Kanthar Balanathan, Australia DipEE(UK), GradCert(Rel Eng-Monash),DipBus&Adm(Finance-Massey), CEng. MIEE.

Tamil Nadu (TN) changed its name from Madras state to Tamil Nadu when CN Annathurai (CNA) of DMK assumed power. The only non-Dravidian party that held power was Congress and the Chief Minister was the then Kamarajar.

The first post-independence assembly power was held by Indian National Congress (INC) by C. Rajagopalachari and Kamarajar, and the INC held power until 1967 when CN Annathurai of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam became the Chief Minister. Neither Congress or BJP is unable to capture power in the State of TN to-date.

Tamil Nadu state consists of several millions of Tamils and is a historic state where India cannot ignore their demands.  Tamils have participated in the freedom struggle and Kamarajar was an influential politician in the INC. With the creation of the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK), DMK & ADMK was popular among the Tamils of TN.

From 1967 to-date, either INC or BJP is unable to capture the power of the state government. India made several silly political blunders where they misinterpreted the political strategy and the capability of the Ceylon government in the 70s. Ceylon planned to declare as a republican state and it is assumed a foreign government, (UK) planned the JVP insurrection in 1971 which was demolished by the then late PM Srimavo B. However, the Ceylon government knew that they have another front of terrorism imminent from the North. In 1972, the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) was declared by the late Vellupillai Prabakaran. GOSL had several fronts of terrorism emanating in multi-dimensional directions. This was not due to people’s desire, however, as a result of foreign involvement to disturb the peace and stability in SL. The big question is: Did the UNP help the two terrorist fronts to disturb the peace so that they can crawl to capture power? We know that the JVP and LTTE worked together as concealed fronts for the attacks.

It cannot be disputed that wherever the UK had its colony and gave independence, it left a major dormant problem knowing that the UK can hold onto the economic domination of these countries. Some countries gave into the empire’s commanding & bullying, However, SL with Srimavo and the SLFP ideologies opposed to the domination in the 70s. The Biafran war was a result of the British involvement in Nigeria where hundreds of thousands of Ibos were massacred by the military. 

Most of the JVP clowns ran to the UK on defeat. Subsequently, the LTTE gave birth in 1976 by changing the name from TNT to LTTE.

Prabakaran was NOT an intelligent person, however, violent during his young ages and also with his uncle Gnanamoorthy in the FP, he (VP) was brainwashed. Generally, youngsters from Valvettiturai (VVT) are arrogant and violent. The association of most youngsters and males with the South Indian smugglers and the stunt movies brainwashed the minds of the youngsters to engage in violence. Tamil Nadu is another racist state, helped the LTTE to expand with funds and weapons. A RAW key personnel met Prabakaran in 1984 after the LTTE attack on the 13 soldiers in Tirunelveli. This meeting took place in Pondicherry. Another question is why was the Tirunelveli attack planned and executed by Prabakaran? Was RAW and the Indian government behind this project to blow-up turmoil, pandemonium in SL?

INC:

INC politicians tried with maximum planning and merciless activities to capture power in TN state by bringing in the INC government, to state, helping the LTTE through MGR, the movie star who was the CM. This may have been on the instruction from late Indira Gandhi. MGR is said to have given Prabakaran Crores of INRs and allowed to operate freely in TN state for training in Coimbatore and other places and administer the terrorist activities. It was easy for Prabakaran and the LTTE to travel through the gap between Tuticorin and VVT easily.

Another blunder Rajiv Gandhi made was to propose the 13^th amendment. Another mistake was JR was about to grant the 13^th amendment fully.

The author of this article lived in VVT and his father was the OIC/VVT of the Police force in 1958 for approximately ten months. Another political error Srimavo made was to be responsible for the transfer on my father form VVT out as a result of a petition by a VVT smuggler.

Whatever, INC tried they could not capture power.

BJP:

On the other hand, BJP wanted to capture power in TN and organized various political activities, however, BJP failed.

People like Nedumaran, Vaiko, Seeman, etc are boys of the two major parties. The reason for the two major parties to always talk about implementing the 13^th amendment fully is to attract the votes in Tamil Nadu in their favor. It is a cunning strategy India adopts to win the support of the people in TN. It is not because of the love towards the Tamils in SL. India wants to dominate SL.

TN politicians’ campaign about SL Tamils autonomy is to win elections and be the governing party. India’s INC/BJP campaigning for SL Tamils is to enter into TN and be the governing party. It is certain that neither INC or BJP will never ever enter to govern TN. Further Indian government whether its INC or BJP campaigning for SL Tamils is to threaten SL and prevent SL to have close ties with China. India has a fear of China’s invasion via SL. India does not know that China has already invaded India economically and changing TN culture.

If we go back to history, all the politicians mentioned above were arrested and released. On what grounds were they released? It is to fool SL.

Recently we understand that Mordi has asked our President HE GR to implement the 13^th amendment fully. Modi removed the autonomous powers of Kashmir, however, on what grounds is he asking HE GR? In plain words, Modi has no business to interfere with the political activities of SL. He has to mind his own business.

Modi and the former CM of TN, Panneerselvam were Tea stall keepers who crawled into politics: Don’t know how? Can we assess the intelligence and the knowledge these two have to rule a big country like India? They practice cheap politics.

AS far as SL is concerned the UK and India are the biggest problems and a threat to SL. Not the Tamils.

With all these activities, Delhi is settling millions of Hindi speaking people in TN. Major industries are owned by Hindis. The majority of Tamilians can speak Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Karnataka. It is speculated that about a million more Hindi speaking people have settled in TN. Every Tamil movie is contaminated with Hindi.

The idiocy of the TN Tamilians is to talk about SL Tamils, however, not about their own state being swallowed by the Hindis.

The only bond in India is the religion: Hinduism. (Saivism+ Vaishnavism+Samanam)

Tamilians in TN are Saivites.

What India does not understand is that the West may have already planned to divide India into several republics, and will never allow to grow like China and become a threat to the rest of the world.

Seeman is associated with the movie world acting in movies and making movies. Indians are mindset and fanatic in movies and they think what the hero does is real. That’s how late MGR & Jayalalitha became CM. Both are uneducated. Maybe it’s a common decease. In the USA Arnold S, Clint Eastwood was drawn into politics. People do not realize that acting is a skill and a make-believe imitation.

This is one of the major weaknesses in Democracy where numerical superiority overrides capability & competence.

There may be three million Tamils in the UK. Not all three million people like SL divided. There are patriots who love SL as a unitary state. The three million Tamils will not forgo their comfortable living and some with the DOLE they receive return to SL. What business has UK got to include in the Conservative’s manifesto that SL should be divided into two states? Cheap Politics.

Is the UK prepared to divide the UK into four republics?

Is the USA prepared to divide the USA into several republics?

The weakness of the Indian and the UK government is to talk about HR violations, missing persons, division etc. They should mind their own business and make their country stable and develop the countries. UK and India have adequate political social problems in their own countries. The UK may be converted to an Islamic state in a few years.

A statement by Nehru:

Quote:https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/nehru-sought-a-balanced-approach-to-ceylon/story-Cae4IU2tlgHq2HVyF0aecL.html

Nehru wanted Ceylonese leaders to realize that Ceylon might not be necessary for India, but India was necessary for Ceylon.

Who said that Nehru was a clever politician? Maybe Gandhi was and Professor Subramaniam Swamy is intellectual. There are so many concealed mysterious weaknesses among the Nehru family anyway.

THEREFORE, INDIA SHOULD STOP INTERFERING INTO SL AFFAIRS AND NOT BE A SLAVE TO TN IN THE PLOY OF CAPTURING PARTY POWER.

1. SL should examine and revoke the 13^th amendment for the following reasons.

Granting Police & Land power will disturb the equilibrium of the governing authority of the parliament. Tamils are not politically and socially matured enough to exercise police and land power. With police power, they want to control their politics. Tamils have differences with respect to caste, religion and race and they are biased. The writer knows the atrocities Jaffna man committed against Indian children in the name of domestic workers. Jaffna man does not like or want to associate with Indian workers from the highlands.

Tamils are always on the lookout to run away from SL. What advantage does Tamil Diaspora have in getting Federalism or Tamil Eelam? Even in foreign countries Tamils are not united but exercise caste differential. Giving Police and Land power will lead to another form of internal terrorism and destroy the united SL, as Tamils are economically a volatile race.

• What Tamils need in SL is maybe a small-scale autonomy without police and land power.
• Already the Provincial Councils have blown up the expenditure and driven SL towards bankruptcy. Arjuna Mahendran is a typical example.
• With the already granted NPC, what has C.V. Vigneswaran done to the North? Only jabbering and blathering about missing persons and Tamil Eelam. Now he is winding up young people to form his own party. Corruption and bribery were maximum in the North.
• A new committee should be formed to study and formulate a system of how SL could be governed. In mind that India revoked Kashmir’s powers of the forthcoming threat to its stability.
• SL should never, ever, mind about Indian intervention and UK blabbering. Indians are political fools. If they do not mind their own business then China may teach them a lesson on how to govern and mind their own business.
• People like Sritharan, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, And Gajendran are a pitfall of the SriLankan society.
• The UK massacred millions of people wherever they ruled. They plundered those countries. Now they talk of democracy, justice and humanism. Shame on them.
• Tamil Diaspora is eager to rip Tamils to become rich. By talking that Prabakaran is alive they have been plundering wealth from the Tamil FOOLS.
• In the UK, society has been ripping and stealing money. View this web page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSBxv7mHVg0&feature=youtu.be  

Above is an example of a group where some members ripped the association thousands of pounds. This is one example. In Australia, some who associated with LTTE, and other associations, like Seniors have ripped several million.

1. Federalism or a separate state for the Tamils in SL is a risk for the region.
2. If the UK has love towards the Tamils, they should relocate all the SL Tamils and those in the UK and settle them in an island suitable to the crowd, such as Madagascar, or Reunion island or even Diego Garcia. E.g. The Jews were relocated to Israel.
3. Tamils: We are an insane race judging by the standard of CV Vigneswaran, Mavai, Sambanthar, SJVC, etc.
4. GOSL has every right to build Buddhist temples, and settle Sinhalas in the N&E. Its Democracy.

