Earlier this week, after a sudden illness, 56-year-old Peetambaram Rajan passed away in the Batticaloa region of Sri Lanka.
But though there appears to be few details about his life recorded online, the reaction of those Rajan left behind suggest his was one teeming with love.
According to the Tamil Mirror, Rajan was known to be an animal lover. Every day, he was reportedly visited by a local gray langur whom he’d offer treats.
However, Rajan evidently did more than just quell her hunger. It seems he touched her heart as well.
On Tuesday, as Rajan’s grieving family gathered to pay their final respects after his passing, they were joined by an unexpected visitor — the monkey he had befriended in life. And she was in mourning, too.
Given the trusting relationship the langur had with Rajan, it should come as no surprise that she would be saddened to learn he’d passed away.
Though, at times, there may appear to be a divide between people and other animals — our feelings of love and loss are much the same.
“There is no doubt that many animals experience rich and deep emotions,” writes animal behaviorist Dr. Mark Bekoff in Psychology Today. “It’s not a matter of if emotions have evolved in animals but why they have evolved as they have. We must never forget that our emotions are the gifts of our ancestors, our animal kin. We have feelings and so do other animals. Among the different emotions that animals display clearly and unambiguously is grief.”
The report regarding the welfare arrangements of the underage children of women under 45 years of age is compulsory when leaving the country for foreign employment, the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLFEB) said.
Addressing the media, the number of Sri Lankans leaving the country for foreign employment has increased, with the majority of them being women, and a significant number of them being mothers.
Accordingly, the SLBFE has decided not to grant permission for mothers with children under two years of age, as mothers should pay special attention to the care and education of their children, she said.
Moreover, the SLBFE has decided to call for a report on the welfare arrangements of their underage children. A circular will be issued making the practice compulsory. Affidavits are not required in this instance.
The Bureau further said that the decision was taken as a step for the protection of their children and to continue with their successful education.
During the period of the employment overseas, it will help to identify the family members who are responsible for the welfare and protection of those children.
The women who are under 45-years of age should obtain their report on the child welfare program from the respective Divisional Secretariat where they are residing. To obtain the Divisional Secretariat report, those people must first obtain the Grama Niladhari (GN) certificate from where they are residing.
If they are not residing in the registered electorate, they should submit their reports through the GN officer where they were last registered.
The child welfare program report is not necessary for people who plan to leave the country again within nine months from the date of arrival. This opportunity will be granted only to those women who went abroad and returned to the country after registering with the SLFEB.
If the nine months from the date of arrival exceeds, those women must provide the child welfare program report prior to their next departure.
A special committee has been appointed by the Ministry Secretary to rectify the issues that had taken place in the case of residence or any other issue when issuing the report. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)
The newly-gazetted personal income tax will be implemented from November 1, after the approval by the Finance Committee of the Parliament and the signature of the Speaker.
Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said this while speaking at a press conference in Ruwanwella. Earlier, a gazette notification was issued amending the Inland Revenue Act.
Accordingly, any individual with gross monthly earnings of Rs. 100,000 or above, would be liable to pay Income Tax. The top marginal personal income tax rate is gazetted as 36%.
The Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) has looked into maintaining a special rice reserve of 8,000 metric tons in accordance with the Colombo declaration of the SAARC Organization and the 16th Summit meeting.
The committee also probed the rice reserves of 100,000 metric tons not being maintained in the warehouses owned by the Food Commissioners Department of Sri Lanka all over the island in accordance with the cabinet decision dated 27/8/2008.
The COPA members inquired about the failure to maintain the aforesaid reserves despite the fact that 06 warehouses numbered 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 13 in Veyangoda warehouse complex were modified in a scientific and natural manner. 292 million rupees have been spent from 2012 to 2019 to modify these warehouses.
Discussions in this regard took place at the COPA which met on Thursday (Oct. 20) under the chairmanship of MP Kabir Hashim.
The meeting was called for by the Food Commissioners Department of Sri Lanka to examine the audit report on the maintenance of rice reserves and the performance of storage utilization.
The officials mentioned that their department requested for adequate provision from the treasury, but due to non-receipt, it was not possible to maintain the above-mentioned reserves. It was also revealed that on an average, to maintain 100,000 metric tons of rice, about Rs. 22 billion per year is required.
Officials stated that even though a storage complex capable of storing 250,000 metric tons has been scientifically modified, it has not been able to store the number of reserves equal to its maximum capacity so far and that the World Food Programme and rice aid received from other countries have already started to be stored.
The committee also informed the Secretary to the Ministry to conduct proper research on the existing government food warehouse complexes across the country and collect data and submit a report containing specific information about the ownership of the warehouses within a month.
Irregularities in giving the warehouse complexes owned by the Food Commissioner Department to other government or private institutions on rental basis and monthly rent collection issues were discussed at the COPA. The committee informed that with the support of the Attorney General’s Department, the relevant agreements should be prepared as necessary.
The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has requested the Auditor General to conduct a special investigation into the transfer of ownership of lands by the Land Reform Commission (LRC) for the past 20 years.
The request was made by the COPE chairman, Prof. Ranjith Bandara during its meeting which looked into the irregularities in land transfers.
Various reasons contributed to beginning the unsuccessful ARAGALAYA in 2022, which focused on either capturing the government or changing the government policy towards the people suffering from economic difficulties. Capturing a government that was elected by a democratic election could be considered illegal in terms of law and gaining political power in a country using an undemocratic way could not be considered an equitable or ethical way of changing the government. Modern democratic values are working not only in Sri Lanka but also in other countries. Therefore, ARAGALAYA had ethical and moral issues at the beginning that are questionable.
Compare to the previous ARAGALA in Sri Lanka, the major reason for the failure of this ARAGALAYA was leaders failed to present their economic policies and convince the people that their economic policy would have a positive impact on the economy and will gain clear benefits for people. Without knowing the real leaders of ARAGALAYA, people couldn’t trust the way it was going on and people surrounding Colombo gathered at Galle Face ground like buffaloes that came out from sheds that hadn’t reflect the democratic values and acceptable economic policies that would be beneficial to people. The fundamental weakness of ARAGALAYA was it failed to justify policies that they would do and the policies which contained justice.
The country indeed had problems relating to business and the living concerns of people. Such problems would have been solved by the government using the right economic policy that has been planned considering broader factors and would successfully organise related activities by the leaders of ARAGALAYA. These vital activities were not done by the leaders of ARAGALAYA and the failure of leaders was the main contributing factor to its unsuccess. In this situation, there was a higher risk that was not considered by leaders. Generally, people doubted the economic policy of young people who have no experience and never studied past economic downturns. In addition, certain people had different objectives, for example, a family living in Australia had a secret religious agenda that was not disclosed to people. In that background, the struggle was a misleading activity the general public didn’t know whether the struggle was a justifiable matter of the public
The increase in productivity in all sectors of the economy and the aggrandisement of the volume of foreign exchange reserves were vital issues that needed urgent attention and other economic problems related to macroeconomic concerns must have been highlighted by them as in the economic policy. They were major issues of ARAGALAYA and leaders lacked understanding of these factors they must have thought in the way university students are thinking without practical experience.
Many people in the country have no clear understanding of how to solve the problems and the leaders of ARAGALAYA should have explained to people why they were so concerned about the economic problems and that they can solve problems by implementing trusted policies. The ARAGALAYA in 2022 was not described the specific economic policy which will positively impact the economy. People even did not know who were the leaders of the struggle. The vital factor in modern society is that struggles could gain benefits if there are reserved assets and when there are no such preserved assets physical materials would not come to support the struggle.
In 1971, Rehana Wijeweera specifically stated that we will uproot tea plantations and replace them with Tapioca which would be an input-boosting industrial input with factories. Using cassava for industrial input would not be a substitute for the tea economy as it generates billion of foreign exchange and casava cannot do it. People at that time (1971) knew that such policies would not work for the country. Wijeweera whether policies were right or wrong publicly stated but in such a way modern leaders should have expressed economic policies that have not happened during the struggle. How the policies of struggle leaders would practically impact the macroeconomy to solve problems of people did not express and the struggle showed it was a clear attempt to cheat power.
It was not a productive and acceptable policy action to the public and the policies of Wijeweera were questionable to people at that time and the public was reluctant to associate with JVP. The open talks of Wijeweera were more respected by people than the rough leaders of the modern struggle. Many people state that the Aragalaya has not finished and people were invited to participate in several rallies but they did not participate, only a few people participated, who were hardcore Marxists and after tear gas and water cannon treatment all left the ARAGALAYA. It should note that struggles would not succeed in the modern era because the government has the more strong firepower and the other matter was many of the participants of the struggle were amatory criminals who attempted to popularize by ragging innocent students. Rohana Wijeweera 1971 openly rejected erotic criminals in universities and had human values.
People did not know who were the leaders of modern ARAGALAYA and what were their economic policies of them. Could leaders of ARAGALAYA respond to people and able to act in response to modern weapons of arm forces? Schoolkids in Grades 10 and 12 know economics better than leaders of ARAGALAYA and people can trust the economic piece of advice of international financial institutions such as IMF, WB, Asian Development Bank and ADA.
