Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have engaged in a 20-minute telephone conversation this morning (23).    

The Indian Premier has commended President Rajapaksa for being a clear thinker and tough decision-maker”, in tackling the threat of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka.

The two leaders have also discussed the pre-COVID situation and where Sri Lanka and India are today, with emphasis on enhancing bilateral cooperation.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has commented on Sri Lanka’s post-Coronavirus economy while emphasizing on IT & technology. He has insisted on Sri Lanka’s expectation of value-added investment from India. 

During the conversation, Prime Minister Modi has assured a road-show in India for Sri Lanka once the current threat eases.

PM Modi has reiterated India’s continuous support its close maritime neighbour in dealing with the pandemic and its economic impact.

The two leaders have agreed to accelerate Indian-assisted development projects in Sri Lanka, and also strengthen investment links.

Had an excellent talk with President @GotabayaR. Sri Lanka is fighting COVID-19 effectively under his leadership. India will continue to support our close maritime neighbour in dealing with the pandemic and its economic impact.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 23, 2020

Individuals are not selected for international positions to go on witch-hunts especially against sovereign countries and elected leaders. The international entity, appointing them are also responsible to see if those they appoint exceed their mandate. International entities cannot simply watch their appointees abuse their portfolio especially against a sovereign country & a UN member state. In so doing, it only shows that the international entities are also party to aiding abetting the bias. Two South Africans, the former UNHRC head and the EU employee paid to look into the welfare of South Africans are both obsessed with Sri Lanka. We would like to know why. The former head of the UNHRC being a Tamil ethnic-origin, should have recused herself from judging Sri Lanka as you cannot be the judge of your own case. As a lawyer, she should have known this. The other, also hailing from South Africa ever since sitting as a Panel Member of the personally commissioned Ban K Moon report, has been virtually 24×7 out to find some fault against Sri Lanka. People elected for international and public roles are not paid to demonize countries and character assassinate the leaders or those they appoint. The UN or the EU cannot brush off their actions without a proper investigation. The GoSL through its foreign ministry must seek action from both the UN and the EU & question their abuse of position. They have no right to abuse their position to demonize Sri Lanka internationally, character assassinate Sri Lanka’s elected leaders and criminalize members of Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces without evidence. 

https://www.facebook.com/yazhkovan.balasuntharam/videos/1190715014601771/

Appearing on a 20 May 2020 with a video message relayed to the world, the former UNHRC head proved and self-exposed her apparent bias. Her comments confirmed all that was said against her and the manner she functioned since 2008 as head of the UNHRC. That she did not table the personally commissioned Ban Ki Moon report (which was not mandated by either UNGA or UNSC) in the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council or the OHCHR but extensively quoted from it both orally and in her written statements confirms her apparent bias. She championed the demand for an investigation that was always one-sided and against Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces extending the investigation beyond the mandated period covering 2002-2009 to 2011 and including aspects that were never part of the conflict as a means to use the UN system to rebuke a sovereign UN member state. Her anger against Sri Lanka & the Armed Forces was such that she has created a precedent – the first time the UN was venturing to investigate a conflict that had concluded. This is likely to impact other weaker UN member states adversely too. 

The legality of the OISL investigation on Sri Lanka based on a personally commissioned report never tabled in UNGA, UNSC or UNHRC for Sri Lanka to officially respond to, must be answered by UN legal team.

Her office was used to embarrass Sri Lanka’s appointees who were former Armed Forces commanders. After listening to her May 2020 message, we can look back and understand the reasons for her bias which was nothing but bordering on revenge for defeating the LTTE. She had no word of sympathy for the many Sinhalese and Muslims killed by LTTE. No wonder she did not visit a single Sinhalese or Muslim when she visited Sri Lanka. Her bias was as open back then as it is now. Listening to her May 2020 speech against all her official and media statements against Sri Lanka since 2008 will showcase her bias. 

How far she has followed due process vis a vis Sri Lanka is further questioned – https://www.spur.asn.au/2018/02/07/has-the-head-of-ohchr-followed-the-due-process-on-sri-lanka/

The other South African is a EU employee paid to look into the welfare of South Africans. She was selected by former UN Secretary General to be on a personally commissioned panel to appraise him of the last 3 months of Sri Lanka’s conflict. The 3 members in their report claimed LTTE the most disciplined and most nationalist of the Tamil militant groups”! The report only said there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths.” But the propaganda twisted it to claim 40,000 were killed. We continue to challenge this as DEAD LTTE cannot be portrayed as GENOCIDE of civilians. Whether civilians or LTTE, no one has yet produced evidence of 40,000 dead. The same report that referred to ‘credible allegations’ was soon drummed as ‘credible evidence’ against Sri Lanka international by media & human rights groups. The level of bias was unbelievable and unacceptable. 

What EU must clarify with the GoSL is on what grounds they are paying the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa to carry out a sub-unit against ONE COUNTRY by the name International Truth & Justice Project-Sri Lanka? ITJP is eternally issuing reports against Sri Lanka. She exposed herself when she began attending regular events of proscribed LTTE fronts who referred to her as ‘our comrade’, she was put on the Advisory Council of another campaign for ‘peace and justice’ signing petitions in 2014 in which pro-LTTE TNA were also signatory.http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/28557. Her reports are always timed to appear before a UN session. She purposely mixes civilians with LTTE terrorists in her selective reports. Her job role needs to also be investigated for no international position can be abused to bring ridicule and denigrate a sovereign nation with baseless lies spread by well-funded propaganda.

Today, all of the organizations that are running anti-Sri Lanka campaigns were all established after the defeat of LTTE and Prabakaran and utilizing 18 May to commemorate genocide” of LTTE on the guise of remembering civilians. Proof of tht is seen in the LTTE paraphernalia adorning all the commemorative functions. All this is nothing but a means to keep alive the international LTTE kitty that generates $400m annual profits and the international illegal/legal networks that generate the income. Drawing high profile international personalities is a safe-net for LTTE fronts to protect their interests using their association as cover. 

If their apparent bias is on account of some form of influence, Sri Lanka deserves an apology after UN & EU investigate their roles. Personal biases cannot dent the good name of a sovereign nation & international relations & diplomacy.

Some of the reports by Sri Lanka

Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Report 2011

http://slembassyusa.org/downloads/LLRC-REPORT.pdf

Paranagama Report 2015

https://parliament.lk/uploads/documents/paperspresented/report-of-paranagama.pdf

Lies Agreed Upon – Part 1

Lies Agreed Upon – Part 2

Lies Agreed Upon – Part 3

Factual Appraisal of the OISL 

4 April 2009 – UN appeals to release civilians  

5 April 2009 – Co-Chairs orders LTTE to release civilians

9 April 2009 – civilians attack LTTE

18 April 2009 – UN calls LTTE to release civilians 

19 April 2009 – Sri Lankan Presidents asks IC to ask LTTE to release civilianshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2B0lSsd0t0

22 April 2009 – more than 100,000 civilians flee LTTEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02PN0cF7W8

13 May 2009 – civilians escaping LTTE, curse LTTE –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H28dZj2CvQY

Shenali D Waduge

Navi Pillay has finally crawled out of the woodwork. On 20 May 2020 the former head of the United Nations Human Rights Council finally showed off her true colours reading out a script which proved beyond doubt her bias ‘remembrance of the Tamil victims of war in Sri Lanka that ended on 18 May 2009’. She has sealed her bias by these lines in completely ignoring the Sinhalese, Muslim and even foreigners who were victims of LTTE. As Head of UNHRC when she prepared herself to seek revenge against Sri Lanka for eliminating a terrorist movement, as an ethnic Tamil herself, it was only ethical for her to recuse herself based on the logic that you cannot be the judge of your own case. However, she proceeded to go beyond her mandate to investigate for the first time a country that had ended a long lasting conflict which even the UN or foreign mediators had failed to achieve. It is now clear that she has violated legal dimensions within the UN apparatus by using the personally commissioned report of the UN Secretary General as the basis for her oral and written statements promulgating an investigation against Sri Lanka’s national army. All of these actions by her have been with bias, revengeful intent, hatred for the Sri Lankan National Army and is a far cry from the justice she was paid to deliver by UN members. Her public statement thus clearly exonerates the Sri Lanka Armed Forces of all crimes falsely framed against them by her abusing her office. It is still not too late for her role as UNHRC head to be investigated and the GoSL must demand the UN do so. A far cry from justice has been her self-exposed bias against Sri Lanka.

She says close to 146,000 Tamils lost their lives during the last 6 decades”(60 years). She never made such a statement as head of UNHRC – from where is she plucking these figures?

She says we honor the Tamil victims”– now we can understand why she did not wish to see a single Sinhala or Tamil victim. It is more than clear now why she did not even acknowledge the details of the 5000 Missing in Action letters sent to her office by families of Sri Lankan soldiers. 

She says we inspire to continue our struggle for justice, freedoms and reparations for their losses” – now all of her statements since 2008 makes sense. There was a joke during her rule that even a dog couldn’t die as she was waiting to pounce and place blame on the Rajapakses! 

She speaks proudly about the UN investigation against Sri Lanka of which her role in framing bogus charges giving OISL coverage beyond the date supposed to be covered was to look for any avenue to frame charges against the Government that destroyed the LTTE and the military commanders that did so. If any perpetrator is to be brought to justice, the UN must tender an apology to Sri Lanka and investigate the abuse of office by Navi Pillay as head of UNHRC. 

She brings up the Presidential Pardon of Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake claiming it to be a ‘cynical move’. She has a right to her biased opinion and a President of a sovereign country does not require to take her permission to give presidential pardons for a case that was politically motivated. It is unfair to put a person in prison for life based on hearsay evidence as was the case with this sergeant. But this was exactly what Pillay was aspiring to do by bringing a bogus witness protection scheme for the OISL granting 20 years anonymity to the ‘witnesses’ that would testify against Sri Lanka’s armed forces. This meant that soldiers accused by her office for war crimes would land up in prison and have to wait 20 years to be told that there was no such real witness or evidence! How many Sunil Ratnayake’s did she plan to throw into prison using this 20 years anonymity hokus pokus?

She says ‘Tamils in Sri Lanka continue to suffer all kinds of prejudices, discriminations and violations of their human rights’ – we challenge her to produce one evidence of where Tamils are constitutionally or legislatively discriminated. We can produce enough of evidence to show what Tamils enjoy. The previous Tamil Governor of Central Bank Sri Lanka ran away looting the country and continues to live a fugitive. The Tamil foreign minister we had was killed by LTTE. 

She says ‘lands stolen by the military has still not been returned’ how many of them actually have original land deeds to demand land? Simply shouting return land is no legal basis to acquiring land sans original ownership.

She says Tamil language excluded from national anthem. The national anthem was always sung in Sinhala. Its constitutionally enshrined. That was illegally changed in 2015. There is no requirement for one country to have 2 national anthems. It should be sung as it has been sung. Singing or not singing it makes no difference to anyone who is a traitor to the nation. 

She says 200 people still in detention. Is she referring to LTTE combatants who refused to be rehabilitated? Why is she speaking on behalf of them? 

So the supposed to be unbiased Pillay has become a crusader for the rights of the Tamils seeking ‘collective action’ for reparations and redress. We can now understand why the OMP was set up and this calls upon the Govt to immediately address the elements inserted into this Act that is attempting to drain Sri Lanka’s tax payers to compensate for LTTE combatants and their families. 

Navi Pillay was appointed head of UNHRC in 2008 at a time when Sri Lanka had just liberated East Sri Lanka of LTTE and was preparing to move northwards. We can now understand her anger at the prospect of LTTE seeing its end. As UNHRC head she was in a position to deter the eventuality.

We can now understand why she visited only North Sri Lanka in 2013 and saw only Tamil victims and not Sinhalese or Muslim victims of LTTE terror. The mahaveer widow she met then was Ananthy Sasitharan the wife of a LTTE senior leader Ezhilan who contested elections from the TNA and the same woman is a co-speaker at the May 2020 function in which Pillay is due to speak. 

We can now understand why she paid scant interest in finding the whereabouts of the 5000 Missing in Action Sri Lankan Soldiers whose families had filed petitions with her office. No official statement was issued by her. She never thought fit to meet one single widow of a missing Sri Lankan soldier.

We can now understand why she was hesitant to denounce LTTE, why her statements had nothing about LTTE abductions of children as child soldiers, why she even went to the length of criticizing GoSL appointments of ground commanders who defeated LTTE – all beyond her mandate.

We now realize why she never wished to stop the 350 plus Eelam Madrasasa” operating across Europe indoctrinating hate against Sinhalese. She never commented on LTTE using cyanide capsules or asking children to commit suicide. She didn’t demand LTTE to release children, to demanded LTTE release children and old people kept as hostages and human shields. She never spoke a word about LTTE killing Tamils nor made any attempt to investigate such. She never applied 3 and 4 Geneva Conventions/Additional protocols against LTTE violations. 

No wonder she didn’t accept how Sri Lanka Armed Forces saved close to 300,000 and accepted surrender of close to 12,000 LTTE combatants if they had been firing at the no fire zone since 21^stJanuary 2009?

No wonder she was annoyed when the GoSL proscribed LTTE fronts in April 2014 under UNSC Resolution 1373 and it is quite hilarious how 11 years later she is attending their very function to commemorate LTTE dead. What an expose this is. 

No wonder she did not chose to weigh how far Sri Lanka had weathered terrorism inspite of peace talks, negotiations and even foreign interventions (India & Norway) all proving failures. No wonder she insisted on an investigation she would oversee. The need to recuse from taking up the issue of Sri Lanka being an ethnic Tamil was raised but UN chose to ignore this. You cannot be the judge of your own case. She as a Tamil was sitting in judgement. How legally fair was this?

While the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon commissioned a 3-member panel to appraise him of the last 3 months of the conflict, this report was not mandated by the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly. It was a personally commissioned report.   