If Rudrakumaran can be a PM of a parliament built in the USA atmosphere, then why not, anything is possible

මාධ්‍ය නිවේදනය මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය

වෛද්‍ය ප්‍රතිකාර ලබමින් සිටින අතරතුර රත්නපුර දිස්ත්‍රික් පාර්ලිමේන්තු මන්ත්‍රී රංජිත් ද සොයියා මැතිතුමාගේ අනපේක්‍ෂිත අභාවය පිළිබඳව ඇසීමෙන් මම මහත් ලෙස කම්පාවටත් සංවේගයටත් පත් වුණෙමි. රංජිත් ද සොයිසා යනු 2015 ජනවාරියෙන් පසු, ඒකාබද්ධ විපක්‍ෂයත්, පසුව ශ්‍රී ලංකා පොදුජන පෙරමුණත් නිර්මාණය කිරීමට එක් වූ විපාක්‍ෂික බලවේග වටා එක්වූ ජනතාව වීරයෙක් හැටියට පිළිගත් අයෙකි. අසාර්ථක හා මර්ධනකාරී ආණ්ඩුවකට එරෙහිව එඩිතරව නැගී සිටීමෙන් රංජිත් ද සොයිසා මැතිතුමා ජාතික තලයේ දේශපාලනඥයෙකු බවට පත්වි සිටියේය. කෘෂිකර්මාන්තය පිළිබද විශේෂඥයෙකු වූ සොයිසා මැතිතුමා, ගොවි ජනතාව සම්බන්ධ ගැටළු, විශේෂයෙන්ම සුළු අපනයන බෝග අංශය වෙනුවෙන් හඩ නැගූ දේශපාලනඥයෙකි. අපගේ ජයග්‍රාහී මොහොතේම ඔහුමේ ආකාරයෙන් අප අතරින් වෙන්ව යෑම ඔහු නියෝජනය කළ ජනතා ව්‍යාපාරයට මෙන්ම, පෞද්ගලිකවම මටද අති මහත් පාඩුවකි.

රංජිත් ද ද සොයියා මැතිතුමා ගොඩකවෙල රාහුල ජාතික පාසලෙන් අධ්‍යාපනය ලැබ, කෘෂිකර්මාන්තය පිළිබද උසස් අධ්‍යාපන ඩිප්ලෝමාවක් ලබා ගත්තේය. ඔහු ශ්‍රී ලංකා කෘෂිකාර්මික විශේෂඥයන්ගේ සංගමයේ සාමාජිකයෙකුද විය. එතුමා, 1997 දී දේශපාලනයට එක්වූයේ රක්වාන ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාවේ සභාපතිවරයා බවට පත් වෙමිනි. 2002 දී ඔහු එම ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාවේම විපක්‍ෂ නායකවරයා විය. 2004 දී සබරගමුව පළාත් සභාවට තේරීපත් වූ ඔහු, පළාත් කෘෂිකාර්මික ඇමති හැටියටත්, පළාත් සෞඛ්‍ය ඇමති හැටියටත් කටයුතු කළේය. 2010 දී සොයියා මැතිතුමා පාර්ලිමේන්තුවට තේරීපත් විය. දේශපාලඥයෙකු හැටියට ඔහු බලය හෝ තනතුරු වලින් වැරදි මගට යොමු නොවන, ඉතා ඍජු ප්‍රතිපත්තියක් අනුව කටයුතු කළ නායකයෙකු හැටියට ජනතාව ඔහුව හදුනාගෙන සිටයේය. ඔහු අප අතරින් වෙන්ව යන විට අවුරුදු 57 ක් පමණක් වුවත්, ඔහු ජනතා සේවකයෙකු හැටියට ආදර්ශමත් හා සාර්ථක ජීවිතයක් ගත කළ මන්ත්‍රීවරයෙකු විය.

රංජිත් ද සොයිසා මැතිතුමාගේ බිරිද වන මුදිතා ද සොයිසා මැතිනියටත්, පුත් ලකිතටත්, දුව මිහින්තාටත්,ඔහු නියෝජනය කළ රක්වාන මෙන්ම රත්නපුර දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ ජනතාවටත් මාගේ බලවත් සංවේගය මේ අස්ථාවේදී පුදකර සිටීමට කැමැත්තෙමි.

මහින්ද රාජපක්‍ෂ

අග්‍රාමාත්‍ය

MEDIA RELEASE Mahinda Rajapaksa Prime Minister

I was shocked and saddened to hear of the untimely passing away of Ratnapura District Parlimentarian Hon. Ranjith de Zoysa while receiving treatment at a hospital in Singapore. He was a hero to the political forces that came together to form the Joint Opposition and later the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna after January 2015. He rose to national prominence as one of the most outspoken and fearless opponents of an unsuccessful and repressive government. A qualified agriculturist himself, Hon. Ranjith de Zoysa was vocal on matters affecting the farming community particularly in the sphere of minor export crops. It is a blow to the movement he was part of, the people he represented and to me personally that fate would take him away at the very moment of our triumph.

Hon. Ranjith de Zoysa was educated at the Rahula National College,Godakawela and later went on to complete a Diploma in Agriculture. He was an Associate Member of the Sri Lanka Agriculturists Association. He entered politics in 1997 by being elected the Chairman of the Rakwana Pradesheeya Sabha. In 2002, he became the Leader of the Opposition of the Rakwana Pradesheeya Sabha. He entered the Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council in 2004 and served as the Provincial Minister of Agriculture and later as the Provincial Minister of Health. He entered Parliament in 2010. He was an upright politician who could not be wrongly influenced or misled by the blandishments of power and position. He was only 57 when he passed away, but by all accounts his was a life well lived, in the service of the people.

I wish to offer my heartfelt condolences to his wife Muditha de Zoysa, his son Lakith and daughter Mihintha and the people of Rakwana and the Ratnapura district on the untimely demise of Hon. Ranjith de Zoysa.

Mahinda Rajapaksa

Prime Minister

Dr. Sudath Gunasekara (SLAS)

The beginning

The United National Party (UNP) was formed in 1946 by the merger of the Ceylon National Congress and the Sinhala Mahasabha to contest the first Parliamentary election of the Independent Ceylon under the Soulbury Constitution in 1948, to enable the Westminster system of Government to function smoothly (as they said) under a party system, as Political parties are considered essential to the working of representative government under a democratic system.

It is said that it was Henry Monk Mason Moor, the then Governor (1944-1948) who suggested this name mischievously whereby he implied that there are many nations in this country which was a complete travesty of authentic history of this Island nation as there had been only one nation in this country from the dawn of history and that was The Sinhala Nation. Contrary to this historical fact the British identified even Tamils and Muslim communities living here, who were only descendants of alien immigrants, particularly from South India, over time also as nations. Introduction of this concept by the British was aimed at cementing the divide and rule policy of keeping Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim divided and the country destabilized and to destroy the Sinhala Buddhist nation. This was the first time anyone has implied Tamils and Muslims as nations in any country in the world and it was also the first time they recognized any country with more than one nation. Because every country in the world has only one nation as it is defined in political science.

Usually nationality is defined as a ‘spiritual sentiment or principle arising among a number of people usually of the same race, resident on the same territory, sharing a common language, the same religion, similar history and traditions, common interests, with common political associations and common ideals of political unity.’ Within this context the Sinhala people are the only group of people, who could be called a Nation, within this country, and that is how it had been recorded from the inception of history. Usually the name of the nationality of any country comes after the language of the people who have found the civilization in that country.

Therefore Mason Moor’s assumption had no historical or a rational basis. As such it was absolutely wrong as there was only one nation called Sihalese (Ceylonese as the British called them), in this country even in 1946. What is more is at the time of ceding to Briton in 1815, this country was known as Sinhale as documented in the Kandyan Convention and the nation at that time was also Sinhala. The word Sinhalese meant the people of the Sinhale (the land of the Sinhala people), as it was known from 543 BC and their language was Sinhala. On the other hand the only place on earth Tamils can claim to be a nation by way of this definition is Tmilnadu in South India, but curiously even there, they are not recognized as a nation. There they are known as Indians. As for Muslims there is no nation called Muslim anywhere in the world. They are only a group of people following Islam; a religious denomination as Buddhists or Catholics. The nationality of Muslims all over the world is decided not by religion but by the language or the country where they live, like America, Australia, New Zealand all newly colonized countries by Europeans. Japan, China, India, Russia, England, France and Spain are few examples for the language category. As for the country category Pakistanis, Bengali, Egyptians or Iranians could be cited as examples.  On the other hand there is no country in the world that has a nation named after a religion.  As such it is quite strange that only in this country Muslims are pretending to call themselves a nation. Therefore one can conclude that this multi-national concept in this country was purely a vicious invention imposed on us by the British to consolidate their intrigue in realizing the divide and rule in this country.

The UNP was born as a non-national Political Party.

The term United National Party (UNP), it is argued, was invented to unite the different Nations in the country. Thus the concept of the presence of many nations in this country gained legal recognition for the first time in the history of this country in 1946. Native leaders led by D.S.Senanayaka blindly agreed to accept this new concept in a wink without realizing the total distortion of the Islands history and its long term implications and the British coup behind it to destabilize and divide this country. The UNP did not object or protest to this historical blunder and total distortion of the history of this country. Instead they meekly swallowed that colonial virus. K.M. De Silva in his book ‘The First Prime Minister of Ceylon D.S’ has stated that D.S.Senananyaka was a strong supporter of the multi- national, multi religious concept and he argued for a Lankan nation, in place of a Sinhala nation as it had been up to 1815. He also says D.S. believed in a secular State and he rejected the idea of getting religion involved in the affairs   of the    State as he thought that will affect inter religious and inter-ethnic harmony.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         This stand on the part of D.S. would have fitted very well to the colonial agenda.

The first Betrayal by the UNP

This historical blunder later led to the concept of Sri Lanka being internationally accepted later as a multinational country although Sinhalese constituted over 80% of the total population of the country even at that time (after changing the demographic composition  for 443 years from 1505-1948, by colonial invaders) and put Sinhalese in par with the minority communities who all ways had their motherlands somewhere else unlike the Sinhalese. Total population in 1946 was 6.657.300. (Sinh 4.673, 600; Ceylon Tamils and Ceylon Moors 1.514 300. (CT 733,700. CM 780,600). The balance constituted Indian Tamils and Indian Moors, Burgers and Europeans and Malay who were not Ceylonese at that time. By doing so the British downgraded the Native Sinhala nation, the Bhumiputras of the land and elevated the Tamils and Muslims to parity status with Sinhalese, the sons of the soil. This was the first  betrayal of the Sinhala nation by the UNP. I put the whole blame for this betrayal on all the leading politicians who agreed to accept this name and took over the country from the British in 1948. Thus at the very outset the UNP started as an anti-national political party from the point of view of Sinhalese as it did not recognize the Sinhala people as the Nation or the bhoomiputras of this country and therefore I argue the UNP can never be accepted as a National political Party that is suitable to be given the power to govern this country from its very origin.

The UNP failed to get full Independence to this country or the Sinhala Nation

Furthermore the UNP also failed in 1948 the UNP failed

 2) To get the name of the country Sinhale” restored.

3) To get the freedom over the motherland by asking the British to take back all those South Indian Tamils they brought here to work on their projects, specially the plantations as cheap labour.

4) To get a Constitution of our own enacted based on our civilization  as a fully independent and free State without just accepting a made in Britain Constitution drafted by them (Jennings) designed to perpetuate their control of the Island and exploitation of its resources.

5) To get our own legal and Administrative system restored that was there for millennia

6) To get the language of the people of the country, Sinhala, declared as the official language of the State and finally.

7) To get full freedom and Independence from the shackles and clutches of colonial rule (by accepting Dominion status while India was declared as a Republic in 1951).