Sri Lanka has complicated political issues with many political parties, which are based on selfish dispositions and religions in the country are working against the teaching of the religious inventors. Political parties should attempt to stop misleading people and create a production economy in all sectors such as agriculture, industry, construction, services and information technology. It is the right thing to do than commanding struggles. If a 10% production increase in all sectors of the economy, current problems could be defeated and people would gain economic benefits at a normal level and then the economy could be expanded by new investments.
Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe is working well, however, the ruins of the Rajapaksa strive to regain power for Namal Rajapaksa and put their hands on Wickremasinghe’s policy further intending to regain power. As James Dusenbery stated aggregate consumption of Sri Lanka is influenced by the demonstration effect and destroyed the foreign exchange reserves. During the Rajapaksa regime spending more money on imports reflected the worse nature of the demonstration effect in Sri Lanka. Many urban people borrow money and purchase luxury goods and services as a result of the demonstration effect. The worse situation is that the government should invest funds in road development and many others. It is difficult to change consumption patterns and the government needs to neglect people in the lower-income category who are below the poverty line.
Colombo, Sri Lanka — The crisis facing the Buddhist world is neither a decline in religious conviction nor an apprehension that truth underpinned by rational argument and new scientific discoveries will one day overtake and outstrip the core teachings of its founder which is a perennial fear bordering on despondency that characterizes several other competing religions, but the lack of an effective institutional mechanism that can lend support when a Buddhist institution, Buddhist community or even a pre-dominant Buddhist nation is in danger.
We see the lack of substantial networks of support driving threatened Buddhist nations or Buddhist communities into a sense of despair and hopelessness at times of emergency. Traditional Buddhist countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Laos are now under severe pressure to distance themselves from extending state patronage to Buddhism and erase their Buddhist country identity and embrace a secular identity with no such pressure being applied to countries in other parts of the world such as the Middle East or the Catholic belt of Europe.
Despite a 2500-year-old history that makes Buddhism one of the oldest religions in the world, a worldwide presence that makes it a global religion, and a way of life grounded in wisdom and compassion that attracts the envy of other civilizations, Buddhism still retains its biggest constraint i.e. lack of effective protections. It is a historical fact that Buddhism has lost more territory and space in Asia, its traditional homeland, in the last one thousand years than any other religion. It is also a hard fact that this process is ongoing with no sign of abatement and no effective measures developed to counter it.
Buddhism’s biggest appeal of being an eternally passive, non – confrontational, peace-loving religion that lacks a central place to direct its affairs in the international arena unlike in the case of say the Vatican (sovereign state enjoying both temporal and spiritual power) or the World Council of Churches ( powerful and well – funded with influence reaching to four corners of the world) or the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (promoting Muslim solidarity in economic, social, and political affairs), has become Buddhism’s Achilles’ heel. Its organizational bases are relatively powerless when compared to the aforesaid entities. For example, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations which has a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and is committed to safeguarding and protecting the interests of the Muslim world. It has its headquarters in Saudi Arabia.
Rising Challenges to Buddhism
The issue of rising challenges to Buddhism to the extent of undermining its very existence as the pre-dominant religion of a nation hardly merits much attention in discussions of International Buddhist Organisations, International Buddhist Conferences, or among National Governments in countries with predominant Buddhist populations and corresponding state and constitutional obligations to protect and foster Buddhism.
Traditional Buddhist countries now find themselves force-fed with ideas that are foreign to Asia, that had been given birth primarily in a Western setting and related to the interplay of dynamics of European societies but are nevertheless required to be uncritically accepted and transplanted in Asian societies without due consideration being given to the social tensions that would be generated in transplanting such ideas. To de-link state patronage to Buddhism is one such pressure brought on by various religious interests that during the heyday of colonialism enjoyed exclusive patronage from colonial rulers.
The solidarity that countries in Buddhist Asia showed towards each other in the distant past i.e. pre-colonial era, has greatly evaporated or become non–existent. The sense of kinship of being fellow travelers in a spiritual journey overarched by Buddhist precepts and bonded by common religious beliefs and foundations no longer acts as a reference point to summon or render assistance even between Buddhist peoples based in neighboring countries at times of need.
Recent events, for example, attacks on Buddhist Temples in Bangladesh or the crisis in Myanmar hardly drew concerted attention or action in other Buddhist countries in the form of assisting our co-religionists facing an existential plight.
Areas of growing concern
1) Religious conversions
Countries preserving Indian Civilizational religions e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, etc. are seen as soft and easy targets for manipulation and religious conversion of their people, and in turn replacement of centuries-old traditional culture with new cultures subservient to foreign interests. The resulting change in religious demography brings pressure on the State to disassociate itself from Buddhist values that underpin the stability of the society, legal framework, and moral direction of the country.
2) Mass Media
The mainstream Mass Media in the English language in pre-dominant Buddhist countries which act as the window to the world hardly makes any contribution towards creating any Buddhist public opinion or providing a voice reflecting Buddhist concerns. Instead, it acts as a group largely hostile to the creation of any such Buddhist opinion and thereby sacrificing the interests of the wider majority of the country’s people. One hardly reads newspaper editorials in support of a Buddhist cause. Instead, Buddhists find themselves repeatedly fed with a regular and steady diet of lectures on ‘human rights, ‘rule of law’ ‘democracy’ non – violence’, and ‘peace and reconciliation despite no such intransigence on their part at a major level.
There appears to be a calculated move to place Buddhists, metaphorically speaking, in the ‘dock’, make Buddhists feel guilty of alleged crimes or misconduct, and then extract more and more concessions totally out of proportion to what Buddhists enjoy as a religious minority in non – Buddhist countries.
3) Status of Buddhism as an official religion
Reciprocity is the norm that governs diplomacy or the grant of religious concessions. Buddhism hardly enjoys official status as a religion in Europe or in the Middle East. Freedom of religion is honored in the breach when it comes to acceptance of Buddhism as an official religion in these parts of the world. In Europe, only Russia and Austria recognize Buddhism as an official religion.
4) Hidden Agenda of ‘Secularism’
The proponents of secularism in Sri Lanka like in India are those clearly bent on repudiating the civilizational ethos of this country. Their main objective is to marginalize Buddhism from public – political and social – life. In the West, we find that secularism had stood for rationalism, universalism, and humanism. In Asia, secularism is being used as a smokescreen and a shield to push Indian civilizational religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism away from the center stage and replace them with religions and ideologies that were introduced much later in time to these lands.
In pre-colonial Sri Lanka, there was never any conflict between the State and organized religion. It is essentially a European phenomenon. What we are now faced with is an increasing challenge to an ancient, indigenous Buddhist civilization that is gentle, accommodating, and pacifist by later introduced religious cultures that have a track record of intolerance and violence and close association with colonialism and a self-declared objective of world conquest. They use the language of human rights and freedom of religion but their goals are very much political and predatory. They support the country’s adversaries in the international arena to engage in the game of finger–pointing, naming, and shaming our leaders and people. It is also a battle for the moral conscience of Sri Lanka which our people and rulers have worked so hard relentlessly to keep over many centuries as an expression of our indigenous religious beliefs and outlook.
League of Buddhist Nations
During the last five hundred years or so, since the beginning of the western colonial era, the governance and steering of the world were very much in the hands of powerful western nations using their mono religio- cultural framework as terms of reference in policy making and implementation of policy. That era is now drawing to a close. Sino – Indic civilizations will take over from euro-centric civilizations. The question is not whether but when. The old world will give rise to a new world and revert to Asia its traditional leadership role of the world.
Buddhism is well-integrated and deep-seated in both the Chinese and Indian cultures. To the Buddhists in Asia, the challenge is to develop new structures and institutions that reflect current realities. It would be feasible for countries with pre-dominant Buddhist populations to consider developing closer ties with each other in the spheres of economic, cultural, trade, and investment. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) provides a role model for the Buddhist world to adopt and establish at the summit level an equivalent body to give voice and make representations on behalf of the Buddhists.
Buddhist heritage countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka among others should engage in increasingly close cooperation in international affairs and regularly meet like the European Union or the OIC in the form of a League of Buddhist Nations. Sri Lanka as a traditionally Buddhist country with the longest continuing Buddhist history in the world is eminently well qualified to take an initiative in this direction.
Buddhist Television Channel on par with BBC, CNN, and Al – Jazeera
The Buddhist voice is relatively speaking largely unheard in the international arena. Buddhist nations which are embattled or threatened by more powerful vested interests have to rely on International news agencies or foreign Television Channels such as BBC, CNN, or Al – Jazeera which have different policy objectives and are largely unsympathetic or sometimes even prejudiced towards the Buddhist cause, to air their position. This is an unsatisfactory situation. The time has come for the Buddhist world to seriously consider the inauguration of a Buddhist Television Channel on par with the aforesaid major TV Channels.
Every dead Russian and Ukrainian in this war, every family anywhere in the world that suffers the consequences of this war, every business that shuts down because of the economic damage this war is causing and the increased risk of nuclear annihilation, it’s all US Govt made.” Twitter @KimDotcom
Proxy War (def)– a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.
