KAMALIKA PIERIS

Buddhist shrines and temples are not accepted by the non-Buddhists in the north .Here is an example. In 2009 57 Buddhist families were brought in and settled in Navatkuli.  They were Sinhala families that had been driven out of Jaffna in 1984 and 1990. Navatkuli is located 6 km from Jaffna.

There was a fairly large Sinhalese community in Jaffna at the time. The Jaffna Sinhala Vidyalaya had 250 students. Life was pleasant with the Tamils and Sinhalese getting along like one family. Our family had roots in Maniyamthottam and Kankesanthurai and I knew Jaffna district like the back of my hand,” said one returnee.  Eight generations of her family had lived in Jaffna. The public had now turned against this community. Demonstrations were organized against the settlers.   Two Tamil politicians S.Sritharan and Suresh Premachandran said this was government-sponsored Sinhala colonization. 

Navatkuliya Sri Samiddhi Sumana Viharaya was constructed in 2013. It was promptly bombed.  In 2017   the residents wanted to start work on a new stupa. The Chavakachcheri Pradeshiya Sabha refused permission. The Chavakachcheri Pradeshiya Sabha filed the case against the construction of the Chaitya. It was taken up for hearing at the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court. Chavakachcheri Magistrate S. Chandrasekeran ordered the Chavakachcheri Pradeshiya Sabha to permit the construction of the temple’s stupa without any hindrance. Her verdict was publicly applauded by the Sangha. The Magistrate has said that she respects Buddhism even though she is a Hindu devotee, reported Ven. Sooriyawewa Sumedha.

A Buddhist priest from Anuradhapura, Ven.Tissapura Gunaratana has started constructing a temple in the Kokkilai region,  on a piece of property owned by local Tamils, complained Tamilnet in 2011 and again in 2015. He justifies his project pointing towards a Bodhi tree in the plot. A local Tamil says the project has displaced at least five families. The monk is adamant that he will build the temple here in our land. He has offered money to buy the premises, but the owners do not want to sell. This is their family land and they want to stay here.” Tamilnet complained thereafter that the same monk,  was also building another Buddhist temple nearby. Land belonging to the post office, the base hospital, a Hindu temple and a public road have been taken for the temple, said Tamilnet.

The Supreme Court issued re-notice on the Vice Chancellor and several other officials of the Jaffna University, in 2018 over a complaint made by five Buddhist students of the Faculty of Business studies.

 The petitioner students said they were prevented from entering the campus premises because they had attempted to install an enclosure to house a Buddha statue in their hostel premises. They had been suspended. They have alleged arbitrary treatment and a denial of their right to abide by the religion of their choice and asserted a violation of Article 12(1), 12(1), and 14(1) (a) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka. They have requested the Court to direct the VC to allow them to enter the university premises and declare that their fundamental rights have been violated by the respondent university authorities.

Buddhist places of worship have been attacked and vandalized. A Buddhist   shrine room erected by the army in its camp at Kanagaarayakulam, Mankulam, was vandalized in 2016 and Buddha statue broken into pieces. There is no camp there at present, said the media. The shrine room at Mankulam had also been vandalized in 2016. It was erected by the army in its camp at Mankulam.  This was not an isolated incident, said the media. 

A Fundamental Rights application was lodged in 2016 challenging the vandalizing of Buddhist statues in north.  There was specific reference to the shrine room at Mankulam but the petitioner stated that this was not an isolated instance. Over the past few months there have been constant demands for the removal of   Buddhist statues from Northern Province.   The Buddhist archaeological sites in Northern Province are also under threat said the petitioner.

In January 2019 a group of about 200 persons led by northern politicians stormed the precincts of Gurukanda Raja Maha Viharaya in Nayaru, claiming that the temple had been built on a land belonging to Hindu devotees, reported the media. The group included local politicians and devotees of the adjoining Neeraviadi Kovil. 

There was a clash between the Chief Incumbent of the temple and the intruders. They demanded the deeds of the temple. The Buddhists could complain to any one they liked but they would not allow the Gurukanda temple to function, said the intruders. The intruders threatened to cause bodily harm to the temple’s Chief Incumbent.  If the chief priest disturbed the day to day affairs of the kovil, he would be killed, together with all present there. 

The mob was so strong that the police found it extremely difficult to bring the situation under control. The intruders attempted to snatch the mobile phones of  those who were videoing the scene.  Mullaitivu police filed action in the courts against both parties for breach of peace.

The Mullaitivu police dismantled the CCTV cameras installed at the Viharaya .the CCTV system had been installed by a private company as a security measure since the Chief Incumbent of the temple Ven. Mihindupura Ratanadevakitti didn’t live in the temple most of the time. Police said that there was a court order to the effect no constructions or installations would be allowed in both the temple and the adjacent kovil premises.

The matter went to courts, Director General of Archeology, stated in court that Gurukanda Raja Maha Viharaya in Nayaru, had a history of over 2,000 years with so many Buddhist artifacts and an ancient monastery.  Also that it was against the law to build a Hindu place of worship in the place where there was an ancient Buddhist temple.

Officers of the Archaeological Department M.V.G.K. Asanga and I.P.S. Nishantha had   visited Gurukanda Raja Maha Viharaya. They found ruins of a monastery, remains of a stupa, bricks, roof tiles and  pot shards. They dated the temple to Anuradhapura period. A road has been built bifurcating the temple premises  and land plots have been demarcated. Several Buddhist  artifacts were found during the road building. A stupa which had been bulldozed, had a diameter of 10 meters. There was a new temple there at present. A small Hindu temple,  Neeravi Pillaiyar  temple  is also located on same site, the report said.

TNA leader R.Sampanthan made a statement in Parliament on the matter. Neeraavi Pillaiyar Temple at Chemmalai in the Mullaitivu District was a site of controversy as the Sinhalese in the area tried to take over a Saivite temple, he said. Gurukande Viharaya had been forcibly constructed between 2004 and 2009 when no civilian was permitted to visit the area.

 “More recently an attempt was made to restore that temple. This led to unrest in that area between the people who are all non-Buddhists and the monks who had come there. Upon this matter being reported to the relevant Magistrate, an order was made prohibiting the reconstruction of the temple. The Chief incumbent of the temple filed an application in the Provincial High Court of the Northern Province district of Vavuniya and the matter is still pending, Sampanthan said.

Suren Raghavan said that the boundary of the temple was under dispute. Though  the Gazette notification of 2016 said the temple was an archaeological site, the boundary was not mentioned. A problem arose when new measurements were taken to mark the boundary. While the measuring was going on, ‘both parties had a debate  regarding their historical heritages.” There was an army camp there during the war.  They had a set of buildings which they had handed over to the chief priest, added  Raghavan.

The opposition to Buddhist temples has extended also to cremation of chief priests on  temple premises. Two such protests are on record. The first was in 2017.

 In 2017, a group of 12 lawyers   had gone to courts to prevent the last rites of the late chief incumbent of the Naga Vihara, Ven. Meegahajandure Gnanaratana, being performed at the Jaffna Fort Sports Ground. The restraining order had been sought on two grounds. Permission had not been obtained from Jaffna Municipal Council and secondly,  the cremation of bodies could damage the environment. Jaffna Magistrate Katheeswaran  did not agree. He refused to issue a restraining order.

The second   protest was  at Gurukanda Raja Maha Viharaya. The chief priest of Gurukanda, Ven. Colomba Medhalankara ,passed away in Colombo. Neeraavi Pillaiyar Temple promptly filed a police complaint that that if the body of the priest is brought to the  Gurukanda temple,   while a court case is going on, there will be trouble.. 

Mullaitivu Police informed  Magistrate’s Court. The magistrate ordered that the  body of the deceased priest should not be cremated or buried in  Gurukanda temple, until a final order was granted in the  court matter.

Court was informed that the  Buddhist  temple was willing to conduct the cremation ceremony at another location and  that the  Hindu temple was agreeable to this. Court  then ordered that the cremation  be conducted at the second location. Maritimepattu Predeshiya Sabha intervened to say  that arrangements were made for the cremation without obtaining permission in terms of the Cemeteries and Burial grounds Ordinance.

After the order was made a group of monks led by Ven. Galagodatte Gnanasara of Colombo,  took the body of the deceased chief priest to the  temple premises and cremated the body there. The cremation was attended by several monks   and took place amidst sadukara from a large crowd.

An equally large or possible larger crowd were there to oppose the cremation, observed the media. Television cameras showed heated arguments. Police were there. A clash occurred and the priest of the Hindu temple was severely injured. A lawyer appearing for the  Hindu Temple was  assaulted.

Several monks spoke to  Derana television  after the cremation. It is a Buddhist tradition to cremate a monk in the temple premises.     If Gnanasara did not go this cremation would not have taken place, they said.

Regarding the ownership dispute, the monks told Derana, that the Archaeological  Department should   point out that Gurukanda is on  protected territory. 3 acres at Gurukanda belong to the  Archaeological   Department. Court should be told this. Ven. Polonnaruwe Thilnakara  said there was no kovil there earlier.

This temple matter can escalate,  said  Bellanwila Dammaratana. Foreign forces are wanting to intervene and incidents such as this will be used for this.    TNA is behind this the monks said.  They scolded Yahapalana as well. We sacrificed ourselves to establish these temples. We went into jungles. It is we who looked after Buddhism in the north, the monks  told Derana, with emotion.

Former Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran,  then led a protest opposite the Mullaitivu Divisional Secretariat against the cremation in the temple premises while a court  decision was pending. Several politicians, both national and local,    as well as lawyers, civil society activists and the public in Mullaitivu joined the protest. Some, including lawyers, wore black arm bands.

The protestors demanded legal action against the  cremation. It was violation of a court ruling.  Violating a court ruling  constitutes Contempt of Court. They  demanded the immediate arrest of Galagodaatte Gnanasara and others responsible for cremation. They were extremely critical of Gnanasara Thera’s involvement in the matter, and wanted to know  whether the country has a separate law for Buddhist monks. They  burnt an effigy of  Ven.Gnanasara .  

The Attorney General should take legal action within three days against all those who are involved in the incident including Ven.Galagoda Aththe Gananasara along with the other Buddhist monk who had openly protested against the court order.  Attorney General must assure them in writing that he will  do so. Unless swift action was taken, the demonstrations would continue, said protestors.

The demonstration then marched from Mullaitivu Divisional Secretariat to Mullaitivu District Secretariat and  handed over a memorandum to the District Secretary to be forwarded to the UN envoy in Sri Lanka. They also protested opposite the Mullaitivu Magistrate’s court.

All the lawyers of Northern and Eastern provinces led by Batticaloa Bar Association President K.Narayanapillai boycotted court duties in a black arm band protest outside the Batticaloa court premises. The Mullaitivu Trade Association closed shops and carried out a hartal in support of the demonstration.

TNA’s R. Sampanthan wrote to the President Sirisena, saying, the corpse was cremated in close proximity to the “Theerthakerni” tank in the Hindu temple premises containing Holy water for use by the Deity. The temple and the premises were  thus desecrated. .” He urged  President Sirisena to ensure that those who cremated a Buddhist prelate’s remains at Chemmalai, Mullaitivu in violation of a court order are brought to justice.”

In this ding dong battle there is a slim ray of hope. Ven. Meegahajathure Siriwimala, the Chief Incumbent of Naga Viharaya in Jaffna said that over 100 persons, including the Buddhist and Hindu clergy, gathered in Jaffna on 30th January  2020  to discuss problems faced by them and find mutual solutions. During the discussions, a committee to protect the Buddhists and Hindus was formed. Ven. Thirikunamale Ananda of the Amarapura Chapter, Ven. Dr. Omalpe Sobhita, Prof. Agalagala Sirisumana from the University of Colombo, President of the Buddhist Monks’ Association Ven. Vengamuwe Nalaka participated in the meeting. Three Tamil Buddhist monks from Chennai as well as Ven. Bagawanthalawe Rahula, who was initially a Hindu Kurukkal, as well as Somasundara Paramacharya, the Chief Kurukkal of Jaffna were among those present.

It was suggested at a talk I attended, in 2019, that Tamil should be taught in the Pirivenas, so that they can teach Buddhism to Tamil speakers.  Ethnic discord may not have arisen,  if in the 30s and 40s monks learnt Tamil and preached the Buddha’s words in the North and East. The present objection to temples is because there is a distrust of Buddhist temples in Jaffna. Sponsoring Buddhism in the north east without enforcing Sinhala colonization could go a long way.  The presence of more Buddhists may have diffused the situation and prevented a war. So it should be Buddhisation and not Sinhalisation. ( continued)

A public pledge made through the Sri Lanka Study Circle 

Sri Lanka is the hub of South Asia, ground vital for the attack or defence of Nations in South Asia. The Americans are in the process of physically capturing the hub, having negotiated with the Chinese and the Indians between 2009 and 2011, at the highest of levels, to give each of these Nations portions of the hub in return for their support to allow the US to take over the lion share of the hub. This is the gist of a relatively new bipartisan-US Foreign Policy. Vide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_foreign_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration and Clinton’s https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-pacific-century/ 

The MCC is the instrument with which the US plans to take over the hub, Sri Lanka, and this is only the first phase of Operation ‘Pivot-to-Asia’. The US is enticing the Sri Lankan political leadership by dangling 480 M USD in front of them to sell the country. The MCC is the biggest threat facing the country since 1815. 

With the Parliamentary Elections coming up and with the politicians having a record of appropriating powers never delegated to them, the people have told the politicians, who will only be temporary custodians of the people’s sovereignty for the next 5 years, to make a public pledge that they would not sign the MCC in any form. 

In keeping with the people’s requirement, a new patriotic-politician, has lain himself very humbly at the altar of people’s opinion to pledge solemnly thus: Tennekoon Rusiripala <rusiri21@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2020 6:39 AM

 

I shall not under any circumstances sign the MCC in its present form or in any amended form or by any other name.”  

චන්ද්‍රසේන පණ්ඩිතගේ

මෙවර මැතිවරණයේදී ඉතා පැහැදිලිව පොදු ජන පෙරමුණ ජය ගන්නා බව ඉතා පැහැදිලිය. මේ බව සතුරාද මැනවින් දනී. මැතිවරණය කල් දමා ගැනීමට සියලු ආයුධ පාවිචිචි කරමින් වෙර දැමු ඔවුන්, දැන් දැන්  දැනගෙනම, පරාජය වෙන මැතිවරණයක් සඳහා වියදම් කරමින් රට පුරාම සැරිසරයි. සතුරා දැන දැනම පරාජය උදෙසා සටන් කරන්නේ නැත.

දැන් සතුරාගේ මිතුරා එනම් ඔවුන් සතාපිත කල ස්වාධින මැතිවරණ කොමිසම චන්ද ගණන් කිරීම පෙර මෙන් නොව, පසුදා උදෑසන දක්වා කල්තබා ඇත. පැය 12ක කාලයක් චන්ද පෙට්ටි ඒ ඒ ස්ථානවල රදවා තැබීම චන්ද කොමසාරිස්ට අනුව සිදුවේ. මෙය ඉතා භයානක ක්‍රියාදාමයකි. මේ චන්ද පෙට්ටිවල ඇත්තේ අනාගත ලංකාව පාලනය කිරීමට ඇති බලයි. එබැවින් මේ චන්ද පෙට්ටි කතිර ගැසූ කඩදාසි වලින් පිරවූ පෙට්ටි වශයෙන් සැලකීමට ඉඩදිය නොහැක.