8 To complete sovereignty by taking over all aspects of defense and internal security by asking for Trinco and Ratmalana Air bases vested

9) By leaving the executive power of the Island to continue to be vested in his Majesty in England under sec 45 of the Constitution

10 By accepting the entire Legal and Administrative system prescribed by the British in order to continue their hold over the former Colony.

This made the 1948 Independence a big faux pass. Therefore the UNP has absolutely no right to claim that it has got independence to this country in 1948. It only replaced the white rulers with a local brown set of people who shared the same values as the British.

So what is the Independence they got about which they boast so much.

Very soon the UNP became a group of closely knit family circle that  was duped as Uncle and Nephew Party” merely enjoying the fruits of political power for personal gain serving the British colonial masters instead of building a free and Independent nation as a country that has got independence from colonial rule  and serving the natives.. History has clearly proved that the first UNP Government has done nothing towards this goal other than the continuation of the Dry Zone settlement development and irrigation work started during the State Council days with immense contribution from people like S.W.R.D.Bandaranayaka and S.A. Wickramasingha.

Bandaranayaka firing the first salvo of true Independence and freedom

S.W.R.D. Bandaranayaka disillusioned by this negative approach of the UNP Government left it in 1952 and formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. D.S the first Prime Minister died in 1953.The native Sinhala Buddhists got disgusted and disillusioned over the neglect of their lost 2500 year birth rights like the language, religion and culture the disregard for their customs and values by the UNP and revolted in 1956 and formed a new people’s government under the leadership of national leaders headed by S.W, R. D. reducing the UNP to 8 seats in Parliament. This historic national resurgence movement was fuelled by the Buddhist Commission Report of 1953 and Eksath Bhikshu Peramuna led by a large number of prominent Buddhist monks in the Island. The new Government introduced a series of patriotic moves first, by making the Sinhala, native language of the nation, the Official language of the country after 141 years. Thus the sons of the soil actually felt some sense of freedom only in 1956 and it is hailed as the dawn of a new era for in Sinhala Buddhist resurgence for the first time not only after 1948 but also since 1848. It was popularly called the dawn of the age of the common man. This brought to an end the first unsuccessful phase of the UNP. But as the reactionary forces led by the Catholic church and the Western interests assassinated Bandaranayaka in 1959 the UNP again raised its head again in 1965 with a 3 months spell in 1960 march without any significant achievement in nation building.

During this period Dudley Senanayaka, among other things, undid all what Sirima Bandaranayaka had cleverly done to settle the Indian  Estate labour problem through her 1964 negotiations with  Indian Prime Ministers Sastri and 1974 with Indira, paving the way to keep back all Indians back at Home and thereby acted treacherously against the Motherland and the Sinhala nation. Had Sirimas plan worked the way it was agreed upon, today there would have been no Indian problem in the central hill country of this country. According to that agreement out of 825000 only 125000 had to be given Sri Lanka citizenship.

The third UNP government was formed under J. R. Jayawardhana in 1977 he made a 360 degrees reversal of the all that good achievements of Mrs B on the Indian citizenship problem. His Government also completely reversed the nationalistic policies of the previous SLFP pro- Sinhala pro-Buddhist government, passed a new Constitution in 1987 replacing the 1972 Republican Constitution and introduced the Executive Presidential system of Government conferring enormous powers to himself as the Executive President. He signed the infamous Rajiv /JR Accord in 1987 by which he agreed to declare the Northern and Eastern Provinces Comprising 1/3 of the total area of the country and 2/3 of the Island’s coastal belt, paving the way for separation and leading to a Federal State in the North and East with 9 independent Provincial Councils under the notorious 13th amendment with power over land with Judicial and police powers to be governed by 9 Provincial Councils headed by 9 Governors and 9 Provincial Chief Ministers with  nearly 700 Provincial level MPP and 45 Ministers, granting Citizenship to all Indians in this country over the counter over an affidavit without any conditions and without following the normal procedure in granting citizenship to foreigners in any country, making Tamil also a national language all over the country and thereby reversing the status of the Sinhala (language of the natives), that was the official language for  21 years from 1956 the historic year of declaring it the official language once again after 1815, increasing the number of MPP in Parliament from 155 to 225 with 29 National list MPP specially made to accommodate political stooges with no qualification without having to face the elections, politicizing the entire public service by  introducing a compulsory chit system from the local MP to get a Government job, giving a free hand for UNP goons to run the country, removing the Civil rights of the Mrs Bandaranayaka for 7 years, increasing the number of Ministers in the central Government to nearly 112 at the centre, creating a new kind of Ministers called State Ministers and non- Cabinet  and creating 45 Ministers at the Provincial level are some of the prominent betrayals his government did ab initio.

This increased the number of superficial politicians, institutions and staff at least by five times and the government expenditure went up exponentially by billions with very little benefit to people and it completely disorganized and destabilized the provincial administration that was smoothly run until then under an excellent system of District Administration.

It should also be noted that Rajiv/JR Accord of July 29th 1987 was singed under Island wide emergency using the 3/5^th power he had in Parliament after getting all MPP to sign undated letters of resignation, under compulsion, and confining all of them to a leading hotel in the city until they were driven to  Parliament to get the vote for this treacherous Accord, thereby making democracy a big joke This was UNP democracy in practice. This clearly shows that the passing of this Accord in Parliament was undemocratic and illegal from the beginning to the end. The biggest political coup during this time was the removal of Mrs Bandaranayakas’ civil rights by the UNP in October 1980 for 7 years, blatantly violating not only all our age old traditional values and ethics of a Sinhala Buddhist society but also all basic tenets and ethics of human rights of the so-called modern world, by just acting as an servile agent of the Western colonial and imperial masters to suppress an emerging independent nation in this country for their political survival. This in short was how democracy was seduced under JR Government,

Thereafter in 1982 he got the term of Parliament extended for a second term of another 5 years under a referendum conducted in the most undemocratic manner. They also had an election in 1989 March and R. Premadasa took over as the President. Other than starting a garment industry and construction of few houses under Gamudava programme and constructing clock towers at the roundabout all over the country, hardly any other significant development took place during this period.

 Again the UNP came to power under Ranil as PM in 2001 for a short period by accident. During this time he signed an agreement with Prabakaran who had waged war against this nation to create a separate Tamil Kingdom in the North and East of this land of the Sinhala Buddhists without the knowledge of President Chandrika and his government was sacked by Chandrika in 2004. He was defeated by Mahinda Rajapaksa at the 2005 Presidential election and was driven in to political wilderness until he got appointed unconstitutionally as PM again in Jan 2015 by Maitripala Sirisena a hired out SLFP man who became the President, with the help of a master intrigue by Western powers in collaboration with India and even local agents, after quitting and betraying the only Party that brought about the first wave of national resurgence in 1956 after independence and that nursed him as a political cub for long years. The first job they jointly did was to rob the Nation’s Central Bank. Ranil as the Prime Minister was the chief architect in this mega scam. But for obvious reasons the President has not taken any action against Ranil up to date, who got a Singaporean citizen Arjun Mahendran appointed as the Governor of the Central Bank and got him to rob the Bank  and there after send him back to Singapore and helped him to hide there in safety to date.

This was followed by a series of undemocratic conspiracies like the dissolution of Parliament in July 2015 to avoid a Parliamentary debate on the COPE report, followed by August General elections, the second CB scam of 2016 and  a plethora of anti –national, anti- Sinhala and unpatriotic actions such as selling national assets like Colombo, Hambantota and Trinco harbours together with 101 oil Tanks at Trico and  Air Ports like Mattala and Pallali to India and China, allowing the Tamil and Muslim extremists to run riots and betrayed the country at International forum like the UN and UNCHR and destroying the oldest political party in the country by internal feuds for power directly goes to Ranil’s account. What more evidence is needed to show the disqualifications of the UNP to hold on to national politics in this country anymore? Right from its birth in 1946 the UNP leadership, thus, has never been patriotic. Starting from naming the Party, blindly accepting the form of Government, machinery of governance imposed by Briton and formulation of all its policies the UNP had never been inward looking. Instead of building up a free, Independent and a proud nation based on our own 2500 year old heritage it always looked up for Western advice and Western advisors in all matters as if we were a nation who never had a history or an

In addition to their miserable past record, looking at the ongoing infighting within the Party and the mess they have made out of it how can anyone can expects them to run this country. The UNP is like a scrambled egg now.  As much as no one on earth can unscramble an egg scrambled none can put the UNP together now. Ranil is the worst and the most undemocratic, self- centered, irresponsible and inefficient leader UNP ever had in its 72 years of history. He had never been a Statesman or a man with a vision or a mission. He always has thought and acted as an agent of the West. He never had his feet on this land and I would rate him as the worst leader the UNP ever had and more over he will go down in history who signed the death warrant of UNP. Besides monopolizing the leadership nearly for 30 years he also never allowed a second generation of potential leaders to emerge, neither at the top and the middle or the lower levels.  He has never allowed a successor to emerge. What is more is Ranil has destroyed it not only by taking in transitory passengers like Fonseka, Rajjitha, Mangala, Kiriella, Champika and removing all potential candidates belonging to the traditional UNP leadership like Rukman Senanayaka and Jayawarhanas  but also by aligning heavily with anti-Sinhala elements like TNA, Hakeem and Digambaran. Now that he has completely destroyed Sajit too, there is no one to be seen   even at the end of the dark and long tunnel who could take up the leadership after him. So today the UNP has got reduced to an utterly disorganized, leaderless and radar less party with no future, as good as it is already dead and buried thanks to Ranil, a classic political misfit in Sri Lanka political history. He has dragged the UNP in to high seas and abandoned it there to sink.

Today as it stands even a tiny tot in a village compound can understand that there is no political party called the UNP in this country any more. As one writer recently said History will write him (Ranil) off as morally corrupt pimp of the West who dragged the Grand Old Party, the Parliament and the people to the lowest moral level in the post-independent era”. To this I would add that the UNP under his leadership during the past 4 1/2 years has ruined the whole country and the entire social system beyond recovery. The knell of parting day will toll for Ranil on election night on Nov 16. But how many UNP mourners will be there to follow him to his political grave?” So said the same writer quoted above quite rightly.

With regard to the ongoing tussle between Ranil and Sajit some might have thought it was over with Sajith‘s appointment as the Presidential candidate. That is far from the truth. It is only the beginning of another major conflict. Ranil did everything to defeat Sajit. As I see it Sajit was not able to win even with all Muslim and Tamil votes which Ranil deliberately garnered. Even if he had won by some miracle, Ranil would have made it virtually impossible for Sajit to do his job as the Presiden, as tsubsequent incidents have clearly shown. Now the full scale war between Ranil and Premadasa has already begun it will drag the country from bad to worse. At the end none will win. Both will pass on to political oblivion along with the Unpatriotic non-National Party that will be never heard thereafter after the next General election as the UNP will get washed out completely from the minds of the Sri Lankan electorate.