Ukrainian gains on the battlefield have been met by a widely-anticipated Russian escalation. On September 21, in a rare national address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilsation of 300,000 reservists who would be called to serve in the war in Ukraine. In recent weeks, the Russian army has suffered a number of setbacks due to its lack of sufficient manpower in the battlespace. Simply put, the Russians did not have enough combat troops to carry out their mission or to defend the vast area that has recently been annexed by Moscow. Russia’s Special Military Operation was never designed to seize and occupy great swaths of Ukrainian territory. In essence, the SMO was a police operation aimed at locating and eliminating the Ukrainian forces that had been bombarding and killing ethnic Russians living in east Ukraine. After numerous clashes with advancing NATO-trained battalions, it’s clear that Russia needs significant reinforcements to roll back Ukrainian forces and impose a security buffer around its new provinces. Russia’s critics see the under-staffing as an indication of military incompetence but, in fact, Moscow is merely adapting to a fluid situation in which both parties continue to raise the stakes. Here is an excerpt from a post by Big Serge at Substack that helps to clarify what’s going on:
Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka is a Sri Lankan-born New Zealander based in Auckland, where she lives and works as a public relations consultant.
OPINION: “Man wins top literary prize to convince parents he didn’t need to do medicine,” a Sri Lankan Aucklander tweeted in response to the announcement of this year’s Booker Prize winning author, Shehan Karunatilaka.
If you’re Kiwi of any kind of Asian heritage, you’ll probably recognise the reference immediately: we aren’t hugely represented in creative industries, but when we do, it’s often an act of rebellion against tradition and family.
There is a Sinhalese phrase that I heard a lot growing up: kala keroth mala. It translates roughly to: creative pursuits will lead you to ruin and failure” – or, more literally: do arts and die.
So, of course, if you are a creatively inclined Sri Lankan-Kiwi, you go hardbecause you know there’s no going home.
KATE GREEN/GETTY IMAGESShehan Karunatilaka holding the Booker Prize 2022 award for his second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.
Sri Lankan-born Karunatilaka’s win of the most prestigious literary prize in the English-speaking world this week was a real moment for Sri Lankan creatives everywhere, but especially so for Sri Lankan-Kiwi creatives in Aotearoa.
Karunatilaka is not only Sri Lankan, but arguably Kiwi too, having attended secondary school and university in New Zealand. Digesting and dissecting his win with my Sri Lankan-Kiwi friends this week, there is an overwhelming feeling that he’s been where we’ve been, and he feels like he’s one of us.
Of course, the feeling of one of us” isn’t limited to Sri Lankan-Kiwis or Asian-Kiwis.
Karunatilaka has said he is in the process of moving back to New Zealand. When that happens, he’ll be an addition to our Booker-winning landscape along with Keri Hulme and Eleanor Catton.
At the same time, while Karunatilaka represents the zenith of Sri Lankan literary talent in 2022, it would be remiss to assume he’s an outlier as a literary Sri Lankan or literary Sri Lankan-Kiwi.
STUART C. WILSONMichael Ondaatje described his writing style as being shaped by Ceylon’s oral traditions of tall stories, gossip, arguments and lies at dinner”.
In fact, Sri Lankans have now won the Booker more times than the Cricket World Cup.
Remarkably, 2022 also marks 30 years since Sri Lankan Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize for The English Patient (although I maintain Running in the Family is his true masterpiece).
Though now a migrant to Canada, Ondaatje famously described his writing style as shaped by Ceylon’s oral traditions: “tall stories, gossip, arguments and lies at dinner”.
Back home, Sri Lankan-Kiwi writers are coming into their own as part of the modern New Zealand storytelling identity.
DAVID WHITE/STUFFChamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka is a Sri Lankan-born New Zealander based in Auckland.
The five writers below are a sample of the depth and variety developing amongst New Zealand writers of Sri Lankan heritage today.
No two writers are the same, though in typical Sri Lankan-Kiwi fashion, they all definitely go hard, pairing their writing with interesting and ambitious day jobs.
Five Sri Lankan-Kiwi writers to watch
Brannavan Gnanalingam
SUPPLIEDBrannavan Gnanalingam has, in true creative Sri Lankan fashion, juggled a law career with a writing one.
Born in Colombo and brought up in Lower Hutt, 39-year old Brannavan Gnanalingam has seven novels to his name.
A three-time Ockham finalist (two shortlists and one long list) and recipient of the 2021 Ngaio Marsh Awards for his novel Sprigs, his writing draws widely and acutely from personal experience and observation both as a Kiwi and a Sri Lankan.
In true Sri Lankan creative fashion, outside of his absolute domination of the local literary scene, he is a lawyer and litigator at a major New Zealand law firm. (He is also a regular contributor to Stuff and Sunday magazine in the Sunday Star-Times.)
Himali McInnes
ALEX CARTERDr Himali McInnes, author of The Unexpected Patient.
Himali McInnes proves you can be Sri Lankan-Kiwi and have it all, by being both a doctor and a writer. An accomplished essayist and short story-writer, her 2021 book The Unexpected Patient: True Kiwi stories of life, death and unforgettable clinical cases explores the bonds that are forged between practitioner and patient in unique situations, from terrorist attacks to the brink of death to supernatural connections.
Jehan Casinader
STUFFJehan Casinader, journalist, TV presenter and public speaker.
Sri Lankan-born New Zealander Jehan Casinader writes when a disaster strikes, most people run away – but journalists run towards it”.
The television presenter, public speaker and journalist takes the inherent rebellion of Kiwi-Asian creative pursuits up another notch by tackling one of the most taboo of Asian cultural topics: mental health.
His book This is Not How it Endsis both a personal memoir of his own journey of depression and a contribution to New Zealand’s growing male mental health kaupapa.
Romesh Dissanayake
./STUFFRomesh Dissanayake is an up and comer in literary circles and a talented chef to boot.
Romesh Dissanayake’s ostensibly Sinhalese name belies his Sri Lankan-Korean-Russian-Kiwi heritage.
An up-and-comer, his name is popping up in literary magazines, anthologies and writers’ festivals.
Like the others in this list, Dissanayake is no one-trick pony. A talented Wellington-based chef, he is also known for running Sri Lankan-themed pop-up dinners in the capital. He named the dinner series SEELA, after his rebellious, full-of-life Sri Lankan grandmother.
Andrew Fidel Fernando
Kiwis who are serious about cricket will likely recognise Andrew Fernando’s name. A prodigious and prolific writer on Cricinfo from a young age, this Auckland-raised Sri Lankan is now based in Colombo – a returnee of the diaspora, covering the country on the ground.
His book Upon a Sleepless Isle: travels in Sri Lanka by Bus, Cycle and Trishaw was the recipient of the 2019 Gratiaen Prize – Sri Lankan’s highest English-language literary honour which, incidentally, was won by one Shehan Karunatilaka in 2008.
Help maintain healthy debate
New Zealand would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything, right? We’re better off when a diverse range of perspectives are given equal footing.
The column you’ve just read is a small part of that. Stuff is committed to representing all angles of Aotearoa, and fostering smart, informed conversations.
If freedom of expression is important to you too, please make a contribution to support more columns like this.
Sri Lankan state minister of defence Premitha Bandara Tennakoon met Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, minister of state for defence Ajay Bhatt, defence secretary Ajay Kumar, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan and the three service chiefs
Sri Lankan state minister of defence Premitha Bandara Tennakoon with Indian chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan (right). (ANI Photo)
India has reiterated its readiness to continue supporting Sri Lanka in the defence sphere during a meeting between the visiting Sri Lankan state minister of defence Premitha Bandara Tennakoon and minister of state for defence Ajay Bhatt.
Tennakoon is visiting India with a three-member delegation comprising army and navy officers to participate in the biennial global defence exhibition DefExpo2022. This is the first high-level visit from the Sri Lankan side since bilateral ties hit a rough patch over the visit of a Chinese surveillance to Hambantota port in August.
Besides meeting Bhatt, Tennakoon and his delegation also had interactions with Union defence minister Rajnath Singh, defence secretary Ajay Kumar, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan and the three service chiefs of India.
During the meeting with Bhatt on October 17, the Indian side reiterated its readiness to continue to support Sri Lanka in the defence sphere”, according to a readout from the Indian high commission in Colombo.
India will continue to strengthen its multi-dimensional cooperation with Sri Lanka for mutual benefit and also for enhancing regional peace, security and stability,” the readout added.
This is the second time in the past year that a Sri Lankan minister has participated at an event inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Ministers from Sri Lanka were part of the event to mark the inaugural international flight to Kushinagar airport in October 2021.
Speaking at DefExpo2022, Tennakoon hailed the India-Sri Lanka partnership in defence and highlighted the importance of the defence industrial base in augmenting security policy.
India and Sri Lanka have maintained bilateral engagements in defence despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The SLINEX naval exercise and the Mitra Shakti army exercise are held every year alternatively in India and Sri Lanka, and both armed forces collaborate closely in dealing with common security challenges such as drug and human trafficking, the readout said.
The Colombo Security Conclave – which brings together senior security officials from the Maldives, Mauritius, India and Sri Lanka – has emerged as a key platform to address security issues at a regional level. In August, the first Dornier reconnaissance aircraft provided by India was inducted into the Sri Lankan Air Force to enhance the country’s maritime surveillance capabilities.
However, ties between Colombo and New Delhi hit a rough patch when the Yuan Wang 5, a Chinese vessel with extensive surveillance capabilities, docked at the Hambantota port, which is controlled by the Chinese. Since then, officials from both ties have worked to restore ties to an even keel.