Ban Ki Moon’s personal report was leaked but the UNHRC former Head quoted extensively from this without tabling it in the UNHRC/OHCHR to the UNGA or UNSC. If she believed Sri Lanka had committed wrongs why didn’t she table the report and produce evidence to the UNSC or UNGA? Pillay went on to quote extensively from pro-LTTE sources.   

We have also not forgotten the 2014 incident of the LTTE combatant arrested with signatures on blank UNHRC war crimes submission forms with OHCHR logo being collected by instructions from TNA advisor Sun Master who was associated with the US embassy political affairs officer Mike Erwin. 

Of course we do not doubt there could have been wrong doings – every army has sour grapes, but these are individual cases and there are military tribunals to address the issue but only after producing prima facie evidence. Propaganda cannot charge an entire National Army of war crimes.There cannot be restorative justice for LTTE armed non-state actors and retributive justice for the National Army who was only doing its national duty to defend/safeguard the nation & its citizens.

We can now understand why Pillay made some controversial picks for the OISL investigations – South Sudans’ expelled UN officer was one and the other was accused of accepting bribes by Albanian mafia to deliver Kosovo independence. So did Pillay harbor ideas to turn Sri Lanka into a Kosovo! 

The biased Moon report resulted in the bogus figure of 40,000 dead going viral but even 11 years on no one can yet name the dead. As we have repeatedly said and we are again repeating

·     Prove how many CIVILIANS were killed (prove that they were civilian first)

·     Prove that CIVILIANS were killed by Sri Lanka Army & not by LTTE as the UN & IC had to appeal numerous times to LTTE not to shoot and kill fleeing civilians (so how many fleeing civilians did LTTE kill)

·     Dead LTTE combatants in civilian clothing are not civilians

The LLRC Report declared 22,247 LTTE of which 11,812 were identified with names. The remaining 10,435 LTTE dead had yet to be named in 2011 – but these 10,435 LTTE dead cannot be commemorated as dead civilians by LTTE fronts lighting candles every year and crying their way to fatten the LTTE kitty, as this is a super means of camouflaging their illegal international money making ventures which are now able to entice quite a lot of high profile personalities. 

Without providing answers to these basic questions how dare the UN call Sri Lanka’s National Army as war criminals?

What is this big justice UN is speaking about when funding and lobbying silences all truths and instead drums propaganda of sensationalism, hype and lies? What is more alarming is that the terrorists and their lobbies have infiltrated international offices and are influencing appointed members who should function with impartially. 

Investigate Navi Pillay’s role as Head of UNHRC and remove all bogus charges against Sri Lanka

Shenali D Waduge

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

Re-modeling economic policies of the country may have been the prime accountability of all governments elected to the office since independence in 1948. Although the policymakers soon after the independence, did not publicly state to accomplish the accountability with balanced growth, the focus of policymaking implied to reduce the bias in the society that created a severe class-struggle and contrasts in the country.  It was a challenge to political leaders as well as economic policymakers.

The economic policy before 1956 was giving priority to boost domestic rice production that was not reflecting self-sufficient status, which was not adequate to change the economy giving advantages to the rural people. Although Sri Lanka had the potential to produce the required volume of rice production in the colonial period the economic policy was not fair, despite the potential colonial masters’ aim was to import rice and local politicians were unhappy about such a policy. It reflected in the operation of the state council before independence. Economic historians should identify the historical reasons to align colonial policies to increase rice production by local politicians, and why they were in narrow thinking field when there was a broader field to think about.

The pattern of economic growth and development echoed apparent bias between urban and rural Sri Lanka during the colonial and after the period. Economic policymakers had no broader understanding of the philosophical aims of economic development and social focus of growth perspectives, but the rural community had a feeling that they were brushed aside by the government in the policymaking process. A shadow of Marxist politics walked around the country concerning the policy negligence as a country which based on more than 75% agriculture shouldn’t have opened the way for Marxist politics. 

The weakness of economic policies in the various sectors of the economy appeared since independence and recorded economic dualism, which was a product of policymakers. Before the Western colonial masters, Sri Lanka’s economy was not dualistic and monarchical rule managed balanced growth in the entire country.

When it looked at the pattern of growth from time to time after independence it showed that the government’s preference was to invest more money in urban areas to give economic advantages to rich people, and no government elected since independence has been focusing to radically change the economy except the government elected in 1977.  Although economic or technical dualism was a popular topic of economic students and talked on removing dualism by a balanced growth approach that was ignored by economic policymakers the right medicine for the problem emerged during and after the colonial period.    

The governments elected from 1947 to 1956 attempted to hang in the colonial economic policy concentrating to be engrossed with the colonial masters’ views. The political authority considered the policy focus had to maintain class differences while development thrust was going on, and the economy had adequate food to provide the needs of a small population and the creation of productivity was the disguised issue.

The government of Sr John Kotalawala attempted to modify the colonel economic policy, considering the issues encountered during the Korean War, and expanding the market economic system inserting domestically intended ideas and changes that were conceded appropriate to Sri Lanka and attempted to stimulate the economy by a six-year development program. Although many have no clear understanding of the policy framework of Sr John Kotelawala it had a very good practical economic philosophy based on the market system. When I was reading the Six-Year development plan I had a feeling that it was an attempt to take market policies to regional Sri Lanka. The policy effort was unsuccessful as the government lost the election in 1956.  

The elected government in 1956 endeavored to reverse the economic policy that has been working since the independence, with a giant hope on a system of the central planning type socialist economic system, and the policy focus directed to applying inward-looking strategies, which had been aimed to promote import substitutions and to increase domestic production.  It was a good idea but policymakers did not affiliate to prevent shortages in consumer goods. 

The Ten Development Program was initiated by the government and the program was not active, as there was a conflict of economic ideology and the practical policy of the government, which attempted to nationalizing private investment projects rather than introducing prudent regulations.  It was considered as the best option to overcome the issues emerged from the market economic policy. However, the economic policy of Mr.S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was too aligned to the nationalism, which was appeared to be a popular style in the developing world when the wind of independence was blowing around the colonial countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Although the economic policy initiated in 1978 seemed to be popular and logical in the global environment, policy efforts showed a failure without a policy control mechanism that consisted of a prudent regulatory framework.  The policy authority ignored the essential disciplines, that needed to successfully implementing the market economic policies. The control mechanism in the economic policy process has been wicked from 1978 to 2019 as the political influences in the administration system corrupted policy disciplines.  The attitudes of the public demonstrated the willingness to maintain liberal policies, whether they were successful or not achieving economic targets, but the open economic policies were favorable to continue in the future. However, some people continuously blamed the market economic policies disregarding the benefits gained to the country.

The party politics in the country prevented the changes required to the market policies with a prudent regulatory framework, and the elected governments showed a willingness to maintaining the policy focus without regulation and discipline.  The major reason to continue the policy focus despite the disciplines appeared that the satisfaction of the mentality of consumers, and politically, the market environment has been in a favorable environment for the platform-talks of politicians.     The community enjoyed the window shopping, as the shops were full of imported goods under the liberal economic policies which permitted to import any rubbish without proper quality control. The best example of this situation was that certain popular businessmen in the country imported rubbish from the UK in 2019 despite the opportunity was given to businessmen for the development of export industries.

The liberal economic policies supported creating a new wealthy class and they contributed a massive volume of money to political parties in power.  The liberal system further depreciated the government’s financial disciplines and supported to increase corruption. The good governance promoted in platforms during the 2015 presidential election and the politicians gained power engaged in heavy financial corruption such as Central Bank’s bond scam. The traditional wallow politics have been removed and replaced by new capitalists who have been worse economic managers and investors. Traditional capitalists reluctant to engage in immoral business, but the choice of new capitalists seemed to pursue immoral business to destroy the young generation to make quick profits.  

Liberal economic policies showed a massive change in society at the cost of economic disciplines. The major weakness of the system was neglecting a balanced growth between rural and urban areas and a heavy concentration on concrete jungles as the new class emerged after 1978 falsely believed that high rise building reflects the development and growth.  They disregarded the environment and potential opportunities in the environment.

What are the real criteria to determine the upliftment and quality of life of people?  Many economists contributed contradictory views the universally accepted view is the eradication of bias of living conditions of people.  Developing new economic policies Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka needs to concentrate this idea and re-modeling the developing environment with a bunch of anticipated achievements related to each criterion.   

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

Since 1978 economic policies have been accomplished to satisfy the attitudes or thinking patterns of common people, however, the idea of enhancing the production, and the productivity went out of the minds of policymakers, because of the politics of the country reluctance to show or hear about the shortage of goods and services in the market which reflected the success of a political party that is in power. They did not concern the macroeconomic problems such as terms trade, budget gap, the balance of payment adjustment process, population, unemployment, and many others and they were not problems that understood by voters.   In that environment, economic policymakers’ antipathetic on policy advice for macroeconomic problems, and microeconomic reforms in public enterprises except privatizing handful of government corporations.  Economic policy advisers had a responsibility to push the political authority to promote production-oriented economic policies. The economic environment developing with the COVID 19 pandemic has pressed policymakers to turn for production-oriented economic policies.

The production has a positive relationship with the imports and exports, which contribute to the volume of foreign reserves thereby to the strengthening of Sri Lanka’s rupee. The production would answer to many macroeconomic problems and why policy advisors so reluctant to do the job is a question.

There were many issues in the country after 1978 such as social, cultural, constitutional, religious, and ethnic issues in addition to economic concerns, and the grave issue of LTTE war was reasonably tackled before 2010, and the radical change of economic policy focusing on production-oriented economy ignored scaring to modernization. I have an unanswerable question that what is meant by modernization in Sri Lanka.  When it looks at the history of Japan it clear that modernization had been a long process since the Tokugawa period and modernization was a meaningful process to change attitudes towards the economic, social, cultural, and religious development of Japan.

Do people of Sri Lanka understand the connotation of modernization? My feeling is that modernization has been misunderstood and changing clothing styles and wearing half-naked dresses and singing songs, which based on the copied body. The Meiji restoration in Japan gives a message to the world that modernization is an achievement in all sectors of the economy by great sacrifice and gaining strength to change policies in all areas to generate dynamism. 

Information technology-related products manured invented after the cold war changed the attitudes of people especially by personal computers, mobile phones, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, the broadband Internet, and many others. However, innovations of technology have contributed nether to rapid structural change nor to reduce economic inequalities but to accumulate wealth to a few owners of modern technology and speculators of the world.

The pandemic of COVID 19 caused by a micro virus that has changed the attitudes of economic policy-makers around the world. The sources of economic strengths in the world such as invisible exports, share market, share brokering and many other areas have been degraded by a micro virus, which forces economists as well as politicians to rethink policy priories.  However, the policy priority for increasing production has not been dismantled or being able to dismantle by the micro virus and the pandemic strengthens the production-based economic policies.

Billionaires emerged from paper profits, short-selling in the stock market, tactics of forward-exchange contracts in the off-balance-sheet process were given heavy losses by the micro virus. Many countries in the world attempt to safeguard new billionaires by helicopter money and creating artificial demand in the market rather than developing economic policies to give justice to the poor. Rich countries and wealthy people are observing sudden changes in the economy with a shaking heart and expecting a surprise uplift disregarding a justice to poor. While the new situation is going on a new trade conflict between China and Australia mixing international politics and domestic production.  China has imposed an 80% tariff on barley imports.  Australia aligned to Asia after the UK joined with the European Union in 1972 under the Callahan government. The Chinese policy may be expanded further to other exports such as meat and other products.  

The high-income countries, as well as low-income nations, have poured a large sum of helicopter monies to economies and economic historian Robert Skidelsky has stated that the world could face a unique inflationary depression as it emerges from lockdown with government spending”.  This idea is relevant to Sri Lanka too as the country distributed helicopter money, which included Rs. 10000 grants that have been funded by printing money, bank loans, foreign aids, and loans.

Before elected to the office, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa stated his willingness to change the economic policies and he reiterated the idea during the past few months.  People of Sri Lanka need to understand that the economic development process is gradual and there are fundamental issues that work against the smooth development of the country. 

The monetary unit has dramatically depreciated influencing to increase inflation and the helicopter of money of the COVID 19 pandemic, further creates pressure to increase inflation.  This situation could be managed only if the economic policy focuses on a strong production-based economy. Like other countries, Sri Lanka after the economic recession in the early 1990s turned to service industries and to continue invisible exports, and both areas have been hard hit by the COVID 19 pandemic.  Resurrecting both areas of the economy will take time, sometimes, it will be a decade long job. The economic revival should be based on strategic change in the rate of contribution to the entire economy from various sectors to the economy.

After the cold war, the nature of economic engagement seemed that people pursued quickly money-generating business and invisible exports such as tourism, foreign employment were attractive area and the weakness of the trend was that the traditional contributing area such as production-related business as farming, small business, production industries has been neglected and the priority of changing economic policies should be increased in the change of contribution ratio from various sectors of the economy.  For example, the plantation and subsistence agriculture has been contributing to the aggregate economy by about 30% and the situation changed by replacing service areas and neglected the plantation and subsistence agriculture.  If the economic policy focuses while maintaining the plantation and subsistence agriculture level and new service areas promoted, the economy would have stronger with an ability to absorb sock from either internal or external sources. If policy-makers critically exam the Japanese economic history it would be clear that while safeguarding the contribution of traditional agriculture and industries to the economy, the policy-process allowed modernization through high technology industries. Sri Lanka’s situation has been new areas opened to the contribution; the traditional area was ignored by policymakers.       

Education needs radically changing to skill-based education and training with quality and practical approaches.  Import substitution would not be successful if the product quality doesn’t maintain.  In this area, Sri Lanka needs strong cooperation with China.

Developing new economic policies, the government needs to consider the following points.