සියලුම ආරක්ෂා විධිවිදාන ඇතුව තිබු ශාලාව අවි ගබඩාව ගිනිතබා විනාශ කිරීමේ සිද්ධිය සම්බන්ධව සලකා බලන්න විට අපට යම් අවදානමක් දැනේ. එබැවින් කොරෝනා වලින් ආරක්ෂා කිරීම සඳහා සියලුම දේ සපයන මැතිවරණ කොමිසම මෙම චන්ද පෙට්ටි ගින්නෙන් ආරක්ෂා කිරීම සඳහා ගිනි නිවන හමුදාවද සුදානම් කර තබා ගන්නේ නම්, ඉතා ඥානාන්විත මෙරට ජනතාවගේ හැඟීමයි. 

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

While the main opposition UNP/SJB is in a perennial bout to defeat each other and capture/retain power in the  Sirikotha, the foreign servile JVP, NGO vultures and the TNA, as well as the racist constituents of the SJB, the JHU, Muslim Con-gross, A CMC and TPA, are in an endless fake news onslaught to prevent the achieving its goal of getting the two-thirds majority to get rid of the abhorrent 19th amendment, make appropriate changes to the  13th   amendment which had been forcibly enforced on us and repeal the 15th amendment which empowers the insignificant political bandits who get a minimum of 5% of the votes district-wise and island-wide to entitle for seats and thus blackmail major parties.                           

It is a practice all over the world to introduce amendments to their constitutions when there is an absolute necessity. Bu t in this country amendments except amendments No, 6, and 18 have been made to the so-called bizarre constitution merely for political expediency. For instance amendment No. 15 was adopted on the behest of Ashroff to get Muslim Con gross votes for Premadasa in the 1988 presidential election, just 48 hours before the election and it was political bribery.     

The  TNA which has not done any good at all for this country since its formation in 2001 as an appendage of the terrorist  LTTE continues with its Tamil supremacy obsession introduced by their racist grandfather Ponnambalam      Arunachalam( PA ) in the 1880s.  This concept would have vanished a long time ago if not for J.R.Jayawardene’s father’s brother Walter Jayawardene. (WJ)  When Mr. Mark Fernando announced his candidacy for the State Council  (SC) elections,   Walter Jayawardene without contesting him directly went to Madras to meet PA who was spending his retired life in Madras and persuaded him to return to Sri Lanka and contest the election against Mark Fernando and in addition to this he also espoused caste conflicts among the Sinhalese against Mark Fernando and got him defeated.

This stupid and antinational act done by Walter Jayawardene gave a boost to Tamil racists and encouraged them to form the Tamil supremacy concept and think that they could rule over the Sinhalese.  When the British colonialists were contemplating to grant independence to Sri Lanka, the Malaysian born alien S.J.V.Chelvanayagam (SJV) bloated by  PA ’s ill-conceived Tamil Supremacy concept told in the State Council that if Sri Lanka is to be granted independence,   Tamils should be granted the right of self-rule in the North and East as the inferior Sinhalese cannot be allowed to rule the superior Tamils.  This was vehemently opposed by the SC member Sir Marcan Marker saying that Sri Lanka belongs to the majority Sinhalese and they should be made the rulers of the whole country, (source Tamil Nationalism in Sri Lanka – a book written by SJV”s son-in-law A.J.Wilson published in the U.K.  The publishers of this book has made a note on the back cover of this book saying that it is not for sale in Sri Lanka).  

 Under the post-independent governments of D.S., Dudley, and Kotelawala, Tamil politicians were the real rulers of the country, and the North flourished with massive development work and many industrial projects were established in that part of the country.  Tamils were Secretaries to prominent Ministries and the PWD, Railways, Port, Health, Telecom  and many other departments were fully employed with Tamils opening up a money order economy in which Tamils employed in the South regularly sent money orders to North for their family expenses.   

 The advent of the populist government of Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike in 1956 changed this situation and then only the educated Sinhalese people started getting their due share in the administration of the country.  This unexpected loss of privileges made the Tamils unleash a confrontational attitude against the government and the Sinhalese people in general.  When the government as in almost all Middle East countries using their alphabets for vehicle number plates introduced the Sinhala letter SHRI for our vehicle number plates Tamils made it a ploy to launch a  Tar campaign” and apply tar on all Sinhala name boards in the North and East and this led to clashes between Tamils and Sinhalese. 

 In these clashes, the Tamils reportedly acted as barbarians and it was said that Tamil hooligans branded Tamil SHRI letters on the breasts of Sinhalese women with hot tar. One of our neighbors who returned from Mullaitivu at that time, named Wijepala had burnt marks all over his face caused by hot tar. Then this type of confrontation became frequent between the two communities on political issues and the Tamil politicians took maximum advantage of the new scenario to win elections just by spreading antagonism against the Sinhalese.  Rowdies and communal minded thugs in both communities took advantage of these situations and resorted to looting business premises, torching properties, and even to murder people belonging to the rival community.

 
Prior to these unfortunate incidents, both communities owned businesses in each other’s areas and were living in peace and harmony. .Matara Hotels and Matara bakeries were popular in Jaffna and Jaffna Cafes and Sarasvathi Stores frequented in the South.  Colombo was full of shops owned by Tamils. Several streets such as Sea Street, Keyzer Street, Dam Street, and some of the Cross Roads had Tamil shops together with shops belonging to Muslims and S9inhalese.  The confrontational atmosphere created by Tamil politicians forced many people to abandon their vibrant businesses and return to their home areas.

In 1976 the racist Tamil chauvinists held a Conference in Vaddukkottai and at this conference, many Tamil chauvinists delivered hate lectures depicting the concocted history of the Tamils similar to what is being done by  Wigneswaran and they emphasized the need for the Tamils to have a separate state named Tamil Eelam.  Their argument was that there is no country in the world that does not have Tamils but the Tamils do not have a country od their own and hence a Tamil nation, the Tamil Eelam should be established in the North and East of Sri Lanka.   Accordingly, they adopted a Resolution calling for the establishment of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka and to launch an armed struggle to achieve this goal. This conference authorized the Tamil youth to take up arms and launch an armed struggle to gain Tamil Ealam. 

  During the 2015 Presidential election campaign, the terrorist diaspora pumped a colossal amount of money to the UNP, the shameless and policy less greedy JVP, and the NGO vultures to carry out an unprecedented and an unbelievable smear campaign and many NGOs mushroomed overnight calling themselves as civil organizations to grab the fortunes being offered by the terrorist diaspora, Indian RAW, CIA, and other foreign bandits, and the UNP sources said that 49  civil organizations were in operation in this fake news crusade.

 With this election, the racist Tamil politicians and the stupid UNP assumed the misconception that hereafter Sri Lanka cannot have a functional government without the support of the Tamils and based on this misconception the despicable Sirisena/Ranil government was shamelessly appeasing the Tamils and the TNA as well as the Kallathoni descendant    Mano Ganeshan.  Ganeshan even without being a member of Parliament in February 2015 compelled the government to introduce singing of National Anthem in both Sinhala and Tamil languages while terrorist proxy Sumanthiran became the policy formulator of the government and even the Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella genuflected before him, within the chamber of Parliament itself, bringing shame to the Kandyan pride. Sumanthiran even attended the Working Committee meetings of the UNP without any objections from its docile members.  People wondered as to whether they were having a Sirisena/Ranil government or TNA/Ganeshan government?

It should be mentioned here that the Kallathoni descendent Ganeshan claimed that the Indian Origin Tamils (IOTs) must have 14 MPs in this country a separate contagious province in the hill country IOTs.  With this illusory dream in mind during the 2010 elections he went to contest from the Kandy district and the glorious people of the Kandy district humiliatingly defeated him and chased him to Colombo.

In this darkest chapter of Sri Lanka’s history, then came the much-awaited Presidential Election for which the people were longing to repent for the misery they got inflicted upon themselves by believing in the fake news crusade and for helping to topple development-oriented Rajapaksa government.  The War Hero Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (GR) was the candidate of the patriotic forces against the racist/extremist/reactionary candidate Sajith Premadasa (SP), the notorious treasure hunter of archaeological sites, the alleged plunderer of Rs. 11 Billion of the Central Cultural Fund earmarked for the development of religious sites, alleged to be responsible for misuse of Rs. 400 Million from the Ministry of Housing, and having many other allegations..   

The racist politicians all over the country and the NGO ruffians joined together in a massive crusade against GR and made all efforts to prevent him from contesting and ultimately to defeat him.  These ruffians filed several petitions against GR to disqualify him from contesting the election while the Tamil racist politicians carried out an intensive campaign in the North and East in support of SP who had consented to grant the 13 anti-national demands put forward by the TNA and the Jaffna University students.  Sumanthiran took a leading role in SP’s campaign and addressing many meetings he boldly urged the Tamils to vote for Sajith to defeat the Sinhalese.  The election results showed that the Tamils in the North and East had en-masse voted positively in responding to Sumanthiran’s Defeat the Sinhalese” call. 

The election result also confirmed that the Sinhala Buddhist majority of this country has given a firm mandate to GR and accordingly he launched an admirable country re-building program with equal treatment to all Sri Lankans devoid of ethnicity, religious and other petty differences and at the same time he faced the Covid-19 pandemic in a very systematic manner which even the so-called developed countries such as America and the U.K could not combat successfully.  Even a book can be written on the President’s successful virus combat operation but let us observe it separately later.

 The growing popularity of the President became a bitter pill for Tamil racist politicians and they realized that hereafter they should adopt a cunning strategy and get their aspirations fulfilled without adopting a confrontational attitude.  The diaspora proxy Sumanthiran took the lead in this respect and he self-arranged an interview in Sinhala with the well known Sinhala media personnel Chamuditha Samarawickrema and in this interview, he denounced the LTTE atrocities.  This interview became a storm in a teacup which brought severe condemnation from many racist Tamil politicians of TNA and pro terrorists in Tamil Nadu and they burnt effigies of Sumanthiran in protest and demanded the TNA leader Sambanthan take disciplinary action against Sumanthiran and dismiss him from the TNA immediately but despite these protests, Sambanthan who even graced fundraising campaigns for LTTE in Canada and U.K endorsed the stand taken by  Sumanthiran. 

The question that needs to be asked why Sumanthiran who was having a safe posh life in Colombo and there was no possible threat to his life from LTTE as it was for some other TNA members who were living in the North and East took all these years to condemn the LTTE and why he remained silent when the LTTE was forced conscripting school children for their auxiliary forces and sometimes even for frontline combat duties and why he kept silent when the LTTE was forcibly taking the innocent civilians from place to place as human shields to provide protection for their cadres and why he did not hail the vanquishing of the LTTE on 19th May 2009?

The UK based Suren Surendiran, the spokesman of the Global Tamil Forum GTF)  who maintained a high profile close contacts with Sumanthiran to protect and promote Tamil separatism too, has defended Sumanthiran. Surendiran is reported to have held discussions with Sumanthiran on the future strategy to be handled and he  has asked whether unqualified and uncritical support for the armed struggle of the past, is a must, to play a leading role in Tamil politics  today?’ Reports said that Sumanthiran’s declaration that he wouldn’t approve terrorism, under any circumstances, received Surendiran’s approval. Surendiran categorized the Tamil community into three segments (a) those who unreservedly backed the war, waged by the LTTE, but blamed the group’s defeat on external factors (b) the second group comprised Tamils who accepted the war, in its entirety, while finding fault with all stakeholders for not doing everything possible to save the LTTE (Surendiran called it …to prevent its catastrophic end) (c) and the last group opposed violence without exception.

In their latest move, Surendran’s GTF has urged the Tamils to vote for those only contesting the northern and eastern regions. In addition to the TNA, the Thamizhi Makkal Tesiya Kootani or the Tamil People’’s National Alliance led by former Northern Province CM C.V. Wigneswaran are in the fray in the North and East.

 The GTF, in a statement issued on 31^st July, has said: First and foremost, ensure that people appreciate the significance of this election and the power of their vote – every vote matters. Second, no vote should be wasted on the multitude of independent groups and those representing countrywide parties, as these could only dilute the strength of the Tamil representation for future political engagements. Overly unrealistic agenda and an inward-looking insular political strategy is not the most suited in the present circumstances. The question for the Tamil voters is among the parties that represent Tamil national interest, which party and candidates are the best suited to navigate Tamil politics through the turbulent times ahead.”

 The GTF alleged the election was being held amidst authoritarian presidential rule through decrees and task forces, key civilian functions entrusted to serving and retired military officers in` an atmosphere of intimidation and fear leading to media self-censorship and silencing of civil society activists, and insecurity among the minority communities.

 The GTF has further stated that: It is in this atmosphere that Rajapaksas are seeking 2/3rd majority to change the constitution, in particular, to abolish the 19th Amendment, and in the last two attempts at constitution-making (1972 and 1978), where the political parties that drove the process had 2/3rd majority, were disastrous, and their effects are still crippling the country.

.The long statement of the GTF also states that  The Tamil political leadership during the recent past has earned some positive marks on the national politics of the country and the Tamil community should never take its eyes off from achieving political outcomes, and the Sri Lankan political leadership’s intransigence in accommodating the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil community, made the Tamils look to the international community and India, with hope and expectation.

The double-tongued hypocrite Sumanthiran while condemning the LTTE in a tactful move has justified the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks saying that such attacks should be expected if the government did not address the grievances of the minorities. He has made this remark at a function held at the B MICH, to mark the first anniversary of the political weekly ‘Anidda in which Karu Jayasuriya, Human Rights Commission Chairperson Dr.  Deepika Udagama, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and several others have attended.

Reportedly on the instigation of Sumanthiran, members of the TNA including its leader Sambanthan, making a major split in the opposition camp made a strategic move by accepting Prime  Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s invitation to attend a meeting, chaired by him, at Temple Trees, on May 04^th. The TNA participation at the Temple Trees meeting also led to a private meeting between the Prime Minister and Sumanthiran at his official residence, on the night of May 4^th The TNA broke ranks with the UNP, and its breakaway faction, the Samagi  Jana Balavegaata (SJB), as well as the JVP, to attend the Temple Trees meeting.

The pro-LTTE elements formed the TNA in 2001 as part of its overall strategy to promote a separatist ideology, both in and outside parliament. The original grouping, having contested the Dec 2001 parliamentary polls, under the TULF symbol, secured 15 seats. The ITAK hadn’t been part of the TNA, at that time.

The signing of the Norway-arranged Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) took place on Feb 21, 2002. By then, the TNA had recognized the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people. The LTTE exploited the recognition received from the TNA. Then the TNA threw its weight behind the LTTE’s absurd demand for ISGA (Interim Self-Governing Authority) in the run-up to Prabhakaran walking out of the negotiating table. The LTTE quit tripartite negotiations, in late April 2003. The TNA played ball with the LTTE. They took a common stand. TULF leader, Veerasingham Anandasangree, quit the TNA as the LTTE-TNA bond grew stronger. But, the vast majority of Anandasangaree’s colleagues, including Sampanthan, reiterated support to the LTTE’s macabre cause. They resurrected the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), ahead of the 2004 parliamentary polls. The TNA swiftly reached an agreement, with the LTTE, to contest the parliamentary polls, on the ITAK ticket.

