have stretched Zimbabwe’s foreign and domestic debt to unmanageable proportions.”(Saunders:30)

As explained by Patrick Bond and Richard Saunders: 1991 was the turning point… The US was suddenly the sole superpower and the IMF, the World Bank and GATT(later WTO), wasted no time imposing a global neoliberal iron heel. Zimbabwe had significant international debts and suddenly new debt service was conditioned on yielding to the global neo liberal dictatorship. The large State Sector and protected local industries inherited from the prior regime were condemned as inefficient and an Economic Structural Adjustment Program was adopted by Mugabe with considerable enthusiasm. The results were disastrous.

Manufacturing output declined by 40% from 1991 to 1995 accompanied by a similar decline in worker’s real standard of living and dramatic increase in inflation that ravaged savings and those in the informal economy….Domestic Industry was destroyed in 1990 by the ESAP(Bond & Saunders)

The Government however was under constant pressure from the people to provide th em with land and Mugabe had no alternative but to take over the plantations without paying compensation. Mugabe commenced repossession of plantations in 1997. In March 2002, all whites were ordered to leave their land without compensation. The Current aim is to transfer 30% of farmland to black ownership by 2014. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in March 2002 Mugabe established a one party state but by 1990 changed his ideas and held multi party elections.

Many world authorities are unaware of the real reasons for the disaster that Zimbabwe faces today. Professor Paul Collier of Oxford in his book: The Bottom Billion:Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What can be done about it(Oxford 2007) states: Mugabe must take responsibility for the economic c collapse in Zimbabwe since 1998 culminating in inflation over 100.000 %.”

If the British Government had stood by the conditions that were agreed at the Lancaster House Agreement and had provided the 630 million pounds to be paid as compensation, there would have been no problem. But the British Government had reneged on its promise and President Mugabe cannot be blamed for this decision to take over the plantations. It was this act of President Mugabe that made the International Superpowers move sanctions on Zimbabwe.

No country with a massive foreign debt can face sanctions imposed. Though in the July 2008, G8 Meeting of the Superpowers, full sanctions were not agreed on because Russia and China did not support it, compliance with sanctions already imposed by Britain and Western Superpowers have ruined the economy.

Paul Collier has taken Mugabe’s present Zimbabwe out of context in castigating Mugabe. One has to castigate Tony Blair and his British Government for reneging on the aid that was agreed at the Lancaster House Agreement and also blame the IMF for implementing the Structural Adjustment Program that ruined local industry and local production. Once the development infrastructure in a country is abolished, it is an extremely difficult task to rebuild. Go through the IMF annals of ‘development’ and the Structural Adjustment Programme and one will find that each and every country that followed it have had their economies ruined.

In today’s context once a country has a high foreign debt which it cannot service and further its economy has been ruined by following the tenets of the Structural Adjustment programme, it has to depend on the grace of the International Superpowers for further Aid, if it is to pay its dues and survive. Mugabe came to a point where he had to displease the International Superpowers by his decision to take=2 0over the plantations without the payment of compensation and by his decision to not implement the Structural Adjustment Program. What happens is that through following the SAP the development infrastructure that is there in the country is abolished, the country’s assets are privatized and get into the foreign hands- hands of the multinationals and further through privatization of paying assets, the Government does not have a tax base to meet its development expenditure.

No country can face the sanctions of the International Community for long. Initially a country can raise a few foreign loans at high interest rates, through foreign banks, but this source dries up particularly because the countries cannot service those loans taken at high interest and further because the foreign banks eventually fall in line to the tunes of the International Community and the IMF.

Mugabe could not face the sanctions of the IMF and the International Superpowers. Thus his economy gradually got into ruins with the inflation rate reaching 7,000% in 2007 and this rising further to 100,000% in 2008. Today the unemployment rate is around 80% and about a fourth of the population work in foreign countries, mainly in South Africa. The people have their incomes from foreign funds remitted by the relatives working abroad.

So far I have never read anywhere that Mugabe had stached away dollars, as many other Third World rulers have done.

Due to the fact that the Presidential Election held in 2008 was inconclusive and at the run off the opposition backed out, Mugabe continues as the president. Mugabe faced an election and had every vote counted unlike the US Presidential Elections of 2000 and 2004 In 2000 George H. Bush20was pushed into the seat of the Presidency by the Supreme Court that abruptly stopped the recounts of ballots that were being counted in Florida under the instructions of the Florida Supreme Court. I was in the USA at the time of the election and this very undemocratic act of electing the US President without counting ballots made me document and write a book: The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election. The University Press of America) In 2004 it was the electronic voting machines that declared Bush the winner. The voting machines were prone to malfunction again and again- at times recording four million votes when only 400 ballots were fed into the machines. However as there was no paper documentation the fact whether the machines were correct or wrong in the totaling could not be verified. This very strange method of depending on errant voting machines to declare the winner made me document this new American style of holding elections in my book:The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election.(Booksurge/Amazon.com).

What has happened to Mugabe and Zimbabwe is due not to Mugabe’s inefficiency, but entirely due to the fact that Mugabe failed to counter the machinations of the International Community that started imposing sanctions. In today’s neocolonialist era, it is the foreign funded Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) that are used by the Colonial Superpowers to sabotage the development of the Third World covertly. Overtly the Superpowers function as paragons of democracy and human rights and their educated Envoys in their verbosity continue to pose as if they are helping our countries and our leaders are snared. There is a catch in everything that the Superpowers tell us, if only we can decipher it.

There are a number of lessons for Sri Lanka from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The United National Party that ruled Sri Lanka from 1977 embraced the SAP and in the process the economy of the country was really ruine d. In 1977 when the SAP was embraced by President Jayewardene the Rupee was immediately devalued by 100%. The continued implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme of high interest rates and free trade- allowing a free flow of foreign exchange to everyone for everything and meeting the excess with loans, increasing our debt is the easiest method of ruining any economy. See my book: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Alternate Programs of Success(Godages) for the process of ruination that took place. This is exactly what happened to Mugabe.

Sri Lanka has been kicked by the IMF and the World Bank. It is their refusal to give us aid that has made other financial authorities discredit us and it is this that has forced us to get loans with as high an interest as 8.25%. Why are we yet continuing the IMF precepts of the Structural Adjustment Program like high interest rates, which are the highest in Asia and due to which no local production can emerge. Why have we not commenced regulating the use of foreign exchange. Unfortunately Sri Lanka even free floated20the Rupee in 2001 under Chandrika’s Government with the result that the Central Bank no longer is in charge of the foreign exchange that comes to our country. We allow the Banks and this includes the foreign banks to use the foreign exchange that comes in- it is supposed to be according to the rules of supply and demand. In actual practice it has been proved that the foreign banks hoard the foreign exchange that comes in and bids the value of the foreign currency upwards as did happen on 25 th January 2001.( See pages 95-130 of my book: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka…)

Faced with sanctions by certain foreign superpowers and the IMF Mugabe, failed to take total control over the economy. He allowed the NGO to nibble at the economy and did not organize production to take place. Sri Lanka too has to face a grim future unless it is prepared to take total control over the economy, including its foreign exchange and control the use of foreign exchange in other interests of the country.

Garvin Karunaratne

16/11/2017

SL VLOG

දුෂිත තලතා, ඇතුළු විදේශ සේවා නියුක්ති දුෂිත අමනයන් නෙරපා දඬුවම් දිය යුතුය !.

https://youtu.be/kwLg8kFOYNc

it seems an innocent person in trouble for exposing 660M foreign employment Buero fraud by minster, working director and few. White vans sent to his house and he got arrested today

By Rohana R. Wasala

Ven. Abhayatissa’s more recent utterances show that he has been somewhat reassured by the president. He sounds hopeful that after all this constitution making problem will soon be resolved. The monk believes that the president is the only person who can be expected to do this and save the country from being divided on ethnic lines.

To date, however, important government representatives have contrived to be in the denial mode, when queried about the new constitution. They usually ask critics: How can you talk about a constitution of which there isn’t even a draft?” But now it is evident it has already been drafted, as Ven. Bellanwila Wimalarathana Thera said, though he did not reveal the names of the two persons who, he knew, drafted it. It is the venerable thera’s word against the two powerful political pragmatists, lately at cross purposes with each other. People know who to believe. Rear Admiral (Retired) Dr Sarath Weerasekera,(former UPFA MP for Ampara who led a three member delegation to Geneva in March 2017 with a 100 page dossier of factual information to refute war crimes allegations against the Sri Lankan armed forces as Chief Coordinator of The Federation of National Organisations sponsored by the Global Sri Lankan Forum) mentioned the names of two lawyers as the architects of the new constitution, both federalists: (old moribund Marxist) Jayampathy Wickremaratne and (overweening TNA politician) M.A. Sumanthiran. (These must be the names that the Ven. Bellanwila Wimalarathana Thera was hesitant to mention.) Anyway, this is now common knowledge.

To cut a long story short, we are talking about a constitutional plot by interested parties. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa called the new constitution making programme a ‘constitutional conspiracy ’in parliament on November 2, 2017 while participating in debate on the so-called interim report. This conspiracy has been a few years in the making. Its purpose is to offer the  separate state that the LTTE fought for on a silver platter. Is it for this that over 29,000 of our young soldiers died and over 14,000 of them got permanently disabled in fighting? To this we need to add the incalculable cost that the conflict incurred in terms of the loss of civilian lives and property destruction. The Tamilnet, January 22, 2015 carried an article entitled Singapore Principles of 2013: Tamil polity taken for ride from Oslo to Singapore”. It refers to a meeting in Singapore in 2013 to which Mangala Samaraweera went, allegedly like a beggar” urging Tamil support for regime change in Sri Lanka.

QUOTE ‘Mr M.A. Sumanthiran, the non-elected national list ITAK parliamentarian and Mr V.T. Thamilmaran, the dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo were the Tamil representatives from the island while representatives of the so-called Global Tamil Forum (GTF) were representing the Diaspora Tamils at a meeting in Singapore in 2013 when Dr Jayampathy Wickramaratne came with his proposal points to agree upon a conceptual framework aimed at regime change, the removal of Executive Presidency and other arrangements targeting good governance. Dr Jayampathy Wickramaratne was an adviser to Sri Lanka’s past two Presidents.

Mangala Samaraweera came as a ‘beggar’ urging Tamil support for regime change and abolition of the executive presidency. It was 2013,” said one of the participants, reflecting on the Singapore meeting.

When Tamil aspirations came for discussion, M.A. Sumanthiran wanted to avoid the mentioning of terms such as Nation and Right to Self Determination in the document.’ END OF QUOTE

What is in the interim report can be traced to the ten (so-called) Singapore Principles. The vagueness of the language adopted in formulating these principles and subsequently in preparing the interim report is deliberate. The first principle is: In describing the nature of the State what is important is the substance; the labels are secondary.” In the proposed constitution, the universally accepted English term ‘unitary’ is to be replaced by Sinhalese ‘a-keeya’ (a word coined by the republican constitution makers of 1972 as an equivalent of the English term ‘unitary) and Tamil ‘orumitta’ (meaning united, not unitary). The English word unitary will be dropped as inappropriate. So, the new federalist/separatist constitution makers are indulging in a kind of cynical verbal jugglery, by which they hope to leave the Sinhalese and other unitarists with the label the constitution makers think they will be satisfied with, and the Tamil communalists (not the ordinary Tamils) with the ‘substance’ they have always been clamouring for. The Republic of Sri Lanka shall be a secular state. Similarly, Principle No. 10: The Foremost place to Buddhism and equal status to other religions shall be assured” is an insult to the average intelligence and dignity of the Sinhalese Buddhist electorate. If all religions enjoy equal status, how can one of them be given the ‘foremost place’? Constitutionally granting Buddhism the foremost place will not harm the secular nature of the Lankan state just as the foremost place given to Christianity in the US, UK, and Norway, among other countries has not harmed the secular status of those countries. Monks get involved only when the country, the nation, and the Buddha Sasanaya are in danger, the protection of which is above politics.