India and Sri Lanka also cooperate closely in training and capacity building in the defence sphere. Indian military establishments, including the National Defence College, have produced leaders of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Every year, 1,500 to 1,700 slots are allocated to Sri Lankan personnel, which amounts to an outlay of around ₹500 million to ₹550 million (more than $6 million). Similarly, Indian military officers are hosted by the armed forces of Sri Lanka, including for specialised training modules in fields such as counter-insurgency.
Both sides also cooperate on humanitarian issues, as reflected by joint efforts to avert large-scale environmental damage, expeditious supply of liquid medical oxygen and other materials, repatriation of around 700 Indian nationals with the assistance of Sri Lanka’s armed forces during the pandemic.
The futuristic partnership between the two neighbours underscores India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy as well as Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) doctrine,” the readout said.
The Indian Navy on Friday shot at a fisherman while trying to intercept a suspicious boat” in Palk Bay, near the maritime border with Sri Lanka, with the Tamil Nadu government identifying the injured man as resident of the state and writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue. The Indian Navy on Friday shot at a fisherman while trying to intercept a suspicious boat” in Palk Bay, near the maritime border with Sri Lanka, with the Tamil Nadu government identifying the injured man as resident of the state and writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.
The Tamil Nadu government identified the injured fisherman as K Veeravel, a resident of Vanagiri village in Mayiladuthurai district. Chief minister M K Stalin has announced a compensation of ₹20 lakh for Veeravel and wrote to PM Modi asking him to direct security forces to exercise caution.
A statement tweeted by the defence ministry’s PRO in Chennai said that during the early hours of October 21, a suspicious boat” was observed by the Indian Navy ship on patrol in Palk Bay.
Despite repeated warnings the boat did not stop,” the statement read. The ship, as per standard operating procedures, fired warning shots to stop the boat. One of the crew onboard the suspicious boat is reported to have sustained an injury. The injured person was administered first aid by the ship and evacuated by an Indian Navy Chetak helicopter,” it added.
The injured person has been shifted to the Government Hospital, Ramanathapuram for further medical management. His condition is reported to be stable. An Inquiry has been ordered to investigate the incident,” the PRO tweet stated.
Veeravel sustained injuries to the abdomen and thigh but is in a stable condition, according to officials familiar with the matter. District authorities and the state’s fisheries minister, Anitha Radhakrishnan, met him at the hospital in Madurai.
Union minister of state L Murugan, who was in Chennai on Friday said he would comment on the matter only after the investigation is complete.
We have asked for an investigative report to identify the person who shot the fishermen,” Murugan said, adding that they will review if Veeravel falls in the ambit of the ministry’s group insurance scheme.
We have been insisting that fishermen attach a GPS because sometimes, we have instances of them crossing the border. We will know what happened in this specific instance only after completing the investigation,” he said.
Veeravel was among a group of ten fishermen (seven from Tamil Nadu and three from Karaikal in Puducherry) who had ventured for fishing in a Karaikal-registered mechanised fishing boat, said one of the officials mentioned above, asking not to be named.
Announcing the compensation for Veeravel, CM Stalin said: I am deeply shocked and saddened to learn that Mr Veeravel has sustained serious injuries after being shot by the Indian Navy this morning… I have ordered for him to be provided special medical treatment.”
Later in the day, he wrote to PM Modi Stalin on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the incident.
I am extremely saddened by this incident that has happened by an act of the Indian Navy. You are well aware of the plight of Indian fishermen being ill-treated by Sri Lankan security forces. But, when our security forces resort to similar acts, it creates a sense of despair and insecurity in the minds of the downtrodden fisher folk,” he wrote.
I request your intervention in this matter and request you to direct the Indian Security Agencies to exercise extreme caution and restraint while dealing with Indian fishermen in Indian waters,” he added.
While claiming that the Metropolitan Police have not deployed any officers in support of the Sri Lankan investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, Britain on Wednesday said that Metropolitan Police ‘will consider any request to support an overseas investigation where it is proportionate, necessary and legal.’
In response to a written question by a Labour Parliamentarian whether the Metropolitan Police are taking steps to support the investigation into the 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka, Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) Tom Tugendhat informed the UK Parliament that Metropolitan Police have not deployed any officers.
However, he said that the Home Office works closely with policing partners to support requests from international partners across the full spectrum of policing.
The Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command dispatched a team of specialists to Sri Lanka in 2019, including family liaison officers, to support the families of British victims and assist with the repatriation of deceased British nationals. A programme run by Interpol involved the training of 30 Sri Lankan forensic specialists and police officers by UK experts in disaster victim identification,” the Minister stated.
Earlier, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said he will seek the assistance of the police authorities of the UK in order to complete the investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks of 2019. (Sunil Jayasiri)
The third reading of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution has been passed in Parliament by a majority of 173 votes.
Announcing the result of the vote on the third reading of the bill, the Speaker of Parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena informed the House that 174 had voted in favour of the bill while only MP Sarath Weerasekara voted against it.
Meanwhile it is reported that 44 Members of Parliament including former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa were absent during the vote.
Earlier, the second reading of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill was passed by a majority of 178 votes.
During the division, 179 parliamentarians in total voted in favour of the bill while it received only one vote against it, with SLPP parliamentarian Sarath Weerasekara deciding to oppose the bill.
The two-day parliamentary debate on the second reading of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill commenced on Thursday (Oct. 20). At the end of the debate today, a vote was called on the bill.
The 22A draft bill was approved for its second reading at the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Justice, Prison Affairs and Constitutional Reforms held on Oct. 04.
Later, the Committee on Parliamentary Business, which met under the chairmanship of Speaker of Parliament Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, decided to schedule the debate for Oct. 20 and Oct. 21.
The constitutional amendment is expected to empower parliament over the executive president and annul the 20A to the Constitution, which had given unfettered powers to President after abolishing the 19th Amendment.
Under the 22A, the President, the Cabinet of Ministers and the National Council will be held accountable to the parliament. Fifteen Committees and Oversight Committees are also accountable to parliament.
The 22A comprises features of both the 19th amendment introduced by the Yahapalana Government and the 20th amendment brought forth under the presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
According to the draft Bill, a Constitutional Council will come into effect which will consist of members including the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament, the Opposition Leader, a Member of Parliament appointed by the President, two members nominated by both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader. The council will be chaired by the Speaker.
The Public Service Commission, the National Police Commission, the Audit Service Commission, Human Rights Commission, Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, Finance Commission, Delimitation Commission and the National Procurement Commission shall be responsible and answerable to the parliament. However, Election Commission is not.
As per this amendment, no person shall be appointed by the President unless such appointment has been approved by the council upon a recommendation made to the council by the Head of State in instances of appointing the Chief Justice and the judges of the Supreme Court, the president and the judges of the Court of Appeal, the members of the Judicial Service Commission other than its chairman.
The same is applicable when appointing the Attorney General, the Auditor General, the Inspector-General of Police, the Central Bank Governor, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Secretary-General of Parliament.
The 22A abolishes the ability of a dual citizen to be appointed as a Member of Parliament.
It also includes provisions of the 20th amendment that the number of Cabinet Ministers shall not exceed 30 and the number of ministers who are not members of the Cabinet and Deputy Ministers shall not exceed 40.
However, if a recognized political party or an independent group which obtains the highest number of seats in parliament forms a national government, the number of ministers in the Cabinet, the ministers who are not in the Cabinet and Deputy Ministers shall be determined by the parliament.
Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera has informed the National Council that the report of the committee for the restructuring of the energy sector would be submitted within two weeks.
At the same time, the minister stated that the National Council is also expected to be informed about the proposed measures to be taken for the various energy generation projects proposed to be launched by the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority and the Ceylon Electricity Board.
The National Council met yesterday (Oct. 20) under the chairmanship of Speaker of Parliament, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and the Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kiriella.
Institutions such as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA) were called before the National Council where the officials presented ideas and proposals related to the progress of the energy sector.
MP Namal Rajapaksa, as the chairman of the National Council sub-committee to identify short- and medium-term programs related to the National Policy, and Patali Champika Ranawaka, the chairman of the National Council sub-committee on identifying short and medium-term programs related to Economic Stabilization briefed the National Council about the progress and the expected future work of the committees.
Ministers Kanchana Wijesekera and Nasir Ahmed, State Ministers Indika Anuruddha and D. V. Chanaka, MPs Pavithradevi Wanniarachchi, Johnston Fernando, Sagara Kariyawasam, Asanka Navaratne, Rishad Bathiudeen, M. Rameshwaran and Sivanesathurai Santhirakanthan were present at the Council meeting held.
The Department of Census and Statistics (DSC) has released the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) and the inflation rate for the month of September 2022.
The NCPI for all items for the month of September 2022 is 256.2 and it records an increase of 5.8 in index points compared to the month of August 2022 for which the index was 250.4. This increase represents an increase in expenditure value of Rs. 1879.94 in the ‘Market Basket’.
For September 2022, month-on-month change was recorded as 2.3% compared to August 2022.
The overall rate of inflation as measured by NCPI on year-on-year basis has increased to 73.7% in September 2022 from 70.2% in August 2022. In July, this was reported as 66.7%.
With respect to September 2021, the reported inflation for the month of September 2022 was mainly due to the higher price levels that prevailed in both food and non-food groups.