The LTTE unleashed violence in the North-East Province, in the run-up to parliamentary polls. The LTTE operation was meant to strengthen the TNA, at the expense of other political parties, including the ruling UNP. The European Union Election Observation Mission declared that the TNA achieved success at the 2004 parliamentary polls as a result of the LTTE’s unleashing violence. Local monitors refrained from commenting on the TNA-LTTE project. Parliament, and the international community, refrained from taking up this issue, for obvious reasons. The LTTE-TNA project received international blessings, even after the EU forthrightly condemned the LTTE-TNA relationship.

The LTTE mistakenly felt that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victory would give them an excuse to launch an all-out war. The TNA certainly subscribed to the LTTE’s assessment. Within two weeks, after Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa election as the President, the LTTE resumed claymore mine attacks, in the Jaffna peninsula, and expanded similar attacks to the Mannar region.

The TNA cannot absolve itself of the responsibility for setting the stage for Eelam War IV. Political analysts point out that there is no point in seeking an explanation from Sumanthiran, as regards the wartime TNA-LTTE partnership, as he joined the TNA parliamentary group, after the demise of the LTTE. But, Sumanthiran, who received recognition as a President’s Counsel, in 2017, knew the TNA’s wretched past. Having joined the TNA parliamentary group, in 2010, he spearheaded a high profile international campaign to haul up Sri Lanka before hybrid war crimes investigation mechanism. In fact, no one has done so much for their cause since the eradication of the LTTE. However, if the LTTE somehow survived the final onslaught on the Vanni east front, Sumanthiran wouldn’t have received an invitation from the TNA to join its parliamentary group. The elimination of the LTTE automatically gave the TNA an opportunity to take control of the situation. Gradually, Sumanthiran became the most influential person, among the parliamentary group. Sumanthiran maintained excellent relations with the top UNP leadership, and Western diplomatic missions, in Colombo. Sumanthiran never found fault with the LTTE. The TNA, right throughout the Eelam War (August 2006-May 2009), stood steadfastly with the LTTE.

The demise of the LTTE allowed the TNA to charter its own course. At an early stage, the TNA reached consensus with the UNP, on a common political programme. Both parties wanted to see the back of war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sumanthiran played a significant role in the shaping of the TNA strategy, since entering parliament, in April 2010. However, the TNA adopted an unprecedented strategy, at the January 2010 presidential poll. TNA’s decision to back General Sarath Fonseka proved the grouping’s readiness to do whatever necessary to achieve their overall political objectives. The UNP-led political alliance, which backed Fonseka, included the JVP, the TNA, the SLMC, and the ACMC. The same grouping backed Maithripala Sirisena, at the January 2015 presidential polls. Although the project failed, in 2010, in spite of the TNA ensuring Fonseka’s victory, at all northern electorates, and making a significant contribution in the East, the former Army Chief lost to Mahinda Rajapaksa, by a staggering 1.8 mn votes.

The Manifestoes of Tamil chauvinists in all elections since 1977 demands Tamil self-rule in the North and East of Sri Lanka saying that it is their homeland.  This demand has been produced in their manifesto for the August 5th election as well, in which they demand amalgamation of the North and East as a non-divisible territorial unit to be under their self-rule.  Their arrogance, invalidity, and the stupidity of their demands have reached intolerable limits and the need to curb presentation of such demands has become extremely vital.

There are only 29 seats in the North and most of these seats except in the Jaffna peninsula can be won by non-Tamil candidates if they employ a collective understanding devoid of the party and religious affiliations and if they collectively decide to vote for the most suitable/popular candidate in each district and reduce the total Tamil MPs getting elected from the two provinces to less than 15 seats.  Please remember that this is not a difficult task as Sambandan was defeated in the 2000 election.  Therefore all Sinhalese and Muslim voters should join hands to defeat racist politicians in their respective areas and elect non-racist politicians to the new Parliament. These criteria should be applied not only to the North and East but all other districts and the Sinhalese and Muslims should make all efforts to defeat the racist JHU, TPA, SLMC, and ACMC candidates as well and make them understand those racist politics has no place in this country.    

A Special and kind appeal to Muslims:

Please use your precious vote with firm determination to defeat the rogue separatists and communalists who continuously hinder the progress of this country and minimize their representation in the parliament and help establish the virtuous and harmonious nation envisaged by the past Muslim leaders such as Sir Marcan Marka Sir Razik Fareed, Dr. Badiudeen Mahmoud, Dr. T.B.Jayah, Dr. M.C.M.Kaleel, C.A.S.Marikkar, (SinhakaMarikkar), Muttur Majeed, A.C.S.Hameed and M/H.Mohamed.  At the same time ensure the defeat of Munafiqs (Hypocrites), nepotists, and the alleged rogues in the Muslim garb such as Rishad Bathiudeen, Rauf Hakeem, Mujibur Rehman, Kabir Hashim and their ilk who bring forth disgrace and shame to the peace-loving Muslims in this country.

TV Derana

විමල් විරවංශ මහතා සමග පැවති 360 සජීව වැඩසටහන.

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන් නිත්‍ය නියෝජිත/සමගි ජනබලවේගය

මහින්ද දේශප්‍රිය මහතා,
සභාපති
මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාව,
රාජගිරිය.

මහත්මාණෙනි,

ප්‍රේමලාල් ජයසේකර ගේ අපේක්ෂකත්වය ශුන්‍ය හා බලරහිත බව සම්බන්ධයෙනි

රත්නපුර මහාධිකරණය මගින් මරණ දඬුවම නියම කරනු ලැබූ පොදුජන පෙරමුණු අපේක්ෂක ප්‍රේමලාල් ජයසේකර මහතා ට ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 89 වගන්තිය ප්‍රකාරව මරණ දඬුවම නියම වූ දිනයේ සිට පුරවැසිබලය අහිමිවේ.  ඒ අනුව, 2020 අගෝස්තු 5 දින පැවැත්වෙන මහා මැතිවරණයේ දී ඔහුට ඡන්දය ප්‍රකාශ කිරීම සඳහා වන අවස්ථාව හිමි නොවේ.

මැතිවරණයක දී ඡන්දය ප්‍රකාශ කිරීම සඳහා සුදුසුකම් නොලබන කිසිදු අයෙකුට ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 91 වගන්තිය යටතේ ඡන්දය ඉල්ලීම සඳහා වන අයිතිය ද අහිමි (පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙකු යටත් වන අනුශක්තාව) වේ. ඒ අනුව, රත්නපුර දිස්ත්‍රික්ක පොදුජන පෙරමුණේ ලැයිස්තුවේ මනාප අංක 13 යටතේ තරඟවදින අපේක්ෂකයාට නීතියේ ඉදිරියේ වලංගු අපේක්ෂකයෙකු නොවන නිසා ඔහුට  සලකුණු කරනු ලබන ඡන්ද සියල්ල අපතේ යන ඡන්ද බවට පත්වන බව මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාව හොඳින් දන්නා ස්ථාපිත කරුණකි.

එවැවින්, අගෝ. 5 දින මැතිවරණයට ප්‍රේමලාල් ජයසේකර ට ඡන්දය ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමේ අයිතිය අහිමි බවට වන නිල දැනුම්දීම සිදු කිරීම මැතිවරණ කොමිසම සතු වගකීමකි.  ඒ රත්නපුර දිස්ත්‍රික් තේරීම්බාර නිලධාරි වෙත දැනුම්දීමට  කටයුතු කරන ලෙස ද ඉල්ලමි. තව ද,   ඔහුගේ අංකයට සලකුණු කරනු ලබන මනාපයක් වේ නම් එය ශුන්‍ය හා බලරහිත බව ප්‍රකාශ කිරීම ද.  කොමිසම සතු වගකීමක් බව කාරුණිකව සිහිපත් කරමි. 

මෙයට විශ්වාසී,

රජිත් කීර්ති තෙන්නකෝන්

නිත්‍ය නියෝජිත/සමගි ජනබලවේගය

1.       දිස්ත්‍රික් තේරීම් භාර නිලධාරි – රත්නපුර

2.       කොමසාරිස් ජෙනරාල් – මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාව

3.       සහකාර මැතිවරණ කොමසාරිස් – රත්නපුර

By R Kirubakaran Express News Service Courtesy The New Indian Express

Trio who forged his identity papers and buried his body arrested by police.

COIMBATORE: Coimbatore police on Sunday confirmed the death, in the city, of Sri Lanka’s underworld kingpin Angoda Lokka. One man and two women, including a Sri Lankan national, were arrested for allegedly forging identity papers for the wanted criminal and cremating him in Madurai after his death on July 3. Police revealed that Angoda Lokka, who was wanted by Sri Lankan police, had been hiding in the city for at least two years.

While the two women — one of them a Sri Lankan native — were arrested in the city by Coimbatore city police on Sunday, the man was arrested from Erode for allegedly creating forged identity documents, including an Aadhaar card for him in the name R Pradeep Singh (35).

After the wanted man’s death on July 3, reportedly due to cardiac arrest, the trio submitted forged documents to take his body for cremation the next day, said a police report.

The arrested persons were identified as Sivakami Sundari (36) wife of Dinakaran from Hal Nagar Phase I near Pasingapuram in Madurai district, her associate from Erode S Thiyaneshwaran, who had helped get the forged documents, and Amani Thanji (27) daughter of Thanji Arjan Mugariya from Colombo in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan woman is said to have lived with Angoda Lokka in Coimbatore.

The three were booked under Sections 120 B, 177, 182, 202, 212, 417, 419, 466, 468 and 471 of IPC and remanded to judicial custody, said police.

According to police, the man who was later found to be Angoda Lokka was taken to Coimbatore Medical College Hospital on the night of July 3, in an unconscious state. The women had claimed he was R Pradeep Singh from Green Garden near Cheran Maanagar on Kalapatti road in Coimbatore and told authorities that they were his relatives.

They said that he had fainted at home due to sudden cardiac arrest. Peelamedu police registered a case under section 174 of CrPC. Following the post-mortem they received the body after submitting his fake Aadhaar card details. Police allegedly failed to check the documents properly.

Meanwhile, based on an intelligence report that Angoda Lokka was murdered and buried in Coimbatore, Sri Lankan police approached Tamil Nadu police for further probe.

Based on this, city police reopened the case and found that the documents submitted by the women had been forged and they had pretended Angoda Lokka was Pradeep Singh. After receiving the body they had cremated it at Madurai the next day, said police sources.

Police sources added that, after the post-mortem, samples were sent for viscera testing and only after the test results come, would they be able to arrive at any conclusion whether he died of cardiac arrest or was murdered.

Based on preliminary investigation with the arrested persons, police said they had learnt that the deceased was Maddumage Chandana Lasantha Perera alias Angoda Lokka (aged around 35) from Kotikawatta, Colombo in Sri Lanka. He came to Coimbatore three years ago and lived at a rental house in Cheran Maanagar. He was running a food supplement business and lived with his girlfriend, Amani Thanji, who came to Coimbatore from Colombo in March. He had received forged documents, including Aadhaar card and citizenship documents, through Sivakami Sundari and Thiyaneshwaran, police said.

According to Sri Lankan police intelligence, Angoda Lokka was poisoned to death in India in early July. One of his sisters was allowed to watch the funeral via video streaming. His rivals had planned to assassinate him by using a woman, who was living with him in India, and she allegedly poisoned him.

By Shivanthi Ranasinghe Courtesy Ceylon Today

The much awaited General Elections is before us. We have a new set up in the sense that the two traditional main parties have each split up into two factions. The UNP breakaway faction is the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party which transformed to the United People’s Front Alliance by combining with a number of satellite parties split up five years ago. Subsequently the UPFA breakaway faction reconciled forming a new party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, under the Pohottuwa symbol. 

Yet, it is an uneasy truce. Some members like Prasanna Ranatunga and Roshan Ranasinghe openly ask voters not to caste a preference to those who betrayed the party and country. Their bitterness is clearly visible, both having stood fast against the Yahapalana Government and even risked persecution. 

This appeal is not made in the vain attempt to gain preferential votes over each other in the same camp. The resentment is palatable against those who have now meekly crawled over to the Pohottuwa to protect their own political career. It is however up to the voter to decide whether the time is right to put a stop to these opportunistic politicians, who jump from one end to the other for self serving purposes and in the process jeopardise the entire country. 

Conning the voter

The UNP split is still fresh and therefore the two factions seem too angry with each other to see eye-to-eye over anything ever again. Udaya Gammanpila however believes that this is simply an act to deceive the voters. The hardcore UNP had been long disillusioned by Ranil Wickremesinghe, especially for his alleged role in the infamous Central Bank bond scams. However, some of the voters may still prefer Wickremesinghe to Sajith Premadasa, who comes across as shockingly immature and very silly. Therefore, according to Gammanpila, this so-called split is simply a gimmick for Premadasa to garner votes that will not come Wickremesinghe’s way and vice verse. Either way, the voter is being entertained by the quarrels between the four factions of the two parties. This only serves to highlight the immature nature of Sri Lankan politics. Rather than articulating their vision, policies and plans of implementation, each of these politicians are attacking their opponents in a bid to discredit them. 

However, there is a difference between the infighting within the Pohottuwa and the cat fight between the UNP and the SJB. The likes of Ranatunga and Ranasinghe can afford to denounce the newly joined once erstwhile members for they are standing on the moral high ground of never having strengthened the Yahapalana hand. Therefore, they are innocent of all the transgressions committed by the Yahapalana Government from which the country is still reeling. In fact they played a decisive role to roll back the Yahapalana carpet. 

Birds of a feather

On the other hand, neither the UNP nor the SJB have that luxury as both these factions can never absolve themselves from the sins committed during the Yahapalana Government. Wickremesinghe pointed out that those who are standing with Premadasa to the likes of Patali Ranawaka, Rishard Bathuideen, Rauf Hakeem and Mano Ganesan are not from the UNP, how then does Premadasa claim the hardcore UNP are with him, is Wickremesinghe’s rhetoric question. However, it was none other than Wickremesinghe who allowed these politicians to assume the UNP garb. Having allowed them to grow on UNP soil for years, having depended on them for UNP’s survival, it is now difficult to dissociate them from the UNP. The only reason for Wickremesinghe to remember they are not part of the traditional party is because they are not standing with him now, but with his biggest rival. 

Sajith Premadasa never lets his audience forget that none of the bank robbers are with his party. However, this hardly exonerates Premadasa or those in the SJB from the crime. The reason being, they never objected to it while they were together. Today, Premadasa’s proud lieutenants are Bathuideen and Hakeem – both accused of assisting the Easter Sunday bombers. Had they not joined SJB, no doubt Premadasa would boast that his clean party is not entertaining any of the terrorists or extremists. 

Premadasa especially cannot absolve himself from the bond scam scandals. In October 2018, Maithripala Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe from the premiership. One of the reasons that led to this sacking was apparently this crime, though the scams took place in 2015 and 2016 and no discernible action was taken against it. With the sacking of Wickremesinghe, the Yahapalana Government toppled. 