What the news channels reported on parliamentary proceedings on October 30 – the first day of the scheduled three day debate (later extended by another two days) on the interim report of the proposed constitution making process – suggested the general direction it was moving. Minister Lakshman Kiriella, Leader of the House, was trying to assure the increasingly skeptical (public) that the unitary structure of the state and the foremost place given to Buddhism will remain untouched. (Having read the previous paragraph, the reader will have no difficulty in guessing how credible the writer thinks Kiriella is.) MP M.A. Sumanthiran forthrightly revealed what was up his (the government’s) sleeve: what was being proposed was ‘federation’. That was a direct contradiction of what Kiriella said. So, if the new constitution is passed, then Sri Lanka will be a confederation of states. Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva was shouting about being against anything that divides the country, while referring to a so-called ‘13+1’ that the former president had allegedly suggested. The sincerity of Joint Opposition leader Dinesh Gunawardane’s unequivocal opposition to what is proposed in the interim report was in stark contrast to the silly casuistry of Kiriella.

The interim report gives a strong indication that, if the proposed constitution is passed and becomes the basic law of the country, the survivors of the militarily defeated separatists will not only have their separate state, but they will also have written a constitution that will in effect be a death warrant on the unitary state that defeated them! However, when this small country is virtually divided into two or three or more independent sovereign states, life will be hell for all the communities, due to inevitable border disputes, resource sharing squabbles, problems about maintenance of law and order, and religious conflicts. The worst hit will be the majority community. But it will be no better for the others.

The recorded history of the island is the history of the Sinhalese majority. Though nowadays the Veddahs are exclusively described as the indigenes of the island, that is misleading. The tribe that built up the island civilization, known throughout history as the Sinhalese, are as much indigenous to the island as the Veddahs. There is nothing wrong with the written and epigraphical history of this country. That it cannot be cited in support of federalism is a problem for the supporters of that ideology. Northern provincial council chief minister Vigneshwaran’s call to rewrite the country’s history is ridiculous. A 78 year old man must be a little more graceful towards the young children of this country, and control his thoughts, speech, and actions so as to save them future distress. Prabhakaran might have got Tamil fiction writers to invent Devanam Piya Theesan to replace Devanampiya Tissa (during whose reign Buddhism was officially introduced to Lanka), or Kasiappa to answer to the name of Kashyapa (Kashyapa of Sigiriya fame). But according to the most coldly academic accounts of dedicated historians (e.g., Prof. K.M. de Silva), Tamils, who originated in Tamil Nadu (Tamil country) had no permanent presence in the island until the 13^th century CE. That is, their history in Sri Lanka does not go back more than 800 years, whereas the indigenous tribe that changed and survived as the Sinhalese after being conquered by a north Indian prince in the form of Vijaya around 600 BCE had been there from time immemorial. There were many invasions from South India, but they were all repelled. Magha of Kalinga who invaded the country in 1215, and who caused utmost destruction and delivered a mortal blow to the dry zone hydraulic civilization of the Sinhalese was driven back after 21 years of occupation. There were provincial Tamil rulers in the north, but they always ruled on sufferance. There were provincial Sinhalese rulers in the south as well. However, it was always recognized that the whole of Sri Lanka was one sovereign state, Sinhale, Ceylon, the country of the Sinhalese.

We must look back to our earlier as well as more recent heroic past in order understand the present problems and deal with them successfully. That is in order to leave a peaceable and prosperous land for our children. We don’t have to apologize for using the epithet heroic to describe our history because, unless it was heroic, we won’t have survived, as a people with their own country, unique language, universally benign religion, and  absolutely humane culture, the  numerous South Indian invasions and the subsequent, more lasting European intrusions over the past five hundred years. Sinhalese form nearly 75% of the population, and the rest all the minorities put together whom they have treated without discrimination, but with utmost humanity, kindness and generosity true to their Buddhist culture. These are self evident facts.

This beautiful country Sri Lanka belongs to the two major linguistic communities who have made it their common homeland for centuries: Sinhala speakers and Tamil speakers, who are culturally close relatives, that is, virtually members of one family. The majority of Sinhalese are Buddhists, while the majority of Tamils are Hindus. Christians and Muslims also largely belong to these two linguistic communities. Although earlier, English was used by the elite sections of the populations, it is now becoming a more and more universally used link language in education and work; English, as the most easily available global tongue for us, is set, whether we like it or not, to gradually replace both Sinhalese and Tamil in both fields. Multilingualism is not new to us Sri Lankans. It has been the case from time immemorial. Monks and prominent citizens learned Pali and Sanskrit in addition to Sinhala. Many native physicians acquired a knowledge of Sanskrit since Ayurveda medical treatises were in that language. Buddhist monks travelled to China, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. as missionary monks, and they had to learn appropriate foreign languages. Few who have learned Sinhala haven’t heard the ancient line of poetry demala saku magada nohasala sathata dada”,  by which the poet addresses his work to sathata dada”, that is, to people (meaning readers) who are ‘dada’, i.e., amateur: amateur/not so well educated monolingual Sinhala reader who has not studied Tamil, Sanskrit, and Magadha/Pali”. Sinhalese, though as an island people they jealously love their motherland, have historically been cosmopolitan in their outlook.

To survive in the modern world we have to be multilinguals. The trilingual policy (teaching Sinhala, Tamil, and English languages to school children) initiated by the previous government was a progressive move that should have continued. It is said that 94 members of the present parliament haven’t passed the GCE (OL). These can’t be expected to even their mother tongue properly. How many out of the 225 in parliament could we assume to have a decent knowledge of English? Very few, indeed. So, most of them are likely to have no idea of what is in interim report of the Steering Committee. Constitutional plotters are exploiting the lack of English among the Sinhala speaking parliamentarians.

The characteristic cosmopolitanism of the majority Sinhala Buddhist community, which foreign observers may be surprised to hear about because of the successful anti-Sinhalese propaganda that separatist communalists have carried out abroad for decades now remains unrecognized and unexploited by opportunistic politicians who try to appeal to communalistic sentiments among their constituents to gain support at elections. The accommodating spirit is most apparent at the grassroots level of the society. When what was claimed to be the tallest artificial Christmas tree in the world was being built at Galle Face Green for Christmas 2016, there was some controversy about it. The church hierarchy rightly condemned it as a costly unnecessary display in these difficult times, and the work on it was stopped, though it was later completed, presumably with altered dimensions. The harbor minister was apparently behind the project. It was, no doubt, a reconciliation gesture towards Catholics and Christians who form only 10% of the population in this Buddhist majority (70%) country. The main sponsor of the Christmas tree was the Buddhist Association of the harbor workers. When the project was temporarily halted,  the structure was taken apart, the sponsors were distressed. Media had pictures of workers in tears. What is there for anyone to do in the name of reconciliation between Buddhists and Christians? But some communalist minority politicians of the North and their soul mates in the South attack those who dare to speak up for the threatened rights of the Sinhalese Buddhists as tribalists. Though they are thus insulted as narrow-minded racists, it is always the majority Sinhalese Buddhists who create a conducive social environment for Sri Lankans of all faiths to live in peace and security.

While the vast majority of ordinary Sri Lankans of diverse ethnicities have no problem living as citizens of one state enjoying equal sovereign rights, human rights, etc., and sharing equal social responsibilities, certain self seeking minority politicians feel tempted to use shortcuts to power, that usually foment antagonism between the minorities and the majority. Stoking communalism is the easiest shortcut to electoral support within a minority community, but it doesn’t work among the majority community. Exploiting religious differences is another. Whatever happens, the majority community are concerned about the country. It is a historical fact that resistance to foreign rule always came from the Sinhalese. Peace and harmony, now gravely threatened, can only be restored by electorally defeating the forces that are poised to divide the country on ethnic lines by dismantling the unitary state. (Concluded)

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Before taking Sri Lanka into war, the US has to somehow loosen China’s grip on Sri Lanka. Since India is unpopular in Sri Lanka, the US has entrusted this task to Japan. In Oct 2015 Japan and Sri Lanka   signed a comprehensive partnership agreement. Japan will work with India on the Trincomalee port and also help in several major infrastructure projects including Light Rail and expressways.

Japan has openly expressed concern about China’s growing investment in Sri Lanka and its influence over the government in Colombo. China’s ‘development looking’ projects are in fact barely concealed tactics to increase its military abilities in the Indian Ocean. The new ports could be used as naval supply bases, said Japanese security expert Satoru Nagao, presently Research Fellow at the Sri Lanka Institute of National Security Studies (INSS).

China is not the only country that could help Sri Lanka, said Nagao. Japan could help fill the gap left by the Chinese. Closer ties to Japan and India would more than make up for any economic troubles caused by shunning the Chinese. Collaborative projects with them are preferable to accepting China’s support, which would create strategic difficulties. Also Japan can be the perfect mediator between India and Sri Lanka, said Nagao.

Japan wants Sri Lanka to be a member of US led military alliance presently developing in the Indian ocean  region   and is taking action to push Sri Lanka in that direction.  A Japan- India- Sri Lanka partnership in the security domain would be valuable. A win-win situation can be created under Japan-Sri Lanka-India cooperation, said Nagao.  Sri Lanka can be the base for strategic maritime surveillance over the Indian Ocean. If Japan and India collaborate to establish a maritime communications network system in Sri Lanka serving the entire Indian Ocean, it would be easy for the three countries to know what is happening in the Indian Ocean.

Japan’s military links with Sri Lanka are not completely new. The rank order of foreign warships visiting the Port of Colombo from 2008 to 2017 was India 73, Japan 64 and China 26.  Today, Japan has   established direct links with the Sri Lankan Navy and the Coast Guard. The  training squadron of the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) has been visiting the Port of Colombo and engaging in exercises with Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka  Coast Guards. In October 2016 by MSDF ships Kashima, Setoyuki and Asagiri visited. The MSDF also participated in ‘Pacific Partnership 2017’, a multilateral exercise with the participation of military and non-military personnel from the USA, Australia and Sri Lanka. Japan has stationed a Defence Attaché in Colombo, to coordinate the visits of MSDF vessels

In 2016, Government of Japan granted 1,830 million Japanese Yen (approximately Rs. 2.4 billion) to the Government of Sri Lanka, for procurement of two 30-meter patrol vessels from Japan, including construction of vessels, sea transportation from Japan to Sri Lanka, and familiarization training for coast guard personnel. In 2017, on a loan from Japanese government, the SLCG also placed an order for construction of two 85-meter Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) with the Colombo Dockyard (Pvt.) Ltd. (CDL) to enhance its capabilities in deep sea surveillance.

Japan has a clear anti-China, anti- North Korea, pro- America military policy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on his re-election in October 2017 said My immediate task is to deal with North Korea  and also continue Japan’s policy of strengthening the alliance with the US. Japan wants a multi state coalition in the west Pacific. In 2012 Abe had suggested a strategy whereby Australia, India, Japan, and the US state of Hawaii form a diamond to safeguard the maritime commons stretching from the Indian Ocean region to the western Pacific”.

India and Japan issued a Joint statement in 2017, referred to enhancing maritime security cooperation, improving connectivity in the wider Indo-Pacific region, strengthening cooperation with ASEAN, and promoting discussions between strategists and experts of the two countries. For India, Japan made an exception to its rule of not conducting nuclear commerce with any state that is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The joint anti-submarine warfare training between the Indian Navy and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) will be expanded.

India and Japan will also collaborate in the development of India through the India-Japan Act East Forum. Japan is providing assistance to North East India ranging from key infrastructure such as road connectivity, electricity, water supply and sewage, to social and environmental sustainability, as well as people-to-people exchanges including the “IRIS Program” inviting youth from the region to Japan. Four Japan-India Institutes for Manufacturing (JIMs) in the States of Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are planned.

India and Japan also propose to expand their activities globally. The India-Japan Joint Statement of 2017 linked Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy with India’s Act East Policy. India and Japan are also collaborating on the Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC).Japan is giving $30 billion and India$10 billion. The project is aimed at building capacity and human resource development in Africa.

Yahapalana has attached itself to another US satellite, Australia. Australia is seen as a neutral power in the Pacific. Sri Lanka could be a stabilizer in the Indian Ocean, protecting and creating a peaceful surround at a time when ‘the rise of China and emerging India is happening in Asia’, said Yahapalana. Our trilateral engagement between the US, India, and Japan are bringing in rewards. There is room to invite others, including Australia, to build on shared objectives and initiatives,” said the US.

President Maithripala Sirisena visited Australia in May 2017 and signed a Joint Deceleration under the heading ‘security and defence cooperation’. This declaration spoke of a shared interest in regional security in the Indian Ocean and a commitment to closer cooperation. Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL) thereafter held a workshop in Colombo in October 2017, in collaboration with the Australian High Commission. At this workshop they discussed what the defence policy of Yahapalana should be.