• The government’s budget burden should be reduced by attracting the private sector’s contribution to investment. Since the beginning of the presidential election campaign, PODUJANA PERAMUNA stated that public assets will not be sold to foreigners. It is a good policy, but there is no harm attracting capital of Sri Lankans to government enterprises.  The attracting capital of Sri Lankan citizens is not selling assets to foreigners.
• The government budget policy needs for a balanced budget without begging credits from foreign countries.
• Import substitution policy should be expanded to an export orientation by excess production.
• The government policymakers have no clear inter-industrial plan or input-output plan, the president should advise economic policymakers to prepare an inter-industrial plan for ten years and the plan should be monitored with remedial strategies to correct the policy process.
• The payments for employees should be based on productivity and the payment for employees in various industries must be equal with foreign employees in developed countries, there may be a 10% difference.
• The current per capital saving should increase to 20% of earning including super savings.
• The president of Sri Lanka needs to appoint a presidential task force to re-model economic policies and the taskforce should gain views from various sectors of the economy and potential issues of various policies need to understand carefully listening to different people.
• There may be doctorate holders who obtained the degree withing a thesis and few papers, but remodeling the economy cannot be done by such people.  Re-modeling the economy needs broader experience and the ability to accurately forecast the results of policy actions.

Chandrasena Pandithage

In Sri Lanka, the most powerful unit called “people of Sri Lanka”. Nobody has a right to stand above them. That is a law,

Country’s decision-makers are them, not anyone else. Presidents, Prime ministers, Parliament, or Court’s duty is to work for them. Presidential elections. Parliament elections and referendums are very important to take people’s participation in this mechanism.

It’s very understandable about people’s power and the value of their participation in the mechanism often. Nobody has the power to impose a restriction on elections or referendums. All those terms were in President J. R. Jayawardhana presented the constitution. In that constitution show the President’s power. Nobody has the power to change it without people’s consent. To get people’s consent, it must hold a referendum. This is the law,  

President’s power remains as earlier, nobody challenges this till get people’s consent through a referendum for 19 amendments.

People of Sri Lanka gave power to President Gotabhaya Rajapaksha with the executive power to rule the country, and no one has a right to challenge his executive power. Now people need a parliament election. We expect a parliament election urgently. We do not expect any baseless arguments to delay the election from Election Commissioner. Your duty is not to look at Covid19 to delay Elections, make a programme for the general election. This is not a time to play political games.

Dr Sarath Obeysekera 

Elevated highway: Govt. accepts unsolicited proposal from Chinese company

By Namini Wijedasa

The Government has accepted an unsolicited proposal from China Harbour Engineering Company (Ltd) for the elevated expressway from Athurugiriya to New Kelani Bridge via Rajagiriya — a project for which bid documents had already been finalised to call an open tender.

The CHEC bid was directed via the Board of Investment (BOI) and discussions are underway, the Highways Ministry Secretary has told media. However, a three-volume Request for Proposals comprising at least 300 pages each was earlier drawn up with the aim of attracting prospective bidders on a level playing field.

Note 

Hook or crook government should move on and implement projects to generate employment and material sales WTC for the benefit of the country

It is high time we forget the bureaucracy and try to find funds to continue to build  the infrastructure in the country

Dr. Sarath Obeysekera
CEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard
Colombo
Sri Lanka

නීතිඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන B.Sc(Col), PGDC(Col)

1.)  ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 70වන ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංශෝධනය කරමින්, වසරකට පසු පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට තිබූ බලය ඉවත් කිරීමට 19වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධන පනත් කෙටුම්පත මුල් වරට වර්ෂ 2002 දීපාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබූණි.

2)  එකී 2002 ඉදිරිපත් කළ පනත් කෙටුම්පත සම්බන්ධයෙන් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ විනිසුරුවරු 7දෙනෙක් ඒකමතිකව “තීරණයක්”

(Determination)  ලබා දෙමින්, එකී සංශෝධනය එනම් ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 70වන ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංශෝධනය කරමින්, වසරකට පසු පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට තිබූ බලය ඉවත් කිරීමට අවශ්‍යනම්, ඒ සදහා ජනමතවිචාරණයක් මගින් ජනතාවගේ අනුමැතිය ලබා ගත යුතු බව දක්වා තිබුණි.

එකී තීරණයේ අවසන් ඡේද මෙසේය,

(3)    The  inconsistency  with  Article  3  read  with  the  relevantprovisions  of  Article  4  would  cease  if  clauses  2,  3,  4  and5 are deleted and substituted with an appropriate amendmentto proviso  (a)  to Article 70 (1) of the Constitution by removingthe  period  of  one  year  in  the  proviso  and  substituting  thatwith  a  period  not  exceeding  three  years.

SARATH  N.  SILVA,  CJ.

S.  W.  B.  WADUGODAPITIYA,  J.

DR.  SHIRANI  A.  BANDARANAYAKE,  J.

A.  ISMAIL,  J.

P.  EDUSSURIYA,  J.

H.  S.  YAPA,  J.

J.  A.  N.  DE  SILVA,  J.

Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution unconstitutional and requiresto  be passed by  the  special majority and approved by the  peopleat a  referendum  subject  to  item  3  of the  determination.)

3. එකී 2002 ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණය අධිකරණ අමාත්‍යාංශය පවත්වාගෙන යන www.lawnet.gov.lk වෙබ් අඩවියේ පහත සැබැදිය මගින් දක්වා ඇත.

(මේ ලියුම්කරු විසින් එකී ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණය ඉදිරියේදී සිංහල භාෂාවෙන් ලබා දීමට ක්‍රියා කරනු ඇත.)

4. 2002 දී පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත්කර තිබූ 19වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධන පනත් කෙටුම්පත සදහා ජනමතවිචාරණයක් මගින් ජනතාවගේ අනුමැතිය ලබා ගත යුතු බව ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් දක්වා තිබූ හෙයින් එකී 19යේ කටයුතු ඒ අවස්ථාවේදී නතර විය.

5. නැවත 2015දී ද ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 70වන ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංශෝධනය කරමින්, වසරකට පසු පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට තිබූ බලය ඉවත් කිරීම සහ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ තවත් විධිවිධාන 16 ක්  සංශෝධනය කිරීම සදහා 19වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධන පනත් කෙටුම්පත 2වන වරටත් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත් කර තිබුණි.

( 2002 ගෙනා වසරකට පසු පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට තිබූ බලය ඉවත් කිරීමේ  විධිවිධානය සහ තවත් අලුත් විධිවිධාන 16ක් එනම් එකතුව 17ක්)

6. එකී 2වන වරටත් පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට ඉදිරිපත්කර තිබූ 19වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා  සංශෝධන පනත් කෙටුම්පතේ විධිවිධාන 17න් 16ක් සදහා ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ විනිසුරුවරු 3දෙනෙකු විසින් 2015 දී ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණය ලබා දී තිබුණි.

7.). එකී 2015 ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණය පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ www.parliament.lk වෙබ් අඩවියේ පහත සැබැදිය මගින් දක්වා ඇත.

(මේ ලියුම්කරු විසින් එකී ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ තීරණය ඉදිරියේදී සිංහල භාෂාවෙන් ලබා දීමට ක්‍රියා කරනු ඇත.)

8.) වර්ෂ 2002 දී ඉදිරිපත් කළ 19යේ තිබූ ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 70වන ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංශෝධනය කරමින්, වසරකට පසු පාර්ලිමේන්තුව විසුරුවීමට ජනාධිපතිවරයාට තිබූ බලය ඉවත් කිරීමට අදාල විධිවිධානය සම්බන්ධයෙන් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරයේ විනිසුරුවරු 7දෙනෙක් තීරණයක් ලබා දී තිබූ හෙයින් ඒ විධිවිධානය හැර අනෙක් ව්ධිවිධාන 16 සම්බන්ධයෙන් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය 2015දී තීරණය කර ඇත.

9.) වර්ෂ 2002 දී සහ වර්ෂ 2015 දී  ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් 19වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධන පනත් කෙටුම්පතට ලබා දුන් තීරණ 2කම (විධිවිධාන 17ම) සළකාබලා ක්‍රියා කිරීම නීතිමය ලෙස අවශ්‍ය වුවත්, ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 79 ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ අවසන් විධානයත්, 80.2 ව්‍යවස්ථාවත්, 2002 ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයේ තීරණයත් උල්ලංඝනය කරමින් 2015 පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ සිටි කථානායකවරයා ක්‍රියා කර ඇත.

10.) ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාවේ 70 ව්‍යවස්ථාව සංශෝධනය කිරීමේදී ජනමතය විමසීමට ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් නියම කළ විධානය කථානායකවරයා විසින් උල්ලංඝනය කිරීමෙන් ජනාධිපතිවරයාගේ, ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ විනිසුරුවරුන්, අනෙකුත් සියලු විනිසුරුවරුන්, නීතිඥවරුන්, විශ්ව විද්‍යාල කථිකාචාර්යවරුන්, ගුරුවරුන්, රජයේ සේවකයන්, මාධ්‍යවේදීන් ඇතුලු ඡන්ද බලය හිමි සෑම පුරවැසියෙකුගේම ඡන්ද බලය අහිමි කර ඇත.

11.) ජනතාවගේ ජනමතවිචාරණ ඡන්ද අයිතිය ආරක්ෂා කරමින් 2002දී ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් ලබා දුන් ඒකමතික තීරණයට පටහැණිව 2015 දී පාර්ලිමේන්තුවේ කථානායකවරයා ක්‍රියා කර

ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් ජනතාවට ලබා දුන් ජනමතවිචාරණ ඡන්ද බලය අහිමි කිරීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් විධායකය සහ අධිකරණය නිහඩ පිළිවෙතක් අනුගමනය කිරීම ජනතාවගේ පරමාධිපත්‍යයට අයත් ඡන්ද අයිතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක කරන ආකාරය පිළිබද බලවත් සැකයක් ඇති කරයි.

12.) වර්ෂ 2002 දී 19යේ දී ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණය විසින් ජනතාවට ලබාදුන් ජනමතවිචාරණ ඡන්ද බලය ඉංග්‍රීසි කුමන්ත්‍රණයකින් 2015 දී අහිමි කළ (මහා) ප්‍රජාතන්ත්‍රවාදියෝ යැයි කියන අය කවුද? ඒ ඇයි.?

(2020.05.17)

නීතිඥ අරුණ ලක්සිරි උණවටුන B.Sc(Col), PGDC(Col)

විද්‍යුත් තැපැල් arunaunawatuna@gmail.com

Mahinda Gunasekera 84 Tambrook Drive Agincourt, Ontario M1W 3L9 Canada

Mayor Bonnie Crombie
Mayor of the City of Mississauga

Dear Mayor Bonnie Crombie,

Your statement delivered on the day referred to as Tamil Memorial Day
<https://www.facebook.com/TamilEelamMay18/videos/201602127308030/> _

I received a video statement made by you at the City Council carried in the Facebook of an organization named Tamil Eelam on a day referred to as Tamil Memorial Day.  The substance of your statement is totally fallacious as it is obvious that you as the Mayor of the City of Mississauga has failed to previously verify the information apparently given to you by the “Tamil Eelam” group which you repeated in public, to the effect that hundreds of thousands of Tamils had been killed in Sri Lanka in their fight for human rights which you called a ‘genocide’ of the Tamil people.

Let me try to educate you on the actual facts relating to the extremist Tamil forces led by the internationally designated terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) banned by the UN Security Council and 32 countries including Canada, USA. UK, EU, India, Malaysia, etc., ought to establish a separate state for a period of 37 years from 1972 by force of arms.

The LTTE having extorted large sums of money from Tamil ex-pats and businesses (refer HRW report dated March 14, 2006) launched their so-called ‘final war of liberation’ in the latter part of 2005, and thereafter proceeded to cut off drinking and irrigation water to 30,000 farming families in July 2006 by forcibly shutting off the sluice gates at Mavilaru (Mahavila) causing the Sri Lanka government to respond militarily after holding off action for 12 days hoping for a peaceful resolution of the matter. It was a war thrust on the Government of Sri Lanka which they successfully ended on May 19, 2009, having militarily defeated the Tamil terrorist forces which refused to surrender despite two offers being made to them.  Along with the defeat of the terrorist forces, the Sri Lankan authorities were able to rescue nearly 300,000 internally displaced Tamils (including 12,000 fighters) that had been forced to accompany the retreating LTTE forces from the west coast of the island to their strongholds on the northeast coast.  These people were exploited for their labour, conscripted to replace fallen cadre and made to serve as a human shield for the tiger fighters in the final battle zone.

Regarding the civilian casualties in the final stages from January 1 to May 19, 2009, there is a wide gap between your numbers and actual losses verified by the UN Resident Representative’s  Office, and the census carried out by the Sri Lankan Government using Tamil teachers and Tamil public servants as enumerators the details of which are noted.

*The number of genuine civilians killed is unknown as none of the published figures

*distinguish between combatants, LTTE Auxiliary Forces, and genuine non-combatant civilians

*as half the LTTE fighters engaged in battle in civilian attire blurring the distinction between combatants and civilians.

The UN Resident Representatives office in Colombo reported
that a total of 7,721 were killed between the end of August 2008 and May 13, 2009, based on information gathered from selected sources on the ground including the lower rung Tamil employees of UN Agencies whom the LTTE refused to release. Amnesty claimed a total of 10,000 being killed, the UK Sunday Times reporter who only overflew the last battleground when he accompanied the UNSG Ban ki-Moon on his inspection tour on May 25, 2009, reported that 20,000 had been killed in the last stages.

UNSG’s so-called Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka sitting in New York estimated tens of thousands of persons being killed estimated at 40,000, the same number reported on by the Int’l Crisis Group.

Furthermore, they had based their conclusions mainly from one-sided information provided to them by pro-LTTE elements, which material they recommended be locked away for a period of 20 years till the year 2031.

Pro-LTTE reporter Frances Harrison is still counting the dead, having estimated that 70,000 to 140,000 may have been killed. Yasmin Sooka who was appointed by Ban ki-Moon as one of the three members of the Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka who attends all the propaganda meetings of LTTE groups is on the same page as Frances Harrison claiming over 110,000 persons being killed. All of these guesstimates are numbers pulled out from thin air and have been made from outside Sri Lanka without any basis to justify such conclusions.