Takes two to Tango

However, proponents of the Yahapalana Government quickly rallied the troops and had Wickremesinghe reinstated. Premadasa was among those who celebrated it the most. During the drama it came to light that Sirisena had offered the premiership to Premadasa a number of times but each time he protected Wickremesinghe’s position. He had not even been diplomatic in his efforts. Sirisena recalled the embarrassment he had to face when Premadasa double crossed him and exposed his intent to Wickremesinghe without giving Sirisena any prior warning. 

Therefore, it is not possible for Premadasa to now dissociate himself from the crime. It is interesting how he conveniently ignores this while those who committed the crime might not be with him, those who tried to whitewash it have followed him to form his new party. They are known as the Footnote Kalliya (gang)”. 

Sujeeva Serasinghe even wrote a book to say that no wrong doing was committed. He was only somewhat silenced when it came to light that one of the main culprits, Arjun Aloysius has paid him a number of large payments. Though the revelation submerged almost immediately after surfacing, the fact remains that Serasinghe too benefited from the crime. It was not only Serasinghe who thus benefitted. It is still not clear the reason for the 2016 bond scams to take place. However, the purported motive for the scams in 2015 was allegedly to fund the then upcoming 2015 General Elections. 

The UNP then floated the theory that after 20 years in the Opposition the Party was badly placed financially. Therefore to finance the 2015 Presidential Election they had to scrape their coffers and could not afford the impending General Election. It was a simple and plausible explanation. It was an open secret that the UNP headquarters, Sirikotha, was struggling to pay even their utility bills. This served to stop further speculation to the motive behind the scams. 

US taxpayers’ USD 300 M

However, this explanation is a tad difficult to accept for two reasons. The first because it does not explain the reason why the 2016 bond scam took place and the second being the regime change engineered in 2015 was very well funded by foreign Governments. According to a slip made by then US State Secretary John Kerry, the US spent at least USD 300 million of the American taxpayers’ money to install the Yahapalana Government. 

This then begets the question why was the Central Bank robbed twice within 13 months?” The answer lies with the results of the bond scams. Unlike in other corruptions where the effect of the fraud is just once, here the effect continues to increase throughout the bond’s lifespan. Thus, the interest rates that originally were in single digits immediately shot to two digits. A country’s interest rate is the indicator for a lender to decide crucial information. A high interest rate means that the country’s repayment capacity might be lower. This means, lenders would insist on shorter repayment durations. Higher interests would also deter investors. Thus the bond scams were an effective way to sabotage Sri Lanka’s national economy. 

Whether it was to the fund the General Election or to sabotage the economy the point is that Premadasa never did protest. Instead, he valiantly played his part to protect the Yahapalana Government. The only reason he now attempts to distance himself from the crime is for self preservation. In a sense, this Election is a most challenging one. Sri Lanka is unwittingly caught in the vortex of perhaps the largest geopolitical struggle for regional dominance. The only way to safeguard our sovereignty is to strengthen our economy. Therefore, the voter should not let the petty accusations politicians are hurling against each other distract them from the real threats that are before Sri Lanka. The voter must thus identify who will and will not allow Sri Lanka to be manipulated for the benefit of foreign nations. 

ranasingheshivanthi@gmail.com

By Sugeeswara Senadhira Courtesy Ceylon Today

The West blatantly interferes by continuing to threaten us directly and subtly by deploying strategies in different guises. The proxies of the LTTE in many countries in North America, Europe and the Pacific renewed their anti Sri Lanka propaganda by organising events to mark the 1983 Black July anniversary. These events were aimed at launching a campaign of disinformation on the eve of the General Elections slated for 5 August. Reflecting the overly wish of Western countries to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, officials and politicians of some countries too participated in the events organised by the Tamil Diaspora’s Eelam-lobbies.

In a surprising statement issued on 23 July, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, Today, we remember the horrific events of Black July in Sri Lanka and honour the memory of its victims. In July 1983, anti-Tamil pogroms swept across Colombo, Sri Lanka, following decades of unrest and rising tensions in the country.”

Last week, Amnesty International stated, The Sri Lankan Government should end the targeted arrests, intimidation and threats against the lives and physical security of lawyers, activists, human rights defenders and journalists”.

These are two instances of biased propaganda on the eve of an important Election in Sri Lanka. 

Canada militarily nipped the FLQ 

Canadian Premier Trudeau has conveniently forgotten about the separatist movement in his country, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ Québec Liberation Front) which posed a major challenge when his father Pierre Trudeau was the Prime Minister. The Marxist-Leninist terrorist movement FLQ, founded in the early 1960s, conducted a number of attacks between 1963 and 1970, which totaled over 160 violent incidents, including several killings and causing injuries to many more.

As a Sri Lankan analyst in Canada pointed out the FLQ was militarily nipped in the bud by Trudeau Sr.  But Sri Lanka had to face a protracted war due to the misguided good offices” of foreign powers who had no clear understanding of the actual situation in Sri Lanka. Mr. Trudeau’s Black July statement shows that Canada does not know the actual situation in Sri Lanka or how best to deal with Colombo.

People of the First Nations

Mr. Trudeau has rushed to remember the Black July in Sri Lanka, ever since he became the Prime Minster, but he has yet to come forward to remember the horrific events that have gone through over four centuries of blood-letting, murder and treaty cheating in North America. Unfortunately, that process occurs even today, though in a different guise, as one may see from the economic and civil conditions endured by the people of the ‘First Nations’. However, the tragedy of is that they do not control important blocks of swing votes in Metropolitan areas, as is done by the ethnic groups that Mr. Trudeau has so readily responded to, in his Black July” message,” he pointed out.

The Sri Lankan community in Canada called upon Mr. Trudeau to correct this historic lacuna, review the history of Canada, the European occupation of North America, and understand  the tremendous injustice of his witting or unwitting  neglect of what we have to learn from Canada’s own history, and what injustices need to remember on Black July.

Interfereing AI statement

The Amnesty International (AI) statement also questioned the Government decision to streamline Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). A probe into NGOs registered under the previous Government has commenced. In the months following the November 2019 Presidential Election, a number of organisations reported visits from intelligence officers who sought details of staff, programs and funding, in particular,  organisations  in  the  war-affected  Northern and  Eastern  provinces  of  the  country. Such visits are blatant attempts to harass and intimidate Sri Lankan civil society,” the AI statement said.

Any country has a right to inquire into the activities of NGOs to ascertain if the funds have been properly used and whether there are any hidden agendas detrimental to national interest. More stringent controls have been applied to NGOs in almost every country, including India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Sri Lanka is once again faced with blatant external interference in its domestic political process, an act inadmissible to any sovereign state. The extremists in Tamil Diaspora ranging from so-called Tamil Transitional Government to various eelam organisations continue their attempts to create a public opinion against Sri Lanka with the ultimate objective of using the West as a cat’s paw to get publicity for their fund collections. The funds are used for creating stability in Sri Lanka as a first step for the long-term goal of reviving Tamil terrorism. The Eelam lobby wants to create a climate of insecurity artificially to provoke a violent situation that will provide justification for external intervention.

The attitude displayed by most Western envoys based in Colombo toward the people of Sri Lanka and their leadership is a reflection of the old imperial mindset. These neo colonials want Sri Lanka to become dependent on the West, submissive and docile.

Amnesty International asserts that ‘a campaign of fear has intensified since the 2019 Presidential Election, and has cast a shadow over the 2020 Parliamentary Election campaign as well’ is a baseless accusation. Furthermore it could be construed as  blatant interference in the forthcoming General Elections. 

The AI has called upon the United Nations, as well Sri Lanka’s partners and foreign donors, to immediately call for full respect, protection and fulfillment of the human rights of all Sri Lankans, and particularly to halt the reversal of fragile gains in the protection of human rights in recent years. This is an indirect call by the AI to Sri Lankan voters to cast their vote to the political parties favoured by the West.

In the past too there were many instances of foreign interference in Sri Lankan elections. There were allegations of foreign funding to certain parties and selected politicians by foreign governments and organisations. The voters must be wary of these foreign agendas and cast their votes freely keeping in mind the best interests of the country and the need to safeguard the independent and sovereignty of Sri Lanka.

By Shiam Vidurupola Courtesy Ceylon Today

Daybreak in Madagal, Jaffna was always a breath-taking sight, as if all the colours of a paint box was mixed and splashed against the sky. On the 23rd day of July, the sea was calm, encouraging the lazy waves concealing the coral beds to lap the shores. The year was 1983 and the troops of ‘Charlie’ Company, 1st battalion the Sri Lanka Light Infantry (SLLI) had just taken over duties in the peninsula. They were busy training under the shades of Palmyra trees. The day looked usual, not a hint of the terrible events which were to unfold later that day.

Approaching dusk turned the sea restless and the crimson sky was rapidly turning dark.  The whole camp paused for the bugle call of the Last Post, which incidentally drives all the dogs in the neighbourhood into an eerie howl. Beyond the canine howls the descending darkness was dominated by the chirps of stridulating crickets. Later that night twelve soldiers from my platoon and two soldier drivers were preparing with me for a night mobile patrol. Two vehicles, a Jeep and a twelve-ton truck were allocated; this was the minimum requirement for a night patrol in accordance with fresh orders,due to the increasing threat from separatist rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The company Sergeant Major checked every man and his equipment down to the last detail, such as coffee flasks to last the long night ahead. Enthusiasm was evident, as soldiers prefer activity beyond the confinement of camps. Around 9.45 pm just after the final radio clearance for departure, the Company Commander rushed up to my vehicle and directed me to ‘stand down’ to work with him on documentation and the patrol was reluctantly handed over to my close comrade in arms – Vas, who was an officer very dear to me. Vas was a sound officer with whom I had trained, worked, wined, dined and laughed so much, and my soldiers knew of our comradery and shared trust, as they set out along the Madagal – Keermalai road.

Later into the night around 11.30 pm, the patrol suddenly went off radio contact. Immediately all stations adapted emergency protocols to contact the patrol and failing to receive a response, the SLLI battalion headquarters in Palaly dispatched search and tracking patrols. No soldier, monitoring communications in the Jaffna peninsula that night, shall ever forget the shocking news that followed, when the searchers reported that the patrol had been ambushed. The lifeless bodies of 13 soldiers lay strewn at Thinnavely on the main highway along the Jaffna – Palaly road. 

It was subsequently reported that the patrol, while returning from Gurunagar, had been ambushed, passing through the village of Thinnaveli. The LTTE had blasted a culvert targeting the leading Jeep, which in turn obstructed the truck following behind. An ambush had been sprung from both sides of the road from positions fortified by parapet walls.  Strategically disconnected power lines placed the whole area in darkness except of course for the street lights, which exposed the soldiers. Surely beyond the walls it was a ‘black July’ night, from where gunfire and hand grenades rained onto the soldiers. Charging or fighting into the ambush was not an option. The officer and three soldiers in the Jeep had fought back and killed the LTTE leader of the ambush and others. Eventually, trapped in the ambush the soldiers were helpless, and the nation had to bid good bye to 13 good men who had taken an oath to her security and sovereignty.

It was later revealed that during the onslaught two soldiers, corporal P and private Shad managed to scale the parapet wall and merge into the darkness. Though bleeding profusely from gunshot injuries they managed to make their way to the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) bus depot at Kondavil to call in emergency reinforcements and assistance.

Back at the base in Madagal emotions were high as the reports came in. Losing my fellow comrades and friends was one of my most traumatic experiences. Coping with emotions of complete despair, grief and strange guilt, I remember asking myself, why Vas? It should have been me. It was a sleepless night for everyone, through which I have learned to cope. In the many years of experience to follow were the witnessing and accepting the devastating realities of war and its miseries. Coping with the loss of a brother officer and men of whom I had spent most of my time was stressful enough. Then again, asking myself how I would face their families and the heart rending tales they related, were extremely harrowing and tormenting experiences that linger within me to this day. Memory also drags me back to my first day in SLLI when my Company Commander Maj (kalu) Asoka J, told me ‘if you ever lose a man, you and the State shall look after his family forever’; military gospel from a (very respected) company commander to a subaltern between whom the age gap would be around fifteen years, in those days.

Strange occurrences of that day lingered in my mind; it was my patrol with my men but Vas was nominated at the last moment. Vas had bought an alarm clock just for the Jaffna deployment, which stopped ticking exactly at 11.45 pm, around the time radio contact with the patrol was lost. Private A mentioned in a concerned voice that it would be his last patrol, but failed to explain why. Sergeant T and the two soldier drivers were ‘attachments’ from other Companies for this deployment, and otherwise would have not lost their lives. Lance Corporal P, a brilliant boxer and four others in the patrol had completed five years of regular service and had opted to leave the army for marriage, new ventures etc. but agreed to deploy on one final venture with their colleagues of the platoon. Privates W and R, had joined the platoon fresh out of recruit training. Lance Corporal P was not the driver on duty that day, but virtually fought himself into the patrol to be with his colleagues. Such decisions and occurrences remain an unexplained mystery, to this day.

That July night was pivotal in changing the history of the country. It was the first time a large number of servicemen were killed in action in a single incident. As the news of the deaths spread, countrywide communal riots broke out. Events which followed instigated by multiple factors and actors snapped the strained cords which had sustained earlier conflicts between the Sinhala and Tamils communities, also affecting other communities. The years that followed were full of agony dominated by hurt and mistrust. The subsequent violence and its implications would be interpreted by generations to come, in different ways.

I drove down from Jaffna to Colombo on 26 July to visit the two surviving soldiers receiving treatment in the military hospital. The drive was bizarre as roads were deserted due to curfew. People were left helpless without public transport. Leaving Jaffna town, I noticed an elderly Tamil gentleman with a small brown ‘Ford’ suitcase stranded on the roadside and offered him a lift to Colombo. Somewhat taken aback at first, he later agreed and sat between me and the driver. Talking to him along an eight-hour drive I came to know that he was Dr X, the senior surgeon at a private nursing home in Colombo where he had been practising for over two decades. Shockingly, his family too was seriously affected by the communal violence with his house set on fire in Wellawatta. Our conversation was dominated by his contributions to generations in obstetrics and gynaecology, helping new life to see the light of the world. I was the listener as my profession did not interest him, and his wealth of experience was truly fascinating.

 As we neared Colombo, the smoke from burnt properties was evident and frankly it was utterly shameful. In parting, we exchanged contact details and on seeing my name he stood for a brief moment and said “I remember this unique surname, I was the doctor in charge during your birth.” Here we were standing on a deserted roadside with smoke rising with the smell of destruction from arson. Dumbfounding was the fact that by sheer coincidence a Sinhala Soldier had met the Tamil Doctor who had brought him into the world. I felt privileged and honoured to bring him safely to his family, as on that day both of us had lost so much but had found a unique connection and a sense of common identity in that moment. It was also the least I could do for a man dedicated to a noble profession.

The conflict which escalated that day, took a twenty-six-year toll on the character of the nation and its people. The war maybe over, but it still seems to be lingering amongst and within the communities. To date, working as part of humanitarian emergency responses in complex conflicts in multiple countries, I continue to witness human interest pitting man against man attributing to protracted conflicts and misery.