Accordingly, the Year-on-Year inflation of the food group increased to 85.8% in September 2022 from 84.6% in August 2022 and the Year-on-Year inflation of the non-food group increased to 62.8% in September 2022 from 57.1% in August 2022.
A discussion on the challenges faced by the construction sector and proposed plans to address these issues was held at the Presidential Secretariat under the patronage of President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thursday (Oct. 20).
The problems faced by the construction sector under the current economic situation were discussed at length and special attention was paid to the delays in the construction of middle-income housing projects as well as road construction projects.
During the discussions, attention was also paid to the issues that have arisen about the contractors, banks and other financial institutions.
The President has drawn the attention of the officials to the program to be followed for the maintenance of the construction sector and job security in the sector while proposing the appointment of a committee to discuss the matter further and make recommendations.
Those engaged in the construction sector also requested the President to establish a special task force to uplift the construction sector.
Minister Bandula Gunawardena, State Minister Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Senior Presidential Adviser on National Security and Chief of Presidential Staff Sagala Ratnayake, President’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake, Senior Economic Advisor to the President R.H.S. Samarathunga and heads of institutions related to the construction sector were present at this discussion.
News of Central Bank’s decision on refusal to link up with MIR clearing and settlement system was broadcasted in Lankan media in subdued tone and mediocre coverage. Restraint largely owing to a decade of hard work by United States to build partnership with local media than lack of importance. Nor that we hear substantial political voice raising concern. There are no Think Tanks like Advocata or Verite to argue a case for MIR system analogous to IMF. The decision has a direct bearing on our national interest and security as the nation in concern has been an unequivocal ally and security guarantor of Sri Lanka in the international stage.
Payment systems are the veins and arteries of financial system as the cross boarder trading grew west developed a secure massaging system to communicate between financial institutions that came to be known as SWIFT replacing manual Telex massaging. Like any other organ in western structure SWIFT was strategically promoted around the world realizing the leverage it would hold one day. Sri Lanka adopted SWIFT between Lankan banks around 2003 though we used them before for international transactions (CB Report 2003). Through time like the Dollar it morphed into a potent weapon at the hands of Washington.
China & Russia has been challenging this financial edifice by developing a parallel structure. Union Pay built by China is now largest payment system yet lacks outreach to match juggernauts Visa and MasterCard. Interbank payment systems CIPS (China) and MIR/SPFS compete with SWIFT and US Dollar clearing CHIPS. MIR and CIPS offer complete suite of clearing and settlement service not only massaging. It cuts middlemen and directly converts Rouble or Yuan to local currency enabling trade and commerce between the nations. System hence foster bilateral relationship. SWIFT on the other hand headquartered in ‘neutral’ Switzerland. It complements well with other products and services that western world dominates such as currency, markets, payment cards and Investment Banks. Severing MIR system therefore has flow on effect on decoupling Lanka’s economic reliance on Russia while enhancing dependency on western bloc.
Nature of the imperialism that we see today is complex to understand. It is more about dependency and leverage than direct control, based on a development of purported common value system that is often defined by hegemon. To this end Washington and its alliance has built a loyal fraternity comprise of Think Tanks, professional bodies like Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Chartered Institute, funded legal fraternity, most importantly been giving advice to Central Bank through multilateral organisations in the likes of IMF. Many top management administrators in Central Bank poses US Doctoral degrees with scholarships awarded. Playbook of Lanka’s economic pathway bear stamp of Washington Consensus. An ‘independent’ CB may steer to become ‘dependant’ CB on Washington Consensus. Pertinent point west transforms institutions not individuals and then relies on institutions to self-sustain the ideology.
Lately through USAID and IREX has been encroaching media space. Training journalist under MEND program and befriending media moguls are all part of craftily building influence which her opponents lack. Bulwark in the MIR (or any Chinese project) mostly comes from aforesaid fraternity augmented by ethno-religious divisions. Not long ago Aeroflot dispute created headlines how a law firm went out of its way to detain a plane. A convoluted equilibrium where local disharmony meets US geopolitical interest. In short when China was busy transforming the landscape of Colombo US focused on transforming the society. Lately published strategy paper Integrated Country Strategy” is unambiguous in naming the obstacles. Ethno-nationalism long played a role in resenting western influence over non-allied policy which it sees as an impediment. As a counterweight Lanka’s ethnic issue found refuge in western polity (analogous to Uygur Muslim for China or Rohingya in Burma). The Idea of ‘home grown’ economic model does not fit well neo-liberal economic theory. If continued nation would get completely absorbed into western orbit away from any emerging power bloc. In modern world such obstacles can only be overcome by transforming a society who would see the World in a given prism, by observation what is happening in Lanka!!
Divide & Rule was a key component of colonial rule. Illegally taking over lands and territories, planting fictitious history, infesting minds with hate and violence is part of a legacy that continues unabated. Sadly, historians have failed to take these false claims and nullify them. They have been silenced by political correctness”. However, it is time people begain asking the questions and demanding answers. How can 2 provinces that were created only by British in 1833 be claimed ‘original habitats” of Tamil people? How can Indian Malabars claim a separate homeland in Sri Lanka? How can a South Indian customary law applicable only to those inhabitants be the customary law in Sri Lanka? How did the Colonial Missionary created Dravida Nadu movement become a Tamil Eelam movement & what is their ultimate plan? Lets have you start asking yourselves these questions too!
Question 1: How can Tamil Eelam Homeland lobbyists claim 2 provinces as their homeland” making use of the 2 provinces created in 1833 by colonial Britain?
It is very clear that while the first Kingdom of Anuradhapura, 2ndkingdom of Polonnaurwa also included North Sri Lanka, the last kingdom of Kandy too included part of North & explains why the Kandyan king despatched his army to defend his people from the Portuguese. The last battle for the defense of Jaffna before it fell to European powers was fought not by a Tamil army but by Sinhalese men sent by the King of Kandy.
Portuguese historian Father Queroyz says as long as Rajapure (Anuradhapura) was the capital of Ceylon, the whole island was subject to one kng” If it was so with Anuradhapura, it was so with the rest of the capitals. When the Portuguese arrived in 1505 there were 15 ‘kinglets’ subject to the King of Kotte of which Jaffnapatao kinglet was one of the 15 kinglets” were independent or separate from the rest.
To quell the lies let us first turn to the maps.
The 1st kingdom was in Anuradhapura.
The 2nd kingdom was in Polonnaruwa
The last kingdom was in Kandy
The kings of these kingdoms were the sole ruler of the entire Island.
These 3 maps clearly show there was no separate or independent Tamil Kingdom and the so-called ‘separate’ area being claimed as a Tamil homeland” was ruled by the Sinhalese kings.
A separate kingdom must provide evidence of food/water supply (agriculture), a system of government, cultrure, belief & traditions, a written language, structures/monuments – the Kingdoms of Anuradhapura & Polonnaruwa leave us to cherish the worlds first man-made irrigation & water tanks, even animal hospital – these exist even to this day, where are those of a so-called Eelam Kingdom?
There were no separate independent kingdoms in Jaffna or anywhere else
There were no provinces.
Provinces were created by the Colonial British in 1833
Thus, there was nothing called Northern or Eastern province until 5 provinces was created in 1833 by Colonial Britain.
Therefore, how can the Eelam lobby claim to have ruled 2 provinces that did not exist until the colonial British demarcated them in 1833?
This is a key argument to debunk the demarcation of a bogus Tamil Eelam Homeland.
Question 2: How can Indian Malabars rechristened as Ceylon Tamils in 1911 claim a separate homeland in Sri Lanka?
There is no record in ancient Sinhalese chronicals, Tamil chronicals or even records of Portuguese, Dutch or British to claim an ethnic group called Ceylon Tamils” were living before they landed. All of the colonial records refer to both Tamils & Muslims as Malabars”. Malabars was the term given to people who came from the Malabar coast of South India or Coromandel coast also in South India. Malabars were indigenous to South India. Therefore, anyone termed Malabar were descendants from South India. Thus, the Tamils living in Sri Lanka were referred as Malabars by the Portuguese, the Dutch & the British.
The term Ceylon Tamils” was coined only in 1911 when Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan who was registrar of census, inserted Ceylon Tamils instead of Malabars. The term Ceylon was coined by the British only after the Kandyan Convention in 1815.
Malabars cannot claim any homeland” in Sri Lanka as they were immigrants from the Southern coast of India. Their homeland is in South India.
The quest for self-determination in India for Tamils started in India.
The same ethnic group cannot claim 2 homelands in 2 sovereign countries (or plan to annex Sri Lanka to create a Greater Dravida Nadu)
Question 3: Tamil caste system originates from South India – If Malabars are from South India, Vellalas & Thesawalamai Law is also – how can customary laws applicable to foreigners become mandatory customary law in Sri Lanka.
We have established Malabars are not indigenous to Sri Lanka but to South India.
The Vellalas are a low caste in South India but became the upper elite caste/class in Sri Lanka, not stopping there, the Vellala’s went on to oppress their own, dictating how other castes should function at kovil, funerals, weddings etc. If Tamils are marginalized or discriminated it is by the Vellala Tamils and not the Sinhalese. The Thesawalamai law encoded by the Dutch in 1706 claiming to be Tamil customary law is actually not applicable to all Tamils but to only Malabar inhabitants from Jaffna. What is the % of Tamils covered by this definition and how many Tamils does this law exclude – if so why should this be referred as a customary law for ALL Tamils when it is not so, more importantly, the Thesawalamai law is applicable to Malabar inhabitatnts in Jaffna only. Malabars are from South India. Vellala’s are a caste originating from South India. How can anyone quote these to claim homeland theories.