In 2012, the Sri Lankan authorities carried out a census among the residents of the north and east to determine the number of persons who had been killed in the final stages using Tamil school teachers and Tamil public servants as enumerators and arrived at a figure of 7,432 excluding those who had died of natural causes. Strangely, on adding up the monthly number of such casualties reported in the propaganda arm of the LTTE, namely the Tamilnet, the total killed for the period January 1, 2009, to May 19, 2009, was only 7,398, a number less than that accounted for in the census carried by the Sri Lankan government.

Another interesting statistic is the total number of injured persons among the Tamil IDPs according to the ICRC responsible for ferrying them by land and sea for medical attention was 18,439 which is lower than the 40,000 supposedly killed during the last stages. Normally, the wounded WIA)is between 2-3 times the number killed per world statistics, which means that the number injured should have been 80,000 – 120,000.

The Sri Lankan forces abandoned air attacks and use of Artillery/MBRL in the latter part to prevent harm to the civilian population, while they faced a continuous barrage of artillery and mortar fire from the LTTE resulting in the loss of around 2,500 soldiers and a further 5,000 or more becoming injured. The LTTE too would have lost at least an equal number of combatants due to the intensive battles at the end stages. If one takes out 2,500 from the UN number of 7,721, one is left with 5,221. Of this number, several hundred were killed by the LTTE which ordered their cadres to fire on escaping civilians, and even unleashed suicide bombers and artillery fire on the escaping civilians who earlier formed a human shield. Some others killed would have been members of the LTTE’s Auxiliary Forces that supplied ammo, removed injured and dead fighters from the battlefront, or were engaged in digging trenches or building defensive berms for the LTTE, and yet others from the Makkal Padai, their civilian fighters. Once you adjust for the LTTE’s own killings, auxiliary forces personnel and Makkal Padai forces that were killed in battle, you will be able to ascertain the number of genuine civilians who were killed in the crossfire and ongoing battles which is far below the collateral damage observed in other theatres of armed warfare. You also referred to the situation which prevailed in Sri Lanka as genocide of Tamils citing highly exaggerated and bogus numbers of civilian casualties which we vehemently dispute. They were fighting not for human rights as you stated but to break up the unitary state of Sri Lanka and to set up a mono-ethnic, racist state of Tamil Eelam leading to continued hostilities in that country.

Yours sincerely,

Mahinda Gunasekera

Courtesy The Guardian

Sri Lanka has lifted a ban on wedding receptions as part of an easing of coronavirus restrictions, but grooms may not kiss the bride – at least not in public.

Wealthy Sri Lankans usually hold wedding celebrations with thousands of guests, and the festivities often last for days with much eating, drinking, dancing and singing.

Under the new guidelines there should be no more than 100 guests, all of whom must stay a metre apart and wear masks, including the happy couple.

Guests should not be allowed to kiss, hug or shake hands,” the latest health ministry rules say. Greeting each other should be done without any touching.”

Sri Lanka imposed a nationwide curfew on 20 March that ruled out gatherings of any sort, but the restrictions have been eased in many districts that are not considered high-risk.

Religious gatherings remain banned, and only the bereaved family are allowed at funerals.

The capital, Colombo, and the neighbouring district of Gampaha, where the main international airport is located, are still under a 24-hour curfew that entered its third month on Wednesday.

Offices have been allowed to open with reduced staff to provide essential services.

Sri Lanka has reported 1,055 coronavirus infections with nine deaths since the first case in the country was identified on 27 January.

Courtesy Adaderana

Nine more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 as of 10.00 pm on Friday (22), says the Ministry of Health.

Accordingly, a total of 13 new positive cases of coronavirus have been confirmed so far within the day. Four naval personnel tested positive for the virus earlier today.

Sri Lanka’s total count of coronavirus infections thereby reached 1,068.

Meanwhile, 620 of these coronavirus patients have made complete recoveries so far.

According to the tally of Epidemiology Unit, 439 active cases are under medical care at IDH, Welikanda Base Hospital, Navy Hospital, Colombo East Base Hospital, Iranawila Hospital, Kattankudy Base Hospital, Homagama Base Hospital and Minuwangoda Base Hospital.

The country’s death toll due to coronavirus currently stands at 09.

Courtesy Adaderana

The Director General of Health Services Dr. Anil Jasinghe has sent a letter to the President’s Secretary, stating that he sees no impediment to holding elections in the country, President’s Counsel Romesh De Silva told the Supreme Court on Friday (22).

These developments came, when multiple Fundamental Rights petitions, filed challenging the President’s gazette dissolving parliament and the date for the General Election set by the Election Commission were taken up for the fifth consecutive day.

At the commencement of the court proceedings, the President’s Counsel, appearing on behalf of the President’s Secretary, had submitted a letter sent by the Director General of Health.

He told the court that the Director General of Health Services has given written notification to the President’s Secretary informing him that the election process can move forward hygienically, as ascertained via tests conducted by the health authorities across the island.

He further emphasized that Director General of Health Services has made evident via his letter that it is appropriate to gazette the relevant health regulations under the Quarantine and Prevention of Disease Ordinance as a plan of the long-term disease prevention plan.

Director General of Health Services, in his letter, has mentioned that guidance can be provided to the Election Commission on taking the election process forward, upon request.

The Director General of Health Services has noted that he sees no impediment to holding the General Election, the President’s Counsel went on to say.

Given that is the case, he questioned as to which factions the Election Commission is still expecting a green light from. He also noted that despite the court not ordering the suspension of the election-related activities of the Commission until the petitions are heard, the Election Commission has in fact stopped all such activities.

In the meantime, Additional Solicitor General Indika Demuni De Silva has made submissions on behalf of the Attorney General and the Director General of Health Services.

She told the court that the Attorney General will be filing preliminary objections pertaining to all the FR petitions.

As such, she requested from the Supreme Court to dismiss the petitions without taking them up for hearing.

Filing the first preliminary objection, the Additional Solicitor General said all the petitioners have come before the court, after the time period of a month illustrated in Article 126(2) of the Constitution had elapsed.

She added that 304 political parties and 313 independent groups have submitted nominations and are expectant of contesting the election.

She went on to point out that in submitting these petitions, which indirectly request for the invalidation of nominations, they have not named a single political party or a secretary as parties to the petitions.

The Additional Solicitor General also argues that a decision which directly impacts the validity of nominations pertaining to over 7,400 candidates cannot be given, just at the request of the petitioners.

Following the conclusion of the proceedings, further hearing of the petitions was postponed until 10 am on Tuesday (26).

Courtesy Adaderana

A Task Force headed by the Defence Secretary will be appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to conduct a comprehensive survey of archaeological sites in the East and to take measures to preserve them, says the President’s Media Division (PMD).

Several parties have voiced their concerns regarding the destruction done to historical monuments, the PMD said further.

After considering all aspects, a broad programme will be launched with the support of the Department of Archaeology in order to preserve historic sites.

President expressed these views during the second meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat today (22) with the Buddhist Advisory Council which is scheduled to meet on the third Friday every month.

The Maha Sanga has enlightened the President on the necessity of a religious discourse due to misconduct of certain monks that will cause discredit to Buddhism and Tripitaka. President has responded that steps could be taken to rectify the situation during his tenure of office if corrective measures are proposed.

The clergy has commended the initiatives launched under the guidance of the President to protect the entire citizenry in the wake of the global pandemic of COVID-19 which has caused a devastating impact on every country in the world. President pointed out that it is a great achievement that not a single person from the community was found infected after April 30.

Those who are returning from abroad are being sent for quarantine. Of these returnees, few from Dubai and Kuwait have been infected with the virus. Safety measures are underway to examine people arriving from overseas under the instructions of health authorities,” the PMD continued.

The Buddhist Advisory Council has discussed at a length on Pirivena education and school education system in the country. Maha Sanga pointed out how attempts were made to remove the subjects of Literature and History from the school curricula during certain periods in the past. While pointing out that education is the first and foremost priority in his election manifesto, the President said preliminary steps have already been taken to implement a National Education Policy.

The Maha Sangha has stressed the need for effective implementation of a comprehensive programme to defeat the drug menace threatening the country. The Theros further said that there is a huge responsibility lies with the Maha Sangha in this regard in the same manner as that of the government.

President Rajapaksa said that large quantities of drugs that were smuggled into the country were seized within a very short period of time. He further said that he will take every possible step to control the prevailing situation to the maximum level as well as to totally eliminate the drug menace from the country.

The President pointed out that he will fulfil the responsibility for national security bestowed upon him to the highest level and he has appointed talented and expert individuals in charge of this task. Intelligence Unit has been vested with full powers to deal with issues.

President Rajapaksa said that the security forces have been given the power to closely monitor the terrorist and extremist activities.

The Maha Sangha further said that there are no words in the vocabulary to felicitate the speech made by the President at the National ‘Ranaviru’ commemoration Day and invoked blessings on the President.

The Theros said that there is a huge responsibility with the Maha Sangha to rebuild the society which has gone chaotic. The Maha Sangha criticized the practice of certain media outlets that create a rift between the Maha Sangha and the politicians.

The Theros also pointed out that while the entire world appreciates the steps taken by the government to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, the behaviour of the opposition is disgusting.

Emphasizing that Maga Sanga has an enormous responsibility in the efforts in resuming normalcy in civilian life in the wake of the pandemic the Theros pledged to work for the benefit of the society through a committee comprising Maha Sanga.

The Maha Sangha including Anunayake of the Malwatte Chapter Most Ven. Niyangoda Vijithasiri Thero, Anunayake of Asgiriya Chapter Most Ven. Venduruwe Upali Thero, Registrar of Malwathu Chapter Most Venerable Pahamune Sri Sumangala Thero, Lekakadikari of the Malwathu Chapter Dr. Medagama Dhammananda Thero, Chief Incumbent of the Ruwanweli Maha Seya, Ven Pallegama Hemaratana Thero, Maha Nayaka of the Amarapura Sri Dharmarakshita Nikaya Most Ven. Rajakiya Panditha Trincomalaye Ananda Thero, Chief Sanganayaka of Dakshinalanka Most Ven. Mataraba Hemarathna Thero and Chancellor of the Sabaragamuwa University, Prof. Ven. Kumburugamuwe Vajira Thero attended the meeting. The Principal Advisor to the President, Lalith Weerathuga also participated in this meeting.

By Rohana R. Wasala

Vinod Munasinghe’s constructive feedback comments (‘A statue of Mandela will do no harm’/The Island/May 18, 2020) on my opinion piece of Saturday (May 16) titled ‘This is no laughing matter’ provided the cue for this attempt to submit my ideas, for reader scrutiny, about the subject hinted at in my title today, for what they are worth. I appreciate Munasinghe’s suggestions. Sincere thanks! I stand corrected about the location of the International Crisis Group which, I erroneously wrote, was headquartered in South Africa. It is in Brussels, Belgium as you correctly point out. My sincere apologies to the readers for the error. You have also given a better idea in outline about the history of formal and informal interactions between Sri Lanka and South Africa over a longer period of time than I suggested. But I believe that Munasinghe will agree with me that the SA High Commission’s request for a Mandela statue to be erected in Colombo needs to be interpreted in terms of its timing: May 19, 2020 marks the 11th anniversary of the defeat of armed separatist terrorism; and it is also the day that a memorial ceremony is held for the fallen war heroes; meanwhile the Cabinet’s seemimgly casual compliance with the superficially innocuous request needs to be commented on, too.  

However, the question implicit in my previous piece, i.e., ‘Why a Mandela statue in Colombo?’, was not meant to detract in the least from the great admiration that I have for Nelson Mandela as a fierce anti-imperialist, heroic freedom-fighter, and great human being. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Sri Lankan government taking a decision to install a Mandela statue in an appropriate place in Sri Lanka so long as it doesn’t do so at the behest of some coercive outside power.

Back to my subject. Munasinghe is right about Yasmin Sooka and Navaneetham Pillai not being representative of the South African government. Of course, he doesn’t say that I think they are. My point is that Sri Lanka is being baited, particularly at UNHRC, Geneva, for alleged perpetration of war crimes, human rights abuses, non-observance of democratic norms in domestic politics, and the whole caboodle of similar offences that the country could be falsely imagined to have committed; this makes us wonder whether the powers that be are using international civil servants (like Sooka and Pillai who seem to be possessed by some inexplicable personal grudge against the majority ethnic Sinhalese community) as a cat’s paw in persecuting the whole Sri Lankan people for applying pressure on its nationalist political leaders, in pursuit of their own geopolitical ends. 

Naturally, the sovereign people of Sri Lanka who would resent their own civil servants to lord it over them, reject with the deepest contempt the current undue advances of international civil servants. By allowing them to act in an imperious manner towards Sri Lanka, these global powers are violating the collective human rights of all Sri Lankans, while compounding their already artificially complicated internal problems, rendering them even more intractable. International nosy-parkers’ unsolicited interventions turned to cases of brazen interference in Sri Lanka’s civil disputes during the Yahapalanaya. The Western imperialist powers (aka international community, neoliberalists, neocons, champions of globalization, and so on) try to manipulate internal politics in Sri Lanka under the pretext of protecting the minorities from the alleged majoritarianism of the Sinhalese, something that these selfish foreign powers do in  their own national interest back home. Nationalism is good for those imperialist powers,it seems, but when the Sinhalese majority practice nationalism (embracing all Sri Lankans as one nation), they denounce it as racism, and use that bogus criticism to suppress and persecute the Sinhalese.  

But this theme is incidental to the basic point that Munasinghe sets out to enlighten us on in his response to my piece. He touches on what could be called a tradition of delaying the setting up of statues in memory of national heroes worthy of such honour. Munasinghe says that ‘Why a Mandela statue in Colombo?’ is a good question because …..Sri Lanka has been tardy in erecting statues of people, who contributed to the country’s liberation from colonial oppression. For example, CWW Kannangara, the father of free education, in this country, did not have a statue erected to him, until 1989, 20 after his demise. It stands in front of the Matugama auditorium”. I agree. Petty personal politics, in my own opinion, is at the root of this perennial anomaly.