Then again, I can take my mind back thirty-seven years to Madagal; walk to the beach front and gaze at the sea, staring at the ocean beyond, watching waves lap over the beach shore, its white froth coaxing trying to comfort the golden sand. But then from nowhere, I am interrupted by a bugle call of the Last Post, reminding of fallen men and women, for whom the grieving of those left behind, will never end.

By P.K.Balachandran Courtesy Ceylon Today

The 5 August 2020 Sri Lankan Parliamentary Election are likely to be a one-horse race with the ruling SLPP being streets ahead of its rivals in popular estimation. Nevertheless, the Election campaigns of the various parties have thrown up key issues which will determine what Sri Lanka will be like in the immediate and mid-term future. 

The SLPP’s unassailable position is partly because of the splintered opposition and partly because of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s success in containing COVID-19. Given the manifest failure of the previous Yahapalana Government the UNP led by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the SJB, led by the former Housing Minister Sajith Premadasa, is on a weak wicket.

The SLPP is hoping and working for a two-thirds majority to bring about vital and far-reaching constitutional changes. But this is not easy to attain under the present Election system. However, as in 2010, the Government could make for any shortfall by getting opposition MPs to crossover. The on-going poll campaign has thrown up critical issues which could determine Sri Lanka’s future.  

Empowered Executive Presidency    

The SLPP’s predilection for centralisation with a strong Government in Colombo with an elected Executive President at the head is well known. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is spearheading the SLPP’s campaign, is calling for a new constitution without the 19th   Amendment (19A) which curtails the powers of the President and gives significant powers over recruitment, promotion, transfer and dismissal to a number of Independent Commissions. 

For example, the Public Service Commission is vested with the power of appointment, promotion, transfer, disciplinary control and dismissal of public officers, subject to the provisions of the Constitution. 

Since the introduction of the Constitutional Council and the Independent Commission in 2001 by the 17th Amendment, every Government and President has faced obstacles placed by these non-elected bodies. The latest to suffer was President Maithripala Sirisena who could not sack or punish the Inspector General of Police, Pujith Jayasundara, even though the officer had manifestly failed to prevent the Easter Sunday carnage, despite getting accurate intelligence from India. As per 19 A the IGP too cannot appoint, transfer or sack officers even though he has first-hand knowledge of the candidates’ capabilities and performance. 

One of the major grievances against the 19A is that it ties the hands of the Executive President, who is directly elected by the people. It also curtails the powers of the Prime Minister who enjoys majority support in an elected Parliament. Thus the 19A negates the popular mandates of the President and Parliament. 

As the experience of the 2015-2019 Yahapalana Government showed, the 19 A is bundle of confusion and contradictions as regards the powers of the President, the Prime Minister and  parliament with one institution made to over-ride the other.

The SLPP wants the 19A severely amended if not scrapped. There could be a proposal to revive the 18th Amendment (18A) which Mahinda Rajapaksa had inducted in 2010 when he was President. The 18A scrapped the 17th Amendment (17A) of 2001, which had introduced the Constitutional Council and Independent Commissions to curb the powers of the Executive Presidency which was then with Chandrika Kumaratunga. The 18A replaced the Constitutional Council by a Parliamentary Council thus transferring power from a non-elected to an elected body.  

Any SLPP move to abolish or severely curtail 19A will be resisted by the UNP and SJB and also the TNA as they had been its authors. However, as hinted by TNA’s spokesman, M.A. Sumanthiran, these parties might be game for amending some of the dysfunctional aspects of the 19A. It is also said that when it comes to the crunch, the SLPP will get some UNP, SJB and some Muslim MPs to cross over to its side to enable it to get the two thirds majority required for the constitutional amendment.

Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim Issues

The SLPP had won the November 2019 Presidential Election comfortably without the vote of the minority Tamils and Muslims. The party depended primarily on its appeal to the Sinhala-Buddhist majority. This time too, it is banking on the same strategy. After winning the Presidential Election, many expected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to reach out to the Tamils and Muslims for the sake of national unity and efficient governance. But he has kept up the divide in the belief that it will give him a similarly good dividend in the Parliamentary Elections.

Since it was in his interest to go for early Elections, he brushed aside the opposition’s plea that in view of the threat from COVID-19, the polls should be postponed indefinitely and that the dissolved parliament should be resurrected. However, the President’s tough measures to contain COVID-19 using the military helped him contain the virus. Thus the opposition’s charge of militarisation came unstuck. 

As part of the same strategy, the SLPP regime chose to re-investigate the April 21, 2019 serial bombings by Islamic extremists, thus keeping alive the Sinhala-Buddhists’ fears about a violent Islamic resurgence.  Muslim leader Rishad Bathuideen was hauled up before the investigating agencies against the plea of the Election Commission that the probe be postponed until after the Election. Meanwhile the regime refrained from appointing any Muslim to the Cabinet, which, for the first time in the history of post-independence Sri Lanka, does not have a Muslim.

The Tamils’ demand for a federal constitution with maximum devolution for a united Tamil-dominated North and East, has been summarily rejected by the SLPP. In fact, the SLPP proposes to revisit the India-inspired 13th, amendment which created elected provincial council with a modicum of autonomy. SLPP leaders have been saying that powers could be delegated to grassroots level local bodies rather than provincial councils. The utter failure of the TNA to run the Northern Provincial Council meaningfully is cited as an example of the failure of Provincial Council. 

Tamil Revivalism

The SLPP’s outright rejection of their long-standing demands has resulted in the Tamils pitching their demands high. All Tamil parties have made a federal constitution with maximum devolution to a unified North and East as their principal demand. But the Tamil Peoples’ National Alliance (TPNA) led by C.V. Wigneswaran, former Chief Minister of the Northern Province, is demanding a UN-supervised referendum among the Tamils on the kind of solution they want for the ethnic issue. The TPNA’s manifesto also said that it will drag the Lankan Government before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged genocide. The moderate TNA has demanded federalism and a partly international judicial mechanism to adjudicate cases of human rights violations during the war. 

But, none these of demands is acceptable to the ruling SLPP. The SLPP, which is explicitly pro-military, considers the demands anti-national and sacrilegious. The UNP and SJB are for more devolution but only under a unitary constitution. While the Tamil parties insist that foreign intervention is a must to solve the ethnic question, SLPP considers it anti-national. The UNP and SJB are on paper for a mixed Lankan-international judicial system but not in reality as their conduct in power showed. Therefore, there is a Sinhala-Tamil divide on the ethnic issue. 

The Muslims do not demand territorial autonomy but want their communal and religious rights protected. They also seek a place in the political High Table. But the majority Sinhala-Buddhists and the SLPP look upon these demands as a prelude to Islamic exclusivism, separatism and even terrorism, especially after the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019. The Muslims are not voicing their demands stridently but it is no secret that they will not vote for the SLPP. 

It is expected that a post-poll SLPP regime will try to consolidate its Sinhala-Buddhist voter base by primarily servicing the latter’s material, political and ideological needs. 

Ticklish Foreign Policy Issues

There are sharp differences between the SLPP and the opposition on foreign policy. The SLPP is publicly confronting the U.S. and the Western Bloc on land issues in the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact, and the question of alleged war crimes. The incumbent regime is also at odds with India on Indian investments and projects such as the Eastern Terminal in Colombo port and the Trincomalee oil tanks. But the UNP and SJB are for a more accommodative approach on these issues. While the SLPP is undoubtedly pro-China, the others are somewhat wary of Beijing, being basically pro-West. Foreign powers are quietly observing the Election hoping that the winning party will be friendly to them as it settles downs to face the realities of governing a country amidst the comity of nations. 

By Leo Royston Dawson Courtesy Ceylon Today

Can the UNP, UNF and newly-formed SJB, under the leadership of Sajith Premadasa, canvass for Roman Catholic and Christian votes, after causing embarrassment to Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith and the respected Buddhist clergy?

Today, the difference between the present government and the respected politicians and the shameless politicians of the previous government is very clearly evident.

While the leaders and Cabinet Ministers of the present government appreciate the brave decisions taken by Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the shameless politicians of the UNP/UNF and SJB have insulted and caused embarrassment. 

While the entire country as well as the international community greatly appreciated Malcolm Ranjith, the Cardinal appointed for the Asian countries and the Archbishop of Colombo, for the brave decision taken on 21 April inhumane attack, calling on all Sri Lankans to act in a very calm and peaceful manner and avoid any harm done to human beings in the affected areas as well as the whole country. It is highly commendable even as of today and even the highly -respected and honoured Buddhist clergy and the other religious dignitaries of the different congregations do appreciate for his bold, wise vision and decision taken to prevent the country being placed into a major disaster once again.

The Leaders and the Cabinet Ministers of the present government paid a courtesy call on Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith. Here is one of the senior Cabinet Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Labour, Dinesh Gunawardena, who paid a courtesy call on Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith on 11 July 2020, to appreciate him for his brave and courageous decisions to save this country on 21 April 2019, almost a year ago, of a major disaster which could have taken place, and the country would have been placed with a severe ethnic issue as well.

What did the shameless politicians do?

The shameless politicians of the previous regime do during their administration the UNP/UNF and SJB except for causing embarrassments, by insulting Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith as well as embarrassing not only the respected religious dignitaries, but also making a path to create disharmony among each religion. After insulting and causing embarrassment, they are regretting and crying over spilled milk for sympathy from Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith. What a shame?

Do these shameless politicians deserve the franchise votes of the Catholics, Christians and other respected religious dignitaries of this country in the forthcoming General Elections? Surely not. And what is the assurance that these shameless politicians offer to convince the above mentioned religious dignitaries? It is very clear that all peace-loving citizens of this country, immaterial of their religion or nationality, should reject these politicians and send them home honourably and teach them how to respect the religious leaders of this country.

All patriotic citizens of this country will remember and have not forgotten the 21 April 2019 Easter Sunday 8:45 a.m. massacre incident before casting their franchise votes. And now followed with the embarrassing statements made by the recent politicians of the UNP/UNF and now followed by the SJB led by the Premadasa group.

Yes! And why? Did most of the Roman Catholics, Christians and the non- Christians did not cast their votes to the presidential candidate nominated by the UNP/UNF, and knew very well that his defeat was inevitable?

The unwarranted, embarrassing statements and insults being made by their  former  Cabinet Ministers from time to time against the Buddhism of this country and also against Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, causing severe embarrassments did really reject the previous administration during last regime.

The embarrassing statement made by Cabinet Minister Harin Fernando on a political stage and embarrassed Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith will reject the leadership of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya headed by Sajith Premadasa. If Sajith really wants to convince the Roman Catholics, Christians and the non-Christians, he should remove the memberships of all who had contributed to embarrass Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith including Harin Fernando as well. Only then that the above-mentioned congregation will reconsider you ‘Sajith’ as a patriotic leader.

A statement made by former Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe at a political rally in the Gampaha District in the Wattala Electorate on 29 October 2019 evening: Although the UNP/UNF won this electorate with a marginal majority, it was because of the Muslim and Tamil votes and not of the peace-loving Sinhala votes.”

He had stated that there had been many lapses during their Administration and as a result the 21 April 2019 irreparable damage, killing over 400 humans, as well as victims of the incident still lying in their beds was one of their major negligences and lapses, the former Premier shamelessly added. And can this be accepted as well as justified?

Minister Champika Ranawaka made a statement on 2 November 2019 over the electronic Media regarding the ‘Millennium Challenge Corporation Agreement’ and did involve Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, who was totally not aware and innocent. We, as Roman Catholics, Christians and non-Christians are highly disturbed and condemn this ugly, unwarranted statement. These unethical statements will no doubt kill the voter base of your potential candidate Sajith Premadasa.

As per the Media, it is quite evident that from the early part of March 2019, there had been over 97 occasions informed via it that there is a threat to this country by an international terrorist organisation, namely ISIS. However, the previous Administration had completely ignored this warning, which had been advised well in advance. Due to this negligence of the previous Administration, over 300 had lost their lives, mainly in the Catholic churches such as in Negombo, Katuwapitiya St. Sebastian’s Church, Colombo 13, St. Anthony’s Shrine, in Batticaloa, St. Mary’s Church and also at five-star tourist hotels of this country. Even as of today, the present Administration had not been able to ascertain the correct statistical data with regard to the loss of innocent lives. Also, the present Administration is not even aware of the number of disabled, suffering in their homes, bedridden. 

Ignoring aspirations of  Roman Catholics, Christians and others 

The former Administration had failed to consider the aspirations of the Roman Catholics, Christians and the other faithful non-Christians when appointing the Deputy Minister for Christian Affairs and appointed a Buddhist due to the vacancy which arose on the resignation of the then Deputy Minister, Nimal Lanza, being a faithful Roman Catholic from the Gampaha District. Instead, appointed a Buddhist Member of Parliament, Ranjith Aluvihare as the Deputy Minister of Christian Affairs from the Matale District.” The Roman Catholics, Christians and the non-Christians analysed this appointment by the former Prime Minister and were highly disappointed.

Courtesy Adaderana

Colombo Port trade union workers have called of their trade union action with immediate effect.

This was following a successful discussion with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, stated Port Trade Unions.

Trade unions of the Colombo Port, who launched a strike action on the 2nd of July, later called off their strike action following a meeting held with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

During this discussion, held on July 03, a decision was taken to unload the 03 gantry cranes brought down from China, at the Eastern Terminal of the Colombo Port. 

However, 23 trade unions of the Colombo Port resorted to a Satyagraha on the 29th of July, demanding a written affirmation stating that the East Container Terminal (ECT) is still under the purview of SLPA.

They subsequently withdrew from all duties with effect from Friday (31), bringing operations at the port to a standstill.

The protesting port workers also obstructed the port access road near the ‘Hartal Bridge’. 

Subsequently, on Saturday (01), the Police obtained a court order preventing Port workers from obstructing Bloemendhal Port Access road and adjacent roads.

Courtesy Hiru News

Five more arrivals from the UAE, tested positive for COVID- 19,  bringing total infected in Sri Lanka to 2822

Courtesy Hiru News

The first batch of paper produced at the closed Valachchenai Paper Mill was released to the market today.

Accordingly 40 tons of paper was released to the market.

Courtesy Hiru News

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa says that the Hambantota district will be developed as one of ‘Four Multi-dimensional Commercial Cities’ that was expected to be function as International Coordination Centres.

Colombo, Jaffna, and Trincomalee are the other districts expected to be developed as ‘Four Multi-dimensional Commercial Cities’.  The President further said that the government will build a country that can compete in international markets by establishing a “C-shaped economic corridor‟ connecting two main ports and airports while integrating all business zones.

President Rajapaksa made these remarks during his campaign visit to Hambantota district, today (02) in support of the candidates of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna contesting the next Wednesday’s Parliamentary Election.

The President commenced his Hambantota district tour at the public meeting organized by Minister Chamal Rajapaksa near the Tissamaharama Bus Stop.

The President was accorded a grand welcome at the meeting and the public gathered at the venue presented their issues to the President.

Attending a public gathering at the Lunugamvehera Bus Stop premises, the President said that a proper and systematic programme will be implemented to provide permanent solutions for the issue of drinking water and to the issue of wild elephant threat.