It appears that Yahapalana is preparing a ‘defence Policy’ and it is unable to do so without Australia’s assistance. The Ministry of Defence has   sought Australian expertise in preparing its own white paper and ‘viable defence policy’ said the press release. the defence white paper could assist to resolve the complexity of the nation’s defence strategy’ and thereby help to abate public apathy.” babbled Yahapalana. The creation of a viable defence policy would allow us to make an appraisal of the security environment we live in and adapt our military capabilities in proportion to what is required,” said Yahapalana idiotically. It should be the other way. You assess the need and then draw up a policy.

There is a fourth country that Yahapalana may have to take into consideration later on. Russia is now starting to assert itself in the international scene. It has good relations with China. The heads of state of China and Russia are friends. It also has good relation with India. President Putin visited India in 2000. India recently held a joint military exercise with Russia.

Now the Middle East is turning to Russia. Moscow has become an undeniable political force in the Middle East, said analysts. US influence in the region is receding and Russia’s is increasing.  in the last few months we have seen a good number of Middle Eastern leaders including those of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, all coming to Moscow, realizing that Russia is an emerging power and the US perhaps a declining one, said Al Jazeera in October 2017.

The most significant link up is that of Saudi Arabia.  The aging king of Saudi Arabia tottered into Moscow on a first ever visit in October 2017 and the two countries signed billion dollar arms and energy contracts. There is little doubt that Saudi Arabia greatly values its relations with Russia said political analysts. Saudi Arabia has been seen for decades as the staunchest ally of USA in the Middle East. This visit indicates that US influence in the Middle East is definitely waning.

The Pathfinder Foundation of Sri Lanka (PF), to its  credit, has entered into a collaboration agreement with the Moscow based Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). The agreement, signed by Andrey Kortunov, Director General of RIAC and Bernard Goonetilleke, Chairman, PF, seeks to exchange analytical papers between the two institutions, implement joint projects to strengthen the stance of the two countries in the international arena, including conducting roundtable discussions and workshops; develop interaction between Russian and Sri Lankan institutions in international research activities; and engage in mutual informational support through the respective web-resources and social media channels.

Pathfinder Foundation, launched by Milinda Moragoda in 2006, is an independent, non–profit, non-partisan and advocacy think tank, which has played a catalytic role in promoting economic policy reforms in Sri Lanka. Among the areas focused by PF are promoting market oriented economic reforms, public-private partnerships, promotion of bilateral relations with major foreign countries and people-to-people relations as well as strategic issues.

Russian International Affairs Council  a non-profit academic and diplomatic think tank that was established in 2010 pursuant to a presidential decree is aimed at strengthening peace, friendship and solidarity between peoples, preventing international conflicts and promoting conflict resolution and crisis settlement. It is recognized as one of Moscow’s best-known and authoritative think-tanks. RIAC operates as a link between the state, scholarly community, business and civil society in an effort to find foreign policy solutions to complex conflict issues.(CONTINUED)

Chandre Dharmawardana,  Canada.

Regarding Kidney disease among the Vanniye-Aththo.

Unfortunately, this author (Dr Amarasiri De Silva, an anthopologist)  has not checked his facts and instead simply followed what a young Swedish Research student who had come to write a social studies  thesis on Anthopology has said, ignoring the excellent work done by local scientists and medics.

Even for the correct word form for “sinhalese”, this author relies on the Swedish student, as to whether we should write it as “Singhalese”, or “Sinhalese”. English is not a phonetic languages. Even the Sidath Sangara (mdieval sinhalese grammar and literary style book) says that common usage dictates the “right usage”.

Same for  the usage  “Vanniyala-Aththo” where he  follows the swede.

The attached note (included also as text below) may help in clarifying the issues).

Why do `Vanniye-Attho’ and NCP Farmers get CKDu while their cows don’t?

Dr. Amarasiri de Silva (AS), a retired anthropologist, has made a provocative contribution (Island, 15-11-2017) on chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu)  that goes counter to  main-stream scientific discourse (e.g., by Dr. Tilak Abesekera, Daily News, 9-3-2017), while strongly echoing the  beliefs immensely popular with a section of the wider public.  A young Swedish student named Wiveca Stegeborn (WS)  who prepared a social-anthropology thesis on the  Vanniye-Attho, i.e,  Veddahs”,  is his main source of information.  We are told that the Vanni-Attho contracted CKDu when they joined the Mahaweli settlements, adopted  urban foods,  and became farmers using toxic agrochemicals”.

If AS and WS also imply that DDT and GMO seeds are being used, then we have some truly astounding claims in the article.  AS pushes to extremes the seemingly  credible public view of agrochemicals creating a  toxic environment and causing chronic diseases. Accordingly,  (i) the use of agrochemicals since the 1970s has poisoned the soil, the water and the diet;  (ii) the NCP gets a `double whammy’ because  the  agrochemical runoff from the tea estates gets  to the NCP via the Mahaweli irrigation system. The NCP farmers get chronic kidney disease (CKDu) in due course.

The present author held similar views prior to 2012.  They had to be  drastically modified  during 2012 to 2014 when important field studies appeared. The first was the NSF-funded  WHO  study which medically bench-marked CKDu, and also showed that  toxins in the soil, water and the diet were well below the maximum allowed limits (MALS) for toxicity and hence safe. There was no arsenic or glyphosate, as claimed by the Natha Deviyo” devotees linked to Dr. Jayasumana.

Dr. Sarath Amarasiri, a retired Director General of agriculture points out that when farmers tilled the land, vast flocks of egrets (Kokku”) follow the ploughs to eat the exposed  earthworms and other bugs. If the soil had become toxic, it will not be teeming with organisms, and if they are toxic, the egrets should  also get sick. Clearly, the NCP soil and water are not awash with toxins”.

The present writer used to ask, if the people in some NCP villages get sick, why not the cows? If it is a presence of cadmium in the rice, the cows get even more of it from the straw and the grass which also accumulate cadmium.  Today many scientists think that they understand these puzzles, and why some Rajarata villagers get CKDu while their cows don’t, while other villagers and their  cows also don’t get CKDu!

Studies  of the blood and urine of the patients showed that 97% of them had no significant traces of glyphosate, the most commonly used herbicide. A mild warning was raised in the WHO-NSF report about possibly elevated levels of cadmium in the diet, but this was also true of the  diet used in the rest of the country that does not have CKDu. The traces of cadmium found in the rice are  amply counteracted by the presence of other substances like zinc and selenium (just as is the case with cadmium-containing shell fish sold in Europe).

The lack of toxic agents in the soil and water were confirmed by independent research including a Japanese-Sri Lankan study led  by Dr Nanayakkara.   A  National Water Board (NWB) study by Dr. Pathmakumara Jayasinghe showed that the canals, rivers and reservoirs in the NCP had clean water, and that expensive Reverse-Osmosis (RO)  machines are cleaning” water which is already clean! The poor farmers, frightened by the threat of CKDU and toxins buy bottled RO water at Rs 2-3 per litre while Colombo gets water for pennies.

Dr AS has ignored the good work of the local medics and scientists. The NSF-WHO study, the Japanese study, the NWB study etc. , have been summarized  in popular articles by Dr. Waidyanatha, Dr.  Tilak Abesekera and others.  The young Swedish student prepared her thesis on the Vanniye-Aettho, but not on the chemistry of the local environment.

Social anthopologists like AS and WS should study the two adjacent villages named Badulupura and Saaragama, both in Girandurukotte, with common life styles, food, and kinship. And yet Badulupura has CKDu, while Saaragama is healthy.  The Badulupura residents who use their private well water get CKDu, while neighbouring Saarapura , being closer to the agricultural land,  gets its water from irrigation canals or private wells connected  to the groundwater of the paddy fields. Research groups like CERTKID of the Kandy Hospital and the University find that  the consumption of water in isolated shallow household wells  may be causing CKDu.

Peradeniya Chemists like Prof. Illeperuma,  and Geologists like Professors Dissanayake, Chandrjith and others had noted that the endemic areas have hard water and a geology rich in fluoride.  The present author  and several colleagues argued (in a research paper) that Panabokke’s redox mechanism worked in the stagnant wells to progressively leach out fluorides and other mineral salts (known as Hofmeister-active salts) into the  well water.

Hard water has dissolved magensium and calcium. If hard water containing fluorides were the cause of CKDu, one can immediately explain why the people in Badulupura got CKDu, and why those in Saaragama are healthy. We also understand why the cows don’t get CKDu. The cows do not drink water from wells, but drink surface water in canals and fields connected to the agricultural system.  AS and SW claim agricultural water to be contaminated, where as it is not.

A milestone  in CKDu research was the work of Dr. Wasana, Dr. Bandarage et al. of the IFS, Kandy. They fed HARD water containing fluoride to laboratory rats, and established a dose dependent causal relationship between damaged kidneys in the rats, the fluoride, and hard water. If the water was free of fluoride, or if the water was soft, no kidney damage!  Both hardness and fluoride were simultaneously necessary. The present write provided evidence that the magnesium in hard water joined itself to the fluoride forming a pair. Magenisum is not toxic; but it synergistically augments the toxicity of fluoride. Independent  experiments by Dr. Tammityagoda et al. (veterinary science) used water from endemic village wells and showed that mice fed on such water contracted CKDu, while mice given normal water remained healthy. These experiments, the geology of the endemic villages and the chemistry of the well water  led most scientists  to  conclude that CKDu in the NCP  is caused by consuming hard water  containing fluoride. Professor Gamini Rajapaksa’s Moneragala studies confirmed these conclusions.  Provision of cheap clean water by harvesting rain water has been launched.

Scientists have shown that farmers are using agrochemicals in excess, especially with the free market in 1977 cutting out the agriculture department’s control on agrochemicals.  Such excessive use leads to algae blooms and environmental problems. The agriculture department has issued 25 booklets for the 25 districts, indicating where fertilizers are NOT needed, or how much is needed.  Agrochemicals are used thorough out the country, and especially in the hill plantations. But no CKDu and other diseases attributed to agrochemicals have been detected. We now understand why some villagers get CKDu while their cows stay healthy, or why other villagers escape the  illness. Fluoride and hard water are not found together in the hill country, or in Jaffna where there is heavy agrochemical usage, and so there is no CKDu in those areas.

Finally, let us look at the Swedish student’s views on the rural food culture, since they apply equally well to most of the country without CKDu.

(quote)… with time diabetes started to spread. It came with junk food, and with Cokes, Seven-Ups and Fantas … welfare coupons for sugar and white flour… The tea was no longer taken with honey or hackuru [Kithul jaggery], it was with refined sugar. …This is a common ailment among indigenous people introduced to a ‘western’ excessive food culture (end quote).

Honey and jaggery are nearly as bad as refined sugar. Sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose, while honey (i.e., bee’s vomit) contains 40% fructose, 30% glucose while the remaining 30% is water, pollen and bio-matter from the bee. Honey has  some 31% more calories than sugar. The pollen can cause botulism especially in children younger than 12. Honey has similar effects as sugar on blood glucose levels, causing problem for diabetics, whether they are Vanniye-Attheo or not. The digestive tract absorbs fructose poorly, and the fructose end up in the liver, leading to metabolic problems including type-II diabetes. The American Diabetes Association regards  palm sugars (e.g, Jaggery) to be no better than pure sugar.

The embrace of western food culture”, or the equally unhealthy Kalu dodol, Kaevum, athiraha, kiri-paeni, ala dosi” or baedum, ghee rice” etc by the Vanni-Aetto or anybody else reflects the lack of nutritional education in Sri Lanka. There were no courses on food science, environmental science etc., in any Sri Lankan university until the mid 1970s.  The present writer, as a Professor of Chemistry and as a  Vice Chancellor of the Vidyodaya (SJP) University  worked to introduce them to the university curriculum.   Course units in nutrition, health and environmental science  are badly needed even in our schools.

Dr Sarath Obeysekera 

Yesterday I was invited by EDB to the last public session in Galle Face Hotel where EU consultants have organized a forum for public consultations. Proposals to develop export strategy was mainly concentrated on   boat building, Wellness programs, selling spices etc  and changing the regulatory issues which is hampering development .