On the overall the UNP has never being patriotic or people friendly. As it stands today it is almost dead and buried as a political party, thanks to Runil’s 29 years of miss-leading that grand old party. Its survival right throughout has rested on minority votes. It never accepted this country as the native country of the Sinhala nation. Right down from D.S. up to date it always treated this as a multi -national, multi-religious and a multi-cultural country, not for anything else but for power hunger. Under Ranil it has gone down on record as the Political party which robbed the nation’s Central Bank by its own leader, the Prime Minister of the country. It is also on record that as the party that has sold the greatest number of national assets, as the party which has imprisoned the largest number of Buddhist monks and that kept the eyes closed while Tamils and Muslims were vandalizing most of the Buddhist heritage sites in the North and East while some of its members like Mangala openly declaring that this is not a Sinhala Buddhist country.

An open plea to all patriotic Sinhala Buddhists who are still with the UNP

I am asking the following questions from those all Sinhala Buddhists who still remain stuck like leaches and ticks to this treacherous ant-Sinhala and ant-Buddhist political outfit plagued with an obnoxious band of political rogues and nincompoops.

 Don’t you feel ashamed as the descendants of heroic Sinhala forefathers who fought and died  in battle to preserve this country for you to be a party to all these betrayals by sticking to this Party.

Don’t you have an atom of brain to understand what these traitors have done to this country over the years and the irreparable damage they continue to do this Sinhala nation, the country and the Sambuddha Sasana

Don’t you feel guilty that you have already become a party to the crime of destroying the Sinhala Nation   the motherland that has nursed you and your ancestors for 2600 years, by supporting an unpatriotic outfit like this who have come to power through your vote promising the Sun and Moon and ruined this Paradise Island of yours.

Don’t you realize that all what you had done so far by voting these rogues has only enriched them and their kith and kin only while you have gone down the slope of  poverty, misery and eternal hopelessness as individuals and a nation.

Don’t you see that the present day UNP is a dead and stinking corps that will never reappear again in this country under that name? The results of the Presidential Election just concluded both on figures and on map clearly shows where the UNP stands in national politics.

As such it is high time that you change your maruvath kepuwat Kola blind mentality at least now, as there want be any UNP after the next general election. Therefore I strongly advise you  to bury the UNP mentality and align with a new patriotic force where all Sinhala people stand united under the Lion flag to rescue this nation from the socio-political and economic mess in to which this government has put it within the past 4 ½ years. That is the only way the Sinhala people can save this country, the nation and the Buddha Sasana for posterity and be forgiven your past sins for voting the UNP.

So now I appeal to all those mad and blind followers of UNP, who are still suffering from the incurable mania of ‘Api kepuwat meruwath UNP” to immediately leave these unpatriotic good for nothing bunch of strayed political rejects and get out of this rut as early as possible and join the patriotic forces at all future elections to save your bellowed motherland and the Sinhala nation from extinction, for reasons, I have outlined above. In this noble mission you have no alternative but to elect the persons selected and presented by the Mahasangha keeping with the age old tradition, as the most suitable representatives who can take this country out of the present pathetic situation. A vote for the UNP is a vote against the Sinhala nation. A vote for the UNP is also a vote against this country and the Buddha Sasana. 

As it is, besides being unpatriotic and treacherous, the UNP today, has ceased to be an organized political Party that can come to power any more. It is struggling very hard in a deep political cesspit to come out, whose bottom and width is immeasurable. Therefore I request all those of you who still dream of UNP, to form an entirely a new political Party under a different namesuitable to our native context like Sri Lanka Prajatantaravadi Paksaya or Sinhale Bhoomiputra Paksaya or any other based on the principles of a Civilization State” in order to provide an alternative political Force one day, to the ruling SLPP, which in my opinion will rule at least for another 15 years, if not more.

If the diehard UNP followers need an obituary to express their sorrow to the world over the demise of the UNP and an epitaph I would suggest they publish the following notice in all papers and other media channels to be inscribed as an memorable epitaph that will be remembered for centuries on its tomb.

The tragic demise of the UNP (Unpatriotic non-National Party) BASTARD, son of the British Imperial colonial invaders, left behind when they left this Island in 1948, brother of Ivor Jennings, D.S.Seanayaka. Ponnambalam and Sundaralingam, Vice, Robbery and Corruption, uncle of JR, Premadasa and grandfather of Ranil and Sajit died under tragic circumstances due to serious heart failure in the wake of Parliamentary General Election results 2020.

The cortege will leave Sirikota for BIA at mid night to be taken to Westminster Abbey, in his motherland, by plane to be interred there after final burial rituals by his English relatives. Wreaths and mourners are not welcome for fear of public turmoil.

 (The remains of BASTARD UNP Born at London in 1946- died in 2020 at Sri Lanka after fulfilling his avowed mission by the King of Great Britton in the name of the God, lie here in peace)

(Pl note that this is an essay I wrote before the Presidential election and slightly changed to reflect the present status of the UNP)

By Gary Brecher

You see some pretty sick stuff when you do my job, but I just read something sicker than any Congo cannibal buffet.   It’s an article by a posh little Limey named Jeremy Brown condemning the Sri Lankan Government for being too messy in putting down the LTTE, and demanding that we stop buying the cheap textiles the poor Sinhalese make their living churning out.

What’s sick about this is that the British establishment destroyed the Sinhalese people completely.   Completely and purposely, sadistically; stole their land, humiliated and massacred their government and made it Imperial policy to erase every shred of self-respect the Sinhalese had left.   You can talk about the Nazis all day long, but for my money nothing they did was as gross as what you find out when you actually look into the history of British-Sinhalese relations.   If you can even call them relations” – I guess a murder-rape is a sort of relationship.

But nobody knows about it.   Weird, huh?   Nothing ‘weirds’ me out more than the total news blackout the Brits have managed to put on all the sick shit they did to brown and black people all over the world.   They had a system, and it worked. They’d grab some paradise island in the tropics, use the Royal Navy to wall it off from the rest of the world and crush the local tribe.   If the locals resisted, the Brits would starve them to death, shoot them down, infect them with smallpox or get them addicted to opium – whatever they had to do to gang-rape the locals so bad that they would lose the will to resist.

And to this day, they don’t catch even a little bit of Hell for it.   Everybody thinks the Brits are all cute and harmless.   You’re all a bunch of suckers for those suave accents, you suckers!   The truth is that compared to the Brits, the Nazis who people are always whining about, were a gang of eighth-grade stoners who ran around spray-painting swastikas on school property.   The Nazis lasted one decade; the Brits quietly ran their extermination programs for three hundred years and to this day they wouldn’t even think of feeling guilty about it – it wouldn’t cross their minds.

That’s what made me want to puke battery acid when I read Mister Jeremy Brown’s sermon on the naughty Sinhalese: this pig Brown has no clue about why Sri Lanka is so fucked up, no hint at all that it’s the result of British Imperial policy. Not mistakes” or a few bad apples” or regrettable excesses” but clear, cold, ruthless British policy.

One of the funniest bits in Brown’s little Anglican sermon to the Sinhalese is when he mentions Arthur C. Clarke, the Brit sci-fi writer who moved to Sri Lanka.   The reason that’s funny is that a few years back, when he was too senile and drunk to watch his tongue, Clarke admitted in an interview that the whole reason he moved to Sri Lanka is for the boys.”   As in, he liked to rape little boys, and they were cheap and pretty in the dear old ex-colony.   The Brits wouldn’t stop raping the Sinhalese even after their troops were forced (sorry, withdrawn) from the island.

Jeremy Brown wouldn’t know that, of course.   To him, Clarke is a wonderful example of all the wonderful things British people have done for poor little Sri Lanka:

Britain has helped to rebuild Sri Lanka’s tourist industry: Britons accounted for 18.5 per cent of the foreigners who visited the former colony’s famous beaches, wildlife parks, tea plantations and Buddhist temples last year.   Only India sends more tourists.   Many Britons also own property there, especially around the southern city of Galle, not far from where Arthur C. Clarke, the British science fiction writer who settled in Sri Lanka, used to love to scuba dive. [Is that what they’re calling it these days? ]

So the question facing British shoppers and holidaymakers is this: should they continue to support Sri Lanka’s garment and tourist industries?

Don’t you love that last sentence: Sadly, the answer must be no.”   Anybody who can write a sentence like that without blowing his brains out at the monitor is a hopeless twit anyway, but let’s help Jeremy out a little bit, folks, let’s go back in time and take a quick look at all the wonderful things the Brits did for these rotten, ungrateful Sinhalese.

The pattern you see in the colonizing of Sri Lanka is a real familiar one, if you study the European naval empires: the Portuguese, the greatest sailors and explorers, came to Sri Lanka long before the Brits, claimed the place, but couldn’t hold on to it.   The Portuguese lost the island to the Dutch, those up & coming Protestant go-getters, in the mid-1600s.   That’s another pattern you see everywhere, the old Papist powers losing out to the Protestants, who were just faster and smarter.

The next stage was also totally by the book: the Brits, the canopy tree if you know what I mean, come along and force the Dutch out.   There were times the Brits sort of liked the Dutch; they were Protestant, at least, and blonde/blue-eyed.   But business was business, and the Brits realized, by the end of the 1700s, that Ceylon was worth taking.   Of course they didn’t say that in public; the official reason was that they had to boot the Dutch to guard the island from the nasty radical Frenchies.

That way of stealing islands, making it sound like you had to take them for the greater good–that was classic Brit strategy.   They always made it look like they were forced, against their will, to grab this or that colony.   I don’t know if you all ever saw a movie called Erik the Viking”, but it has a great scene with John Cleese playing this insane bloodthirsty warlord who orders people tortured to death in this tired, disappointed upper-class voice, and then whines, It’s the stress that gets you” – all put upon and harassed (the ‘White Man’s burden’).   That’s a perfect image for the way the Brits booted the Dutch out of Ceylon, tut-tutting while they stole every shed, cannon and bale of tea on the island.

With the Dutch trade rivals gone, the Brits had only one problem left: those damned natives, the Sinhala, or Kandyans” as they were called back then.   The name, Kandyans,” came from the fact that their main city was Kandy, up in the highlands in the south of the island, the fat part of the teardrop.   The Sinhala lived in the highlands for the simple reason that it was a little cooler, not as totally malarial, up there compared to the coastal marshes.

By all accounts, the Sinhala/Kandyans were harmless slackers, who didn’t need or want much from the outside world.   All they asked was for people to leave them alone up on their big rocky highlands to do their Buddhist thing.   Unfortunately that wasn’t British policy.   It irked the redcoats that Kandy still had a king, an army, all this impudent baggage that went with independence.   The British decided to break the Sinhalese completely and crush their whole society.

You have to remember that by this time, the early 1800s, the Brits had perfected their techniques in little experiments all over the world.   Those Clockwork Orange shrinks were amateurs compared to the Imperial Civil Service.   They had dozens of ways of undermining native kingdoms.