The Maha Sangha extended their blessings for the success of President’s initiatives.

The attention of the President was also drawn to the shortages in Hambantota Mahanagapura Maha Vidyalaya and Lunugamvehera Maha Vidyalaya. The people presented their issues such as lack of public transport facilities to several villages to the President and they also requested to provide facilities to purchase fertilizers directly from stores.

A girl child P.G. Pasangi donated a till with her savings to COVID – 19 Fund.

The people gathered at the Public Market premises requested the President to take steps to eradicate the drug menace from the country.

The President also paid his attention to the request made by the people of the area to construct a building for Rideegama Maha Vidyalaya.

A little girl donated a till with her savings to COVID &ndash; 19 Fund.

Courtesy Hiru News

The Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medicine states that steps will be taken to provide motorcycles to public health inspectors who have been deployed to control the corona epidemic.

A statement issued states that the motorcycles will be handed over to the Public Health Inspectorsby the 20th of this month.

Section 4.1 of MCC says all documents & communications are to be in English.Section 6.4 of MCC says the Government Law is to be ‘international law’(not Sri Lankan laws). The Ministry of Finance website says The Attorney General is in the opinion that Agreements are in order and there exists no legal impediment to execute same”– how is it that no one has saw fit to object to the fact that everything is to be in ENGLISHin a country where 90% are not conversant in English or even computer literate or having internet facility to undertake land transactions in English. Are all Sinhalese happy to do all land transactions in English? Are Tamils who objected to Sinhala Only” ready to embrace English Only” and where are all those know-it-alls who claim to have spoken on behalf of minorities against the Sinhala Only but are keeping mum about the English Only? Won’t minorities be impacted by the English Only or do their mouths & arguments function for issues related to Sinhala Only”? The MCC Land Project is to be in ENGLISH raising the constitutional violation of the 2 official languages in Sri Lanka. No one has even objected to MCC Agreement being ONLY in ENGLISH with no translations made available to even Parliament MPs. The MCC is getting away by publishing a 2page factsheet in Sinhala & Tamil without translating the entire MCC Agreement to Sinhala & Tamil. 

Divide & Rule of colonial invaders was to marginalize the majority and uplift the minority. No one complained about the discriminations Sinhalese suffered.

Asia’s 1st English education school was opened in Vaddukoddai in 1823

Half the students at the Colombo Medical College when set up in 1872 were Tamils.

Half the students of the Technical College when set up in 1902 were Tamils.

St. John’s College, Chundikuli and Jaffna College, Vaddukoda (Vatticotta Seminary) were established in 1823. Prestige schools in Colombo, Royal College (1835) and S. Thomas’ College (1851)

In 1938, Tamils held 19.4% of government jobs – disproportionate to the population.

In 1946, two years before independence 33% of the civil service & 40% of the judicial service were Tamils (Chandra Richard de Silva, 1983)

In 1948, after independence 60% government jobs were held by Tamils who were less than 10% of the population

Even by 1956 (8 years after independence), 30% Ceylon Administrative Service, 50% Ceylon Clerical Service, 60% Engineers & Doctors, 40% Armed Forces were held by ONLY Tamils while 31% of students admitted to university were Tamils.

The Soulbury Commission acknowledges Tamils benefitted for over a century from first-rate secondary schools founded and endowed by missionary effort”.

What needs to be noted is that throughout colonial rule it was the ELITE from all the main communities that enjoyed the perks & privileges of colonial rule and none of them were too bothered about the sufferings of their own communities who were poor, uneducated & unlikely to gain proper employment without English. Are we returning to that period after over 70 years of independence”!

The reality was that post-independence leaders of Sri Lanka would not have able to govern the country in English language when 99% of the people were not conversant in English or had English education to secure employment. The reality was that they had to return to the language that the majority was conversant in and that language was Sinhala.

The Official Language Act was in reality to regain the status for the Sinhala language that was illegally taken away by 3 foreign invading forces. Sinhala language and Buddhism enjoyed royalty status prior to 1505 – there is no evidence or historical record of Tamils enjoying official language status at any time before 1505 or during colonial rule. To claim grievance, one must lose what one was enjoying. Thus, the language and religion status was applicable to only the Sinhalese. However, that valid claim was quickly tarred by a well-funded propaganda to claim the official language act was against Tamils & Tamil language which was completely false as the demand was to return the language status that the Sinhalese language enjoyed which was denied to them. When the Official Language Act was enacted in 1956, there was much hue & cry over Sinhala language regaining its lost status after 443 years of occupation. Tamils went so far as to travel to the UK Privy Council to object and filed court cases too. Ultimately a bogus Indo-Lanka Accord in 1987 placed Tamil as an official language.

Ironically the same Prime Minister accused of bringing the ‘Sinhala Only’ Bill was also responsible for uplifting the low caste Tamils via Social Disabilities Act of 1957 enabling them to gain education, which the high caste/class Tamils objected and travelled by ship to plead with UK Privy Council to annul. https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2018/03/02/all-lies-the-1956-sinhala-only-act-is-not-the-root-cause-of-ethnic-tensions-in-sri-lanka

A survey in 2000 discovered only 166 translators in Sri Lanka of which only 44 able to translate from Sinhala to Tamil and only 108 able to translate from Sinhala into English & only 14 were Tamil-English translators(Daily News, 2007a)

With the MCC Land Project we return to the colonial status where ENGLISH is to RULE and Sinhala & Tamil are to have no place. This is a constitutional violation. But no one including the attorney general’s department have objected to this clear constitutional violation. 

Where are the Hooles, the Radhika’s, the Pakiasothy’s, the Nimalika’s, the Viyangoda’s, the Friday Forum, the Jehans – all of the lot bellowing against ‘Sinhala Only” but silent on ‘English Only” of MCC Land Project when 99% of the people are going to be affected by this English Only MCC clause. Will Prof. Rohan Gunaratna also write an article on English Only” ‘destroying peaceful Sri Lanka”? http://www.ft.lk/opinion/Sinhala-Only-Act-destroyed-peaceful-Sri-Lanka–Prof–Rohan-Gunaratna/14-650183Sinhala Only Act destroyed peaceful Sri Lanka: Prof. Rohan Gunaratna

The issue recalls the famous Kodeswaran case against the disadvantage he was facing for an increment because of ‘Sinhala’ https://www.lawnet.gov.lk/1977/12/31/c-kodeeswaran-appellant-and-the-attorney-general-respondent/—- won’t the same scenario apply if Tamils did not know English to read a deed, to transact a deed, to sell a property, to buy a property, to lease a property, to mortgage a property which if MCC is signed will all have to be in English including reading their own records from an English e-land bim saviya registry operated & funded by MCC? Isn’t this the same scenario for Sinhalese who can understand basic English but not English in form and content applicable to legal documents related to their land & property. How many Sinhalese & Tamils have computers or internet to be doing transactions via technology. Can Colombo wake up & take a look around at the villages across the country and see reality.

MCC agreement drafted with the consent of AG will be presented in Parliament

PUBLISHED ON 1ST NOVEMBER 2019

http://www.treasury.gov.lk/article/-/article-viewer-portlet/render/view/mcc-agreement-drafted-with-the-consent-of-ag-will-be-presented-in-parliament

MCC Agreement must be made publicly available in Sinhala & Tamil   

No Agreement can espouse to be rolled out across the country in a language that is not the official language of Sri Lanka.

Shenali D Waduge

H. L. D. Mahindapala

A Singaporean is in disbelief to learn of the number of Americans who lost their jobs to the pandemic. His government, by comparison, subsidized up to 75 percent of citizens’ lost wages. A German woman, who could have been slapped with a hefty fine had she violated social distancing mandates, is astonished to see photos of Florida’s beach parties. A South Korean woman compares her nation’s phone booth testing sites to America’s bungling version. What does a Senegalese man feel when he sees mass graves in the States?”

These two reports highlight the abysmal mismanagement of the pandemic in USA. Sri Lanka, on the contrary, has won plaudits from WHO and leading lights of the international community for the way it has managed the pandemic without letting it run wild.

Why has the pandemic in the world’s greatest power ended in colossal avoidable tragedies? And why has Sri Lanka succeeded in controlling it? What has caused the difference?

Answer: Leadership.

It is the quality of leadership that makes all the difference in a crisis situation. The pandemic has proved that President Donald Trump is not only a danger to humanity but a fraud. It is his quackery and refusal to face the grim and scientific realities that are a threat to American lives and the global economy. The only silver lining is that the rise of the victims of the pandemic has resulted in a commensurate plummeting of Trump’s popularity ratings.

As opposed to this misguided disaster, the leadership of the Rajapaksas, despite all the drawbacks, has risen to meet the great challenges of our times rescuing it from the jaws of defeat. Leadership must be judged by the victories scored at a nation’s most perilous moments. It is the Rajapaksas quality of leadership that made all the difference at Nandikadal. It is the quality of leadership that saved the nation from the brink of being sold out to the combined anti-Sinhala-Buddhist forces on November 19, 2019. It is the determined and dynamic leadership that fought the invisible virus and saved the nation from the pandemic. It is their overwhelming and convincing victories that has forced their detractors to bat on the back foot.

The Rajapaksas’ grip on the nation was demonstrated when the Rajapakses lost to Yahapalanaya in 2015. They lost the polls but bus loads streaming from

all corners of the nation flooded the precincts of Medamulana. The Rajapaksas lost in January but the Mahinda Sulanga” held in Nugegoda in February was packed with the

loyalists flocking to ensure the return of the Rajapaksas. This was a unique political experience for a party that had lost. Though they lost to the organised force of the anti-national front – the minorities, NGOs, alienated civil society, Western agencies, etc., all of which were spearheaded by the symbolic Buddhist icon, Madoluwawe Sobitha Thero — the people never abandoned the Rajapaksas. They never forgot that it was their leadership that paved the way to defeat the invincible” Tamil fascist terror.

On this issue of leadership, the obvious is to compare the response of the electorate to the leadership of the Yahapalanaya. Neither the people nor the party loyalists have shown a similar attachment to the leaders of the discredited Yahapalanaya. It is the failure of the Yahapalanaya leadership that brought the regime right down to rock bottom. They had not left behind any memorable victories for the people to energise their political passions and yearn for their return. Every big move they made boomeranged on them. Whether in foreign policy (Resolution 30/1 betraying the soldiers at Geneva), or whether in making R. Sampanthan the leader of a party with 16 MPs the Leader of the opposition in a House of 225, whether in importing a foreigner from Singapore to rob the nation’s Central Bank, or whether in manipulating the Parliament to change the constitution – a demand to satisfy only the minorities – the Yahapalana regime failed to provide a leadership that could win the nation’s gratitude.

On top of all these, the divided leadership in the Yahapalanaya regime, with the President and the Prime Minister pulling in two different directions, could never have given a united and constructive leadership. After the Yahapalanaya regime hit nadir there was no space to go down any further.  After the fall of the kakistocracy of the Yahapalana manipulators, their successors can only go up. The success of the battle against Coronavid-19 is indicative of the leaders in power to grapple with crises with the least fuss or mess.

Right now, President Gotabaya is in the middle of his fourth war. First ended in Nandikadal. Second, on November 19^th 2019 by saving the nation from the anti-national and alien forces. Third, was in Covid-19 battlefield – and still advancing. Fourth, is the war on underworld drug dealers.  The reports indicate that he is winning that too. Compared to that of President Dutarte’s battle with the underworld to eliminate the drug menace President Gotabaya’s methodology is progressing with a smooth efficiency, using the appropriate dose of force, to apprehend the drug dealers without the shoot-at-sight tactics of Dutarte. The fifth, undoubtedly the most menacing, is coming over the global horizon and it is looming large. It’s, of course, the dark clouds of the economy. That battle will begin in all its complexities and challenges after August 5^th when the new Parliament assembles to define the next phase of our time.

There is another distinguishing factor. President Gotabaya is a result-oriented, hands-on activist determined to make a difference. He does not govern by passing the buck to committees whose findings are never read by the leaders who appoint them. In the meantime, he is waging a war against an obstructive and lethargic bureaucracy. Every failure of the bureaucracy is reflected on the regime wielding power. Refining the bureaucracy to serve the needs of the people particularly in developing countries is a massive task. There are plenty of theories on how to make the bureaucratic Leviathan work but none has worked so meaningfully as President Ranasinghe Premadasa taking the state machinery to the people instead of the people coming to the fat cats, or President Gotabaya going down to the basement to make the system deliver the services to the neglected people.

These are some of the distinguishing characteristics of President Gotabaya’s style of governance. In the main, he has run the state so far almost single-handedly without a Parliament to either back him or oppose him. The coming election will clear this anomaly, one way or another. With a fragmented and disoriented Opposition in total disarray the prediction is that he will win that battle at the polls too. Then he will be well entrenched in power to govern with an iron fist covered in a velvet glove. There is no alternative to it.

The path ahead for President Gotabaya is cut out for him in the economic and political success stories of South East Asia history. Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and even China and Japan tell the same story: success came out of a little bit of dictatorship. Forging consensus with a touch of dictatorship – mark you, only with a touch of dictatorship a la the much-admired Lee Kwan Yew – has proved to be a prime condition for growth and stability. Both go hand in hand.

Sri Lanka right now is positioned at this critical intersection to go down the Singaporean path if it is to achieve success. The time has come for a leader to take the monster by the scruff of its neck and give it a good shake-up. A good example is the unwinnable war” declared by the Tamil leadership at Vadukoddai in May 1976. It ended in May 2009 only because there was a leadership to tackle it head-on. Otherwise we would be still listening to our political pun(k)dits preaching to us on what should be done to appease the monster to end the war.

The inevitability of reinforcing and consolidating the Centre – there is nothing left in the Left, Right or North as an alternative — the anti-national pun(k)dits are reduced to fear-mongering. Not knowing what to do, particularly with the disillusioned electorate rebelling and rejecting their analyses and remedies, they have withdrawn into their intellectual cubicles predicting doom and gloom. Unable to find solid arguments against the most effective Centrist leadership that has produced tangible results they have been reduced to the mean role of doubting Thomases. They are screaming that the dictatorship has come already. However, they are not even sure of that. They end up by saying that time will tell”.

Take just three of them who project themselves as well informed pundits: Prof. Kumar David, Prof. Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan, and my colleague, Sarath de Alwis. The first two are obsessed, as usual, with the yellow robes”. Sarath is obsessed with a yellow jacket” worn by a female canvasser who is pleading the cause of the Sinhala-Buddhists and Catholics.  All three of them are blind to the yellow shawl that covers Modi’s India from the top of Himalayas to the tip end of the Southern coast, or his counterpart in Sri Lanka, C. V. Wigneswaran. Jaffna too is covered in the yellow manufactured, marketed, and distributed by Wigneswaran. They accept the Tamil yellow as a fundamental right of the minority. They are worried only when the  majority uses it. They are agitated only when the Sinhala-Buddhists wear it. Then the yellow to them becomes what a red rag is to a bull. They come charging like wounded bulls in a ring.