They were proposing to send EDB and BOI personnel for training in development of investment strategy, and involve universities and academia to research on new products.The state minister who mad the key note speech was trained in Harward and hopefully his young blood can infuse some sense to EDB and BOI,

What were  proposed were absurd and none of the highly paid EU consultants and EDB lasses and few young boys who were organizing the event had any idea what is priority .

On the same day I was requested by Sri Lanka Customs   to sign an agreement to import equipment and materials to build some boats for exports ( which has been also subjected to yesterday ‘s EDB exercise) .I had to  leave the forum ,anticipating to return in 20 minutes and it took 1 ½ hours waiting in Customs in the TIEP ( temporary import and export and  Permit) section to sign the agreement and they wanted me in person with the company embossed seal .Officers who were assigned were out and we were told to wait .Incidentally this is after 2 weeks from submission of the application following a letter of recommendation from ministry of industries,confirmimg that  our company has signed an export order with Male and the claim to import equipment and materials is genuine .I had to contact new secretary of the ministry on Industries to help to expedite approval ,and he aksed me to write a letter .I wrote the letter and so far to reply !

I had to use some of my close contacts to speak to Director of Customs to expedite signing and he was quite supportive and assigned someone else to sign on behalf customs to release me back to the EDB forum .

Back to approval from Ministry of Industries ,it tool 3-4 weeks since we made the application as they wanted to come and see the yard and after demanding a approval of the list of materials by an expert to confirm that the list is genuine . .I had to contact new secretary of the ministry on Industries to help to expedite approval ,and he aksed me to write a letter .I wrote the letter and so far to reply !

Bureaucracy is the state apparatchik is the biggest stumbling block for export .When I told that to the EU expert in Export and also mentioned the problems ,he was telling me that from 2018-2022 we will change !!

All these forms were talking about export promotion with no meaningful action proposed to get rid of bureaucracy nad corruption .One might argue that we should have been a BOI company which has a one-stop to help companies like ours ,but alas ,they are now a non-stop shop .

State  should consult people who worked under Premadasa who spearheaded export drive of garments for export ( opposition called the program a jungi” ( underwear) Export ,Today Amaleeen ,and the crowd are still bringing much needed foreign currency to our country  by selling Victoria Secrets ?

Country need a strong leadership which should take over EDB and BOI and drive the export in an aggressive manner.

Whole forum was a farce and I will go on my own crusade and export boats with my own tenacity and compassion .

Dr Sarath Obeysekera

යටැ ගිය දවසැ පොළොන්නරු නුවර ජාත්‍යන්තරයට අධිපති වූ, සංහිඳියාවට අධිගෘහිත වූ, සරලකමෙහි ප්‍රතිබිම්බය වූ, ශ්වේත වර්ණ වස්ත්‍රයෙන් බබලන්නා වූ, සිවුසැට ආභරණ පසෙක ලා උපැස් යුවලින් පමණක් සැරසුණා වු, වෛජයන්තී දේවීයට ස්වාමී වූ, දහම්සොඬ පුත් රුවනට හා චත්තාරිකා දු කුමරියට  පීතෘ වූ , විජයකලාවන්ට සකල කලාවන් පාන්නා වූ, රුපුනොද  එඩිය බිඳ, දෙසැට ලක්ෂයක් වෘෂභයන්ට  දිව්‍ය රාජෝත්තමයා  වූ, පොළවෙන් මතුවුණා වූ , මහානුභාව සම්පන්න මෙත්පල් නම්  නිරිඳෙකු රාජ්‍ය විචාරණ්නට විය.

මෙකල්හි රට වැසියෝ බොහෝ  සැප සම්පත් වලින් යුක්තවැ දැහැමින් සෙමින් දිවි ගෙවන කල්හි මෙය දරාගත නො හී යක්ෂයන්ට අධිපති වු, ගෝත්‍රික බයි වැසියනට රජ වු,  මහා තෙද බල පිරිබාහරන් ගේ ශීර්ෂය සතරකඩකට පැළුවා වූ , රන් කහවනු දහඅට කෝටියක් සොරාගෙන  උතුරු කුරු දිවයිනේ සැඟෙව්වා වු මහේන්ද්‍ර නම් යක් තෙමේ ලෝක පාලන දෙවියන් හා මිත්‍රව රට වැසියා මධුමේහය ආදී අට අනූවක් ව්‍යාධි බාහුල්ලයන්ගෙන් පෙළනු වස් මයිලෝ නැමති පානයක් මවා රට වැසියා එය පානයට පොළඹවා ශරීරගත ශර්කාරා ප්‍රමාණය ඉහල දමන්නට විය.

මෙත්පල් නිරිඳු  මෙ කාරණා දෙසවන් වැකුණු මොහොතේ ක්ෂීරපථය සොලවා, වේරම්බ වාතයෙන් කලම්ඹා, අහස් මුදුන් තෙක් දුහුවිලි නංවා මහේන්ද්‍රයාණෝ පරසක්වල ගසන්නෙමි යි කුංචනාද කරන්නට විය.

ඈත දූලීන් වැසී ගිය මෙත්පල්  රජු ය…
මෑත මයිලෝවක් අතින්ගත් මහේන්ද්‍රයෝ ය…
ඈත කෝපයෙන් රත්ව ගිය යවට වන් මෙත්පල් රජු ය….
මෑත ගත සිත පුබුදු කරන පානය ඇතැති මහේන්ද්‍රයෝ ය…
ඈත බැලූ බැලූවන් හිටං යැයි කියවෙන මෙත්පල් රජු ය….
මෑත දිව පිනවන  පානය ගත් මහේන්ද්‍රයෝ ය…
ඈත එබූ පයින් මහ පොළොව පලා යන මෙත්පල් රජු ය….
මෑත රත් පැහැ සාටකයෙන් බබලන මහේන්ද්‍රයෝ ය….

වෙන්නට යන මහා විපත දැක රජවාසලෙහි මොළයානන් වහන්සේ වන විකුම්සිහ තෙමේ මෙත්පල් නිරිඳු හා සතරකන් මන්ත්‍රණ පවත්වා ශර්කාරා පානය පිළිබඳව සොයා බැලීමට රජවාසලේ විශ්‍රාමික කේවට්ටයන් තිදෙනෙකුගෙන් යුත් කමිටුවක් පත් කිරීමට උපදෙස් දෙන්නා හු ය.මෙය අසා කෝපයට මෙත්පල් තෙමේ ඒ යෝජනා අලුයම ලූ කෙළ පිඩක් සේ ඉවත දමා රට වැසි තෙමේ දෙස මහා කරුණා නෙත් යොමා මයිලෝවක් රැගෙන ගෙයින් ගෙට වැද හොත්තේ ය.  ඉනික්බිති ඒ පාන පෙන්වා අනන්තාපරිමාණ අර්ථානර්ථ දක්වා ඒ වෙනුවට බීර පානය කරන ලෙස ආයාචනා කරන්නට වු හ. එ බස් අසා රට වැසියෝ මහත් සොම්නසට පැමිණැ මයිලෝ පාන ඉවත දමා මහා සිද්ධාර්ථ තෛලය වන් බීර පානය කිරීමට උත්සුක වු හ.

ඉක්බිති රට වැසියෝ සෞඛ්‍යසම්පන්න බීර පානයට හුරු වී, අට අනූවක් වූ  සියලු ව්‍යාධි බාහුල්ලයන්ගෙන් මිදී තෙද බලැති සිරුරැතිව යහපාලනගතව කල් යැවූ හ’යි මෙයින් දත යුතු.

මහා මයිලෝ ජාතකය මෙතකින් නිමියේ වෙයි.

ALI SUKHANVER

The Indian media, in collaboration with the Indian state machinery, is wasting all its efforts on proving two things now-a-days; Kalboshan Jhadev is not an officer of the Indian navy and that the permission granted to Kalboshan’s wife to meet her husband is result of the pressure exerted by the International Court of Justice.

The Financial Express of India reported a few days back, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said Pakistan was forced to grant permission to Kalboshan’s wife to meet him because of India’s constant pressure through international forums.

After the military court in Pakistan awarded death sentence to Jhadev, we went to the International Court of Justice, exposed Pakistan, managed to isolate Pakistan and got a stay on his death penalty.”

According to the paper, the minister further said, ‘Pakistan was constantly denying permission to his family to meet him, but the pressure exerted by India through the international forum, forced them to grant a permission to his family to meet him. We will continue to exert pressure on Pakistan through the external affairs minister to cancel the death punishment and release him.”

Same type of reporting could be seen in almost all newspapers and news-channels of India.

For Pakistan such type of’ media war’ from the Indian side is nothing new. For the last many decades India has been behaving in the same non-sense and stupid way. Everyone knows neither the International Court of Justice nor the Modi government has capability of pressurizing Pakistan with reference to the punishment announced for Commander Kalboshan Jhadev.

Pakistan is a sovereign and independent nuclear state having a very strong political and judicial system supported by a very strong Army and assisted by a very competent Intelligence Agency the ISI.

The permission granted to Kalboshan’s wife is not a result of any pressure; it is simply an action based on humanitarian grounds. We, the Pakistanis hate crime but not the criminals because they are also human beings though de-tracked ones.

Our religion has taught us to be kind not only on our fellow human beings but on birds, animals and plants also. It is true, Kalboshan is an agent of the RAW; it is also true that he is a serving officer of the Indian navy; it is also true that he has been involved in shattering the peaceful atmosphere of Balochistan and other areas of Pakistan but it is also true that he is a human being. The honorable court issued death sentence to the criminal and murderer Kalboshan Jhadev but the permission granted to his wife is in fact a permission granted to a human being for a human being.

It is just an act of kindness and for any act of kindness we, the Pakistanis, never need any pressure from the International Court of Justice or from the Modi government. If we were to come under any moral or political pressure, we would have sent Kalboshan back to his motherland in the very beginning when India was requesting us again and again to release Commander Kalboshan Jhadev.

Moreover there is no possibility of Kalboshan’s escape from the death-penalty as the security agencies of Pakistan caught him red-handed and presented his case to the honorable court.

From there he got death sentence for shedding the blood of so many innocent Pakistanis. The time when Kalboshan was arrested, the Indian media remained quiet and silent and the Indian government flatly refused to accept him as an Indian national. It even flatly denied his being an officer of the Indian navy working for the RAW but later on it started hidden efforts for his escape from the death-penalty. Since the government of Pakistan had very strong evidences against Kalboshan, no effort of the Indian government could prove him innocent.

As a last resort, India knocked at the door of the International Court of Justice but even there the guilty could not be proved innocent. The situation is no doubt very much embarrassing and agonizing for India; Kalboshan is their hero but no one in India is in a position to drag this hero out of his pathetic condition.  Sooner or later, this ‘hero’ would be hanging on the gallows. Let us wait and see to what extent Modi sarkar succeeds in pressurizing Pakistan to save this murderer from the gallows.

PRESS RELEASE. By A. Abdul Aziz.

A three member delegation from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Sri Lanka (AMJSL) comprising Mr. A. Abdul Aziz, Press Secretary and National Director Faith Outreach – AMJSL, Moulavi A.B. Musthaq Ahmad – Chief Missionary (AMJSL), and Moulavi K.M. Munir Ahmad, visited Ministry of Education and met State Minister of Education Honorable V.S. Radhakrishnan in Colombo recently (15 November 2017).

Welcoming the delegation, Minister commended the task of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at in translating Holy Qur’an into 76 languages world-over and explained the aim of this meeting to his staff officers.

Introducing Ahmadiyyat to the Minister, it was pointed out that the Ahmadiyya Community is the only sect in Islam which has Universal Leadership established by God almighty. The delegation went on to say while introducing the book ‘World Crisis and the Pathway To Peace, pointed out about the tireless efforts being made by the Khalifa and the Ahmadiyya worldwide leader, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, by spreading the true teachings of Islam through various means, particularly addressing lawmakers at Capitol Hill, EU Parliament, UK Parliament, Ireland Parliament, New Zealand Parliament, Dutch Parliament, Canada Parliament and so on so forth.

Minister was also presented a book in Tamil titled: Namathu Krishnar’ in which the teachings of Lord Krishna quoted from the Hindu Scriptures published.

Moreover, Minister was given a DVD in which the address of Moulana Molavi Muhammad Umar H.A. (from Kerala, India) delivered in 1994 at Ramakridhna Hall Colombo, recorded. In this particular address, Moulavi Umar Sahib put forward quotations from Bagavath Geetha in Sanskrit language about the foretold and teachings of Sri Krishna on the advent of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Minister was also given in a copy of Holy Qur’an Tamil Translation and the Sinhala Translation of the book ‘World Crisis and the Pathway To Peace’.