British administrators were trained to do a kind of rough, quick sociological sketch of the natives, get a sense of the fault lines and then figure out how to exploit them.   The Brits saw fast that the Kandyans were a sluggish bunch of people divided into rigid castes in the classic subcontinent pattern.   That made it easy: the Brits made two big castes their official pets and shunned the others, setting up a violent hate between different parts of Sinhalese society.   That guaranteed that if the diehard Sinhalese/Kandyan nationalists ever revolted, the teacher’s-pet castes would have a good selfish reason to help massacre them. (It’s called ‘divide & rule’)

Then there was the Kandyan king himself.   The Brits weren’t dumb in the way Paul Bremer was dumb, de-Baathifying” Iraq.   They loved corrupt local rulers. Much easier and cheaper to bribe one fat old degenerate on a throne than negotiate with all the commoners.   So the Brits started playing with the nervous, Kandyan royals, scaring them with the threat of losing everything and then teasing them with the possibility of the safe, soft life of a Brit puppet.

This was the major league of colonialism.   To give you an idea of how important Ceylon/Sri Lanka was back then, try this on: in 1802, when French armies were kicking British and Prussian and Italian and Russians all over Europe (weird how nobody remembers that?), the Brits were so terrified they tried to give Napoleon all their colonies except Sri Lanka and Trinidad.   Those were the two they needed to keep.

The Kandy Men: No match for the British vampire lords

And this is where another standard Brit policy came into play – a real smart one that we ought to be imitating: use native auxiliaries, not homeland troops, as much as possible.   For all kinds of reasons, but here are the main ones:

1. If you bring in troops from some remote part of the Empire to do your dirty work, it’s those troops, those faces and accents, the locals will remember, and hate, for generations.   So you, the sly little pink Brit administrator, can stroll in later and commiserate with the locals as they show you around their burned huts, bayoneted kids, etc., and even say with a straight face, Oh my, those auxiliaries from wherever; what heathens?   Outrageous!   I shall certainly let Whitehall know about these abuses.”   Then, of course, you get in his sedan chair, close the curtains and chuckle all the way home to where his personal ‘native’bum-boy was waiting.

2. Nobody back in London counts casualties as long as it’s Malay mercenaries dying.   You can lose a lot of them–and a lot of Malays did die fighting the Sinhala, especially in the total rout of a malaria-sapped British/Malay force at the Mahaveli River in 1803 – but nobody is going to make a fuss in the Times of London (Mister Jeremy Brown’s paper, as you may recall).   If you’re lucky they’ll pop off before payday and you can keep their payroll for that estate in Shropshire.

3. Dropping hot-blooded feisty Malay Muslims with guns far from home and making them fight Sinhalese bleeds Malay society as well as Sinhalese.   Left in peace, Malays could be trouble – a proud, warlike people.   So by sending them to die in Ceylon, you’re diverting all that young, angry Malay blood away from SE Asia and using it to bleed Kandy.   Two birds with one blood-soaked stone.

You see why I get impatient with you gullible suckers yammering about the Nazis? The Nazis were retards, a white-trash tantrum, an eighth-grade chemistry-class pipe bomb, a quick-fizzle flash in the pan, compared to the Brits, the scariest motherfuckers ever to butt-fuck the planet.

The mercenaries the Brits sent to crush the Kandyans were Malays, Muslims from SE Asia who didn’t need a lot of pep talks to slaughter South Asian Buddhists (and steal their chickens).   That was life for the Brits back then, at the top of their game: picking up pieces from one part of the world and dropping them where they’d do the most harm, half the world away.   Ah yes, let’s ferry some Malay mercenaries to Kandy, that should give the bloody idol-worshippers something to think about!”

Destroying Buddhism was a big part of Brit policy.   The Buddhist routine, the temples, begging monks, long boring prayers – it was the glue that kept Kandy together.   So the Brits decided to destroy it.   They even said so, in private memos to each other.   They weren’t shy in those days.   Here’s the Brit governor in 1807: Reliance on Buddhism must be destroyed. Make sure all

[village]

chiefs are Christian.”

Up to 1818, the Brits had a blast messing with doomed Sinhala rebellions; a good time was had by all, except the Sinhalese.   They had a very, very bad time, and it was about to get worse.

See, another constant you’ll find in British imperial policy is that although they’re very sly and patient, they have a very good sense of when to cut the crap and just wipe out a tribe that’s been annoying them for too long.   They were getting sick of the Sinhalese, with all their bickering and intrigue; the redcoats just weren’t enjoying the game the way they used to, so boom: the kill ’em all” era began.

But they did it smart, not like the idiot boastful Nazis you all love to obsess on.   I bet every one on the planet can name the Nazi death camps, but I’d be surprised if more than, say, a half dozen people outside Sri Lanka can name the policy the Brits used to destroy the Sinhala for good.   Anybody?   Didn’t think so!   See, here’s another little tip for up and coming genocidaires out there: always pick the most boring name possible.  Those Nazis, with their heavy-metal jewellery and stupid titles! Dopes! You want extermination programs with names that put everybody to sleep.

And that’s why in 1818 Britain brought the wasteland policy” to Kandy.   They could have called it what that Liberian whacko called his campaign: Operation No Living Thing.” – that’s what it meant: Brit-led troops draining the sea” the Sinhala irregulars swam in by burning every hut, every field, and killing every animal in every village they suspected of harbouring rebels.”

Now that’s another key Brit imperial technique: that word rebels.”   Blows me away: how can a Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, fighting for the country his people have owned for a hundred generations, be a rebel”?   And the pipsqueak redcoat officers hunting him down, were born and raised in Britain.   He was not the rebel,” he was the force of law and order, the rightful authority.   It’s quite a racket if you have the sheer, sociopathic nerve to say it with a straight face. (I’m talking to you, Mister Jeremy Brown!)

What does rebel” mean, anyway?   I’ve noticed that in English press it’s a bad word.   Here, in the US of A, it’s different, because we were the rebels in 1775 and proud of it.   But see, people who know the American Revolution think that the Brit policy against the Yankees, where (give or take a Banastre Tarlteton or two), the redcoats tried to avoid killing civvies, was normal Imperial policy.   Bullshit! The reason the Brits let us go and didn’t try scorched-earth on us, was that we WERE Brits, as far as they could tell: white protestant English-speaking humans.   If you weren’t all of the above, you weren’t human.   The only other war where English troops had the same restraint was – take a wild guess.   Right: the English Civil War.   In England, they fought clean.   But when Cromwell marched up to subdue the Scots, who were Protestant (good) but non-English (bad), a lot of POWs never made it back to the holding pens and a lot of crofts were torched, and a lot of girls were raped.   When he moved from Scotland to Ireland, where the filthy locals were filthy Papist as well as non-English, well, you don’t want to know what happened there.

So in places like Sri Lanka, full of brown heathens, Brit policy had nothing to do with fucking Yorktown – more like Dresden, only lower-tech.

The Wasteland Policy” was smart and mean at the same time–another sure mark of the Brit imperial touch.   It was designed to deny the rebels” support in the short term, but in the long term it was pure punishment, taking away the land, livestock and other assets of all the Sinhalese who were even suspected of being rebel”-lovers.

And it worked.   To this day, 200 years later, the Sinhalese castes that backed the rebels are dirt poor, and worse: they’re hated by everybody around them and they even hate themselves.   And nobody even remembers who did it to them, poor lab rats.   They think it’s their own fault, that there’s something wrong with them.

There’s more, and worse, but to tell the truth, this is making me sick.   I’ve tried to tell this story a dozen times and nobody wants to know.   You just end up vomiting battery acid all night, and pigs like Mister Jeremy Brown of the Times of London never lose one second of sleep over all those bodies and all those lies and sheer nastiness.   What’s the use?   I’ll just fast-forward through a couple of highlight shots.   Take reprisals, you know, like those bad old Nazis used to do after a rebel” attack?   The Brits were there way before the Nazis.   They took revenge for a half-assed Kandyan revolt by killing one out of every hundred Sinhalese.   Like, at random. To keep it fair, you know, not play favourites.

And then the nastiest imperial weapon of all: the demographic bomb.   This was a Brit specialty all over the world (see Fiji for a weirdly similar case).   The Brits ran India, so they had total control over millions of obedient Tamil peasants who were starving, desperate, and ready to go anywhere, just pile into the hold of a ship and get out to cut cane or plant rice in some place that may as well have been on the moon for all they knew.

So along with the massacre/reprisals, the Brits came up with one of their classic two-birds-one-stone plans: to neutralise the Sinhalese, let’s import huge hordes of Tamils from India!   They’re cheap and docile and they’ll give the Sinhala something to keep them busy even after we have to leave the island – and meanwhile they’ll drive the price of labour down even further.  Brilliant, chaps, absolutely brilliant!

And they did it.   It worked so well it’s still working today.   And when they were done totally destroying the poor Sinhalese, the Brits did what they do best, better than any other murder gang on the planet, they took that amnesia zapper from Men in Black” and zapped everyone in Sri Lanka, then turned it on themselves and were suddenly so innocent, so damn virtuous and clean, that a pig like Mister Jeremy Brown can actually sit down at a computer and boast about all the wonderful times England has raped Sri Lanka, from olden times right down to Arthur C. Clarke buggering every little boy on the island.   One hell of a job, Brownie!   Satan himself must be shaking his head, muttering, Gotta give it to the fuckin’ Limeys, damn it, they’ve got no shame at all; ya gotta admire that.   Damn, even I wouldn’t have had the gall to talk like that.   Jeremy Brown. I’m putting him down for CEO of the Hell Propagandastaffel” the minute his liver packs up and he lands down here.”

—————————————————————————————–

BY DR UPUL WIJAYAWARDHANA Courtesy The Island

December 6, 2019, 9:42 pm

Swiss cheese, called so because of distinctive holes, is known the world over. Though the holes in Emmental cheese originally were considered imperfections, these holes being created by the activity of bacteria in milk, cheeses with holes have become fashionable and it is said that more the holes, better the taste! These came to my mind when following the sequence of events of the alleged abduction of a Sri Lankan employee, working in the Swiss Embassy, as the holes in the story seem to be increasing by the day! Though it seems to be getting sillier by the day, it has become very savoury to some politicians. Even Sajith, who was under the radar since his unexpectedly severe defeat, perhaps, spending time charging his discharged batteries and wrenching up his dynamo, was woken up from a slumber to blame the government for this heinous crime.

Of course, the best response was from our own ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Rajitha, again waking up from a post-election slumber, who described the abduction, including how this unfortunate lady was abducted with a gun in her mouth, perhaps after an exclusive consultation. The dental doctor turned psychiatrist, also diagnosed her mental status and it is no surprise that Swiss diplomats do not consider any further medical opinion necessary. Sorry, she has had a video-consultation with a Swiss physician to confirm the diagnosis made by the ex-Minister of Health. The Swiss story certainly would have appeared more plausible had it not been for the intervention of Rajitha, whose judgement came to question after he paraded suspected criminals in disguise, may not be criminals but bad actors, as an election gundu which misfired!

Though endowed with natural beauty and earning the reputation of being a neutral country, Switzerland has always had a shady side. Swiss bank accounts were once the haven for ill-gotten wealth and encouraged, at least indirectly, nefarious activities like money-laundering. It is said Nazi wealth was shielded by Swiss banks. It looks as if the Swiss are finding it difficult to give up bad habits, and are leading a novel challenge for Gota and Mahinda.