It is good for Tamils to realize who is discriminating them instead of falling prey to propaganda. How far has the caste system marginalized Tamils against each other, is a question Tamils themselves need to honestly answer. When Tamils are not welcome into Tamil homes, when even cutlery & crockery are differentiated, when even kovils disallow their own, when people are reluctant to share a toilet with their own – is this not discrimination?
Question 4: If the Dravida Nadu term was coined by colonial Missionaries, isn’t the Tamil Eelam quest (an offshoot of the Dravida Nadu movement) a similar Missionary infused agenda?
There was no term called Dravidian until it was coined by the Church.
The Church missionaries after creating the term Dravida went to great lengths to promote a fictitious history.
The Dravidian theory was an artificial theory implanted by the Church & it is possible the same was done to create a Tamil Eelam notion to separate both Tamil Nadu & Sri Lanka along ethno-linguistic lines.
Bishop Caldwell plugged the South Indian languages of Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada as Dravidian languages.
If the Dravidian movement was led & controlled by the Global Church, is it a surprise that the Tamil Eelam lobby has the blessings of the Church apparatus as well? It is the Tamil Christians/Catholics who are mainly operating this quest.
1939 commenced the Dravida Nadu for Dravidians” a quest for a separate sovereign & federal state.
1940 Dravida Nadu map was released
1947 Britain rejected appeals for a separate Tamil state which led to Dravida Nadu Secession Day being passed on 13 July 1947 demanding an independent Dravida Nadu. 2 years later in Sri Lanka, ITAK was created seeking a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka.
1960 Dravida Nadu Separation Day which led to the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army while the Tamil Eelam movement in Sri Lanka resulted in Tamil militancy with LTTE taking leadership.
Dravida Nadu was replaced with Tamil Nadu for Tamils” then We Tamil Movement” which led to demand for an independent Tamil Nadu which Government of India stopped by legislative enactments in 1963.
The demands for Dravida Nadu were identical to demands by LTTE during Thimpu talks in 1985.
If Dravida Nadu movement & map was created by the Global Church was the map of Tamil Eelam also their creation?
This implies that both movements (South India & Sri Lanka) did not originate from the people but from one external source – the Church.
Question 5: If the eelam” area was borrowed from colonial British map, if Global Church planted the Dravida Nadu movement & Greater Tamil Eelam initiative, if Malabars, Vellalars, Thesawalamail all are imported from South India is it so difficult to realize that Tamil Militancy was also exported from India to Sri Lanka to pass on India’s headache to us?
The Jain-Commission interim report following LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, memoirs by the IPKF former commanders and even former Indian High Commission to Sri Lanka J N Dixit prove a RAW hand in Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka from training, to supplying of weapons to even logistics support & funding.
These lies are what lays the foundation for a bogus homeland quest which is kept alive because of the benefits to key players promoting it. The geopolitical & conversion motives are clear. Unfortunately so-called academics and historians have been party to the lies or felt shy to negate these with historical facts & arguments.
So lets bring these to the open & demand facts not propaganda.
Rehabilitation is a word that presumes a previous state of perceived acceptance or agreement. Its etymology is interesting and revealing, deriving from re– again” or to turn” and habitare– make fit” which in turn comes from the Latin habilis– easily managed, fit.” In other words, rehabilitation is about restoring someone or something to a previous state; someone who has or something that has strayed from the norm is reined back into a controlled/controllable space or social architecture.
This space or arrangement obviously has rules which if infringed upon warrant disciplining of one form or another. One may argue that this is a necessary evil because complex societies ‘must have’ states or structures of governance, rulers and the ruled and therefore rules of engagement where certain freedoms are conceded to institutions of authority for smooth functioning of society. A lot of loaded terms there of course not least of all because arrangements are less agreed upon than are imposed, historically speaking.
Shehan Karunatilleka, who won the Booker Prize for his ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,’ in his acceptance speech is reported to have said “the ideas of corruption, race baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work.” Congratulations are due — Shehan’s ‘Chinaman’ was epic in my opinion and I am sure this latest novel has the same flourish and brilliance in story-telling. A review will have to wait.
That said, parenthetically, his assertion is decidedly odd. What, after all, has history been if not the triumph and sustained development of that which he says has not worked and insists will never work? Vinod Moonesinghe’s comment is apt: ‘This is proof that good writers are not necessarily the best historians. Just looking at the Histories of Britain, the USA, France, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan should be enough to disprove Karunatilaka’s statement. Their very success was based on exactly corruption, race baiting and cronyism. Indeed, it went further – the wealth of these countries was based on slavery and what Marx called “primitive capitalist accumulation” – grand larceny on unheard-of scales. Perhaps Shehan was referring to the victims for whom such things certainly do not work and will never work.
This is the problem of the status quo, things as they are and things to which people and things are required to return or be returned and therein contained. The underlying assumption is that what exists is good or is better than any alternative. This is why rehabilitation is seen as a must. The Europeans massacred people, perpetrated genocide, erased cultures and forced cross and bible on people to obtain and thereafter preserve a status quo. Rehabilitation is the unspoken cuss word of evangelism at gun point or extraction of compliance by preying on vulnerabilities. It is the unspoken dogma of IMF-WB-WTO operations on behalf of corporate capital and, as of now, the strategic interests of the USA (the EU is now, after ‘Ukraine,’ a vassal entity).
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that in less pernicious contexts, some level of cogency is necessary and therefore the errant need to be contained. Such needs are typically felt more acutely during and in the aftermath of a conflict, especially a bloody one. In Sri Lanka, in recent times, two conflicts demanded rehabilitation. The first, the UNP-JVP conflagration in the late eighties where the UNP-led government set up torture chambers all over the country, K-points they were called (K for ‘Killing’). Less informal were the facilities available for dealing with terrorist suspects, but atrocities there were, especially during the first two decades of the struggle against the LTTE (hardly ever talked of, and no one asks ‘why not?’).
A formal rehabilitation process was in place by the time the LTTE was militarily defeated. Those who surrendered or were captured (and this included hundreds of child soldiers) were offered education and marketable skills and reintegrated into society. There were no formal provisions for monitoring them thereafter to my knowledge, but it is safe to assume that tabs were kept, defensible to a point considering the nature of the threat and the history of the LTTE.
A legal entity, therefore, one may argue, is better than not having one. That however is where the applause for the draft bill for a Bureau of Rehabilitation must stop.
The stated objective is to ‘rehabilitate drug dependent persons, ex-combatants, members of violent extremist groups and any other groups of persons who request or [are] required by law to be provided treatments and rehabilitation by adopting various therapies in order to ensure effective reintegration and reconciliation through developing socio-economic standards.’ [Part I, Section 3 and 4(b)].
The draft refers to a minister but does not state the ministry. The draft merely says ‘the ministry to which the Bureau is assigned,’ perhaps because ministries are made, broken and dissolved as per the prevailing political culture, but that’s not an excuse given the gravity of the exercise. We do know that the subject was previously handled by the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, under the President, and using the Public Security Ordinance and Prevention of Terrorism Act. How drug-dependency, essentially a medical condition that ought to come under the purview of the Ministry of Health is coupled with public security and terrorism is mind boggling.
The drafters seem to have inserted vague language and this is what is most worrisome. What, for example, are ‘any other groups’? Who decides who requires rehabilitation? Yes, it says ‘required by law’ but then again, there is the quiet insertion of ‘requests’. In practice, people, especially those who are seen by the state as somehow being out of the loop, can be persuaded to request rehabilitation, especially in tense (or worse) political contexts.
Part I, Section 4 (d), under ‘powers, duties and functions,’ allows the Bureau to mobilise those who are undergoing treatment or rehabilitation for activities that ‘productively enhances the economy.’ No mentioned of such people being given the option to refuse such deployment here. That’s a green light for a prison-industrial complex akin to the one perfected by the USA!
The document also empowers the Bureau to monitor those who have been ‘reintegrated into society after treatment and rehabilitation.’ This, again, could be understood in the case of ex-combatants in the immediate aftermath of a bloody conflict, but the text is open-ended. There’s no provision for closure on such surveillance. Why should anyone who has been certified as rehabilitated be watched thereafter and until he/she dies?
The Bureau can set up any number of centers for rehabilitation (legally sanitized K-Points?) and will keep all records confidential (makes sense in the case of drug-dependents, ex-combatants, but then again what if these are facilities that are expressly political?).
What is most disconcerting is that the President, upon the minister’s request designate all security forces ‘as authorised members of the forces who may exercise, perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions under this Act’ as long as the specifics are gazetted. [Part III, Section 17]. No caveats as to context here, even if context were excuse enough. In other words, what the Premadasa regime did in 88-89 would now be given legal standing. Wouldn’t make a difference to the victims, except for the veneer of accountability offered by ‘legality’ which, history has shown, can easily be shoved aside (remember the Bill Against Vexatious Prosecution passed by the United Kingdom to make it possible for the military to kill, torture, destroy and displace with impunity?).