අද මුළු රටම බදු බරට ලක් වෙලා… හිටපු ජනපති පවසයි

පසුගිය අයවැයෙන් බිලියන 782 ක් රටේ සංවර්ධනයට වැය කර නැහැ… ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්ෂය පවසයි

Editorial Courtesy The Island

November 15, 2017, 10:19 pm
Leader of the JVP trade union wing, Lal Kantha, has called for an investigation into attacks on protests against the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and the killing of JVP founder leader Rohana Wijeweera, in the late 1980s. Claiming that he once met the late Maj. Gen. Janaka Perera, in Anuradhapura, and the latter denied any involvement in the killing of Wijeweera, Lal Kantha has demanded to know who killed the JVP leader while in custody.

The JVP should have sought an answer to that question while it was savouring power as part of the Kumaratunga government, for about one year, from April 2004. But, a probe into its leader’s execution did not figure high on its agenda then. An opportunity presented itself, again, for the JVP to have an investigation ordered following the 2015 regime change. It had representation in the National Executive Council, which consisted of those who had thrown in their lot with Maithripala Sirisena in the presidential fray.

An investigation into the barbaric incidents in the late 1980s will shed light on the JVP’s heinous crimes as well. JVP death squads murdered many civilians including university teachers, students, Buddhist monks, trade union leaders, politicians, family members of the armed forces personnel and even people who voted at elections.

Lal Kantha has said nobody has claimed the responsibility for killing Wijeweera and JVP cadres though several persons boasted of having eliminated the LTTE leadership. No one usually claims the credit for extra-judicial killings, but the identities of those who were responsible for crushing the JVP uprising as well as the savage methods they employed to achieve that end are only too well known; they included some prominent members of the Premadasa Cabinet. Suffice it to say that the JVP joined forces with some of them to engineer the 2015 regime change!

Lal Kantha tells us that about 60,000 JVP cadres were killed by the security forces, police and the UNP vigilantes. Yes, many JVP activists and youth suspected to have JVP links were abducted, tortured and murdered, but the death toll at issue, in our book, is grossly exaggerated. The claim of 60,000 deaths can be traced to Mahinda Rajapaksa, who worked as a human rights lawyer in the late 1980s. Asked by a foreign journalist how many people had been killed during the reign of terror, Rajapaksa plucked a figure out of the air; he said 60,000!

Wijeweera, who may be considered the father of post-Independence political violence, plunged the country into a bloodbath in the late 1980s as part of his campaign against the establishment of provincial councils. He had many people killed and made thousands of party activists commit hara-kiri in the name of that cause. He also promised to dislodge the capitalist UNP government and install a socialist regime. His utopian dream became a dystopian nightmare for the hapless public. But, today, his party has representation in provincial councils! Its present-day leaders are playing softball with the very UNP bigwigs whom they once accused of carrying out extra-judicial killings.

Newton’s third law is said to apply to some phenomena outside the realm of physics. In armed conflicts, too, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. But, in most situations, response to violence tends to be disproportionate to the actual threat as evident in the counter terror operations in the late 1980s. The JVP sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. Wijeweera became a victim of the tornado of political violence he triggered.

Wijeweera took the spree of anarchical violence to such a level that eventually people themselves demanded an end to it. The then government stepped up counter terror operations, which paralysed the country. In times of war laws are said to fall silent—inter arma enim silent leges. The rest is history.

We don’t think the JVP is serious about having the killing of its founder leader probed. For, it doesn’t want a can of worms opened up for its current leaders and their newfound friends in the UNP-led government. So, it is highly unlikely that the identities of the killers of Wijeweera will ever be legally established.

SL VLOG

https://youtu.be/_NcyOOZWuBY

 lanka C news

රටේ තානාපති සේවය සඳහා පසුගිය ආණ්ඩු සමයන්හි තානාපතිවරු ලෙස තම නෑදෑ හිතවතුන් පත් කරගත් බවට අපවත්වී වදාළ මාදුළුවාවේ සෝභිත නා හිමි එවකට පැවති ආණ්ඩුවලට චෝදනා කලේ ය.

එමෙන්ම උන්වහන්සේ විසින් ආරම්භ කල සාධාරණ සමාජයක් උදෙසා වු ජාතික ව්‍යාපාරයේ එක් ප්‍රධාන සටන් පාඨය වූයේ ද යහපාලන ආණ්ඩුවක් බිහිකොට එම වැරැද්ද නිවැරැදි කල යුතුය යන්න ය.

එහෙත් පසුගිය ජනවාරි 8 වෙනිදා පත් වු යහපාලන නව රජය යටතේ එම වැරැද්ද මෙරටේ කිසිදාක නොවුවිරු ලෙස සිදු වෙමින් පවති.

ඊයේ පැවති ගුණපාල මලලසේකරයන්ගේ ගුණ අනුස්මරණය වෙනුවෙන් පැවති උත්සවයේදි මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේන ජනාධිපතිවරයා මෙරටේ තානාපති සේවාව සම්බන්ධව කතා කරමින් ඊට ප්‍රතිචාර දැක්විය. ඒ රටේ ජාත්‍යන්තරව සම්බන්ධතාවය ඉහළ දමා රට ආර්ථික වශයෙන් දියුණු කිරිමට අවශ්‍ය සහය තානාපති සේවාව හරහා නිසියාකාරව නොලැබෙන බවයි. ඊට ප්‍රධාන හේතුව තානාපති සේවයේ යෙදි සිටින දේශපාලන පත්විම් ලැබු බොහෝ දෙනා විශ්‍රාම ගොස් සිටින අය බැවිනි.

මෙරටේ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව අනුව විදේශ රටවලට තානාපතිවරු පත් කරන්නේ විධායක ජනාධිපතිවරයා ය. පසුගිය සැප්තැම්බර් මාසයේදී ජර්මන් තානාපති ලෙස විශ්‍රාමලත් නිලධාරියෙකු වූ වයස අවුරුදු 70 ක් ඉක්මවු විශ්‍රාම සුව විදින පුද්ගලයකු පත්කලේ ජනාධිපතිවරයා විසිනි.

එමෙන්ම විශ්‍රාමලත් දේශපාලන පත්විම ලැබු බොහෝ පිරිසක් මේ වනවිටත් ලෝකයේ වැදගත්ම රටවල තානාපතිවරු ලෙස මේ වනවිට පත් කොට ඇත.

විදේශ රටවල සිටින ශ්‍රීලංකා තානාපති ලැයිස්තුව, මෙහිදී පසුගිය මාසය 6 තුල පත්කල තානාපතිවරු ලැයිස්තුවේ යතාවත් කොට නොමැත. [Link]

List of heads of missions from Sri Lanka

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article contains several lists of ambassadors and high commissioners of Sri Lanka.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Contents

[hide]

• 1Resident heads of mission
• 2Heads of mission to non-sovereign territories
• 3Heads of mission to international organisations
• 4Other senior diplomatic representatives
• 5See also
• 6Notes
• 7References

Resident heads of mission[edit]

Heads of mission to non-sovereign territories[edit]

Heads of mission to international organisations[edit]

Other senior diplomatic representatives[edit]

See also[edit]

• Ministry of External Affairs (Sri Lanka)
• List of Sri Lankan non-career diplomats

Notes[edit]

Categories:

• Ambassadors of Sri Lanka
• Sri Lankan government officials
• This page was last edited on 26 August 2017, at 14:21.
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Editorial Courtesy The Island

President Maithripala Sirisena never misses an opportunity to shower praise on the security forces personnel for defeating terrorism and assure them that he will not allow any of them to be hauled up before a war crimes tribunal. He said so for the umpteenth time recently at the army hospital. The SLFP members of the yahapalana government also express similar views in public. They pooh-pooh their critics’ claim that the ground is being prepared slowly for establishing a war crimes tribunal here.

But, strangely, the Sri Lankan delegation to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva has recently reaffirmed the government’s commitment to implementing the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 (Oct. 2015) which calls for the setting up of a war crimes tribunal with the participation of foreign judges, defence lawyers, prosecutors and investigators. Whom will this hybrid tribunal try? The government, which co-sponsored the resolution, ought to provide an answer.

President Sirisena’s statements on the proposed war crimes tribunal are at variance with those government delegates make in Geneva from time to time. Who is telling us the truth? Is it that the government is divided on the question of honouring its Geneva commitments?

Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera Courtesy The Daily Mirror

While claiming that fraud and corruption of the government had put the country into an economic crisis, former President and MP Mahinda Rajapaksa said today no plan had been proposed in the budget or future development programmes by the President and the Prime Minister to come out of it.

Speaking during the budget debate, he said the debt obtained by the government during the last three years had increased by Rs. 2,773 billion from Rs. 7,391 in 2014 to Rs. 10,164 billion.

He said it was the Sirisena and Wickremesinghe government that had put the country into a debt trap even though they accused his government of doing so.

“We had reduced debt burden to the debt to GDP ratio by 71 per cent when we handed over the government. But now it had increased to 85 per cent. We managed debt servicing effectively by reducing the interest rate. But today the government had increased government expenses on its own and faced an economic crisis,” he said.

He said his government had spent the loans on ending the war, reconciliation process and development programmes in the North and in the other parts of the country.

“We constructed ports, airports, state buildings and developed road network in the country. But the present government has not done any development programme or developed infrastructure,” he said.

Mr. Rajapaksa said the government’s fraud and corruption had gone up where they had to pay Rs. 145 billion as interest due to the bond scam, Rs. 15 billion as compensation due to cancellation of the Srilankan airlines order to purchase airbuses and Rs. 21 billion due to the cancellation of the port city project,” he said.

He said people and businessmen had to pay twofold of the tax they paid in 2014 and added that the government was boasting about increasing tax revenue.

Mr. Rajapaksa also said that the budget had proposed to sell state resources to foreigners by liberalising laws to enable foreigners to buy lands without any obstacle.

He said the government had no power to sell or lease out state resources without peoples’ approval and added that steps would be taken to nationalise state resources sold or lease out without peoples’ approval. ()

Shehan Chamika Silva and Hafeel Farisz Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Shehan Chamika Silva and Hafeel Farisz Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Evidence at the Bond Commission today revealed that PTL Owner Arjun Aloysius spoke to several members of the Parliamentary watchdog Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) during COPE hearings.

Aloysius had spoken a total of 227 times to Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe, 18 times with Dayasiri Jayasekara, 176 times with Harshana Rajakaruna and 73 time of Hector Appuhamy during periods commencing January 2015.

Cabinet Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara had also been in communication with Arjun Aloysius with 18 calls going to and from him with Aloysius in total, with two calls during the period of the COPE hearings. The communications with Jayasekara had commenced on July 10, 2015.

The second Committee of Public Enterprise (COPE) was established on May 6, 2016 to investigate the controversial Bond Issuance.

The evidence presented by the Attorney General revealed that Arjun Aloyisus had also been in constant contact with MP’s Hector Appuhamy, and Harshana Rajakaruna, whilst they were sitting in the COPE committee investigating the Bond Issuance.

The other MP names were highlighted in a forensic report presented by the Criminal Investigations Department during yesterday’s hearing of the Bond Commission.

The other MP Ajith P. Perera who had only two calls (one incoming and one outgoing), between him and Aloysius.

Senasinghe was appointed midway during the proceedings, after the resignation of UNP MP M. Welakumar on July 8, 2017.

The total number of Telephone calls to and from Senasinghe to Aloysius between the period July 4, 2015 to March 3, 2017 was 227.

They include calls on other platforms such as Whatsapp and Viber.

UNP MP Harshana Rajakaruna who was also a member of the COPE had been in contact with Aloysius since February 2015. There were a total of 176 calls between each other and 18 during the period of the COPE hearings.

MP Hector Appuhamy had taken and received a total of 73 calls from mid July 2016 to mid June 2017 with a total of 23 calls during the period of COPE sittings, evidence revealed.

The evidence was through sub- inspector Yasanka Jayasinghe of the Criminal Investigations Department who had forensically examined all the relevant data.

Counsel for Former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran vehemently objected to the admitting of the evidence initially. The objections were overruled with the Commissioner ordering written submissions to be tendered within seven days to the Commission.