Inspector Silva/Candappa ‘escaped’, courtesy of the Swiss Embassy. Though I had not read any reports in Sri Lankan papers about death threats to him, the moment he left for Switzerland, international media were buzzing with reports of a policeman escaping from Sri Lanka because of death threats, followed by the story of the abduction of the lady employee. In a surprising coincidence, a number of Tiger supporters imprisoned, during the Yahapalana time, for collecting funds for a banned terrorist organisation, were released, soon after the fall of Yahapalanaya, as Tigers are no longer considered a terrorist organisation in Switzerland!

The biggest joke of all was the demand of the Swiss Embassy that this lady, and her family, be allowed to fly out of Sri Lanka, in an ambulance plane, without any emigration checks. Diplomats need to make reasonable requests, not dictate to other sovereign states. The question arises, whether the Swiss consider themselves to be the new viceroys of Sri Lanka?

After a fair and peaceful election, where Sri Lankans showed their maturity in the democratic process, one would have expected the ‘West’ to rejoice with us, but what is happening is just the opposite. Sad to say, I did not think I would be forced to repeat what I stated a year ago: “Mother Lanka! I can only weep for you and hope the day will dawn, soon, when unpatriotic politicians stop plotting against you in cahoots with undiplomatic diplomats.” (The Island, 2 December, 2018: Undiplomatic diplomats and unpatriotic politicians). Even when I wrote “Can Gota and Mahinda do the impossible, again?” (The Island, 21 November) I did not imagine that a political Eelam war would be launched by the ‘West’ so soon, my reference in that piece being getting the economy back.

There is no escaping from the fact that another Eelam war has started, a diplomatic war at the behest of the Tiger-rump. Maybe, Gota was aware and this may well be the reason why he made a hurried visit to India, a perfectly logical diplomatic move.

The United Kingdom, facing a decisive and divisive election on the 12th, has also become a player in this game, and it was no surprise that our politicians protested about the two-state solution mentioned in the Conservative manifesto; which was later clarified following representations made by our High Commission, highlighting the role that our diplomats ought to play. We need a top-notch diplomatic service to fight this new war.

It was very unfortunate that our politicians failed to mention the much worse attitude of the Labour Party. Its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been regularly sending messages to his Eelam friends on occasions like ‘The Tamil New Year’, the terrorist supporting idiot not knowing what it actually is! Their policy is highlighted by what his number two, the Shadow Chancellor said in a message, no doubt to please the Tiger-rump:

“My name is John McDonnel. I am Labour’s Shadow Chancellor. Many of you will know that I, and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, have stood firmly on the side of the Tamil community as it experienced the brutal oppression in Sri Lanka and we believe it should be recognised as an attempt at genocide of the Tamils. The brutal oppression has continued with the military occupation of the Tamil homeland. We urge that the military are withdrawn. We believe that the Tamils have the right to a peaceful political solution, based upon the recognition of their human rights but also their right to self-determination as well. We believe that the British government has a specific role to play, both in terms of ensuring that our relationships with Sri Lanka, trading relationship in particular, are based on human rights but also on progress with the implementation of the UN’s resolution. We believe also that we have a role to ensure that our High Commission monitors human rights as particularly the election of the new president whose record, we have to say, presents us with real concerns and fears for the future. One of the aspects we are particularly concerned is the use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act against Tamils, to ensure that while basic rights of assembly and freedom of speech, particularly journalists, are no longer applicable. We believe that there should be a long-term political solution and let me make this absolutely clear. The Labour Party will always stand with the Tamil community, both in terms of supporting them here in this country and their families in their homeland. We stand with the Tamils”

Pity, he forgot the nearly equal number of Sinhalese living in the UK, who will now be voting in droves for Boris! Great pity, rather than congratulating a democratically elected leader, this political idiot decided to insult him and the entire electorate of Sri Lanka. A cynic remarked that it is difficult to find a terrorist group the present Labour Party does not support! In fact, no sooner he delivered this message, a terrorist released early, thanks to laws introduced by the Labour Party, killed two Cambridge graduates attempting to help released prisoners. Hypocrisy of the West, they will soon start suffering.

Battle lines are drawn. No doubt the USA, Canada, Norway, etc., would follow. Come the UNHCR session ,the bashing of Sri Lanka us will begin, thanks to the idiocy of Mangala who co-sponsored the resolution!

Gota, it is another challenge for you, but the country has placed full faith in you, considering your track record. Please don’t fail us and start by refusing to negotiate with any party that does not accept the unitary state of our Motherland.

Courtesy The Island

December 6, 2019, 9:41 pm

We are caught in a dual crisis. There is the unusual silence of Switzerland over the alleged complaint of its employee about a renewed white van situation. There is also the situation of leadership in the opposition. Government voices and the media has big focus on the Swiss silence, which is not unusual given the current political situation, of a new national leadership, and alleged attempts to raise old accusations.

Just now it seems we will have to wait for the Swiss silence to be broken. There is an old joke about Switzerland; when asked what is so great about Switzerland, the reply from a keen observer was that the Swiss flag is a Big Plus. We are also told that when the national flag was stolen from a Swiss embassy, the Ambassador there was nonplussed!

Let’s see how long the Big Plus flag will be waving as the alleged white van situation moves in Berne and Colombo, and possibly later in Geneva. Will the winner be Swiss silence – with supposed neutrality, or the loud Sri Lankans with calls for fair play. Let’s see how the sword bearing Lion on our flag can match the Huge White Cross on their flag. Are we seeing a new trend in the fight with the name ‘Candappa” being thrown in to dowse the white van allegations, and the call for ambulance air services? Are the Colombo-Chetties another bad minority? That is by the way.

Let’s move to the other crisis. The latest big news from the opposition is that the UNP has decided that Sajith Premadasa should be the Leader of the Opposition in parliament. Ranil Wickremesinghe has once again finally given in. With parliament prorogued till January 3 next year, and dissolution possibly in March 2020, there is nothing much the new Leader of the Opposition could do, in the wider world of politics.

The next battle for Sajith Premadasa, or rather his loud supporters in the UNP, is for him to be chosen as the party leader. As things move in Green politics today, Ranil will most probably have to make a much delayed give away in this too. But those who are calling for the change in UNP leadership should also look at changing the party rules that enabled Ranil to remain as party leader with such a long string of defeats and taking the public support for the UNP to its lowest level.

The 5 million plus votes that Sajith got in the recent election was not only from the UNP. It came from other parties in the alliance that supported him, and the Tamil and Muslim minorities, too. This raises major questions about the real position of the UNP as a political force in the country, as well as the need for the emergence of other leaders that can democratically challenge the Pohotttuva power that sweeps the country today.

If the UNP is to be revived as the truly major party of the opposition in the country, the rules that allow a leader to be at the head for too long must be changed. Just as the country, with the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, decided that the President, who is national leader, should have only two terms, the major political parties having any claims to democracy should also limit the terms of their leadership to two or not more than three terms in office. Or else we will be moving towards the trend in many Eastern European democracies that are faced with the problem of continuing leaders, who have moved away from public thinking and realities of politics and governance.

Just as President Mahinda Rajapaksa used a largely purchased majority in parliament to bring in what was a life-time presidency, among other anti-democratic moves, with the 18th Amendment, the power of politics and governance has all the dangers of uncurtailed power. The leadership rules of the UNP that kept Ranil in place for so long, could also be the future controlling power of Sajith as the next party leader, if so chosen. Political parties in a democracy needs rules to safeguard the democratic process with them too.

The resounding defeat of the JVP-led alliance in the presidential poll, which saw the loss of deposit too, and the continuing divisions in the UNP, shows the country in a situation with no strong political leadership in the opposition. We have moved far away from the early days of independence, when there was a range of leaders from the right and left, that saw the country move with some progress, despite many setbacks too. It did not take long for family politics and racist-cum-religion politics to move the country away from a wider democracy for all people.

What we see today is the publicly accepted leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) Prof. Tissa Vitharana, appointed the NCP Governor by the national President and leadership of a hugely Sinhala-Buddhist political alignment. He is not the only LSSP member to move away from the policies of the old left party, that once stood for parity of status for Sinhala and Tamil as national languages. What we see is an overall failure and loss of democratic political leadership and the absence of personalities that could give such leadership.

The current call for the complete withdrawal or defeat of the 19th Amendment, without limiting changes to its faults and weaknesses, is the call for true opposition leadership in the country. Are we to return to the democracy of purchase politics and governance, and return to a life-time presidency for a Rajapaksa or any other? Let us not forget that 19A was passed with only a single vote opposition in parliament. All parliamentary voices now asking for its complete withdrawal, voted for it in 2015, not too long ago. The call must be for true opposition to the democracy of purchase politics – with money or power!

by Ratindra Kuruvit Courtesy The Island

Archbishop of Colombo, Malcom Cardinal Ranjith leaving after giving evidence before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing the Easter Sunday attacks yesterday. Pic by Dharmasena Weliptiya
a

Archbishop of Colombo, Malcom Cardinal Ranjith yesterday informed the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing the Easter Sunday attacks that Indian High Commission officials had informed him that it had warned relevant authorities of an imminent terror attacks four times before April 21.

The Security Council and other relevant institutions should have acted on this information without taking the warnings as a joke and there was weakness on the part of the leadership, the Cardinal said.

 The Cardinal reiterated that the investigations into the incident had been carried out at a slow pace and he was not at all happy with them. The then government had attempted to wash its hands of the matter by giving one million rupees each to the families of those who had lost their loved ones.

 The Cardinal said that the intelligence services should not be politicised and there should be an independent body to handle such situations. In other countries the intelligence services did not undergo changes when a government changed. Political interference should be stopped.

 There should be only one line ministry to look after the interests of all religions and political parties based on ethnicity and/or religion must be banned, the Cardinal said, responding to Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Ayesha Jinasena, who asked if the Cardinal had any recommendations on improving country’s communal harmony

The Cardinal said he did not think race or a religion should be the basis for a political party as there were national political parties. When there were political parties catering to one community, it was an indication that things were not going well, said the prelate, noting that his personal opinion was that such parties should be banned.

 Later on, the Cardinal gave the statement in camera to the PCoI.

Yoshitha Pererav Courtesy The Daily Mirror

While condemning the series of coordinated bombings that occurred on Easter Sunday, Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcom Ranjith today informed the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing the Easter Sunday attacks, the country’s Security Council and other relevant security institutions should have acted fast before the Easter Sunday Bombings since the information was available, without taking serious matters as a joke.

Testifying before the Commission he said that after the attacks, the office of the Indian High Commission informed him four times that it had conveyed details about the possible terror attacks to relevant institutions, before the series of bombings took place.

There was a weakness in the leadership and we had seen it clearly during the whole incident period,” Cardinal Ranjith emphasized at the Commission.

He said that the whole investigation procedure after the Easter Sunday attacks was also carried out in a slow pace and he was not happy with the entire process.

Explaining about the compensation provided by the former government he said it seemed like they washed their hands off by giving away compensation of Rs. One million to the families of the deceased.

The Cardinal also said that the country’s intelligence service should not be politicized and there should be an independent body to handle these kinds of situations in the country.