Actually, a more recent instance of the same phenomenon was at the back of my mind when I started writing about the proposed Mandela statue in Colombo: the case of the Lakshman Kadirgamar statue. It took eight years after his assassination for a statue of Lakshman Kadirgamar to be erected! He was an independent minded patriot but an unwilling politician who put himself in the firing line in the literal sense, as it were, out of love of his nation/country and the sincerity of his commitment to the establishment of national unity. In that, he stood in stark contrast to most average politicians who have or demonstrate little understanding of the real meaning of nation or national unity, and care less about whether these terms mean anything to the voters whose support they woo using those terms exclusively as rousing slogans. 

The apparent sloppiness of attention with which the Cabinet of Ministers seemed to have decided the matter about the Mandela statue made me a little angry. It incidentally reminded me of the shabby treatment that the late Kadirgamar was subjected to by some of his closest political allies, both in life and in death, with a single honourable exception, though. 

The Island editorial under the title ‘An overdue honour for Kadir’ on August 12, 2013 – the day that the Lakshman Kadirgamar statue was unveiled in the premises of Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies at Horton Place, Colombo on his eighth death anniversary after it had been stored away in a crate for a number of years – opened thus: 

‘Lakshman Kadirgamar, one of Sri Lanka’s illustrious sons, is honoured posthumously today. His statue which was lying in a crate for years in the backyard of an institution named after him has been taken out, dusted and installed at long last—eight years after his untimely demise. Better late than never! 

‘Oxford honoured its outstanding alumnus , Kadirgamar, while he was alive. His portrait  was unveiled at the Oxford Union on March 18, 2005 a few months before his tragic end. It was indeed a very rare honour. He was the Treasurer and President of the union in 1958 and 1959 respectively. That is the way great men and women should be honoured’.

The Island editorial of August 12, 2013 also stated: ‘It is heartening that the Kadirgamar statue has come up where it should be. But, there is no need for statues to perpetuate the memory of Kadir, who laid down his life for this country. With or without memorials, he continues to live in the heart of every right thinking, grateful Sri Lankan, who appreciated his selfless service to the nation. The erection of his statue will only serve to prove that Sri Lanka is not a land of ingrates’. 

The Island editor paid an even more moving tribute on the day of Kadirgamar’s funeral, August 15, 2005: ‘Farewell to an uncrowned king’, wherein he made this biting comment on the shamelessness of the countries that supported the LTTE that assassinated Kadir:

‘The diplomats of the countries, where the LTTE is allowed to operate need no clothes, when they pay their respects to Kadir. They can file past his coffin, stark naked. For, they have proved they have no sense of shame.’

The story of the Kadirgamar statue/s is related by his daughter Ajita Kadirgamar in her biography of her late father titled ‘The Cake that was Baked at Home:  Snapshots of the Man’s Life by His Daughter’ (Vijita Yapa, Colombo, August 2015). This is found in the Chapter titled ‘A Tale of Two Statues’ (pp. 324-333). She has some extracts from the editorial of The Island of August 12, 2013 mentioned above including what I have quoted above (except the last bit from the editorial written on August 15, 2005 the day of the funeral).

The story of the Kadirgamar statue is a bit complicated. However, it has nothing to do with Kadirgamar himself or his unique legacy to the nation. The delay in erecting a statue in his honour was neither caused by minor issues of a personal/family nature resulting from certain disagreements between his surviving children on the one hand and his widow on the other,  but by the determined obstructions placed by his sneaky unworthy rivals who would have been beneath his notice when he was alive; reading the account, one feels that this factor was almost entirely responsible for the inordinate delay.. 

From Ajita Kadirgamar’s account one can guess that Kadir’s unworthy successor put dampeners on the statue erection project. She writes: . ‘Three years after LK’s death, there was still no decision where the statue should be erected’. She   quotes the following from Dr U. Pethiyagoda writing to The Island on April 11, 2013: ‘His statue must surely be smiling to itself as it languishes in a box at the institution, which however is not shy to blandish his illustrious name!’ She goes on to extract this from Namini Wijedasa/transcurrent.com on ‘Foreign Minister Bogollagama’s antics and escapades’, August 24, 2008: ‘At one cabinet meeting, the question of where the Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial statue should be installed arose. The foreign ministry has been given the task of finding a suitable permanent address for the statue. Bogollagama was absent. President Rajapaksa asked Deputy Minister Hussein Bhaila where the statue would eventually be erected. Bhaila said he could not tell as Bogollagama was not in Sri Lanka. It will take another ten years for him to get back”, Rajapaksa had reportedly said angrily. As acting minister, you must make a decision. If you can’t take decisions in such a manner, I will have to appoint somebody else to your place”.  

According to Ajita Kadirgamar, among many who commented on ‘the predicament’ was former Sri Lankan Ambassador in Doha Satharatilaka Banda Atugoda, who in 2012 stated: ‘A day may also come when it will dawn in the conscience of the authorities responsible, petty-partisan-selfish-egoistic attitudes should be erased from their minds, when it comes to honouring national patriots like Lakshman Kadirgamar, by deciding to place his statue in the premises of this Institute, which is gathering dust at present.’ I think Atugoda hit the nail on the head in this case. 

Eventually, the statue was unveiled by the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Kadirgamar Institute premises at Horton Place on the late leader’s eighth death anniversary of August 12, 2013.

What upset me about the SA High Commission’s request for a Nelson Mandela statue in Colombo and the ministers’ easy-going accommodation of it apparently without considering the circumstances, if any, that make it  something imperative in the national interest was that it immediately made me wonder whether the era of politicians who allow themselves to be blinded by  ‘petty-partisan-selfish-egoistic attitudes’ is still not over.   

Sunil Yatalamatta Gamage 

Sri Lankan military did sacrifice to protect & unite the country for the future sons daughters of the country; to have a safer motherland which will prevail and prosper in the years to come”.- Defense Secretary General: Kamal Gunaratne

May 19^th is a significant day of Sri Lankan history of our country written again in golden letters as the country was liberated from the world most ruthless terrorist group. It was the victory against terrorism which was in the country more than 30 years. The victory was possible due to political leadership and his vision towards the country at that time. If we haven’t that visionary leadership we will never be able to achieve that freedom.When we recall the height of the fight against terrorism country’s political leadership was under tremendous political pressure, from the west, but the leadership stood firmly fighting against terrorism to achieve and liberate the country. The way the political leadership was stood was phenomenal even under pressure. We won the war against terrorism; and the only country in the world to do so. We as a nation starts to rise again as a one nation towards our economic, social, cultural, goals of achieving them. The war which prevailed more than 30 years, made enormous economic hardships to our people. As we are aware, some political visions of west tried their best to make our country a battle field to achieve their geopolitical ends. They used their liberal friends in our own country. I refuse to name them in this article. Those elements initiated some ground work for that in this country, but it didn’t fully worked because of true patriots of this country. Some true Politicians broad minded understood the danger of it and worked tirelessly to avoid constitutional changes which were due to happen in the country. Western people non and non governmental organizations” made every effort and in tensed their efforts to divert the achievement in a label called war crime’.They used some of our local elements to do the necessary for them. Human Rights Organization had been encircling our country through something called Accountability’ and Reconcilliation” Transparency”in justice for Justice of Tamils living abroad. Our dedicated soldiers saved the lives of Tamils from the ruthless organization, and we ended the most difficult and long standing war against terrorism. Our forces and our country is the only in this universe could do that and that is the most difficult truth for many western and Scandinavian countries.

The visionary leadership was able to protect human rights of people in north and liberate Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese of the country. Our own political leadership gave the right leadership which was much needed to our forces at that time. When the terrorism at it’s younger age we had the political leadership, but that leadership of the country not matured enough to make decisions very much needed at that time of the problem. It caused a huge economic, political, social, cultural devastation to Sri Lanka. If that political decision was in line for the best interest our country and people; we would have not loose our great military commanders of Denzil Kobbekaduwa, Wijaya Wimalaratna, Lucky Wijeratne, Parami kulatunga and so many. Due negligence of political leaderships in the past, we lost many national leaders to our country both Sinhalese and Tamils, as well as Buddhists Mahanayakas, Christian Fathers, Muslim religion leaders, and Hindu religion leaders.

In the fight of terrorism and freeing the country out from that was an eminent effort of true leadership with a patriotic vision. Over the past; different so called leaders gave the leadership to our military but it didn’t work successfully. Finally 11 years ago we were able to find true freedom to our country as we won the war against terrorism. How wonderful is to remember the patriotism and dynamic leadership of our country. When I say dynamic leadership mean to have courage and Independence to take decisions right at the moment when the whole country was at a juncture of do or die situation. There were two western foreign ministers in the country to warn our leadership to stop the war against terrorists. As everybody remembered, when those two foreign ministers at a discussion with our premier, probably it would have been a hot summers nights dream” for them. Just think about if the premier decided to withdraw troops back to their camps and started negotiations according to western method. If that happen today May 19^th will not be writing this victory note of our fallen soldiers. This is what happen when J.R. Jayawardena, R Premadasa, and Ranil wickramasinghe was in power which was a curse to our nation. Mobilizing a country towards the direction of a war footing will not a easy task. That uneasy task has been done and won the war against terrorism only because of patriotism, and dynamic leadership of our two two leaders of this country.

My request today is a promise to fallen soldiers. Those fallen soldiers did their supreme sacrifice to their motherland.There are many things happening for their benefit and for their families in the country. Tribute to them in many ways is a must as it should be. We may need to find many creative ways to keep their sacrifice as much as possible live in the hearts and minds of the nation. There will be many ideas blooming in the future more and more. Fallen soldiers is our history and when a nation rise from that ideology of emerging country, that ideology must be a live thing in the hearts an minds of the people of a country. We can create charity foundations by their names. We can name parks by their names. We know in every parts of the country every district of the country we have rural government hospitals. We can create hospital foundations in each district by the communities of each district. The charity foundations must accept donations from everybody and maintain accounts for the welfare of the hospital. At the same time community can allocate a Wall of fame with framed pictures and names with a little description of fallen soldiers, when and how he was sacrificed his life to our motherland”. That is only a perspective, but it need to be further developed as an idea. I am happy as I could brought up this idea as a tribute to our armed forces as a well deserved tribute and commemoration. 

When a nation want to rise from the sacrifices of that nature is a tribute to those fallen soldiers of the country. They sacrificed their life for the motherland. So now is the time to make that fast movement of development of social, economic, cultural development of the the country. That development will never be achieved, by selling our lands to others through treaty, by robbing central bank, or by liberal economic thinking. As we have been experienced the library economic vision already dead and gone. The Covid-19 has proved to us liberal economic visions and globalization will not develop any country. It has been a proven failure. We need to develop our own economic vision suitable to our own people and we need to use modern technology cautiously, but accordingly. Such a development plan ensure the safety and protection of our environment and must be a balanced approach.

Embassy of Sri Lanka  Washington D.C.

The Government of Sri Lanka has introduced a new bank account termed ‘Special Deposit Account (SDA)’ for all Sri Lankans living in and outside the country to remit their foreign currency earnings, savings and investments to any bank of their preference in Sri Lanka. It is in the form of ‘Term Deposits’ either in any designated foreign currency or in Sri Lanka Rupees.
 
The Embassy, while appreciating the generosity on the part of Sri Lankans living in the United States of America who have already extended their valued contributions for SDAs, encourage others who have not yet invested, to take advantage of this excellent opportunity to earn the best return for their investments as an expression of their continued solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka, during this challenging environment.
 
The salient information on SDAs is as follows; 

Eligible Persons 

• Sri Lankan individuals resident in or outside Sri Lanka
• Dual Citizens
• Citizens of other States with Sri  Lankan origin
• Non-nationals resident in or outside Sri Lanka
• Funds, corporate bodies, associations incorporated/registered outside Sri Lanka

 
Opening and Maintaining SDAs 

• SDAs shall be opened during the six months period from the date of the regulations
• SDAs shall be opened and maintained only in the form of Fixed Deposits. SDAs in the form of savings accounts may be opened as operational accounts only for the purpose of receiving funds to be placed in SDAs.
• SDAs shall be opened and maintained either in any designated foreign currency or in Sri Lanka Rupees.
• SDAs may be held as joint accounts by eligible persons. 

Minimum tenure

• Six (06) months 

Interest payable

• 1 percentage point and 2 percentage points per annum for SDAs with a tenure of 6 months and 12 months, respectively, payable at maturity of the deposit, above the deposit interest rates applicable for normal deposits of similar maturities by the respective bank. 

 
Interest Rates 

• Bank wise Interest Rates (in per cent per annum) offered for Special Deposit Accounts (SDAs) as at 11.05.2020.    

 
Repatriation of Funds

•     Freely convertible and repatriable outside Sri Lanka on the maturity of termed posits.

Exemption

• Exempted from any procedural requirements specified in the Foreign Exchange Regulation No. 1 of 2017 published in the Gazette Extraordinary No 2045/56 of 17, 2017. 

Permitted Credits

• Inward remittances in foreign currency received from outside Sri Lanka in favor of the account holder through the banking system.
• Transfers from Inward Investment Accounts (IIA) or accounts maintained in the Offshore Banking Unit by the account holder, out of the proceeds received as inward remittances during the six months period from the date of the regulations in favor of the account holder. 

Permitted Debits 

• Outward remittances of maturity proceeds upon maturity of the term deposit.
• Transfer of maturity proceeds of SDA term deposits to an Inward Investment Account or an account maintained in the Offshore Banking Unit by the same accountholder.
• Disbursements in Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka Rupees. 

Other Conditions 

• In the event of receiving funds through an Inward Investment Account or an account maintained in the Offshore Banking Unit, of the same accountholder, ADs shall ensure that such funds have been received as inward remittances into Sri Lanka.
• Funds withdrawn under the third bullet point of Permitted Debits” above cannot be credited back to a SDA.
• Outward remittances in favor of the accountholder may be effected through an Authorized Dealer (AD) other than the AD with whom the SDA is maintained, provided that a confirmation shall be obtained from the AD with whom the SDA is maintained stating that the funds were debited from the SDA of the accountholder and out of the funds credited in compliance with the regulation. 