ASG Yasantha Kodagoda was to later remark following the revelations that “It is exactly knowing all of this that they objected to it”.

Jayasinghe’s evidence was the only evidence led throughout the day, which highlighted many calls to and from between Aloysius, Mahendran and other directly connected parties to the issuance of Bonds.

The evidence was led out following the tabling of a 127 page forensic report in which Jayasinghe explained the method of extracting data. All telecom service providers had complied with the orders of the Commission and provided data during the time period commencing January 1, 2017.

Jayasinghe said that Dialog Axiata had not given the full report due to technical difficulties, Jayasinghe said, but had complied and provided all data that was within their reach. Jayasinghe said that the Telecom giant had requested a further 120 days to provide all the relevant data pertaining to the mobile phones Aloysius and Mahendran.

During evidenced led yesterday the phone details of Arjun Aloysius, Arjun Mahendran, Indika Saman Kumara, Naveen Anuradha, Kasun Palisena, S. Pathumanapan were laid out.

The Attorney Generals Department drew a nexus between the workings of the Central Bank, the other Banks in the Treasury Bond Market, and Perpetual Treasuries. ()

By Sarath Dharmasena Courtesy The Island

An in-depth investigation, conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), has revealed a spate of telephone conversations between Perpetual Treasuries Pvt Ltd (PTL) owner Arjuna Aloysius and some members of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), which probed alleged bond scams.

This was revealed in a comprehensive report submitted by Sub Inspector Yasantha Yehan Jayasinghe of the CID to the presidential commission of inquiry investigating alleged bond scams.

The report deals with the period from 2016 February 2 to 2017 June 20.

Additional Solicitor General Yasantha Kodagoda said that the CID had been directed to probe links between Aloysius and the MPs who had incorporated footnotes into the second COPE report on the treasury bond scam.

The CID informed the commission that Deputy Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe had had the highest number of telephone conversations with Aloysius during the period under investigation.

President Maithripala Sirisena appointed the commission in January to inquire into alleged treasury bond scams committed in 2015 February and March 2016.

Colombo District UNP MP Senasinghe had taken 62 calls, the P CoI was told and Deputy Minister Ajith P. Perera two calls. Gampaha District UNP MP Harshana Rajakaruna figured in 23 telephone conversations. SLFP Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera and UNP Puttalam District MP Hector Appuhamy had taken five and 23 calls, respectively, the commission was told.

In addition to calls between Aloysius and COPE members, there had been 387 calls between the then Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake and Aloysius, the report revealed.

The commission was told that COPE members Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Dr. Harsha de Silva, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Bimal Ratnayake, Abdul Al Maharoof, Mavai Senathirajah, M. A. Sumanthiran and Wimalaweera Dissanayake hadn’t contacted Aloysius over the phone.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Yahapalana eagerly compared its foreign policy with that of former President Rajapaksa. ‘During the last regime the Lankan mouse from its peephole was roaring at India Instead of fostering relations with India’, said Don Manu. India slammed the door in their face, similarly America, England, France, Germany and the rest of the powerful western world. Due to its anti Indian and anti west stance the island had no friend in the world except the       region’s superpower aspirant China, continued Don Manu. Lanka isolated and alone, with no friends, turned to China and gave it access to areas of strategic value. Rajapakse turned to China not because of a good foreign policy but because political survival depended on it, concluded Don Manu.

Foreign relations have been re-balanced from a ‘China weighted’ one, to one that has restored relations with India and the West, said Yahapalana. Under Rajapakse there was too much reliance on China, ignoring traditional friends like US, Europe and India. Now old friendships are restored and there is less reliance on China, said Razeen Sally.  Unlike the previous regime, the current regime has sought to balance its policy between India and China, giving India a stake in Hambantota airport, Colombo port project and a key expressway, besides preventing Chinese submarines in Sri Lankan waters , observed India’s Foreign secretary, S. Jaishankar.

Unfortunately, neither India nor America have a good public image in Sri Lanka today. The public see modern India as the enemy. Direct Indian involvement in operating Sri Lanka’s second international airport  at Mattala would be 100 times more dangerous than leasing Hambantota port to China said one critic. US is no longer considered a rich, happy, perfect country after the California forest fires and the shootings at Las Vegas and Texas.

Sri Lanka must learn to balance international relations, Sri Lanka cannot become a military facility of any one country,  Sri Lanka can’t play one country off against another,   said Jayanath Colombage. Dayan Jayatilleke warned, ‘Sinhala fundamentalists’ count on the rise of China as a counterweight to India as well as the combined weight of India and the US. India and US are the regional superpower and the world’s sole superpower, though admittedly it is in slow, relative decline. We are an easily blockaded, small island on India’s doorstep and unlike Pakistan, we have no land route to China.

Building and balancing military relationships with India, China,  US and Japan will be crucial if Sri Lanka is to remain ‘a friend of all and an enemy of none’, warned critics. It may be best therefore for Sri Lanka to take middle ground at this moment. We are located at a meeting point between the east and west in the Indian Ocean and our location is of significant geo strategic importance, said analysts. However, no analyst has pointed out that China is a rising power, USA is a declining power. It is ridiculous for Sri Lanka to link with a declining power instead of the  rising one.

The Yahapalana tilt to US has led to a couple of   issues at the UN. Sri Lanka shocked the Arab and Islamic world by not supporting a pro Palestine, at UNESCO, said critics.  They were referring to the Occupied Palestine Resolution passed in October 2016. The resolution condemned Israel for aggression against the Palestinian people. Sri Lanka abstained.

Island ran a headline, ‘Mangala denies being US lackey.’ Mangala Samaraweera, then Foreign minister, said that Sri Lanka’s stand on the Palestine issue was that both Israel and Palestine should find a negotiated settlement and Sri Lanka had not voted against Palestine, he said. Sri Lanka abstained because Sri Lanka had reservations about the text and not because Sri Lanka had changed its mind about Palestine, explained the Ministry of Foreign affairs. India had also opted to abstain, along with many other countries. ‘We have supported Palestine’s entry as observer state to the UN. Our position on Palestine has not shifted at all’.

‘Now it has refused to vote against a resolution on Iran in UN General Assembly’, howled critics in November 2016. Iran has stood by Sri Lanka with military aid and credit lines to buy oil and carry out development projects. Iran stood by Sri Lanka in Human Rights Council.  Sri Lanka position on the vote is eagerly watched. Sri Lanka abstained in this election too.

Sri Lanka is a small nation, surrounded by much larger countries, all with economic and military power, greater than its own. It is essential that Sri Lanka maintain mutually beneficial economic and political ties with them, but Sri Lanka has to take utmost care to ensure that it does not enter in to asymmetrical agreements of long duration with a super power. The damage to national interests will be irreparable, said Anura Gunasekera.

Once entrenched, the super power will not relinquish its hold, it will only ask for more. National interest will not be a consideration in their calculations. We have to bear in mind at all times that we do not have the wherewithal, to exert economic, political or military force to evict an undesirable occupant from our soil, warned Anura Gunasekera

The main military attraction in Sri Lanka is of course, Trincomalee. Trincomalee is one of Sri Lanka most valuable assets. Trincomalee is one of the largest deep water natural harbors in the world. It consists of approximately 2000 hectares of sea and 6000 hectares of land.  The entrance is four miles wide and five across.  The inner harbor which lies to the north covers about 12 sq miles and is securely enclosed by rocks and small islets.

Trincomalee harbor is very strategically located.  Also Trincomalee is a sheltered port unaffected by seasonal weather changes and tidal waves. A remarkable feature of this harbor is its great depth. It has an average depth of 25 m, which could accommodate even mega container ships carrying over 18,000 TEUs that requires a draught of 19 meters.

It has a submarine canyon with walls as high as 1350 cms and a depth of over 3350 meters.  This canyon is one of the 20 largest submarine canyons in the world. Trincomalee is therefore   ideal for nuclear submarines.  They can dive low in the inner harbor and effectively avoid radar and sonar detection. Therefore any power that controls Trincomalee   had a great advantage from naval and strategic perspective.

This has political implications. A fleet so protected is in a position to dominate the Bay of Bengal and the eastern Indian Ocean and   the foreign power owning such a fleet was at an advantage. Currently, it has been observed that Trincomalee can comfortably accommodate the Seventh fleet of the US Navy.

US does not hide its desire to get into Trincomalee. US is working towards establishing  its bases in Trincomalee for its Seventh Fleet and was making Sri Lanka military vacate strategically important locations in the port,  said a news report of 2015.    Accordingly, Sampur navy base was vacated in 2015. The entire camp was removed and its 400 sailors sent to Boossa navy camp in Galle. The reason given was that Sampur was going to be used for resettlement.

The government has decided to allow Trincomalee to be a US base for the 7th fleet said a news report in 2016. Speculation is rife that the Trincomalee Harbor, a portion of the Colombo Port and many other key resources will go to India and the US, said Sumanasiri Liyanage in January 2017.  In May 2017 Vitarana said that an American Naval camp is to be set up in Trincomalee, with the Trincomalee harbor as the focal point. A bilateral agreement has been signed secretly to establish an American naval camp in Trincomalee.

Several international conferences on the Indian Ocean have taken place  in Colombo and elsewhere. Yahapalana is going to lead in this as well. We will continue to take a leading role, in bringing our partners in the Indian Ocean together to deliberate on issues of importance to all of us, said Prime Minister Ranil  Wickremesinghe at the opening of the 2nd Indian Ocean Conference.

Pathfinder Foundation, Carnegie India together with Vivekananda International Foundation in India conducted a conference in Colombo discuss six major areas of connectivity in the Indian Ocean.  Pathfinder Foundation ‘s Centre for Indo-Lanka Initiatives  and National Maritime Foundation  based in New Delhi, India signed a Memorandum of Understanding to embark on research into maritime strategy and security studies in the Indian Ocean. Their first bilateral conference in February 2018 will be on maritime security.

Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKI) held a dialogue on the theme ‘Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy: Choices in a Changing World’  at this Dialogue, Mahdev Mohan, Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore, observed that Sri Lanka’s attempt to craft a dual identity as the centre of the Indian Ocean and a gateway to India would give it a competitive advantage. This was ‘a space that nobody had had the chance to exploit just yet.’

I end this series with a survey of Yahapalana utterances on the politics of the Bay of Bengal. These utterances range from the ridiculous to statements that show that Yahapalana is planning to lead Sri Lanka into war.

Sri Lanka is a small island right in the middle of a large world. For thousands of years we have benefitted from being located strategically. Unfortunately, we seem to have forgotten this competitive advantage of the location. Our vision is to reclaim that mantle of international connectivity, said Prime Minister Ranil  Wickremesinghe

The Government of Sri Lanka has a clear vision of what it wants Sri Lanka to be said Minister Harsha de Silva in January 2017, we would like to position Sri Lanka at the centre of the Indian Ocean.  Sri Lanka is going to be the Hub of the Indian Ocean said  Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in May 2017. Sri Lanka will be the Hub in the Indian Ocean announced Yahapalana in September 2017.

The notion of Sri Lanka as  a Hub is not as absurd as  I had  initially thought. Jayanath Colombage  made out the following case for Sri Lanka . Colombage  pointed out  that Sri Lanka has a  unique advantage in its geographical location.  Sri Lanka is located in the centre of the Indian Ocean, almost equal distance from the eastern and western Indian Ocean littorals. Sri Lanka is located just 12 nautical miles from the busiest east-west shipping route across this ocean, linking Europe, Americas, Far East, Middle East and Asia, which is considered a key shipping lane in the 21st century. .Further, Sri Lanka is blessed with deep-water ports and deep navigable waters around the country and especially along the approaches to major ports.. Port of Colombo is the only port in the region which is capable of docking and handling even the latest version of mega container ships.

Sri Lanka is well connected digitally to the world and possesses an advanced telecommunication network. Sri Lanka is also enjoying well connected aviation network linking major cities in the region and beyond.  Sri Lanka maintains a balanced and equi-distance diplomatic posture and is considered to be a friendly country by many countries. . Sri Lanka is the only country in this region, where all states arrive without any restrictions, be they  Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis or Americans. Sri Lanka has already taken leadership roles in the India Ocean with Indian Ocean as Zone of Peace initiative,  its role in creating SAARC and creating of UNCLOS. Sri Lanka has presently taken the initiative to discuss a Code of Conduct for Major Maritime Users in the Indian Ocean region and a new Indian Ocean Order.  