In other countries there are several major intelligence services and they don’t change after a government changes in the particular country. Political interference should be stopped when it comes to handling of state intelligence service,” the Cardinal told the Commission.

When Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Ayesha Jinasena asked about the recommendations which the Cardinal can provide on improving the country’s social harmony, he said that there should be only one line ministry to manage all religious activities in the country without dividing it to separate ministries.

I don’t think race or a religion should be the basis for a political party, we have so many national political parties. If there is a political party based on the religion or race, I think that will be the worst situation to the country, and my personal opinion is to ban those kinds of parties,” he informed the Commission.

Making recommendations to the country’s education system, the Cardinal informed the Commission that students in schools should learn about every religion while majoring their main religion and in that way students can develop their social cohesion with each and every person in the country.

I don’t know whether other religious representatives will agree with the above mentioned opinion but I believe it is a more practical way to develop the country’s social cohesion,” he said.

Later on the Cardinal gave the statement in-camera to the PCoI. 

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando Courtesy Ceylon Today

Daya Gamage worked at the American Embassy in Colombo, as the Sole Foreign Service National and a Political Specialist. He retired in 1994 and has been living in Las Vegas since retirement. After two years of concentration, he has been able to share his knowledge, understanding and his intimate professional association with the US Department of State in the form of a book – Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America. Being aware of how America’s foreign policy worked- sometimes in a strange manner, he has come out with an unbiased text full of data in his book nowhere else is contained. Daya Gamage has authorised the writer ” to quote anything from his book” so that the readers will get a clear picture of America’s Foreign Policy, Sri Lanka’s National Issues and the LTTE struggle in depth. 

Gamage handles the United States Bureau of the Online daily newspaper Asian Tribune constantly making the readers knowledgeable of the US foreign policy towards Third World Nations works. His book is available at Amazon.

In the event of a failure to salvage the top Tamil Tiger leadership, Owens, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, spelt out the United States Government/State Department policy objective in a post-LTTE scenario, which Daya Gamage has noted as point 4 of the previous episode – i.e.: ‘Using countability and openness  regarding  the incidents that occurred from April throughout  18 May, 2009, which have been variously described as violation of International Humanitarian Laws (IHL)- crimes against humanity,  war crimes, and genocide. These lines of emphasis were designed to forcibly push the political agenda professed by the FP,TULF, and the LTTE relating to Tamil grievances, thereby bringing pressure to bear on the Government of Sri Lanka to implement more than what is in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, which talks of devolution of Administrative and political power to the periphery.

Mike Owens’ Statement

“I think it is important that Sri Lanka move towards a really strong democratic governance in a multi-ethnic society, in which all groups have a voice in the society. So, the devolution of power to the provinces, as enshrined in the 13th Amendment, that’s something that we feel is very important as the first step, but it needs to go beyond that. There are going to be a lot of civil society challenges in the next several years in dealing with the aftermath of this conflict and making sure that the conflict doesn’t reignite as a result of mistakes that are made now. So, we want to work closely with the Sri Lankan Government in that way (emphasis is by Daya Gamage).

“And we are going to press for and hope that the GoSL will agree to implement the 13th Amendment as envisioned as quickly as possible. About consequences, if the Government of Sri Lanka does attack the safe zone and large numbers of civilians are killed: certainly, there would be consequences, and we have made it very clear to the leadership of the Government of Sri Lanka if that occurred. I would not want to tie our hands in terms of specifying exactly what those consequences would be, but we would certainly hold the Government of Sri Lanka responsible for the death of a lot of civilians, and we have made that very clear to the leadership.

‘We hope to see the rise of maybe some new voices in the Tamil community, moderate voices in the North. We think that is very important and we want to work with the Tamil community, and I think here, especially the Diaspora has a very important role to play in helping building moderate Tamil voices in the North.
“And we are going to press for, and hope that the Sri Lankan Government will agree to implement the 13th Amendment as envisioned as quickly as possible.  I would emphasise that we believe the Diaspora, the Sri Lankan Diaspora, and particularly the Tamil Diaspora in North America, in Europe, elsewhere, has a very important role to play in this. They should, I hope, be speaking out in terms of what they envisioned for Sri Lanka in a post-conflict scenario. They have an important voice in that process.

Thus, at a media briefing on 4 May, 2011, at the American Embassy in Colombo, in his capacity as the Assistant Secretary for South Asia, Robert Blake exerted pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to move towards a sustainable political solution by reiterating the importance of accountability. That is the trajectory the United States at present takes to resolve the Sinhala-Tamil conflict. Take note of these aspects of Blake’s announcement.

Robert Blake’s Announcement

“The United States has continually expressed to the Government of Sri Lanka the importance of implementing a credible and independent process to safeguard accountability. Domestic authorities have the responsibility to ensure that those responsible for violations of International Humanitarian Law are held accountable. International mechanisms can become appropriate in cases where States are either unable or unwilling to meet their obligations.” Thereafter, he outlined what the United States would like to see:

“United States attaches great importance to the dialogue that is now taking place between the Sri Lankan Government and the  Tamil National Alliance. And, as I said in my statement, we hope that the issue of concerns to the Tamils. That includes not only the very important issues regarding devolution, but also very sensitive issues like all of those who remain in detention, and a full accounting of who are in detention, but also a full accounting of the missing, the issuance of death certificates for those who may have died, so that there really can be a closure for the families. It involves such issues as land tenure and setting up a process to ensure that there can be fair arbitration for many disputes about who owns some of the lands up in the North.

“So, I think there are a great many issues that still need to be addressed, and from what I heard today the government is committed to doing that, and is committed to a sincere dialogue with the TNA. But again, the proof will be in results, not promises. So, we very much hope, again, that this will result in a concrete process towards the issues that I just discussed and the others that are of concern to the Tamils. So, this will remain a very high priority for the United States and I hope for the Government as well.’

Having lost the  “pressure group” that was a pillar in its original plans, namely, the LTTE in May 2009, the United States in 2013/14 exerted pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to bring a political package that would resolve Tamil grievances. It was strategically forcing the South Asian Nation to have accountability and openness. When Blake pronounced that in the absence of domestic accountability the International community may be forced to initiate an accountability process from outside, he is wielding a bargaining hammer. For the United States, “accountability” and ” reconciliation” are a combined package, but the emphasis was more on reconciliation. Because this idea included a political solution that would meet Tamil grievances and aspirations.

LLRC

The persons who have been commissioned by the Government of Sri Lanka to produce the final document for the ‘Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) were entrusted with the task of guiding the process of reconciliation. They should have been erudite enough to take note of this historic development outlined here, which has culminated in the final strategy of UNHRC resolutions serving as a tool of the West. The contention is that neither the LLRC nor the Rajapaksa Foreign Ministry has comprehended this line of the United States-led Policy. They have, therefore, not worked out how to proceed with the whole issue of reconciliation by incorporating “accountability” into their framework of action. This should be the focus if Sri Lanka wishes to work through this difficult time and desires to get the US-Sri Lanka relations unto a footing that will benefit both nations.

Violating the IHL, committing war crimes and genocide allegations have been combined with the reconciliation call  and it was up to the Government of Sri Lanka’s wise counsels to carefully manoeuvre how to move away from possible pitfalls. The former Rajapaksa administration failed in this attempt, and the new Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime has set forth to appease the United States- and the West- in an attempt to take the burden off its shoulders.

Daya Gamage, the author of the Book Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America, quotes from Kai Ambos, an internationally renowned  expert on International  Law and Human Rights, who is also a professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, International Law and Comparative Law at the University of Gottingen.

Kai Ambos’ version

“War is an armed conflict under International Humanitarian Law, which presents a different legal situation. In such circumstances, people can be killed when they directly participate in hostilities. The prohibition on killing is suspended in international armed conflicts for combatants and non-international armed conflicts for so-called fighters or de facto combatants.

These actors can, under specific conditions, also be the targeted killings. The most important condition is that the principle of proportionality is coupled with the less severe measures (such as arrests)  are to be preferred and the unnecessary civilians must be avoided. If a targeted killing occurs in a foreign country, the territorial State must consent to the operation; otherwise, the action amounts to a violation of State sovereignty, prohibited by Public International Law.

A loose and decentralised terrorist network does not fulfil the criteria for classification as a party to a conflict within the context of International Humanitarian Law. It lacks, above all, a cetntralised and hierarchical military command structure and the control of a defined territory.”

tilakfernand@gmail.com

Courtesy: Daya Gamage, Author of  Tamil Tigers’ Debt to America.
To be continued: ‘ The American Agenda through Foreign Service Officers’ eyes’.

Courtesy Adaderana

A Gazette notification has been issued prohibiting the re-export of key spices and allies products from Sri Lanka, with immediate effect.

The Ministry of Finance, issuing a release yesterday (05), said no approval will be granted under the Finance Act-Commercial Hub Regulations of Sri Lanka to engage in entrepot and provision of logistic services to any re-export business or transshipment related to key local spices and allied products.

Accordingly re-export of pepper, areca-nut, nutmeg/mace, tamarind, cinnamon, clove, ginger, turmeric and cardamom will be barred hereafter.

The Ministry’s release further mentioned that the re-export of garbage, processing of garbage or recourse recycling business will also be prohibited by a Gazette notification.

Courtesy Adaderana

Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith left the Presidential Commission of Inquiry investigating into Easter Sunday attacks, a short while ago, after giving a nearly 4-hour statement.

Cardinal Ranjith had arrived at the commission’s office located at BMICH premises at around 2.00 p.m. today (6) for the evidence hearing.

He left the premises after providing a nearly 4-hour long statement to the commission, Ada Derana reporter said.

The commission, headed by Court of Appeal Judge Janak de Silva, comprises Court of Appeal Judge Nissanka Bandula Karunarathna and retired Court of Appeal Judge Nihal Sunil Rajapaksa and retired High Court judge Bandula Kumara Atapattu. Retired Ministry Secretary W.M.M. Adikari and retired Ministry Secretary Chandrani Senaratne will also serve the commission.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena appointed the five-member Commission on September 21st, to look into the catastrophic series of events that claimed the lives of more than 250 on Easter Sunday.

Courtesy Adaderana

The ‘War Heroes for Motherland’ Organisation today claimed that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) had pressured several former navy officers and a former LTTE member to give false evidence in the case over the abduction of 11 youths in 2008.

Convenor of the organization, Major (Retired) and Attorney-at-Law Ajith Prasanna, holding a press conference made these allegations which were corroborated by ex-navy officers and a former LTTE member who also addressed the media.

They alleged that several former high-ranking officers of the CID had pressured them to give false testimonies against incumbent President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, former Navy Chief Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda and other top officers of the navy. 

Courtesy Adaderana

Westminster Magistrate’s Court in London today (06) imposed a fine of Sterling Pounds (GBP) 2,400 on former Defence Attaché at Sri Lanka High Commission in London Brigadier Priyanka Fernando who was charged for making a threatening gesture towards a group of L.T.T.E. supporters back in 2018.