In ranting against the lady in a yellow jacket, my friend Sarath seems to be unaware that our women have been doing what the yellow-jacketed canvasser had been doing down the ages wearing not a yellow but a white jacket. What’s the difference in colour if the message is the same? Does toothpaste wrapped in different colours loose its essence, eh Sarath? He concludes, somewhat sorrowfully, saying: And we must live with the lady in the saffron blouse in the video clip and her candidate.” Why is he so upset about the lady in yellow only now? Haven’t we been living with these ladies from the time Mahinda Thero landed at Mihintale, eh Sarath?

But more telling is his admission that there is no alternative to President Gotabaya. In making a rational assessment” he concedes: Gotabaya is a very popular product.

There is a strong conviction amongst a large swathe of the populace that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will take the right call for the country.” He also dismisses the Right-wing of Sajith and the Left-wingers too confirming that there is no alternative to President Gotabaya.

However, in the same breath he moans: I think they (the people) are wrong. That is my opinion. I cannot prove them wrong. Only time will tell.” Even the other two pun(k)dits are in the same boat. They can’t prove that they are right. But they think that the end of the world is about to happen though they are not sure. In the end they conclude with the their refrain: only time will tell.”

They are worried about the militarisation” and the nation heading towards a dictatorship. The two professors are most concerned about the Rajapaksa regime ending in a dictatorship. Take the case of academic Sarvan who has been a consistent Tamil chauvinist pretending to be a defender of human rights when, in his spare time, he has been manufacturing justifications to protect and perpetuate the Tamil fascist de facto state of Prabhakaran. What are his academic credentials worth when he churns out threadbare concoctions like this: At present, Sri Lanka has a democratic, more precisely and honestly, a majoritarian form of government.” Which democracy is not a majoritarian (meaning ethnic) form of government? Is France formed by Occitanians or Corsicans? Is England formed by a majority of Scots and Welsh? Was Barack Obama elected because he was a black or because he was whiter than the whites? Would he have been elected if he like Louis Farrakhan, the Black separatist, demanded a separate state for the blacks?

I will stop with one more quote: Socialism forms links, makes common cause, with workers from other groups, both within and outside the country.” Tut! Tut, Professori! Can you tell us how many links the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia made under Stalin with his fellow Slavs, let alone the workers of the world?  And where are they now?

Prof. Kumar David is an outdated, old fashioned Marxist who comes out with some gems from time to time. However, I am sad to say that from time to time he too falls into the category he has condemned: the Tamil leadership he branded as congenital idiots”. Now he is most concerned about the Rajapaksa state trending, according to him, towards an authoritarian regime. And he cites a string of militarised states that had gone to pot. Like all pun(k)dits pontificating in the commentariat he skips the most relevant example created by the  Tamils: the de facto state of the Tamil Pol Pot.

The most relevant example for comparison should have been a relativistic assessment of the only state created by the Tamils in the post-colonial period with that of the Sinhaltistsa state”, as branded by the Tamil federalists / separatists. The pro-Tamil pun(k)dits avoid that because it negates all their arguments about the Sinhala majoritarian state” which has been a democracy with all its infirmities. The failure of the Tamil federalists / separatists to establish a democratic state, respecting human rights in any form, at least to their own people, condemns the Tamil political culture as an extension of its past subhuman Vellala culture that dominated the peninsula from feudal times. It is not in the nature of traditional history for the Vellala oppressors, suppressors and persecutors to produce benign and compassionate adherents of human rights. Velupillai Prabahakaran belongs to the fascist Vellala culture. He was the first born child  of the Tamil Vellala ideology that was enshrined in the Vadukoddai Resolution.

Prof. Kumar David should know that the Sinhala state” fought the longest barbaric war unleased by the Tamil leadership within a democratic framework (1) providing food and essentials to a rebel-held territory – the only of its kind according to David Feng of UNICEF – and (2) even giving protection to those Tamils persecuted and hunted by the de facto Tamil state. Besides, he should know that it was the Rajapaksas who liberated the Tamils from their Pol Pot. And the whole nation, like any other nation, has the right to celebrate the ending of the curse of a 33-year-old war that leads naturally to stability, peace and democracy which the Tamil state could not provide its own people. Frustrated by the defeat the pro-Tamil pun(k)dits called it triumphalism”. What would Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu and his ilk done if the boot was on the other foot? Would they have gone into mourning and apologising for the crimes they committed to their own people let alone the Muslims and the Sinhalese?

Based on the available evidence the choice for the nation  is between leaders who have proved their worth and those who have failed to deliver peace, stability and progress. The argument that militarisation” would lead to dictatorship deserves another chapter. But the record so far proves that the fascist forces of the Right and the Left that ventured to impose their dictatorial regimes have failed. Rohana Wijeweera, Prabhakaran, Zaharan and the Right-wingers that  that came from the barracks ended in disaster. Democracy is well rooted in the soil. And no mature political leader will ever dare to do what Prabhakaran did to the Tamil people.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

There is a tug of war going on in the north between the Buddhist and non-Buddhists regarding the new Buddhist temples built in the north. Neither side is prepared to give in.

The Tamil Separatist Movement complained loudly that Buddhist temples were being built in the north where there were no Buddhists. There are nine Buddha Viharas being built in Mullaitivu district alone, said Tamil Separatist Movement. A Buddha statue has come up in Sambaltheevu with police protection.  In Kokkilai, Mullaitivu district, a Buddha Vihara is coming up with army support despite a claim to the land by a local Tamil.

Other places in the Northern Province where Buddha viharas are coming up are Omanthai, Semmadu, Kanakarayankulam, Kilinochchi, Mankulam, Paranthan and Pooneryn. A 67 foot Buddha statue is coming up in front of the Nainai Nagabhooshani Amman Hindu temple, complained Tamil Separatist Movement.  The British Tamil Forum launched in 2017, a book titled Proliferation of Buddhist structures in Tamil Homeland-sowing the seeds of disharmony.”

The Tamil Separatist politicians   vehemently objected to the construction of Buddhist temples in the north. Tamil Peoples’ Council, headed by Northern Province Chief Minister C.V.Wigneswaran said, in 2016    that Buddha viharas are sprouting like mushrooms in areas where there are no Buddhists.. In Mullaitivu District, these Buddhist viharas were constructed after the armed conflict ended.

Tamil National Alliance MP P. Raviharan said in 2018 that Buddha statues and temples had been built in areas where there were no Buddhists. There were 131 sites of Buddhist religious worship in the North, of which 67 were in Mullaitivu. . These were ‘unlawful’ as there were no Sinhalese living in those areas. They must be removed immediately.  

In some areas, such as Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, and Point Pedro, the military has built Buddha statues within or in close proximity to Hindu temples. Buddha statues have come up in front of the 2500 year old Thirukoneswara Hindu temple in Trincomalee and the Thiruketheeswaram temple in North West Sri Lanka.

The military’s construction of Buddhist viharas in traditionally Tamil areas with no Buddhist population is a preliminary step to the Sinhala-Buddhist colonization of these areas and a re-assertion of Sinhala Buddhist dominance, said Adaalayam Centre for Policy Research , Jaffna.

Sinhala colonies, Buddhist temples and Buddha statues are being aggressively constructed with military sponsorship with the sole purpose of Sinhala Buddhisation of the North eastern Tamil homeland, said Tamil Peoples Council.

In 2016, after the Yahapalana government came to power, there were numerous demands for the removal of Buddhist temples, statues, and shrines built in the Northern Province, reported the media.     In August 2016 TNA MPs met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and raised concerns about Buddhist temples and statues being built in the area.  The Northern Provincial Council   passed a resolution in 2016 prohibiting the construction of Buddhist temples in the north.   It had no legal standing, said lawyers.

Tensions flared in September 2017 over the President’s proposed attendance at an illegally constructed vihara on the premises of a Hindu temple in Mannar. A local Hindu priest reported that the military destroyed a Hindu temple in order to construct a Buddhist temple, said Adaalayam Centre, Jaffna. While Tamil landowners whose properties were occupied by the Air Force in Keppapilavu were protesting, the military was reportedly seen constructing a Buddhist temple on their occupied land, continued Adaalayam Centre.  

Those in Mullaitivu have forcefully opposed the construction of Buddhist structures in areas with no Buddhist civilians said Adaalayam Centre. Mullaitivu District has witnessed the military’s construction of Buddhist structures on both state and private Tamil lands. Despite a ban on building illegal Buddhist viharas by local authorities in 2015, another temple is being illegally constructed on land that is partially owned by a Tamil living in the Kokkilai region of Mullaitivu District. Security forces arrested this Tamil landowner in 2015 for protesting against the military land grab said Adaalayam Centre.  

The Tamil Peoples’ Council (TPC),  invited people to join a mass protest in Jaffna on September 24, 2016 to demand a stop to the construction of Buddha statues and Buddhist temples in areas in the Northern Province where there are no Buddhists.  C.V.  Wigneswaran issued a statement where he said, stop erecting Buddha statues and Buddhist temples illegally and in places where there are no Buddhists, except in the army camps.  He also objected to putting up Buddha statues and temples illegally on private lands.

Northern Province Governor Reginold Cooray   said in reply that there are only 13 Buddhist temples in the entire Northern Province and that there is nothing wrong in constructing Buddhist temples.

D.M. Swaminathan, Affairs, responding to a complaint that there were attempt to build Buddhist temple and Buddhist statue in Kilinochchi, said that no one will be allowed to remove Buddhist temples or statues in the north. Buddhist monks and devotees had the right to built temples and statues in any part of the Northern Province.  ( Continued)

RT

Russia expects to start mass anti-coronavirus vaccinations, across the country, by October, the country’s health minister has said. Mikhail Murashko added that medical workers and teachers will be given first priority.

Murashko announced on Saturday that clinical trials of a vaccine developed by the Moscow-based Gamalei Institute have been completed and that the health ministry is aiming to begin a public vaccination program in October. Medical personnel and teachers will be the first to receive immunization, he said. Now, the package of documents for the procedure of registration [of the vaccine] is being prepared,” Murashko added.

The Minister also said that another vaccine, developed by Vector, a Novosibirsk-based infectious diseases lab, is undergoing clinical trials. The health ministry is also expecting two more vaccines to be ready soon for start tests on volunteers.

Russia hopes to become the world’s first country to have a Covid-19 vaccine approved. Normally vaccines take years to develop and properly test – but, given the circumstances of the pandemic, many nations and pharmaceutical companies have claimed that a safe product could be made in 18 months or less.

Dr Sarath Obeysekera

I was watching the tv on today and on another day and saw hundreds of port workers planning to stage a strike against a decision of corrupt politicians to sell part of the port. 

They were mercilessly threatening the nation which had been battered by Corona. 

SAGT sale was also marred with corruption similarly  ECT sale too.

But the reason why Port workers are on strike because a private sector taking over management will deprive them of earning illegal money by demanding kickbacks during unloading and releasing cargo. Crane operators forklift operators in the port take bribes. 

Port in Sri Lanka is synonymous with corruption. Except for a few Engineering staff at a higher level almost everyone has been and are corrupt Security service is most corrupted and work hand in hand with customs where most of them are corrupt.

Few chairmen appointed by the ministers in the past were involved in corruption 

Nothing can be done without paying them.

Private sector send applications for annual entry passes to get into port to do business and the security handling the passes harass you and delay issuing passes to get kickbacks.

If you want to do business in the port you need to be ready to pay someone. 

Authorities involved in approving the usage of tugs and other service vessels have to pay underhand to survive. 

The whole country is corrupt and now most important agency which is police narcotic bureau is openly corrupt.

We are a nation of politicians state officers and corporate bosses who are corrupt and it looks like we will never get rid of it. With Corona where bribe-takers had to lie low are now back in business

Only army navy and airforce  may be above board and we should salute them 

Dr Sarath Obeysekera
CEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard
Colombo
Sri Lanka

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

Maj.Gen (Rtd) Vijitha Ravipriya, currently Director General of Sri Lanka Customs elected as the association’s first President

COLOMBO, July 31 (Xinhua): Sri Lanka-China mutual cooperation was emphasized at the inauguration of the country’s first-ever association for Sri Lankan alumni of the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University (PLA NDU) in Colombo on Thursday.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the Chinese National Defence University Alumni Association of Sri Lanka, retired Major General G.Vijitha Ravipriya said the organization would serve as a bridge to connect PLA NDU alumni in Sri Lanka with its alma mater in China, and help continue the centuries-long friendship between the two countries.

China has always extended ready assistance to the Sri Lankan military by way of coordinating more and more armed personnel for military training,” Ravipriya said.

Ravipriya, who will serve as the first president of the organizing committee, made an open call to all PLA NDU graduates to actively engage in the affairs of the association in order to keep abreast of academic developments, mentor younger generations in the armed forces, and take Sri Lanka-China relations to new heights.

Guest of honor at the inauguration ceremony, Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Major General Kamal Gunaratne, said that the founding of the alumni association was a step towards facilitating the historical military bond and bilateral relations between China and Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka-China relations have been growing through mutual trust built on political, economic, cultural, educational and, most importantly, defense diplomacy and cooperation,” Gunaratne said.

He added that the university in Colombo was an internationally reputed seat of education which has shared its knowledge and wisdom with officers from around the world. Sri Lankan alumni of the PLA NDU have excelled in safeguarding the country through times of war, he said.

Meanwhile, the International College of Defense Studies of the NDU PLA, in a letter signed by Major General Xu Hui and Rear Admiral Cao Jianqi, hailed the association as an opportunity to strengthen strategic communication between the two countries and militaries… and make greater contributions to build the community with a shared future of mankind.”

The PLA NDU is a military university based in Beijing and administered by the People’s Liberation Army. It was founded in 1985 and offers training to officers from around the world.

Newsin.asia adds:

Major General (Retired) Vijitha Ravipriya is currently Director General of Sri Lanka Customs.

During his tenure in the army, Gen.Ravipriya held many commands and staff appointments in his Regiment and the Army, including the office of Director General Training at the Army Headquarters, General Officer Commanding, 57 Division (during Eelam War IV), Director Media and office of Military Spokesman, Director Personal Administration, Director Plans and a number of other key appointments in the Army including overseas ones.

He held the position of the Commander Security Forces – Kilinochchi (SF-KLN) as his last appointment, prior to his retirement in early 2020.

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

The decision was taken on July 30, 2020

Colombo, August 1 (newsin.asia): The European Council on July 30 decided to renew the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka, along with 20 other organizations including Babar Khalsa, Hizbul Mujahideen’ and Khalistan Zindabad Force.

Here are the details:

COUNCIL DECISION (CFSP) 2020/1132 of 30 July 2020, updating the list of persons, groups and entities subject to Articles 2, 3 and 4 of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism, and repealing Decision (CFSP) 2020/20

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on European Union, and in particular Article 29 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,

Whereas:

(1) On 27 December 2001, the Council adopted Common Position 2001/931/CFSP (1).

(2) On 13 January 2020, the Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2020/20 (2) updating the list of persons, groups and entities subject to Articles 2, 3 and 4 of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP (‘the list’).

(3) In accordance with Article 1(6) of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP, it is necessary to review at regular intervals the names of persons, groups and entities in the list to ensure that there are grounds for keeping them thereon.

(4) This Decision sets out the result of the review that the Council has carried out in respect of persons, groups and entities to which Articles 2, 3 and 4 of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP apply.