 
For inquiries, please contact:
 
1. Mr. Sarath Dissanayake            Deputy Chief of Mission
                                                Mobile: 202 816 9666
                                                Email: dcm@slembassyusa.org
 
2. Mr. Niranga Palipana                Second Secretary
                                                Mobile: 202 579 4729
                                                Email: niranga@slembassyusa.org
 
3. Mrs. Aruni Warnakula                Accounts Officer
                                                Mobile: 202 288 8546
                                                Email: accounts@slembassyusa.org
 
 
 Embassy of Sri Lanka
 Washington D.C.
 
21^st May 2020

උපුටා ගැන්ම ලංකා සී නිව්ස්

මැතිවරණ කොමිසම විසින් නියම කරන ඔ්නෑම දිනයක මැතිවරණය පැවැත්වීමට අවශ්‍ය කරන නිර්දේශ ලබා දීමට හැකියාව පවතින බව සෞඛ්‍ය සේවා අධ්‍යක්ෂ ජනරාල් වෛද්‍ය අනිල් ජාසිංහ මහතා සඳහන් කරයි.

මේ වන විට රට ක්‍රම ක්‍රමයෙන් සාමාන්‍යකරණයට පත්වෙමින් තිබෙන බවත් පවසන ඔහු මැතිවරණ කොමිසමට මැතිවරණ පැවැත්වීම සඳහා සහාය වීමට තමනට හැකියාවක් ඇති බවද පවසයි.

නමුත් මැතිවරණය පැවැත්වීම හෝ ඊට දින නියම කිරීම තම කාර්යයක් නොව එය මැතිවරණ කොමිසමේ කාර්යයක් බව ද ඔහු පැවසීය.

මැතිවරණ කොමිසම ඉල්ලා සිටින ඕනෑම අවස්ථාවක ඊට අවශ්‍ය නිර්දේශ ලබා දීමට හැකියාවක් ඇති බවද ඔහු තව දුරටත් සඳහන් කළේය.

Courtesy Adaderana

Two more individuals have tested positive for the COVID-19, the Ministry of Health confirmed a short while ago.

The identified patients are Sri Lanka Navy personnel, stated the Ministry.

Accordingly, 4 Navy personnel are confirmed to have contracted the virus within today (21). The total number of coronavirus cases identified within the day is 19.

Thereby, a total of 1,047 COVID-19 positive cases have been reported in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, 604 of these coronavirus patients have been discharged from hospitals so far as they returned to health.

The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry says that 434 active cases are currently under medical care at selected hospitals.

The country’s death toll due to coronavirus currently stands at 09.

Fifteen returnees test positive for COVID-19 as tally leaps to 1,045

Fifteen more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 as of 6.00 pm today (21), says the Ministry of Health.

Sri Lanka’s total count of coronavirus infections thereby reached 1,045.

These new positive cases have been identified as returnees from Dubai who were undergoing mandatory quarantine procedure at the facility in Giragama, the Department of Government Information said.

In the meantime, two other coronavirus patients were reported earlier today. They were confirmed to be navy men who were being quarantined at the facility in Mullaitivu.

Accordingly, 604 of these coronavirus patients have been discharged from hospitals so far as they returned to health.

The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry says that 432 active cases are currently under medical care at selected hospitals.

The country’s death toll due to coronavirus currently stands at 09.

Courtesy Adaderana

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, today (21), reviewed the production, import, and distribution of pharmaceutical supplies, during a discussion with the Chairmen of the two State Pharmaceutical Corporations, held at the Presidential Secretariat.

At the discussion, the President inquired as to how the medicines supply in the country is structured, stated President’s Media Division.

In reply, Chairman of State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) Consultant neurosurgeon Prasanna Gunasena said the supply is done in 03 ways; production by the State sector, production by the private sector, and imports by both sectors.

Currently there are 750 varieties of medicines in use in Sri Lanka and shortages may occur due to delays in the procurement process in respect of imports, the Chairman said.

Directing that no room should be left for shortages in the supply of medicines in the country, the President pointed out the necessity of deciding the medicinal requirement of the coming year by studying the demand pattern of the previous year.

President Rajapaksa said that the production and supply of the pharmaceutical items should be streamlined for the benefit of the people disregarding the interests of a handful of intermediaries. Formulating a simple import and supply mechanism of medicines is a priority, he added.

All medicines should be of highest standards, said the President, while warning relevant officials not to give any chance to produce or import substandard medicines.

While stressing the need for maintaining buffer stocks to prevent any scarcity to occur President pointed out that orders should be placed by calculating the date of expiry of medicine.

Chairman of State Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing Corporation Dr. Uthpala Indrawansha said that his organization produces 80 medicines required by hospitals in the country.
Plans are underway to domestically produce Saline and several other items and this will save the country around Rs. 1300 million annually, Dr. Indrawansha said.
 
The possibility of investing money belonging to the Employees Trust Fund and the Samurdhi Movement in the production of medicine was also explored, at the Meeting, stated President’s Media Division. 

If such a mechanism could be put in place, these two Funds will have a permanent source of income, President observed.

Courtesy Hiru News

The OIC of the Thalawakele Police has managed to save the life of a young girl who attempted to commit suicide by jumping into the Upper Kotmale reservoir .

According to our correspondent, a 28-year-old father of two has drowned while trying to save the girl.

The girl had jumped into the reservoir near the railway bridge that had been built across the Upper Kotmale reservoir at around 10 am this morning.

Our correspondent stated that a man who was near the bridge had jumped into the reservoir to save the girl.

The young man who swam towards the girl had disappeared in the reservoir.

However, the OIC of the Thalawakele Police had jumped into the reservoir with the help of other officers and rescued her when the girl emerged from the reservoir again, using a rope and a tube.

It is reported that the OIC was able to save the girl within 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the police lifeguards and residents of the area have unearthed the body of a father of two who drowned while trying to save the girl.

He is a resident of Rathnillakele, Talawakele.

The young woman had jumped into the reservoir near the place where he was working as a carpenter.

His body is to be sent to the Nuwara Eliya Base Hospital for post-mortem examination.

According to our correspondent, the water level of the reservoir has risen with the heavy rains experienced in the Upper Kotmale catchment areas.

Ada Derana

Courtesy aljazeera.com

Three women trampled to death outside businessman’s warehouse for annual handout to mark holy month of Ramadan.

A crime scene officer inspects the place where the stampede occurred in the capital, Colombo [Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters]

Three women have been trampled to death during a stampede for an $8 cash handout in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo amid growing desperation among Sri Lankans struggling to make ends meet during a coronavirus lockdown that has smashed the economy.

Some 1,000 people queued outside a businessman’s warehouse for his annual handout during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, local member of parliament Mujibur Rahman said on Thursday.

There was a rush for the 1,500 rupee gift – about the same amount as a labourer’s daily wage – when the gates opened, he said.

“Some people tried to break the queue and enter,” Rahman told the AFP news agency. “That is when the women at the top of the queue fell and were trampled to death.”

Nine others were seriously hurt in the stampede and taken to hospital, he said, adding that there was a larger-than-usual crowd during this year’s event, which has been taking place for decades.

“People have not earned any money for two months because of the virus lockdown [since March 20],” Rahman said.

“People are desperate. When they heard about today’s donation, over a thousand turned up.”

The businessman, who has not been named by the authorities, and five of his assistants were arrested for violating the lockdown, Colombo police chief Deshabandu Tennakoon told reporters.

Government cash handouts this month – 5,000 rupees ($27) each to 5.14 million families living below the poverty line – also sparked chaotic scenes in villages.

Colombo and a neighbouring district are under lockdown, although some of the coronavirus restrictions have been lifted in other parts of Sri Lanka.

The Federal Government of Australia needs to take a firm stand on its elected representatives. While it should be the Federal Government on behalf of Australia that should make international statements, it is unacceptable when politicians representing small areas within a state issue disparaging statements of falsehood against a sovereign country. That Australia has failed to take action against its own citizen for aiding and abetting terror has ruined the lives of thousands of Tamil children, Australian Adele Ann Wilby trained as child soldiers from 1980s to 1999. That inaction, has resulted in many White Australians being enticed by remnants of the terrorist lobby to make inroads on foreign soil. McDermott is the latest recruit. Tamils who have left Sri Lanka to live in Australia must live as per Australian rules. They are not expected to be carrying out separatist agenda living on foreign shores. The Australian government should not encourage this either. LTTE lobby are masters at propaganda and have made a living by falsifying history and distortions. By influencing and weakening the Australian politicians, it will only be, a matter of time they may even re-write history of Australia and demand a separate state in Australia. Australia would know the amount of lies these economic migrants utter simply to leave Sri Lanka and live in Australia.

Aunty Adele – the White Tiger

Adele Ann Wilby of Warragul, Gippsland, south-east of Melbourne was an Australian nurse who went on to marry British agent Anton Balasingham in 1978 who was LTTE terrorist movement’s chief advisor. This nurse having been taught to shoot by terrorist leader Prabakaran himself, went on to become LTTE’s main women & children’s trainer. From 1980s to 1999 Anton & Adele lived in Sri Lanka training women and children to kill & commit suicide biting a cyanide capsule.

Her own book authored in 1993 speaks of 3000 women Tigers – all of whom she had trained including the woman, who assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 in India.

It is to Australia’s credit that she and Anton B were refused entry to Australia to visit her family having been placed on the Australian Immigration Department watch list.

Why has Adele managed to evade prosecution – under Australia’s Foreign Incursions Act, Australian citizens are prohibited fighting in war wars.Adele B was training terrorists which included children as young as 10 years. No country can preach about human rights and rights of the child, if they ignore prosecuting this woman who inspite of being a nurse not only trained children to kill by shooting but taught them how to commit suicide by biting a cyanide capsule. Both criminal offences and violation of her oath as a nurse. Statements by children in the camps she trained, reveal she even ordered their torture and harassment upon those who tried to escape. Some children ended up dead or mentally ill. Surely, she must be made to account for these heinous crimes against innocent children turned into brutal child soldiers or killed if they refused to toe the line.

Uncle McDermott – the White Tiger

Fast forward to 2020 – we have another white ranting about Genocide Remembrance day. The term genocide has been turned into a joke by the Tamil diaspora who cannot produce names of the dead or even their skeletons but can spend on global tamashas for ‘Tamil Genocide Day’.

Hugh McDermott has recently entered the propaganda scene making social media announcements.

Firstly, Sri Lanka did not have a civil war, we had a terrorist conflict. The national army eliminated terrorists not Tamils. If McDermott wants he is welcome to commemorate Genocide of LTTE Terrorists. He may also like to speak to an authority on terrorism and rules of war, who will tell him the legality of a ‘no fire zone’ and its one-sided version in Sri Lanka given Sri Lank’s conflict was a Non-International Armed Conflict and LTTE was a non-state actor taking up arms against the State.

However, LTTE had no right to be among civilians and fire from among civilians. An army has every right to return fire against the enemy who fires (because the enemy should not be firing from civilians). If civilians were kept in harm’s way, the LTTE must be held responsibility.

There was no UN Panel of Expert Report – it was a UNSG personally commissioned report not mandated by the UNGA or UNSC or even tabled in the UNGA, UNSC or UNHRC. The Panel did not say that 40,000 were killed. McDermotte should first read the report. Who is writing these lies for him and why is he parroting a script without verifying if the details are true or not?

Anyone can estimate dead – but they need to establish the dead by identity and prove they were killed and by whom. Without such carrying out smear campaigns is just not done.

When LTTE was defeated in May 2009, it was freedom for no one else but the child soldier. Where were all the entities sponsoring McDermott when LTTE was kidnapping children from their parents and turning them into child soldiers? Did they carry out a single campaign on behalf of these kidnapped children. Today, they hold tamashas all over the world but did they hold a tamasha to free a single Tamil child from being turned into a killer? NO

It was none other than the Sri Lanka Army that rescued close to 300,000 Tamils kept as hostages and human shields. Hugh McDermott should stick to facts not fiction.

McDermott can be friends with anyone he likes but his public position should not be abused to tarnish an entire country and a community with falsehoods and slander.

http://www.hughmcdermott.com/tamil_genocide_remembrance_day

As per 2011 census in Australia – Tamils accounted for 50,151of which 19,855were from Sri Lanka. The 2016 census saw Tamil population in Australia increase to 73,161 of which 27,352 were born in Sri Lanka. However, there are over 70,000 Sinhalese in Australia. How is it that this less than 30,000 are able to get Australian MPs to utter lies?

With only 73,161 Tamils living in Australia (which includes Tamils from India and other parts of Asia) on what grounds is McDermott attempting to make Tamil a language of study in the Higher School Certificate in his electorate of Prospect which has just 96 Tamils?

What else would McDermott next resort to – putting up statues of Prabakaran and his LTTE combatants as the LTTE front he is so closely associated with was proscribed as a LTTE front in 2014 and removed with no valid reason in 2015. McDermott may soon be sponsored to change the names of Australian towns to Tamil names next May 18!

Is McDermott’s Genocide Remembrance Day speech on behalf of 591 Tamils from Pendle Hill, 1073 Tamils in Wentworthville, 760 Tamils in Girraween, 853 Tamils in Toongabbie or only 96 Tamils in Prospect.

Why is McDermott not speaking on behalf of the other communities living in Prospect the town he is elected to represent? There are 217 Indians / 143 from Philippines / 142 from Fiji & 99 from Malta living in Prospect.

Total population of Prospect – 4716 (96 SL Tamils as per 2016 census)

https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/SSC13266?opendocument

We hope the Australian Federal Government looks into these MPs of small towns who are obviously been manipulated not to work on behalf of communities in Australia but making statements beyond their mandate. If Australia has any issues, we expect it to be taken up across diplomatic channels and at government levels, not via social media and bogus Genocide Day tamashas.