Therefore  the   ‘Hub’ possibility  is based on Sri Lanka’s strategic location as well as the availability of ports on all coasts and two international airports with good land connectivity. Colombo will also be a center for offshore finance and business, said Yahapalana . Once it becomes a Hub, Sri Lanka future  will depend on how well the country leverages its geo strategic location as an Indian Ocean hub, said analysts.

‘We don’t want the Indian Ocean to become a militarized arena for great power rivalry. We don’t see here maritime and territorial disputes like those in the South China Sea, said Frances Adamson, Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia. However, a maritime build up is taking place in the Indian Ocean, which includes  nuclear capability. India , USA and China are increasing their naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Very soon, countries will compete for naval power and control of the sea in the Bay of Bengal.  Naval power will play an important role in the region said analysts.

The US is interested in creating partnerships in the Indian Ocean. The U.S.-India-Japan ‘Malabar’ naval exercise in July 2017 was ‘our largest and most complex to date, involving over ten thousand personnel’ said US.  US is also interested in building the coast guard capacity of ‘our Indian Ocean partners’. US says it wants to see greater naval cooperation in the Indian Ocean. US wants to Improve community policing, aviation security, and forensics analysis in the region as well,    in order to combat terrorism, transnational crime, human trafficking and illicit drugs. There is no mention of war.  Analysts however say that US will not be fighting in the Indian Ocean, the fighting will be done on behalf of USA by its partner states.

Maritime security in the Bay of Bengal is now a matter of much concern, said analysts. No single power or coalition will be able to rule on their own in the Indian Ocean. South Asia will need to build military alliances  to effectively counter security threats. Small nations such as Sri Lanka, with comparatively limited maritime resources also can become an integral element of maritime security in the region, said Minister Harsha de Silva. Sri Lanka  should  carve out a role for itself in the region, said  admirers.

Sri Lanka is well positioned  to play a strategic role in the Indian Ocean, due  to its strategic location in the international maritime route.  Sri Lanka  is   also at the crucial entry points of the Bay of Bengal, observed analysts. ,Sri Lanka  has an important responsibility for regional security in addition to national security, announced Yahapalana   we share responsibility in keeping its waters safe said  Prime Minister Ranil  Wickremesinghe .

It was the duty of the Sri Lanka navy to protect the entire Indian Ocean region without limiting its operation to the exclusive economic zone of Sri Lanka, said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.  Critics pounced on this remark. This comment is cause for grave concern said Vitarana. Sri Lanka navy was been asked to protect the entire Indian ocean. Our navy cannot even protect us from the Indian fishermen. If Sri Lanka navy is to carry out this huge responsibility, then US ships will have to be berthed in Sri Lanka.   The US 7th fleet will come to Trincomalee.  (CONCLUDED)

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Yahapalana is linking heavily with the US and its satellite countries. India is today the main partner of the US in the Indian Ocean. Yahapalana is pursuing India and offering it ports, (Trincomalee) airports, (Mattala) oil tanks, (Trincomalee) and industries (shoes).  Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe   said Apita indiyawath oney, Oi. Apita Indiyawa tharaha karaganna behe”.  We need India, men. We cannot antagonize them.

No one sees India as the leader of South Asia.  To start with, the disunited SAARC countries do not even like India.  Also, India is   a very young sovereign state. It was created in 1947.  Sri Lanka is much older. India will balkanize eventually and that will be the end of ‘India’. But India is very much present today and   USA is using India to challenge China. India is only too willing. It wants to be the regional power in the Indian Ocean. But when you Google ‘India and China’ the first thing that appears is information on India’s unsuccessful war with China and the current India-China border disputes. You also get unflattering headlines like ‘India is overtaking China as the biggest emitter of the deadly air pollutant sulphur dioxide’

Analysts invariably comment on China’s superiority over India. India is nowhere near the level of China, economically or politically, said analysts bluntly. In 2017 China is ranked 78 on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index compared with 130 for India.  An analyst commented in 2015, ‘In the past decade, China has emerged as a top exporter of goods to the region, including to India. Around 2005, China overtook India as Bangladesh’s top trading partner. China displaced many Indian goods in Bangladesh, offering cheaper Chinese products (especially cotton and other fabrics central to the garment industry) without the visa, transport, and customs challenges that had limited trade between India and Bangladesh.

Eric Margolis writing in Huffington Post in 2010 remarked, inter alia, that India has grudgingly accepted China’s 1950 takeover of Tibet and has harbored   groups dedicated to liberating Tibet. India sees the growing array of Chinese bases in Tibet as an extreme danger, said Margolis. China’s air, missile and intelligence bases in Tibet look down on the vast plains of India. Tibet controls most of the headwaters of India’s great rivers. Delhi has long feared that China may one day dam and divert their waters to China’s dry western provinces, said Margolis.

Other serious potential flashpoints exist, continued Margolis. India’s old foe, Pakistan, with whom it has fought four wars, is China’s closet ally. Beijing arms Pakistan and has built up its nuclear arms program. An Indian-Pakistan war over divided Kashmir, or an Indian intervention in a fragmenting Pakistan or Afghanistan, could draw China into the fray.  A new port in western Pakistan at Gwadar will give China port rights on the Arabian Sea.

Margolis also looked at Burma. Burma (today Myanmar), on India’s troubled eastern flank,   rent by tribal uprisings, deeply worries Delhi. Strategic Burma is rapidly becoming an important forward Chinese base. A new road links China with Burma, and provides China’s navy a badly needed port on the Andaman Sea, and thus access to the Indian Ocean.
India believes China is trying to strategically encircle it. To the west, Pakistan, to the north, Tibet, to the east, Burma, to the south, Sri Lanka, concluded Margolis.

It is clear therefore that India on its own has no grand image. Therefore the group supporting USA is busy providing a grand image for India. India is seen by this group as the leader in the Bay of Bengal. India will overtake China eventually to become a great world power, said India’s supporters. We welcome India’s strengthened relationship with the United States and increased engagement in the broader Indo-Pacific India is an emerging great power and a natural leader in the Indian Ocean region and globally said Australia.  India has shown great potential to become the second largest economy in the world by 2050   said Ranil Wickremesinghe.

By 2030, China and India are likely to swap places, with India overtaking China, said Ganeshan Wignaraja. China and India have followed similarly impressive growth trajectories in recent decades. India is a late starter. India’s economic liberalization started a decade after China.  But India’s reforms have made great strides and have begun to catch up with China. India has boosted public investment in infrastructure and other areas.  India has a youthful population under 24 years compared to China, continued Wignaraja.

Indian exports are increasingly led by more-sophisticated, skill-intensive services such as information technology, business process outsourcing (BPO) and financial services. India’s success in IT is due to its widespread use of English, supplies of high-quality graduates from Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management, falling communications costs and returning non-resident Indian investors from Silicon Valley. Some of India’s states – Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu – are becoming manufacturing hubs and linking into global supply chains said Wignaraja.

However, China’s economic policies, investment climate and supply-side conditions remain more favorable than India’s, commented Wignaraja. Accordingly, China will continue to lead India in global supply chain trade for the foreseeable future. Firms operating in China enjoy a more competitive business environment than their counterparts in India, with more market-friendly rules for business start-ups, property registration, contract enforcement and bankruptcy, added Wignaraja.

China has today become the assembly hub of sophisticated global supply chain trade in technology intensive manufactures. China had ventured into research and development in the biotech and robotics sectors as well.  China and India are similar in terms of ports, but India lags behind China in railways and electricity supply, continued Wignaraja.

Moreover, China allocates significantly more resources than India to R&D and infrastructure. China spends as much as 2.1% of GDP on R&D while India spends 0.6%, China leads in education and training. In 2016 China had 4.7 million STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates while India had 2.6 million. India’s tertiary enrollment rate is 27% in 2015 compared with a rate of 43% in China, concluded Wignaraja.

India was the first port of call for President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Foreign ministers, Mangala Samaraweera and Ravi Karunanayake, when they took office. President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe visited India four times each. Over the past two and a half years, there were at least 10 high level visits between India and Sri Lanka, said analysts.

Tilak Marapana, Foreign Minister, visiting Modi in New Delhi, said “It is in the fitness of things that I should come here first to call on you. India is like our elder brother”. India firmly repudiated this. What exists now is mutual cooperation, not superiority, said India. India now wants to develop its relationship with Sri Lanka on a ‘one to one basis’,  with mutual respect and open hands, respecting the sovereignty and dignity of the two countries, said   India. We want to re-do what was missing in the last 27 years. We believe our relations are not simply based on economy but on the narrative of history and culture”.

Joint military exercises between India and Sri Lanka named ‘Mitra Shakti’ have been taking place annually since 2013. In October 2014 two Chinese submarines docked in Colombo harbor for bunkering and supplies. It triggered an immediate protest from India and a visit to Colombo by Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to register India’s objections. In May 2017, Sri Lanka rejected China’s request to dock one of its submarines in Colombo for supplies on the eve of the visit to Sri Lanka by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A few weeks after the 2015 presidential election, US president Barack Obama revealed the existence of a common US-India stand on Sri Lanka, observed Shamindra Ferdinando.  Analysts have point out that since January 2015; Colombo has been visited by several Indian and US naval vessels. Joint military exercises are currently at an unprecedented level. In January 2016, Indian navy’s single aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, accompanied by a destroyer made its maiden overseas port call to Colombo. Permitting a port visit by an Indian aircraft carrier but rejecting a request for a Chinese submarine  was a sign of alignment to India.

The government’s policy of permitting aircraft carriers of India and US into Colombo harbor whilst rejecting permission for a Chinese submarine in the long term will not help in its endeavors in walking the tight-rope of balancing relations between the three powers to Sri Lanka’s benefit. The refusal also does not compare well with a visit by a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, critics said.

When Yahapalana government took over in 2015, it had no intention of ever working with China. Yahapalana was planning to sever all relations with China, and was going to link exclusively with India and America.  Sri Lanka adopted a strong, bold anti-China posture with various spokesmen condemning China.

The government acted belligerently as if it could do away with all major Chinese investments, observed analysts. Yahapalana was going to suspend the USD 1.4 billion Colombo Port City project, Hambantota port and several other Chinese funded projects, said  Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe  very confidently, to the media well before the 2015 election.

But China stood firm. These were international agreements signed by two heads of state, and they could not be easily repudiated. Sri Lanka must honor its contracts with China or pay China compensation ,said China. Yahapalana‘s western allies were not prepared to pay the compensation. Sri Lanka had no choice but to bow to  China. China made both the President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka come to China for discussions. They went.

The fact that Yahapalana was going to sever all relations with China, but was prevented from doing so, was   quickly pushed under the carpet.  Yahapalana immediately started to sing a new song. Yahapalana said that they were maintaining relations with China voluntarily, as a part of an enlightened foreign policy. We want to get along with both China and India” said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

USA and its satellites joined in the Yahapalana song. It is natural for Sri Lanka to turn around and embrace China again said Voice of America, but Chinese projects are not useful for the people.  The new government is wooing China while keeping India on board said pro-US analysts. Everyone in New Delhi has realized that the new Colombo government isn’t going to abandon China just like that. It has certain big infrastructure investments. If China supports the development of Sri Lanka, then there is little motivation for Sri Lanka to refuse economic support from China, said Japan. Sri Lanka wants to accept China’s economic support to support its own development, Japan added.

The public seemed to have swallowed this, but analysts have not. Sri Lanka now is busily balancing its relations with India and China, they said.  The need to balance relations with China, India and USA was an unexpected one, and one which Yahapalana of course cannot manage. Sri Lanka should not depend mainly on Chinese development assistance, which is dangerous, because Sri Lanka would not be able to craft a balanced foreign policy with India and the West, said Razeen Sally. The China factor could lead to serious problems with India for Sri Lanka, said the pro-India group. When China is building a port in Sri Lanka and their submarines visit Sri Lanka, these moves create new difficulties with India.

Japan, India and the US are worried that China will use its foothold in Sri Lanka to establish a military base. They realize that China could use Hambantota for its military ships. The Hambantota agreement is a commercial one, not government to government one Yahapalana assured. Also, China has no exclusive right to the harbor. Hambantota Port would not be turned into a military base said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Only Sri Lanka’s armed forces are allowed to carry out military activities in ports and airports.

The public may have forgotten the fact that Yahapalana could not push out China, but China has not forgotten. China does not like Yahapalana and does not bother to hide the fact. China has no intention of withdrawing from Sri Lanka.