Indeed, Part V, Section 21 (2) has given a carte blanche to the Council administrating the Bureau to get away with anything as long as there is good faith. Well, that’s pretty subjective. The White Man’s Burden, for example, could be dismissed as a good-faith thing and so too the forcible conversion of ‘heathens’ or thrusting the 13th Amendment down Sri Lanka’s throat. How about redress for error (generous word, that)? Moreover, the minister can make any regulations to carry out and give effect to the principles and provisions of the Act and such will stand until and unless Parliament does not approve three months later. Coupled with ‘good faith’ this could allow all manner of violations which the victims cannot protest or obtain redress for.
The draft bill, taken in totality, is strewn with powers, provisions and caveats that are all about disciplining and punishing with impunity. Rehabilitation is a sanitizer, essentially. Sinister, certainly.
The country’s economy started to collapse with wrong policy decisions, Industries Minister Ramesh Pathirana said addressing the panel discussion of the Sri Lanka Ceramics and Glass Council yesterday.
The discussion was on the quality, affordability and self-reliance of the sanitaryware industry. We are a people who maintain a lifestyle that we cannot afford as a country and personally, we used to spend as much as we could,” he noted.
The Minister said the country started collapsing after massive amounts of debt were added to the country due to the above characteristics.
He said the wrong policy decisions that were made regarding borrowing and non-borrowing debt also caused the country to end up in the current situation.
“The Government has to pay an annual trade balance of 10 billion USD, including 22 billion USD on imports and 10 or 12 billion USD from exports.
With the open economy of the country since 1977, the current debt has become unsustainable,” he said. “We are wrong. We took a decision that should not have been taken in principle. That is the fact that we will not borrow again. There was another decision made with the fact that we would not take loans again. If there is something that can be produced in this country, a decision was taken to support the production of it -both in agriculture and industry. However, this improvement was lost in this critical situation of the country, ” he said.
He said after the current Government came to office, it had stopped importing vehicles as USD 2 billion was spent annually on importing vehicles into the country.
“We knew that the country was going to face foreign exchange issues and that there was a vehicle assembling industry in the country which could be developed. Therefore, a decision was taken to introduce a long-term policy to the automobile industry,” the Minister said. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)
The government has incurred a loss of Rs. 6,900 million by awarding the tender to a company that submitted the highest bid during the tender process for the import of urea under World Bank assistance, Sri Lanka Gulf Trade and Investment Board (SLGTIB) Chairman Mohan Perera said.
Addressing the media, he said that the UAE-based company, which submitted a bid for US$ 595 for one metric ton of urea, but it was not awarded the relevant tender and it was awarded to another company.
The company that submitted a tender for US$ 1,000 had agreed to supply for US$ 850, and there is a US$ 40 million deficit in comparison with the last tenderer, Perera said.
Three months ago, before the Russia-Ukraine war, the Falco company said that the consignment purchased from Ukraine and transferred to another country could be supplied at the old price without the production certificate.
But Mohan Perera said that if required, with all the certificates, urea can be provided from Oman and Turkmenistan for US$ 695 per metric ton.
However, he further said that he is capable of supplying a bag of urea for Rs. 12,500 inclusive of all taxes. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)
Lodging a complaint with CID, Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapksha has urged the CID Director to conduct an investigation into the false and malicious Facebook Post alleging that he as the Minister of Justice and Prison has given special treatment to remand prisoner Thilini Priyamali.
The Justice Minister maintained that the dissemination of the said untruthful and malicious post via electronic media regarding a pending case has caused a severe prejudice to the entire legal system.
The Justice Minister further said dissemination of such information would also affects the integrity of the Judicial System and the Criminal Justice process in Sri Lanka.
While attaching the copy of the post and the details of the person who posted the alleged false allegation, Justice Minister has urged the CID Director to conduct an inquiry at his earliest convenience and report the matter to Fort Magistrate’s Court for further action.
In his complaint, the Justice Minister said it tarnishes the legal system of Sri Lanka and creates a prejudice on the minds of the people at large since the matter refers to an ongoing case in the Fort Magistrate’s Court. (Lakmal sooriyagoda)
The Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe says that in present circumstances, there is no alternative other than the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to get assistance for reviving the country’s economy.
He also said that tax revisions and other reforms combined with debt restructuring are parts of the stabilization process.
The CBSL Governor made these comments during an interview with the Director General of President’s Media, Danushka Ramanayake.
Noting that 80% indirect tax and 20% direct tax should be evolved to 60% and 40%, respectively, in order to provide relief to low-income groups, the CBSL governor proposed to continue the tax regime for at least one year.
Speaking further, he said the tax income of Sri Lanka is only behind Iran and Venezuela both with oil reserves.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe emphasized that immediate measures are being taken to create an investment-friendly environment in Sri Lanka and create economic stability.
The President said this addressing the gathering at the Mireka Tower opening ceremony at Havelock City in Wellawatte today (20), where he was the Chief Guest.
The President also said that laws that had been introduced under the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (GCEC) will be re-enacted to introduce an efficient system replacing the existing slow process, to encourage foreign investment.
The President further said that he had already appointed a committee to bring the Board of Investment (BOI), the Export Development Board (EDB) and the Sri Lanka Export Credit Insurance Corporation (SLECIC) together onto one platform and establish one investment promotion agency to encourage foreign investment in Sri Lanka.
He further added that Sri Lanka needs to be made an investor-friendly country to attract foreign revenue and get out of the vicious cycle of foreign borrowing.
The statement made by President Ranil Wickremesinghe is as follows:
This complex, Havelock City is a tribute to Mr S. P. Tao and his commitment to Sri Lanka. I told Mildred, now you are virtually a Sri Lankan citizen. So, let’s think of where the next investment is going to be. I first got to know Mr Tao in 1994 as I became the Prime Minister. He had started at the World Trade Center and after President Premadasa passed away, the late Sirisena Cooray brought him along to meet me. That’s how our first contact started. I met him many times, and not only the late Mr S. P. Tao but also Mildred Tao. Then I must say, the commitment is such that during the attacks, a lot of people wanted to pull out.
Instead, when I asked Mr Tao, he said, ‘no, I’m going to stay here. So first, thank you for that confidence in Sri Lanka’s future. When you crossed over and I was Prime Minister in 2003, again, I met S.P. Tao and he has been meeting me on and off, and he wanted to start a new project.
The new project came along and they were looking at the Havelock town, Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mill land that was abandoned. So, some people asked why we wanted to give it. We can have some industrial business there. But I said Havelock town started as a residential area. So, let’s look at this. This will be the start of the Havelock city development.
I had known this place earlier when I was young and the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills were operational. I used to come here when Mr Solly Captain’s father was in charge of the mills. We used to have lunch there and also, we were taken along to see the mills. Then in 1975 when I entered politics, President J. R. Jayawardena was the MP for Colombo South and he asked me to take over Wellawatte North. At the time this area was known as Wellawatte North Ward.
I used to come here and one of our meeting places was the old worker’s residence at the other end of the complex. So, I told Mr S. P. Tao, that whatever he does, to ensure that the workers who lived there were looked after, which he did. So, I was more than happy. Here was the area that I had known when I was first in charge and I thought why not. I took over Biyagama next and started zones there.
So, I thought, why not have one zone in Havelock town and no better person than SP Tao to start it off? So, it is this venture’s results which we see today. Many people were involved in it. I see Rohini Nanayakkara, who was involved in this project from the very beginning.
She doesn’t want me to reveal her age. Okay, I will not reveal your age, I am only saying that you were involved. There’s Ajith Jayaratne and many others who were involved in the project. So, I must again say thank you. I am saddened that Mr S. P. Tao is not here. After all, he had lived to 105. Nevertheless, this is a tribute to Mr S. P. Tao.
So, I look forward to another investment, as I said, from the company. That will have to be Mildred’s investment. This is Mr S. P. Tao’s investment. So now you got to make one for Mildred. However, I must say that we have to now seriously look at foreign investment, replacing foreign loans, as our main source of income.
We have to become an export-oriented economy, and we have to keep increasing our foreign investments. Now, if we are to keep increasing our foreign investment, we must have an outward-looking economy. We can’t have an inward-looking economy. So, now as the economic stabilization is taking place, and the discussions are on between Japan, China and India, about the main creditors, on how to restructure the debt, we are also looking at how we can now revive growth.
One of the biggest issues we have is the number of government agencies that investors have to pass through. You go through BOI, Tourist Board, or some other ministry, then you go to Port City and then you come back to where you started. Then you do a second round. After about ten years, you can get the investment through. This just won’t work.
When we came in 1977, we started the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (GCEC). There, the decisions were taken quickly and really in ten years, we got four zones going that is Katunayake, Biyagama, Koggala and Seethawaka. Then there was Pallekele which Mr Wijethunga wanted. Thereafter, what are the big investment zones that we have started?
The whole system has broken down. The Tourist Board is where people go around for various fairs and come back after they have had a good holiday. Therefore, I appointed a committee which is now looking at the whole structure and the investment authorities. What this committee is recommending and working on is that the BOI the EDB and Sri Lanka Export Credit Insurance Corporation (SLECIC) are brought together as one investment promotion agency.