Well, we cannot expect much from McDermott given the scandals he has been embroiled in.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5512051/NSW-Labor-MP-denies-sexual-assault-allegations-former-staffer.html(2018)

2015 – serious misconduct by inserting false members to catchment area

2016 – fabricating military service wearing medals never issued to him

2017 – inviting a former labor leader who had been critical of moder Labor policies as guest for a fundraising dinner.

2018 – dismissing 3 employees one who accused him of sexual misconduct.

Shenali D Waduge

Sarath Wijesinghe President’s Counsel former Ambassador to UAE and Israel

Land is precious

Israelis Lived in most hostile conditions at the initial stages

Land is more precious in Israel being a small fraction of Sri Lanka consist of baron land with deserts with no water except Galilee at the extreme corner of the country. Most of the land is state owned and expensive for the citizens sandwiched among enemies right round the boarders. Having evicted from various parts of the world Jews chose to settle down in the Promised Land despite most hostile conditions with no water other facilities and the barren land with no natural resources except the human resources hard work and determination. Environment was harsh, Galilee was swampy, Mountains were rocky, Negav was a desert, settlers have no farming experience, no water and the sabotage of canals and burning was common and rampant. Living collectively was the most logical way to be secured and   Kibbutzim was founded as agricultural villages initially by the ideals of Ancient Sparta particularly in education, industry, agriculture and community living with a mixture of socialist communist model influenced by Russia and Western model influenced by the influx of Jews from the West. Kibbutzim is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture which means gathering or clustering. The potential of Kibbutzim  was gradually extended to dairy poultry industry arms trade  and connected fields that  provided the highest yield from a cow world over  and best poultry output supplied to the rest of the world’s, best and most sophisticated small and heavy  arms and small and heavy arms and ammunitions to the world  except the neighbours and the world sometimes hostile to them. They organized the movement is a more organize way by creating United Kibbutxz movement with a unique bonded arrangements with the private sector and the state ever prepared to help in the field of innovation promotion and Start companies and SMEs. They assumed a more prominent role in military to protect and safeguard the country and borders and protecting themselves by arming themselves with production of arms which a money spinner today. In the 6 day war when Israel lost 800 soldiers 200 of them were from Kibbutzim and Kibbutzins made up 15% in the Israel Parliament. In 2010 there were 270 Kibbutzimin Israel Their factories and farms account for 9% of industrial output worth us 8 billion and 40% of its agricultural output worth over 1.7 billion us dollars Some Kibbutzim had also developed substantial hitch and military industries For example in2010 kibbutz Sasa containing some 200 members generated millions of annual revenue from its military plastic industry. First Prime Minister named father of nation is a product of a Kibbuth as many leading figures in Israel. Education innovations and industrial knowledge is given priority with the practice and in-house knowledge on religious education and the strong culture Israel’s carrying with them for thousands of years. It is told that there are thousands of state and uncollated lands the foreign companies are eying to grab in the guise of developments when the army commander has offered to assist Agro Tec based developments.

World’s most successful community movement

How do we adopt this to our system or any system with modifications and adjustments? In taking optimum use of land in housing, agriculture, industries, productivity and generally development and prosperity? What are main feathers and themes of the concept? Historians have called Kibbutz as the world’s most successful community movement and at one stage Kibbutzniks produced 12 percent of the nation’s exports in Israel shows the success story and how the system is integrated to the national working plan in all areas. The Kibbutz is a major   part of the overall trajectory of the Israel economic revolution. Israel politics is always volatile with controversies infighting and fights with all neighbours with bitter bloody wars which does not deter the developments agriculture or war machinery including manufacture of arms and ammunitions with the help of Kibbtuin movement too. Whether it was socialist develop mentalists or hybrid – the economic track record of Israel was impressive in par with political decisions. For few years she was in the non-alignment movement and shifted to the west for safety in order to fight and live with hostile neighbour’s right round. Original concept of the Kibbutzim was based to a large extent on sled sacrifice as incubators oneself sacrifice of its members Now that some have been transformed to large companies and the products of Kibbuths have reached the top which includes the father of the Nation theorist Prime Minister the originality may have slowed down but the nation still maintains Kibbuths as promoters on agriculture, industry and still incubators of the progress on diversified areas. Israel Jews crossed a huge desert in modern times to meet more desert and had to discover the richest of scarcity They invented new methods of living kibbutzim Moshavavin development of towns drilled and laboured and demanded much from themselves, they then turned to technology using Kibbutz as incubators they have no option but to proceed which is the success story with determination. Today they are not resting – they are enjoying and progressing despite the eternal struggle with the neighbours selling the products to the world over as leaders on technology and agriculture setting an example and on advisory capacity to her admirations. President Rajapaksa during the visit to Israel and Palestine with official meeting s with the President and Prime Minister of Israel and Prime Minister of Palestine (privilege is given to President USA Sri Lanka  and few world leaders due to complicated political climates to visit two conflicting countries simultaneously) There is a Buddhist Temple in Israel with few meditation centres with their intellectualism and it is time for us to be a party to show the olive leaf to conflicting parties for a settlement and for us to follow steps on rapid developments using their experience and knowledge with the great religions we are blessed with.

Land does not expand or multiply and limited to a land area of the nation in a country multiplying the   population at a rapid rate. Land is a precious to Israel’s as the land for them is limited having fought two thousand years to achieve the goal to reach the small Promised Land they are in possession today.   Land is very precious to us in Sri Lanka as the land area is limited and the population is rapidly increasing with invasions by invaders from time to time. We should not ruin destroy, misuse or alienate   valuable land for the construction of houses of inferior quality with law quality materials resulting destruction and waste of and valuable land. Best use of the land must be taken in construction and development whether privately owned or state owned. Land alienation, distribution and use for developments should be carefully scrutinized with strict laws, rules and regulations. This is the case in India, Israel, UK, and many parts of the world facing shortage of lands.  Very valuable estates are fragmented against law to block into small plots to give away the peasants with a part of the expenses for construction of a house of his choice and the pocket, and a closer look will show the criminal waste of valuable land otherwise could have been made use for construction of proper houses or any other use on productivity and maximum use. It is alleged that more funds are utilized for propaganda work on housing projects. Invariably the land given to peasants is either sold to a third party or the house is not constructed in majority cases is a known fact to an average citizen. It is time for us to adopt a novel system or a successfully tested concept known as Kibbutz” clusters (innovated in Israel) linked with agriculture, innovations, industry as incubators of start-up companies SMEs and multinational companies. With great success in development which has brought Israel to great heights on housing, innovations, agriculture and achieving success as a world power with the help of only human resources properly and scientifically utilized. A citizen can witness this sorry state either sides of the road and may hear sad stories on the plight of the valuable lands given on some criteria. Majority of Land in Sri Lanka is State owned, Company Owned, or encroached lands leaving the citizen a limited number due to the planned acquisitions of property  done by the British to the presents by acquiring  thousands of acres of land for few shillings forcibly which is on record. Fragmented lands to the Udagama’s” are lands belong to the state or may sometimes lands of archaeological importance and significance according to news reports with  allegations of being white elephants  of little use to the tenants.  Other countries instead of distributing lands condominiums with clusters and stories of houses are constructed scientifically with facilities for recreation, sports, saving land and making the best use of the land providing shelter to many with comfortable life. Udagama programme should be terminated forthwith to be replace by Kibbuths type of housing complexes linked to agriculture innovations education industry and community living for families and children to live study and work together in a commune with collective aims and ambitions for the development of the nation we love. By doing so the inmates will possess quality houses, goo quality of life, education on innovations industries and many areas including the children in house with freedom to be on their own, Kibbuths in Israel started small have now winded up with major Agriculture Farms, Dairy Farms Industrial Estates which one can witness by browsing the net on  the subject. We can adopt the concept with modifications to suit us with the experiences and the knowledge acquired on agriculture and innovations.

The author could be contacted on sarath7@hotmai.co.uk

Bilateral talks with President Mahanda Rajapaksa (currently Prime Minister) with President Simon Peres then President (2014) President Simon Peres is a product of a Kibbutz

රත්තනදෙණියේ මේධානන්ද හිමි

චන්ද්‍රිකා කුමාරතුංග රාජ්‍ය නායිකාව සිටි කාලයේ රාජිත සේනාරත්න සහ ඔහුගේ සහෝදරයෙක් එක්ව සේනාරත්න අසෝසියේට්‌ නම් වාණිජ ආයතනයක්‌ පවත්වාගෙන ගියා. එමගින් කෙරුණේ පිට රටින් දන්ත වෛද්‍ය උපකරණ හා ඖෂධ ගෙන්වා ඒවා රජයේ ඔසුසලටත්, ත්‍රිවිධ හමුදාවටත් සපයන කාර්ය කරගෙන යාමයි. ඔවුන් මේ ව්‍යාපාරය විශාල ධනයක් උපයන ජාවාරමක් ලෙස පවත්වාගෙන ගියා.

රහස්‌ පොලිසියට ලැබුන තොරතුරක් මත මේ ආයතනයට අයත් ගබඩාවක්‌ වටලලා පරීක්‍ෂණයක් ආරම්භ කළා. එහිදී කල් ඉකුත්වූ බෙහෙත් වර්ගවල පරණ ලේබල් ගළවා ඒ වෙනුවට ඉදිරියට පවතින දින සහිත ලේබල් අලවා ඖෂධ විකුණන නීච ක්‍රියාවලියක් ද සොයා ගැනුණා. මතක තබා ගන්න එම බෙහෙත්වල කල් ඉකුත් වූ දින වෙනස්‌ කොට ඉදිරි දින සහිත ලේබල් අලවා තිබුනේ ආරක්ෂක හමුදාවලට සපයන්න. මෙය එම පරීක්ෂණයෙන් හෙළිදරව් වුණා.

මේ සම්බන්ධ සොයාගත් සාක්ෂි මත රාජිතට විරුධව නඩුවක් මහාධිකරණයේ ගොනු කළා.ලස්සනම වැඩේ කියන්නේ නඩු විභාගය ඉවර වෙන්න ආසන්න කාලයේ මේ නඩුව විභාග කරන මහාධිකරණය විනිසුරු සහ රාජිත මීගමුව ප්‍රදේශයේ හෝටලයක දී එකට ආහාර ගන්නා අවස්ථාවක් ප්‍රාදේශීය පුවත්පත් වාර්තාකරුවකුට හසු වුණා.
එම පුවත පුවත්පත්වල පළ කළ ද වැඩි කාලයක් නොගෙනම විනිසුරු නඩුව අවසන් කලේ රාජිත නිදහස් කරමින්. ඇති හැකි අය ඉදිරියේ නීතියේ ස්වාධීනත්වය හා මහාධිකරණ විනිසුරුගේ අපක්ෂපාතීතත්වයේ තරමද මේ සිදුවීමෙන් පේනවා.

නමුත් ඊට එරෙහිව කෝවරන්ටෝ රීට්‌ ආඥවක් මගින් අභියාචනාධිකරණයේ නැවත රාජිතට විරුද්ධව පෙත්සමක් ගොනු කරනවා. දින 10 ක්‌ පුරා පෙත්සම් අංක 1164/98 යටතේ මෙම නඩුව අභියාචනාධිකරණයේ දී විභාග වුණා. ජනාධිපති නීතිඥ චොක්‌සි ඇතුළු රටෙ නමගිය ඉහළම නීතිඥ පිරිසක්‌ රාජිත වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී හිටියා. නමුත් 2000 වසරේ මාර්තු 31 දා අභියාචනාධිකරණය තීන්දුව ප්‍රකාශයට පත් කරන්නේ රාජිත වැරදිකරු කරමින්.

අභියාචනාධිකරණය ඔහු මන්ත්‍රී ධුරයක් දරන්නට නුසුදුස්සෙක් ලෙස තීන්දු කළා. වැරදි ආකාරයට ඖෂධ ජාවාරමක නියැළී උසාවියේ වැරැදිකරු වී මන්ත්‍රී ධූරය ද අහිමි කරගත් පළමු කෙනා රාජිත. එදා හමුදාවට එහෙව් බෙහෙත් සපයපු රාජිතට අද යුධ ජයග්‍රහණයේ විරුවන් ගැන කැක්කුමක් තියෙන්න විදිහක් නෑ. එදා හමුදාවට විෂ බෙහෙත් දුන් කෙනෙකුට අද ත්‍රස්‌තවාදීන් අපේම දරුවන් ලෙස පෙනීම පුදුමෙකුත් නෑ. මම හෘද සාක්ෂ්‍යයක් ඇති මිනිසුන්ගෙන් එක දෙයයි අහන්නේ. මෙවන් අයට තවදුරටත් ඔබ ඔබේ වටිනාම කතිරය ගසන්නේ ඇයි. මොවුන් පාර්ලිමේන්තු යැවිය යුතු මිනිස්සු ද ?

රත්තනදෙණියේ මේධානන්ද හිමි

Courtesy Ada Derana

The Cabinet of Ministers has decided to halt payment of Rs. 5,000 allowance to the families adversely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, for the month of June.

The move comes after a letter was directed to the Presidential Secretary P.B. Jayasundera by the Election Commission’s chairman Mahinda Deshapriya on May 17, requesting the reconsideration of the payment of the allowance for next month.

The Election Commission, in its letter, had noted that the payment of allowance could turn into an election campaign ploy during next month ahead of the upcoming General Election which is scheduled for June 20.

The letter further stated that many complaints were received claiming that the Rs. 5,000 allowance payment is being used as a promotion of the political parties affiliated to the government.

Accordingly, the Election Commission has sought the Presidential Secretariat to remove local politicians from the allowance distribution activities.

The Election Commission’s letter has been discussed at length during the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers held on Wednesday (20).

A soldier of a National Army cannot be put on par with terrorist. Similarly, a mother of a solider cannot be put on par with a mother of a terrorist too. A war widow is the wife of a soldier laying down his life for the Nation. Wives of terrorists are not war widows (a different term should be created for them) But, they all have a right to mourn the deaths of their family members. The issue is with how that mourning is done.