Sichuan University, one of the 10 top universities in China, sent a delegation to Sri Lanka in April 2017. Pathfinder Foundation   met them to discuss how Sichuan University could help Sri Lanka universities. A team from Pathfinder Foundation paid a return visit. Vice President Prof. Yan Shijin  in his discussion with the visiting Pathfinder team,  emphasized the importance of heightening China-Sri Lanka relations, Sri Lanka’s role in the Belt and Road Initiative and the desire of Sichuan University  to help Sri Lankan students seeking higher education in China.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy ship Qi Ji Guang arrived at the Port of Colombo on a goodwill visit  in November, 2017.Sri Lanka Navy welcomed the visiting ship in accordance with naval traditions. A host of officials from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Sri Lanka and Chinese nationals living in Sri Lanka were present on the harbor premises to welcome the ship. During their five-day official visit, the crew members of Qi Ji Guang are scheduled to participate in a number of training exercises and sporting events organized by the Sri Lanka Navy with a view to sharing professional expertise and strengthen friendship. The vessel which is carrying a crew of 549 is 163.5 m in length and 22.2 m in width. It has a displacement of 10,907 tons, said the press release.

Opinion  Readers’ Letters The Star

The ICC prosecutor’s decision to pursue a probe into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan is completely political” and won’t amount to anything, law professor Francis Boyle believes. He said it will be a cold day in hell” before any Americans are prosecuted.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced last week that her request to launch an investigation had been handed over to a pre-trial court. She said that if her request is granted, the probe will focus upon those most responsible for the most serious crimes committed in connection with the situation in Afghanistan.”

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However, Francis Boyle, an international law professor at the University of Illinois, told RT that while Bensouda is likely to get approval for the investigation, the move is simply a propaganda stunt.” He added that Bensouda has no desire to go after any Americans who committed war crimes.

You have to understand, this is all political,” said Boyle. He noted that the African country of Burundi has already pulled out of the ICC, and South Africa has voiced the same intention.

So she’s in a position and the court is in a position that almost all of Africa is going to pull out of the ICC because the only people in the dock over there are black, tin-pot dictators from Africa,” Boyle said. He called the court a Western, racist, imperial tool” which is being used against Africa.

Because of this, the so-called white man’s court” will not be going after Americans, Boyle said. It will be a cold day in hell” before we see Bensouda doing so, he added. Boyle noted that the ICC has never gone after the Americans, the NATO states, Britain, Israel, despite clear-cut jurisdiction to do so.”

Boyle went on to accuse the US government of committing a Nuremberg crime against peace by invading Afghanistan and attacking it and blowing them back to the Stone Age and killing a million Afghans.” He added that I doubt very seriously Bensouda is going to deal with any of that.”

The United States illegally and criminally invaded Afghanistan and attacked and destroyed them… and then they set up all these torture campus over there, they’ve been torturing these poor people forever. And at a minimum, the United States has probably killed a million Afghanis [sic] since October 2001,” he said.

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The Americans should have been investigated a decade ago at least,” said Boyle, who filed an ICC complaint against former US President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, in 2010, over their policy of extraordinary rendition perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.” He added that the American government knows full well they’ll be able to sabotage her [Bensouda], stop her. Nothing’s going to come of it.”

However, Boyle predicted that Bensouda would likely come back with a verdict that it was actually the Taliban who was responsible for crimes. Or she might apportion blame, but that’s ridiculous too…if you read all the United Nations reports of human rights violations coming out of Afghanistan, they all blame the Taliban. And it’s a joke.”

Although the ICC statement doesn’t name specific parties that would be subject to the investigation, a report released by the prosecutor’s office last year said there is reasonable basis” to believe crimes were committed by US military forces deployed to Afghanistan, and in secret detention facilities operated by the CIA. It also points the finger at the Taliban and Afghan government forces.

Boyle noted that although the US can technically be prosecuted by the court – despite not being a member – the ICC pretty much do what they’re told to do,” citing money received from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, as well as the influence of America.

Meanwhile, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said earlier on Thursday that at least 10 civilians may have been killed in an airstrike in the north city of Kunduz last week, despite a US military investigation stating that no evidence of civilian deaths had been found.

Boyle previously served on the board of Amnesty International USA and drafted legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was signed into law after being unanimously approved by both chambers of the US Congress.

by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

“Those far distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.” Alfred Thayer Mahan

US naval officer and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan’s advice in 1890 for the US to push outwards to rule the oceans is still heeded by US maritime forces in the present day. The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, standing 23 stories high and 333 metres long with 5,000 personnel on board, arrived in Sri Lanka in October this year after 32 years since the last arrival of a US aircraft carrier. Aircraft carriers are sea-faring air bases equivalent to floating geographical land masses with significant firepower which have been proven as key strategic war machines in the recent past.

The visit of the USS Nimitz is a clear indication of the military and economic might that the US projects through floating bases, not only in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) but globally. Floating bases are indicative of the US world order – one that is predominantly unilateral, save for ‘collective security’ partnerships and one that seeks hegemony.

Nevertheless, the presence of USS Nimitz in the IOR intends to symbolise the strong cooperation between the US and Sri Lanka during the Sirisena regime. Back in 1985, the US aircraft carrier visit would have raised concerns for Sri Lanka’s immediate neighbour, India. However, today, the US and India enjoy a different relationship than in the past. The US has clearly cemented strong ‘collective security’ relations with India, Japan, and Australia.

In this context, countries with a geostrategic advantage such as Sri Lanka are seen as ideal sites to further strengthen these lateral ties. From 2010 onwards, there have been more than 200 foreign naval visits to Sri Lanka, including India’s INS Vikramaditya, another aircraft carrier that visited the Colombo Port in 2016. Sri Lanka strives to balance all major powers’ interests in the country and thus accommodate these war ships as friendship visits. The prevalent counter-argument is that some major powers, most notably China, are aggressively and one-sidedly pursuing their own self-interest through setting up military bases in the IOR. However, one could also contend that aircraft carriers as floating bases (such as the US’) in the deep oceans are trying to showcase and achieve a similar military strategy and projection of power.

President Sirisena’s government is enacting this balancing act for Sri Lanka and creating equidistant foreign relations with the US, India, and China. In the region, India has also engaged in joint military exercises, the most recent being ‘Mitra Shakti 2017’ with Sri Lanka in October. According to the Indian Express, the joint military exercise was India’s response to China’s growing influence in South Asia and the IOR. However,this author’s opinion is that the article is speculative since the military exercise clearly falls short of limiting China’s growing power in the region. In this vein, many speculative media stories will raise similar questions with regard to Sri Lanka’s relationship with its neighbour, India.

President Trump visited China against the backdrop of all these geopolitical events in the IOR. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has arguably presided over more domestic stability and economic prosperity in his country than Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Vladimir Putin, and Trump combined. President Xi, in his speech to the 19th National Congress in October, highlighted the founding aspirations of Chinese communist values. This included moving 80 million people from rural to urban areas, boosting the country’s GDP from 54 trillion to 80 trillion yuan, projecting China as the world’s second largest economy, and contributing to 30 per cent of global economic growth in a span of only five years. While propelling innovation and scientific advancement, China has also made more than 1500 reforms of a socialist nature to pursue modernisation, including fighting corruption. On the latter point, President Xi remarked We have taken out tigers, swatted flies and hunted down foxes,” leaving no space for corruption.

At the 19th National Congress, China’s external approach to the world was discussed. President Xi’s gigantic One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project has already altered the natural geography in many parts of the world. This includes the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), connecting to Gwadar Port as well as Hambantota Port, which will change trading patterns in the region. The Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund are other economic initiatives working towards funding a new economic order. Thus, it is apparent that China has charted its own course in creating an Asian-led new world order that is geo-politically, economically and militarily in direct contravention of the US’ world order, and that renounces the perceived Western view.

Today, China projects itself as a proud country, at a time when socialists around the world are celebrating the centennial of the great October Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. From its long history of struggle, China has set itself in the right direction to alter the existing world order (the one contravened by the US), by pursuing a strategy that is rooted in economic and geopolitical prowess. Much like the US, China’s power projections are articulated through the amassing of land-bases. Yet, China’s world vision is far broader, in that it is striving to combine its economic and military might with its socialist-political orientation as well as the geo-strategic interests of developing countries.

(Views expressed here are personal and do not reflect those of the Government of Sri Lanka or the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS). Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is a visiting lecturer in international political economy (IPE) and Director General of INSS, the national security think tank of Sri Lanka. This article was initially published by the IPCS, New Delhi for Dateline Colombo- http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/the-geopolitics-of-floating-bases-and-the-new-world-order-5391.html )

Not even the President can contain current politicians in govt – Bandula පොලිස් තර්ජන පන්සලටත් එයි-වහාම ක්‍රියාත්මක වෙන්නැයි ජනපතිගෙන් බන්දුල ඉල්ලයි

S.S.Selvanayagam Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The Supreme Court today awarded a total of Rs.800,000 — Rs.600,000 as compensation and Rs.200,000 as cost–to Britisher Naomi Coleman who was arrested and deported for having a Buddha tattoo on her right upper arm.

The Supreme Court said her fundamental rights had been breached and that a Magistrate could not issue a deportation order on the basis that a deportation order against a foreigner must only be made by the Subject Minister.

The Judgement was delivered after more than a dozen postponements because the Supreme Court bench not being constituted. The case was argued and concluded and order reserved for Judgement on June 10, 2015 after which Justice Chandra Ekanayake retired. Thereafter the case had to be re-argued.

Justice Anil Gooneratne with Justices Eva Wanasundera and Nalin Perera agreeing awarded the petitioner Naomi Michelle Coleman Rs.500,000 as compensation payable by the State and Rs.50,000 each by Police Sergeant Upasena and Katunayake Police Acting OIC Inspector Suraweera. Court also awarded Rs.200,000 as costs payable by the State.

The SC held that her fundamental right to freedom from torture, right to equality and freedom from arbitrary arrest had been infringed upon.

It said the police had misrepresented facts and misled the magistrate into believing the submissions that had been made and that a deportation order could be made by that Court.

The SC ruled that the Magistrate had no jurisdiction to make a deportation order on the basis that the deportation of foreigners is governed by the Immigration and Emigration Act and that the power to order the deportation of a foreigner is vested in the subject minister.

Petitioner Naomi Michelle Coleman, a nurse employed at the Hawkesbury Lodge, Rehabilitation Mental Health Services, cited the Attorney General, Police Sergeant Upasena, Inspector Suraweera of the Katunayake Police Station, the Negombo Prisons OIC, IGP and the then Immigration and Emigration Controller General Chulananda De Silva as respondents and sought the Court to award her Rs.10 million as compensation.

Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jayasuriya with Deputy Solicitor General Parintha Ranasinghe and Senior State Counsel Warunika Hettige appeared for the AG.

Counsel J.C.Weliamuna PC with Pulasthi Hewamanna, Tishya Weragoda instructed by Vishwa De Livera Tennakoon appeared for Ms. Coleman.

She said as a practicing Buddhist she attends meditation retreats in Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia and India and as an apt tribute to and as a personal expression of her devotion to Buddhist teachings had on her right upper arm displayed a tattoo of the Buddha seated on a lotus flower.

She said she arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport and when she was at the exit gate attempting to locate the luggage counter, she was approached by a taxi-cab driver later identified as Kelum Chaminda and a bystander who said the tattoo might be objectionable in Sri Lanka.

She said they took her to Katunayake Police Station where the Acting OIC confiscated her passport produced in Court without disclosing the charge against her or the offence committed and was not afforded an opportunity to communicate with the British High Commission or whether the High Commission was informed of her arrest.

She said she was introduced to an Attorney by a prison guard and had no opportunity to give instructions to the Attorney but was required to pay a fee of Rs.5,000.

She said the prison guard who was in charge, while at court, made several lewd, obscene and disparaging remarks of a sexually nature while being detained behind bars in the court room and at the conclusion of her case, her attorney informed her that she would be deported, regardless of her entreaties and would be permitted to leave to Maldives and till then detained at a deportation centre.

The petitioner said a woman prison guard had asked her to give her Rs.10,000 and attempted to take her mobile phone.

She said she was subjected to a full body search by a female officer and that an inmate provided her a mat to sleep for the night with 60 females inmates sharing the room. ()