(5) The Council has verified that competent authorities, as referred to in Article 1(4) of Common Position

2001/931/CFSP, have taken decisions with regard to all persons, groups and entities on the list to the effect that they have been involved in terrorist acts within the meaning of Article 1(2) and (3) of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP. The Council has also concluded that the persons, groups and entities to which Articles 2, 3 and 4 of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP apply should continue to be subject to the specific restrictive measures provided for in Common Position 2001/931/CFSP.

(6) The Council has concluded that there are no longer grounds for keeping one person on the list.

(7) The list should be updated accordingly, and Decision (CFSP) 2020/20 should be repealed,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:

Article 1

The list of persons, groups and entities to which Articles 2, 3 and 4 of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP apply is set out in the Annex to this Decision.

Article 2

Decision (CFSP) 2020/20 is hereby repealed.

1) Council Common Position 2001/931/CFSP of 27 December 2001 on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism (OJ L 344, 28.12.2001, p. 93.

2) Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/20 of 13 January 2020 updating the list of persons, groups and entities subject to Articles 2, 3 and 4 of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism, and repealing Decision (CFSP) 2019/1341 (OJ L 8I, 14.1.2020, p. 5).

L 247/18 EN Official Journal of the European Union 31.7.2020

Article 3

This Decision shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Done at Brussels, 30 July 2020.

For the Council

The President

1. ROTH

31.7.2020 EN Official Journal of the European Union L 247/19

ANNEX

LIST OF PERSONS, GROUPS AND ENTITIES REFERRED TO IN ARTICLE 1

1. PERSONS
2. ABDOLLAHI Hamed (a.k.a. Mustafa Abdullahi), born 11.8.1960 in Iran. Passport number: D9004878.
3. AL-NASSER, Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed, born in Al Ihsa (Saudi Arabia), citizen of Saudi Arabia.
4. AL YACOUB, Ibrahim Salih Mohammed, born 16.10.1966 in Tarut (Saudi Arabia), citizen of Saudi Arabia.
5. ARBABSIAR Manssor (a.k.a. Mansour Arbabsiar), born 6.3.1955 or 15.3.1955 in Iran. Iranian and US national, Passport number: C2002515 (Iran); Passport number: 477845448 (USA). National ID number: 07442833, expiry date 15.3.2016 (USA driving licence).
6. ASSADI Assadollah, born 22.12.1971 in Teheran (Iran), Iranian national. Iranian diplomatic passport number: D9016657.
7. BOUYERI, Mohammed (a.k.a. Abu ZUBAIR, a.k.a. SOBIAR, a.k.a. Abu ZOUBAIR), born 8.3.1978 in Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
8. EL HAJJ, Hassan Hassan, born 22.3.1988 in Zaghdraiya, Sidon, Lebanon, Canadian citizen. Passport number: JX446643 (Canada).
9. HASHEMI MOGHADAM Saeid, born 6.8.1962 in Teheran (Iran), Iranian national. Passport number: D9016290, valid until 4.2.2019.
10. IZZ-AL-DIN, Hasan (a.k.a. GARBAYA, Ahmed, a.k.a. SA-ID, a.k.a. SALWWAN, Samir), Lebanon, born 1963 in Lebanon, citizen of Lebanon.
11. MELIAD, Farah, born 5.11.1980 in Sydney (Australia), Australian citizen. Passport number: M2719127 (Australia).
12. MOHAMMED, Khalid Shaikh (a.k.a. ALI, Salem, a.k.a. BIN KHALID, Fahd Bin Adballah, a.k.a. HENIN, Ashraf Refaat Nabith, a.k.a. WADOOD, Khalid Adbul), born 14.4.1965 or 1.3.1964 in Pakistan, passport number 488555
13. ŞANLI, Dalokay (a.k.a. Sinan), born 13.10.1976 in Pülümür (Turkey).
14. SHAHLAI Abdul Reza (a.k.a. Abdol Reza Shala’i, a.k.a. Abd-al Reza Shalai, a.k.a. Abdorreza Shahlai, a.k.a. Abdolreza Shahla’i, a.k.a. Abdul-Reza Shahlaee, a.k.a. Hajj Yusef, a.k.a. Haji Yusif, a.k.a. Hajji Yasir, a.k.a. Hajji Yusif, a.k.a. Yusuf Abu-al-Karkh), born circa 1957 in Iran. Addresses: (1) Kermanshah, Iran, (2) Mehran Military Base, Ilam Province, Iran.
15. SHAKURI Ali Gholam, born circa 1965 in Tehran, Iran.GROUPS AND ENTITIES: 1.Abu Nidal Organisation’ – ‘ANO’ (a.k.a. ‘Fatah Revolutionary Council’, a.k.a. ‘Arab Revolutionary Brigades’, a.k.a. ‘Black September’, a.k.a. ‘Revolutionary Organisation of Socialist Muslims’).

1. ‘Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade’.
2. ‘Al-Aqsa e.V’.
3. ‘Babbar Khalsa’.
4. ‘Communist Party of the Philippines’, including ‘New People’s Army’ – ‘NPA’, Philippines.
5. Directorate for Internal Security of the Iranian Ministry for Intelligence and Security.
6. Gama’a al-Islamiyya’ (a.k.a. ‘Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya’) (‘Islamic Group’ – ‘IG’).
7. ‘İslami Büyük Doğu Akıncılar Cephesi’ – ‘IBDA-C’ (‘Great Islamic Eastern Warriors Front’).
8. ‘Hamas’, including ‘Hamas-Izz al-Din al-Qassem’.
9. ‘Hizballah Military Wing’ (a.k.a. ‘Hezbollah Military Wing’, a.k.a. ‘Hizbullah Military Wing’, a.k.a. ‘Hizbollah Military Wing’, a.k.a. ‘Hezballah Military Wing’, a.k.a. ‘Hisbollah Military Wing’, a.k.a. ‘Hizbu’llah Military Wing’ a.k.a. ‘Hizb Allah Military Wing’, a.k.a. ‘Jihad Council’ (and all units reporting to it, including the External Security Organisation)).

1. ‘Hizbul Mujahideen’ – ‘HM’.
2. ‘Khalistan Zindabad Force’ – ‘KZF’.
3. ‘Kurdistan Workers’ Party’ – ‘PKK’ (a.k.a. ‘KADEK’, a.k.a. ‘KONGRA-GEL’).
4. ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’ – ‘LTTE’.
5. ‘Ejército de Liberación Nacional’ (‘National Liberation Army’).
6. ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad’ – ‘PIJ’.
7. ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’ – ‘PFLP’.
8. ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command’ (a.k.a. ‘PFLP – General Command’).
9. ‘Devrimci Halk Kurtuluș Partisi-Cephesi’ – ‘DHKP/C’ (a.k.a. ‘Devrimci Sol’ (‘Revolutionary Left’), a.k.a. ‘Dev Sol’) (‘Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army/Front/Party’).

1. ‘Sendero Luminoso’ – ‘SL’ (‘Shining Path’).
2. ‘Teyrbazen Azadiya Kurdistan’ – ‘TAK’ (a.k.a. ‘Kurdistan Freedom Falcons’, a.k.a. ‘Kurdistan Freedom Hawks’).

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia

India’s new Defense Advisor in Sri Lanka Capt.Vikas Sood meets Lankan Defense Secretary and Army and Navy Commanders.

Colombo, August 1 (August 1): After observing the health protocols stipulated by the Government of Sri Lanka for diplomats arriving in the country, the new Defense Adviser to the High Commission of India Captain Vikas Sood had interactions with the leadership of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defens and the armed forces in the past week.

Capt. Sood paid courtesy calls on Sri Lanka’s Defense Secretary Maj. Gen. (Retd) Kamal Gunaratne on 28 July; Acting Chief of Defense Staff and Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Lt Gen. Shavendra Silva on 27 July; and the Sri Lanka Navy Vice Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne on 29 July.

During these interactions, marked by traditional cordiality and camaraderie between the armed forces of the two countries, a range of matters of mutual interest in bilateral defense cooperation was discussed. Strong commitment to further strengthen the defense relationship between the two countries was reiterated by participants on both sides.

It was noted that India and Sri Lanka enjoy a strong and growing defense relationship pillared on extensive cooperation in capacity building, such as through training, and other close linkages. More than 50% of all foreign military training slots in India are allocated to Sri Lankan defense personnel. It was observed that commonality of security concerns and challenges as well as the mutual resolve to address them for ensuring peace and security in our shared region guide the bilateral defense ties. Regular high level exchanges and visits, joint training and exercises, ship visits and sports interactions are the key elements of this robust cooperation.

Satisfaction was expressed at several high level exchanges and interactions between the two countries in the field of defense this year, despite the travel restrictions in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic. Besides several delegation level visits, Maj Gen (retired) Kamal Gunaratne along with Lt Gen Shavendra Silva, participated in Def Expo 2020 at Lucknow, India in February 2020.

Gratitude of India for the excellent cooperation by Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Ports Authority in the repatriation of Indian nationals from Sri Lanka in June 2020 when INS Jalashwa undertook a visit to Sri Lanka was conveyed. The smooth conduct of this operation is a testimony to extremely close ties between Indian and Sri Lankan Armed Forces.

It was also noted that in line with the commitment of the leadership of the two countries to cooperate in facing COVID 19 challenges, India had extended essential medical assistance to Sri Lanka in recent months. In this context, it was recalled that the Indian Navy had gifted two transportation pods for transferring COVID 19 patients and four thermal scanners to Sri Lanka Navy. In the context of sharing Sri Lanka’s valuable experience in effectively fighting COVID, the recent participation of Maj Gen HJS Gunawardena, Chief of Staff of Sri Lanka Army in a webinar organised by India for various partner countries including Bangladesh, Thailand and Myanmar to share best practices followed by Sri Lanka was appreciated.

It was noted that the participation of more than 400 personnel from tri-services of Sri Lanka in the celebration of ‘International Day of Yoga’ on 21 June this year at Sri Lanka Army Headquarters is a further testimony to the close professional and cultural affinity between the two countries and their armed forces.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has reiterated that no room will be left for anyone to destroy the historical heritage of the country or to cause damage to places of worship.

A comprehensive programme will be designed in order to preserve the heritage of Wellassa whilst protecting places of worship of all faiths, President Rajapaksa said addressing a public gathering organized by candidate Wimaladasa Galgamaarachchi in Wellawaya, Monaragala on Friday (31), the President’s Media Division (PMD) said.

People at the venue have requested the President to take measures to protect temples of historical value from treasure hunters.

Agriculture in the area could be further enhanced by rehabilitating tanks scattered across the district including Buduruwagala and BathalaAra, they have pointed out.

At the gathering organized by candidate, Padma Udayashantha at Buttalla weekly fair, the President was requested to set up a Presidential Task Force on preserving the historical heritage of UvaWellassa as well.

People commended the decision of the President to establish an investment zone in Monaragala.
President said measures will be taken to commence pumpkin and watermelon based by-products and to promote pepper and orange cultivation.

The President who participated at the public meetings organized by candidate Shasheendra Rajapaksa and candidate Sumedha G. Jayasena at the Monaragala Weekly Fair premises also engaged in a cordial discussion with the people gathered at the venue.

President Rajapaksa responding to the issues faced by the pepper cultivators said that a comprehensive strategy will be implemented to uplift the pepper trade which has collapsed as a result of the re-export of pepper.

The President requested the pubic gathered at the venue to extend their support to form a strong and stable Parliament to accomplish promises in ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’ national Policy Framework successfully.

President Rajapaksa attending the public meeting organized by candidate Kumarasiri Rathnayake at the Dobagahawela Weekly Fair premises promised the people gathered at the venue to implement the Kumbukkan Oya water supply scheme as a solution to the drinking water issue of the area.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has guaranteed that his quest to eradicate poverty will not be abandoned.

Speaking at a public gathering in Badulla today (01), he noted that despite job opportunities for some in the past poor were left behind, the President’s Media Division (PMD) said.

President Rajapaksa assured that he will honour every promise in his policy framework Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour” and following the general election, promising that 150,000 job appointments for underprivileged and graduates will be granted.

In addition, the President also revealed a plan to provide employment for students who had succeeded in Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations following a satisfactory training program.

President made these remarks at Mahaweli playground, Mahiyangana during the election tour in the Badulla district in support of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna candidates in the Wednesday’s general election, the PMD added.

The President has stated that every time a patriotic leader is elected to the highest office in the country, eventually conspirators and extremists would emerge to sabotage his/her policies and vision.

The President meanwhile assured provisions from the annual budget to resolve the shortage of drinking water in several districts.

During my tour across the country in the last 2-3 weeks, one of the major issues I was presented by the people is the scarcity of drinking water. This issue was discussed with the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa as well. Lack of drinking water is an issue which needs immediate attention and plans have been set in motion to address it” President added.

President Rajapaksa made these remarks during his campaign tour of the Badulla district today.

President participated in the public rally organized at the playground in close vicinity to Dowa Rajamaha Vihara, Bandarawela and assured the crowd that he would take steps to resolve issues faced by the people in the Badulla district.

I would implement a proper plan to permanently resolve the elephant intrusions and shortage of water supply for irrigation in the area.” President assured, during another campaign rally. He added that he would take steps to return inherited lands for cultivation purposes. President stated that he would examine each and every issue in order to successfully combat poverty and uplift the lives of the people under a proper strategy.

Courtesy Hiru News

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa alleges a certain group is attempting to create an issue over the Colombo Port with no valid reason.

He stresses that they cannot intimidate him by such acts, says the President’s Media Division.

Courtesy Hiru News

Representatives of the ‘Sinhale’ National Organization visited the Colombo Crimes Division this afternoon to inquire into the progress of previous complaints against Shani Abeysekera.

BY M D P DISSANAYAKE

The current trends in Sri Lanka politics are expected  to change the status of established political parties relegated to distinct defeat whilst some of the minor parties emerging to be a fighting force.

The oldest political party of Sri Lanka, UNP will lose its status as a major party.  Newly formed SJB  will emerge as the second largest political force in Sri Lanka, well short of gaining power in the House, but able to secure the role of the Opposition Leader , a position previously held by the UNP.

The SLFP, which was a main political force in 1956 under Mr Bandaranaike  has virtually been destroyed by Chandrika Kumkaratunga  and Maithreepala Sirisena. It will enter the political wilderness.

The Jathika Nidahas Perramuna, pioneered by Minister Wimal Weeerawansa, is gaining momentum at a faster speed.  As the new Minister of Industries,  Wimal Weerawansa  has become a very close associate of President  and the Prime Minister.  In his current role, he has made an identifiable contribution by resurrecting defunct national  ventures, such as Paper, Ceramics, Tiles, Batik, Handloom etc in a short period. He continues to contribute to the national development agenda by embarking on new concepts, displaying enormous organising skills and the ability to work with mixture of Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims,  As a result of his long term commitment as a nationalist leader,  his political party is likely to emerge ahead of SLFP, JVP and MEP  at this election.

The SLFP,JVP  vote bank  depleted, its leaders will become dead  heroes.

Once again Basil Rajapakse will emerge victorious, as a living testimony for his ability, paving way for future national leadership.