Every parent loves their children. For every parent, their child is special. No parent brings up their child to do bad. As children grow, they decide their paths and they are responsible for their paths. Whatever, path they decide to take, the parents still cherish their child even if they disagree with the decisions of their children. There are of course exceptions. Just as there are evil parents, there are equally evil children.

How is a soldier different to a terrorist?

A soldier is a member of the country’s National Army, responsible for defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nation & its people. A soldier who joins the Armed Forces or Police are people who represent the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The soldier going to battle with terrorists face many obstacles. There may be 101 war manuals but none of them understands how a soldier can follow the rules when a terrorist in civilian clothing is about to shoot him dead. But the manual expects him to determine before returning fire whether the terrorist is actually a civilian or a terrorist. By the time the soldier decides, he has been killed. No soldier is commanded to kill unarmed citizens. But every army does have its miscreants.

How is a terrorist different to a soldier?

A terrorist is a member of an armed group taking up arms against the State. A terrorist is at war against his country & its people. A terrorist, commits crimes against the State and its people using terror.

Whatever reasons they may give to justify taking up arms, the terrorists are violating the rules that govern the state and invariably they end up attempting to destroy the nation and not defend it. Terrorists also end up killing the citizens. Yes, a terrorist is a citizen and a child of the country, but that child and citizen premeditatedly planned and killed hundreds and thousands of innocent and unarmed civilians. These killings were by command orders and followed by the terrorists. This is why LTTE has killed so many innocent civilians.

How is a soldier mother different to a mother of a terrorist?

There is no difference in the spoon of love fed from a mother to her child. A mother’s love for her child has no titles. In all probability the terrorist mother may be just as proud of her terrorist son as the pride of the soldier mother. Only a mother knows the feeling she has for her child. But there are exceptions to this too. There may be many a terrorist mother who are sad at what her child has become, knowing he has killed many innocent people. But, in death, her child remains still special for her.

When Prabakaran’s parents were ailing in their 80s and were scorned by Tamils who identified them in the refugee camp after the conflict ended, it was the soldier sons who rescued them and looked after them. None of Prabakaran’s brother and sisters wanted to come and visit their parents before their deaths and none arrived even for their funerals. It was the Sri Lankan soldiers who looked after the parents of the terrorist.

The soldier mothers produced brave men who were ready to sacrifice their life for the country and not a cause. These mothers had patriotism into the minds of their sons who came forward when brave men were needed to defend the nation. These brave men and their parents will always have a special place etched in the history. Not many mothers have produced brave men and women who have come forward to defend the nation in its darkest hour.

How is a war widow different to a widow of a LTTE terrorist?

International definition of a war widow is given to the wife of a dead soldier and that definition cannot be diluted by attaching it to the wife of a terrorist. The importance of this is because many a LTTE combatant were married to fellow combatants. Therefore, it is wrong to call a combatant widow as a war widow especially because many of the ‘dead & missing’ LTTE wives are being referred to as war widows. Wives of terrorists cannot be war widows. Call them some other name but not war widows. We see a concerted effort by mischief making NGOs purposely attempting to bring soldier war widows on par with terrorist war widows. This cannot be allowed.

While the love of a wife towards her husband makes no difference if he is a terrorist or soldier. When international laws clearly differentiate a national army from armed non-state actors – then the references to their wives must apply too. The LTTE (men, women and child soldiers) killed Sinhalese & Muslims – what are we to name the wives of the men killed by LTTE?

The term war widows must only be for wives of dead soldiers.

How is mourning the dead soldier & mourning the dead LTTE different?

Any mother, wife, child has every right to mourn their dead and we do not even mind anyone mourning the LTTE dead but when it is organized as a major event with all the paraphernalia associated with LTTE and these funerals are used to continue the quest of the failed objective of separating Sri Lanka, then we have every right to object and demand its prohibition.

When mothers, wives, children & others mourn LTTE terrorists on the pretext of mourning ‘civilians’ and use LTTE symbols and emblems and hold tamashas across the world claiming ‘genocide’ and what not, then we seriously have a problem and we have every right to raise objection to it.

This is no natural or spontaneous morning but a well-planned and well-funded program to advance a political agenda. In reality this has nothing to do with mourning only publicity.

In short, the message to any LTTE family member is – mourn your dead, but mourn them in private. There is no requirement for huge rallies, demonstrations, mass protests, huge concerts, exhibitions, LTTE posters, flags, decorations, LTTE flowers, emblems, LTTE cut outs and what not to mourn one’s son, husband or father.

Shenali D Waduge

Palitha Sennayake

May 18^th is a significant day for Sri Lanka because that was the day the country finally overcame terrorism that plagued the nation for three decades killing more than one hundred thousand people and pushing the country back economically by three decades. It is since that day that people could get about their activities freely, the children could be sent to schools with no fear of explosions, the businesses could carry on uninterrupted and most of all the investors would mull to move in, attracted by the positive prospects.  Dividends of peace were apparent all over the country and especially in the north and east where child recruitment and death of young people have stopped bringing altogether a fresh breath of freedom, that the current generation didn’t even know was possible. Therefore, this date was a date of significance for the entire nation where it came out from the shackles of the most ruthless and organized terror group, the world ever experienced.

The previous regime however, did away with the state commemoration of this day and the reason given was that this celebration could be offensive to the Tamil community whose youth died in this conflict and therefore a commemoration could infer triumphalism over that community. In the same breath they argued that this could endanger reconciliation of the different communities affecting eventual national unification. If that is what it takes to achieve national unity then a few would have qualms about suspending the commemoration.

The irony however is, with this decision to ‘let go’ this day we could observe a flurry of activity among Tamil nationalist organizations to commemorate this day with epithets ranging from ‘Remembrance day’ to ‘Day of Tamil genocide’. In this regard, it is with concern that we note that the Leader of the Liberal Democratic party in  England, Edward Davie,  proclaiming May 18^th as the ‘Tamil genocide day’ while in Canada, May 18^th is to be commemorated in grand scale as the ‘Tamil genocide day’ with the participation of the country’s Prime Minister.  However, the message people in Sri Lanka have to convey to the organizers of these events, especially if they are foreigners, is that to call what happened in Sri Lanka, a genocide, they either do not know their English or they know nothing about the conflict that raged in Sri Lanka.  ‘Genocide’ means the total extinction of a group or race of people in their own habitat. Own habitat is to mean the country in which that race fostered their civilization all that while. Tamils are the natives of Tamil Nadu, in Southern India and therefore any conflict concerning Tamils in Sri Lanka could not be called‘genocide’. Therefore, those who have launched this campaign either have not understood the world genocide or if they have, they do not know that Tamil are not an indigenous community in Sri Lanka.

The Red Indians in North America faced genocide in the hands of invading Spanish and English. In Canada the English and French subjected the native Inuit population to genocide; so are the Maoris in New Zealand, the Aborigines’ in Australia. Therefore, if genocide is to occur in Sri Lanka it is the Sinhalese that have to be annihilated and even that is not an unlikely scenario given the propaganda advantage the Tamil nationalism has gained claiming ‘ genocide’ of Tamils in Sri Lanka.   

Yet, in the end what matters is not the true situation but propaganda. As Hitler’s Natzi propaganda chief Paul Joseph Goebbels always maintained that ‘when a statement is repeated more often and constantly, the unquestioning human mind losses its guard and accept it as the truth’. That is exactly what the Tamil propaganda machine has been doing for the past 72 years.  Any unjust cause needs a lot of propaganda to sugar coat that cause. Hitler picked a very versatile propagandist to justify his ambitious world conquering campaign and similarly Tamil nationalism has a very effective propaganda campaign to support its separatist course in Sri Lanka.  There however is a difference between the German Natzi movement and the LTTE,  and that is Hitler spawned the Natzi propaganda to justify his campaign whereas the LTTE just walked in  to the propaganda campaign spawned by Tamil nationalism and justified itself.

What the successive Sri Lankan governments have tragically failed to understand is this propaganda dimension of the Tamil nationalist lobby and the fact that it overwhelmed all other tactics deployed by them up to now, including the LTTE terrorism.  The LTTE reigned for 33 years and it is now gone but the Tamil propaganda outreach is more than 72 years old and it still prevails making the biggest humanitarian operation of the world that rescued 290,000 endangered civilians in to a ‘genocide’.  That is not all, and let us now observe the issue of the number of deaths that are said to have taken place at the Nanthikadal rescue operation in May 2009.

The important point to note here is that the number of deaths recorded during the real rescue operation  at Nanthikadal has been moderate and realistic but yet is in complete contrast with  the numbers that are being claimed by Tamil nationalist today. For instance all the records available such as those of, the US military attache, the British military attache ( as quoted by  Lard Neseby), the UN Country team, the UTHR J report, the ICRC report, all gave the number of dead in the range between 7,000 to 9,000 and that number included the LTTE combatants as well. All these were situation reports that recorded the events then and there during the operation. Ironically however, the UNSG’s Panel of Experts’ report ( Darusman report) that investigated after 2 years of the conflict has claimed 40,000 deaths. Then the same report after 2 years and 6 months quoted a figure of 75,000 deaths. Rev. Rayappu Joseph, giving evidnce before the LLRC claimed  that 147,000 Tamil civilians died at Nanthikadal. Franances Harrison, the BBC correspondent,  publishing a book in 2014 ( 5 years after) titled ‘Still Counting the Dead’also claimed 147,000 deaths. M/s Yasmin Sooka, a member of the UNSG’s Panel of Experts, in a report published in 2005 by the English Bar Association titled, ‘The Unfinshed War’ claimed 200,000 deaths. And the latest now is that the Tamils in Canada are commemorating May 18^th as the ‘Tamil genocide day’ where they claim 300,000 Tamils died.

Thus, we could now see that by every month and every year that passed since the conflict was over, that the number of deaths have increased exponentially. There definitely is a correlation between the increases of the  number that died during this rescue operation and the lapse of time since 18^th May 2009 and hence it is very probable that, a few years from now the Tamil  nationalist will be commemorating the deaths of about a million Tamil civilians in  Sri Lanka on the 18^th May, every year.   

Tamil nationalism has a cogent propaganda network that can turn things upside down with little help. With the turn of independence the Tamils started fighting for the loss of privilehes that they enjoyed up to then but they turned that in to post independent ‘grievances’. July 83 was the effect of years of terrorism by 5 Tamil militant groups up to then but they made it in to a cause to futher their quest.  

Therefore, the Sri lankan government, by doing away with the commemoration on the 18^th May is contributing to the Tamil nationalist propaganda by acknowledging that some wrong has been done to the Tamil community; quite oblivious to the fcat that what matters is countering propaganda  even above the elimination of terrorism. This is because a more indepth analysis will reveal that it is Tamil nationalism and its propaganda arm that created terrorism and sustained it for 30 years  and not vice versa.  Therefore, the need of the hour is, not to be an aplogist for eliminating terror but to make a concerted and sustained effort to counter the Tamil nationalist proaganda arm that has done so much damage to the image of this country and is still continuing to do so. Capitulation to Tamil nationalist propaganda will only serve Tamil separatism making reconciliation that much more elusive.

Courtesy Adaderana

SP Shantha Wickremasinghe, in charge of Colombo Central District 01 at the time of Easter attacks, admitted to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that although there were instructions given prior to the bombings to increase security at catholic churches, no action was taken believing that such warnings would have created public panic.

This was revealed when the Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing the Easter Sunday attacks heard evidence from senior police officials from the Colombo Central Division 01 and the Colombo Fort Police Station, who were tasked with ensuring security in the area at the time.

Giving evidence, SP Wickremasinghe stated that, on the 12th of April 2019, SSP Upali Jayasinghe of Colombo Central Division had forwarded a 7-page document containing information about the Easter Sunday terror attacks.

The document consisted of Zahran Hashim’s photo and the details about the churches being targeted as well as clear instructions to inform the relevant parish priests on the threat.

At around 7.30 pm on the day prior to the attacks, DIG Lalith Pathinayake had communicated the high possibility of attacks, with instructions to tighten the security and surveillance on churches without delay.

SP Wickremasinghe noted that he had then issued instructions to all the OICs in the division, advising them to do so in a discrete manner to prevent public panic, hence warnings were not issued to the relevant churches.

The panel asked the witness of the distinction between informing the parish priests and the general public, however, he remained silent.

Subsequently, the Chief Inspector of Fort Police Sarath Kumarasinghe was summoned before the Commission to testify.

He told the panel that the OIC of the Fort Police failed to brief on any warnings of the attacks received within the days before he went on leave, adding that on the evening before the attacks, SP Shantha Wickremasinghe had telephones and instructed him to brief all officers on night duty of an imminent threat that night.

The Commission then questioned the witness on the steps taken to increase security and if checkpoints were placed at six key points in the area on April 20, 2019. He responded that due to the lack of sufficient police personnel at the time, only two checkpoints were manned.

The panel then asked him of the duties he engaged in that evening as the Acting OIC of the Fort Police Station at such a crucial time. He responded that he had engaged in a patrol around the Colombo Area. Including inspecting the checkpoints but failed to provide accurate details of the checkpoints in question.

The OIC of Fort Police then appeared before the Commission to witness hearing. The panel asked if Chief Inspector Sarath Kumarasinghe had informed him of the decisions taken during a briefing held on April 12, by the Colombo Central Division’s SSP regarding the warnings.

He responded that he had been summoned and briefed by the Chief Inspector Kumarasinghe before he went on leave.

However, when the Commission questioned the witness as to how the Chief Inspector could have done so if he had been on leave from April 13-18, the witness admitted that his previous statement had been faulty.

Courtesy Adaderana

Another person has tested positive for COVID-19 as of 10.15 pm on Wednesday (20), says the Ministry of Health.

The total count of coronavirus cases in the country thereby reached 1,028.

This new positive case is a returnee from Kuwait, who is currently undergoing mandatory quarantine.

In the meantime, coronavirus recoveries in the country moved up to 584 earlier today.

The Epidemiology Unit says that 435 active cases are currently under medical care at selected hospitals across the country.

The country’s death toll from COVID-19 stands at 09.