Secondly, the industrial estates and investment zones will be broken off. I think Katunayake and Biyagama are the best zones in South Asia. We are now looking at thousand-acre zones and initiating them from Bingiriya, then Hambantota and Trincomalee. A separate corporation will handle these.
Then we have to look at the laws. We have to cut through these laws and go back to the GCEC system. When the investment is made, the organization has two weeks to make their remarks and the thereafter-final decision is taken. That is the only way. Next is to develop the quality of human resources, and manpower available and look at the infrastructure.
If these steps are in place, we won’t need 40-year tax holidays. We should have an efficient bureaucracy and efficient infrastructure to ensure that investment can take off. Therefore, we would be focusing mainly on zones, whether it be for manufacturing, IT or even tourism, rather than have people located everywhere they want. We could expedite matters earlier under the GCEC because we had an efficient system.
So, this is the new system, we are looking at. How do we open up? There will be many laws that will be changed and there will be some who will object and say that we are betraying the country. So, remember that propaganda will go on. But we must have fast growth. We have gone down. It doesn’t mean we have to stay down.
Sri Lanka can be like a football. You hit it, send it down and then it bounces back up again. So that’s what we have to be and we must go all out. We have several people leaving the country. That’s okay. We can’t stop that. We must train more people. We are modernizing the education system. So that’s what we are working on while we are looking at stabilization measures which we are working on with the IMF.
Certainly, we are also looking at modernizing the economy, looking at the industry and how we can go ahead. Another area of interest is going to be modernized agriculture. There’s so much land available. I thought I’d share with you what we are now working on because by the end of the year will be able to announce many of the measures that will be implemented by early next year to get the legislation enacted. Therefore, many measures are needed to be taken.
However, this is all to make Sri Lanka an investor-friendly country. And when investors come in, we will certainly have more employment, and higher income and we will be able to get off this vicious cycle of foreign borrowing. We can’t do this a second time. So, let’s make up our minds. Let us commit ourselves to moving forward to promote greater foreign investment.
Before I conclude, I would like to say that Mr S. P. Tao, had a lot of faith in Sri Lanka. He looked at the locations and said, this is a good point. Even better than China or India. I too share the same view. So, let’s hope it succeeds.
The Supreme Court has determined that the Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill as a whole is inconsistent with the Constitution, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene informed the parliament today (Oct. 20).
Delivering the Supreme Court’s determination, the Speaker stated that the relevant bill can be enacted only by a special majority in the parliament and a referendum.
However, the inconsistency would cease if the clauses in question are amended, the Supreme Court has indicated further.
The Supreme Court’s determination notes that all references to ex-combatants, violent extremist groups and any other groups of persons should be deleted from the Bill.
The Bill should be limited to the rehabilitation of drug-dependent persons and such other persons as may be identified by the law, the Supreme Court has said further.
According to the Supreme Court’s determination, Clauses 3, 4(a), 4(b), 6(b), 23, 24, 25(2), 27, 28(1), 34, 35 and 37 (the definition of rehabilitation) of the Bill are inconsistent with Article 12(1) of the Constitution. Accordingly, these clauses can be enacted only by the special majority required by Article 84(2) of the Constitution.
Eventually, there was public outrage, worldwide, over the slaughter caused by the US army in Vietnam. Innocent civilians are dying every day in South Vietnam, observers reported.Pentagon set up a secret task force in 1970, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, using staff in the army Head office.
For the next few years, members of the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group reviewed army investigations, interviewed people and wrote reports for the military and the White House. The documents were known as the Pentagon files. The records were declassified in 1994, and sent to US National Archives, where investigative journalist Nick Turse found them in 2001.
In 2001 at the US National Archives, I stumbled across a collection of war crimes investigations carried out by the military, Turse said. About 9,000 pages in all, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports.
Box after box of criminal investigation reports and day-to-day paperwork had been long buried away and almost totally forgotten.Eight boxes focused on My Lai. Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam War crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. After I published my first article on this, the records were pulled from the Archives’ shelves and they haven’t been on the public shelves since said Turse in 2013.
This collection recorded hundreds of atrocities committed by US forces in Vietnam, said Turse. They showed that atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than people thought. War crimes committed by the US military were on a far bigger scale than imagined.
Abuses were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent group within each division who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity. Some documents detailed the most nightmarish descriptions. Others hinted at terrible events that had not been followed up.
The documents found in the Pentagon files recorded 320 incidents apart from My Lai. In addition to these 320 substantiated incidents, the records contain material related to more than 500 other alleged atrocities that Army investigators could not prove.
Pentagon papers contained 141 instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock. The water torture impaired prisoners’ ability to breath. Phoenix Programme of the CIA also used torture.
Vietnamese women were raped by US soldiers. Pentagon papers recorded 78 attacks on civilians which included 15 sexual assaults. Sexual mistreatment of the Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War has been witnessed by numerous soldiers, said Turse. Rape of Vietnamese women was normal operating procedure.” 20 Vietnamese women and girls, some as young as 13, were raped by the U.S. troops at Mai Lai.: Phan Thi Mao, a young Vietnamese woman was kidnapped, gang raped and murdered on 19 November 1966.
The Pentagon records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese, families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Soldiers provided many first person observations on such cruel, unfeeling attacks.
A soldier stated that On Oct. 8, 1967, after a firefight near Chu Lai, members of his company spotted a 12-year-old boy out in a rainstorm. He was unarmed and clad only in shorts. “Somebody caught him up on a hill, and they brought him down and the lieutenant asked who wanted to kill him,” Two volunteers stepped forward. One kicked the boy in the stomach. The other took him behind a rock and shot him. They reported him as an enemy combatant killed in action.
On another occasion, soldiers detained and beat an elderly man suspected of supporting the enemy. Two men had him, one guy had his arms, one guy had his legs and they threw him off the hill onto a bunch of rocks.”
Soldiers discovered an unarmed man hiding in a hole and suspected that he had supported the enemy. A soldier pushed the man in front of an armored personnel carrier. They drove over him forward which didn’t kill him because he was squirming around, so the APC backed over him again.
Soldiers had ambushed five unarmed women and reported them as enemies killed in action. Soldiers had pulled a naked woman from a dwelling. She was thrown to the ground, the soldiers shot her dead.
The main reason for the extensive killings in Vietnam was because the soldiers were told to show a high body count. To motivate troops to aim for a high body count, competitions were held between units to see who could kill the most. The highest tally was displayed on “kill boards”.
Seymour Hersh observed that the soldiers sent to Vietnam came from rural America. They were young, ignorant. They were easily brainwashed during training. They were told that Vietnamese were not people, they were subhuman, and they could be killed or abused at will. Two soldiers had used a Vietnamese man for target practice. It was like a game,” said a military leader, Colonel Anistranski.
Mock Vietnamese villages were set up in army bases throughout the United States, and it was in these mock villages that American soldiers learned search and destroy” tactics that taught them to approach the entire village as an enemy target and to see all Vietnamese as potential Viet Cong.” The mock village at Schofield Barracks in Hawai‘i included villagers played by native Hawaiians. Soldiers who participated in the My Lai massacre trained there in 1967.
The public in USA refused to believe that US had done wrong in Vietnam. This made it difficult to charge senior military leaders, or win convictions in military courtrooms. The public also took the side of the soldiers. They said the soldiers simply followed the orders. All those who wrote adversely on the Vietnam War have been hammered, said one writer.
The Cam Ne killings were filmed by an American crew and broadcast on CBS Evening News on August 5, 1965. The images were shocking. Reaction to the Cam Ne report was immediate and powerful. CBS was inundated with calls and letters critical of this negative portrayal of American army.
The three who had openly opposed the killing while on duty at Mai Lai, Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn were thereafter given flight assignments in the most dangerous areas of the Vietnam War, without adequate protection.
When the war ended, these three were accused of treason by Americans both inside and outside the Army. They were given medals, certainly, but that did not stop the persecution. Thompson faced intimidation, name-calling, death threats in the mail and by phone, mutilated animals were dumped on his doorstep. Colburn received a rising number of death threats and customers refused to patronize his business in Atlanta.
There was little interest in prosecuting Vietnam war crimes. Investigators determined that there was sufficient evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners to warrant formal charges. Fifty-seven of them were court-martialed and 22 convicted. Fourteen received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most won significant reductions on appeal.
Of the dozen or so officers and others who eventually faced court martial for Mai Lai, only Lt. William Calley was convicted. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. President Richard Nixon reduced the sentence to house arrest.
Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand or a fine. In more than half the cases, no action at all. A military intelligence interrogator convicted of committing indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut in 1967 served seven months of a 20-year term.
USA, it appears, is not ashamed of Mai Lai or Vietnam. In 2012 Pentagon kicked off a 13-year programme (sic) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. President Obama called the Vietnam War “a chapter in our nation’s history that must never be forgotten”. But thanks to cover-ups like that of Speedy Express, few know the truth to begin with, said angry critics.
BBC reported that an entry on the official Vietnam War Commemoration website for My Lai describes it as an “incident” and the number killed is listed as 200 not 500. In a presidential proclamation on the website, Barack Obama distils the conflict down to troops slogging “through jungles and rice paddies, fighting heroically to protect the ideals we hold dear as Americans, for more than a decade of combat” There is almost no mention of Vietnamese civilians, concluded BBC.