The hearing of the case was taken up before Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate) Emma Arbuthnot, who found Brigadier Fernando guilty of violating Section 4(A) of the Public Order Act.

The chief magistrate, delivering her ruling said: I have no doubt he intended to cause at the alarm. They were purposeful gestures, made as the Brigadier was staring at these protesters. The Brigadier was a senior officer in uniform wearing medals. Unlike the other senior officer there, his body language appeared to be arrogant and intimidating. There were three gestures and not just one. In the context of the relationship between Sri Lanka and Tamil Elam protesters he must have known that it would have been alarming at the very least to the protesters who saw him do this.”

The court upheld a previous ruling that the defendant is not protected by diplomatic immunity. I see no reason to re-visit that ruling,” the chief magistrate said. She went on to say: I find that a valid information was laid on 6th February 2018 and valid summonses were issued by this court on 22nd February and 9th August 2018. The information was laid within the period of six months.”

However, the government of Sri Lanka had previously reiterated that it maintains that Brigadier Priyanka Fernando as a diplomat, who was attached to the Sri Lanka High Commission in London, is entitled to diplomatic immunity as per the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.

On October 18, a fresh trial was commenced against Brigadier Priyank Fernando, charged for making repeated cut-throat gestures towards a group of L.T.T.E. supporters who had been conducting a protest in front of the Sri Lanka High Commission in London on the 4th of February 2018.

A three-member British judge bench, headed by the Chief Magistrate Ms Sonia Henley, who found Brigadier Fernando guilty of causing harassment, alarm and distress to Tamil protesters with his gestures, had issued an Arrest Warrant on him at a previous trial.

The warrant was later withdrawn following the intervention of the Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka.

Malinda Seneviratne

It is not advisable to believe one’s own propaganda. That’s a basic rule in political engagement. Blurs vision. Flaws calculation. Usually results in egg on the face.

Now consider an article by Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu published last Sunday titled ‘And so it has already begun.’ Here’s the intro:
‘And so it has happened already. The first white van abduction. An official of the Swiss Embassy, on her way to work, taken in for two hours. She apparently was involved in the handling of the visa for Nishantha Silva – the CID officer investigating politically sensitive cases who left the country sometime last week.’

I am surprised that he didn’t say ‘fled the country’ along with a bit of lunu-ambul. The crystal-gazing author paints dark portents. That’s normal. We heard lots of ‘dark’ stories about Gotabaya Rajapaksa long before he announced his candidacy. Fear-mongering was the order of the day as far as the United National Party (UNP) and those allied with it — Funded Voices, Candlelight Ladies, Colombots and Born Again Democrats. Saravanamuttu moves in such circles and offers accented voice to the whines.  

Hot on the heels of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory came the voices of concern (in diplo-speak) and cries of horror. Democracy at peril on account of a democratic exercise, elections, we were told. And so, Saravanamuttu rushes to judgment.

White vans. Abduction. Detention against will. All on account of a description from two websites, lankaenews and lankanewsweb, both operated by minions of the UNP’s spin-doctoring mafia. Naturally, Saravanamuttu and his ilk are persuaded to treat such fake news as biblical truth. It’s worth mentioning that many who read, liked and shared the ‘news’ dished out by such propagandists actually believed that Sajith Premadasa would defeat Gotabaya Rajapaksa. They were duly shocked.

You tell yourself horror stories all the time and after a while you start believing there are monsters under your bed, like Calvin (in Calvin and Hobbes).

What of the Swiss Embassy, though? Their story is full of holes. First they claimed, ‘contrary to news reports, a complaint was made.’ That’s a half-truth. They did not lodge a complaint with the police. They just told someone. They mentioned that people had seen this woman being abducted. So far, no witnesses. The CCTC evidence refutes the entire story. There’s other evidence which compromise the Swiss narrative. In other words, in all likelihood, a story was fabricated and the Swiss Embassy went along with it, either because it was party to the fabrication or because, like Saravanamuttu, had revved itself up to believing the unbelievable.  

Palitha Kohona, former Secretary to the Foreign Ministry, subsequently referred to a similar incident during the war, when another employee of the Swiss Embassy feigned an abduction to make a case for emigration as ‘a refugee’. So they knew the script, only they forgot the lines, forgot the cues and ended up under the spotlight without a fig leaf to shield themselves from embarrassment. Perhaps that’s what happened. 
The Embassy citing the woman’s ‘deteriorating health condition’ refuses to let her make a statement to the law enforcement authorities. Now, are we supposed to believe the Embassy after playing hora-hora (robber-robber), which is a perverted version of the kids’ game cops-and-robbers (hora-polees)? Absolutely not. Of course, the Swiss have a perverted notion of criminality, from safe-keeping loot to the more recent determination that terrorists are not criminals. We should keep that in mind.

So this is where we are as of now. The Swiss Embassy is holding a Sri Lankan citizen, with or without permission, for we only have the Swiss-Word for it and that’s a joke. The Swiss are long on claims, dead short on substantiation. It is not hard to imagine how things would be if the boot was on the other foot, i.e. some individual (say a US citizen) with a tall story that amounts to vilification of the US Government taking refuge in a Sri Lankan Embassy. 

And they want to circumvent immigration laws to airlift her out of the country!  

Anyway, now the unofficial travel ban on the lady has been formalized by the Chief Magistrate, Colombo. Now, if the lady’s health condition is as bad as the Swiss have made it out to be, then she does require medical attention. Unless there’s a fully-equipped mini-hospital in the precincts of the Swiss Embassy, the Ambassador has to allow doctors to attend on her or allow her to be taken to a hospital. Perhaps they are scared, following self-fulfilling prophesies that the Kolombian Twitterati are particularly fond of. Here are the possible scenarios we can expect. The woman, if in fact her health condition is bad, could recover. The woman’s condition could get worse. She could die (or be made to die just so the Swiss can save face — I wouldn’t put such things past any Government, for credibility is often considered more important than eating humble pie).

The Swiss could actually cooperate with the Sri Lankan Government and help everyone get to the bottom of this sordid affair.  There’s no shame in admitting one was hoodwinked, if indeed that was the case. If they were right all along and the Government was trying to make the best of a bad situation, there are many ways to ensure that the lady (now a high-profile ‘victim’ remember?) does not get harassed. If that’s the case, it would be in the interest of the Government to let justice take its course.
As things stand, there’s no evidence of white vans, no evidence of an abduction, no evidence of being held against will; just stories, half-truths, holes and the use of diplomatic privileges to keep the justice system at bay. As things stand though, Switzerland is flat. Flat on the face, that is. 

This article was first published in the Daily Mirror [December 5, 2019] malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada 

4 December 2019

Ambassador  Hanspeter Mock
Ambassador for Switzerland  in Sri Lanka
63 Gregory’s Road
Colombo 7
Sri Lanka

Dear Ambassador HansPeter Mock:

While your beautiful country is getting ready with mulled wine, Christmas Music, twinkling lights decking almost every tree around the country, and letting the aroma of baking Swiss Christmas cookies waft out of the slightly opened windows, and there is nothing more special than anticipating the magical run up to Christmas.  But you, this Swiss-man in Colombo got the tropical heat-it perhaps, that kept bothering you, so I see that you wanting to get your mind off the itch you got involved with Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya with the Swiss diplomat’s parlour game – You Mock Me, and I Mock You, We both Mock…Mock..to see who will drop his pants first to the Sock…Socks!”  Right?

It is a game of  diplomatic strategy, isn’t it?  But it is unfortunate that your choice of the plot was weak and silly to the point being stupid.  From your very first Mock-ing move, Ambassador you were doomed with a lie and I noticed your pants slipping down a little bit.  President Gotabaya’s Foreign Ministry officials have told in plain English which I hope you understood,  that the alleged abduction of a local Swiss embassy staff member on December 1, accused you, Ambassador HansPeter Mock of lying.

 Wow! That was embarrassing and that was heavy and that was a diplomatic bombshell!   You called for it, Ambassador Mock, for being cunning, cloaked under the word immunity”.

 Did I notice that your pants had slipped down a little more in your Swiss Game of diplomatic strategy -”You Mock Me, and I Mock You, We both Mock…Mock…to see who will drop his pants first to the Sock…Socks.”

Ambassador Mock, I’d like  to ask you as would a British village Bobby ‘
Allo..Allo…Allo, Cor Blimey Mite, what is going on…”  What is indeed going on

Was it that you Swiss wanted to undermine and discredit President Gotabaya and his new government.  Oops! I see your pants slipping down from your waist a little bit more.

Bad strategy.  Bad Karma,   Got the wrong guy to discredit.  This is the guy who gave back 20.5 million of his people their most paramount human right, their right-to-life which was hijacked by your now non-terrorist  gang, the Tamil Tigers” for 30 bloody years.

Ambassador Mock, you nor your Swiss Government lacked the decency, guts or honesty to acknowledge this textbook classic, how a puny island cleaned  up the most ruthless terrorists in the world, the Tamil Tigers, according to the UN, who perfected the suicide body-pack for human bombs, by kicking their butts.  You didn’t like that annihilation, did you, on May 19, 2009, HansPeter Mock.  Now you know how the diplomatic cookie crumbles.  But what you did not know is that Sri Lanka does not like outsiders who think that- We are Holier than Thou”Bullies.

Having unravelled the lie by the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry personnel, we are told that, it has been proven that the complete story of the Swiss Embassy incident is a lie.” This has been based on CCTV footage and other technology evidence,

The female embassy staffer in question had never been at the location where they claimed she had been at that time and that it has now been proven that There is absolutely no truth to the story.” Wow!

T H U M P” Oops, Ambassador HansPeter Mock, did I hear that sound, Did you? That was your pants falling by your socks. So, you lost a Swiss Strategy game  to discredit President Gotabaya’s Government– You Mock Me, and I Mock You, we both Mock, Mock, to see who will drop his pants first to the Sock…Socks.”  This is undiplomatic, and pathetic.

So you lost  the Swiss  Diplomatic strategy Game Ambassador Mock.  There is one thing this incident brings to the forefront.  Is that Switzerland is no friend of Sri Lanka.  Nor should Ambassador HansPeter Mock be allowed to remain in Sri Lanka to represent his country, Switzerland  I really don’t see how you could continue your posting in Sri Lanka now that you have been called a Liar.

So for God’s sake Go.

Sincerely

Asoka Weerasinghe

I. de Silva London, Ontario Canada

Hon. HansPeter Mick
Ambassador for Switzerland in Sri Lanka 63 Gregory’s Road Colombo 7 Sri Lanka

Dear Sir:   

                      Reference Your Action to Fly a Sri Lankan Citizen and Her Family to Switzerland

News reports claim that you have intervened to request the Sri Lankan Government to assist you in flying a Sri Lankan citizen and her family to Switzerland. Apparently this individual was stopped on the road, outside the embassy.  You claim that this individual is a staff member of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo. You have not indicated what this sudden “illness” is. It is strange that she had no “illness” when she was in your embassy but suddenly became ill on the road outside the embassy and that this sudden illness requires and ambulance aircraft to fly her out of Sri Lanka. 

It is essential that you provide the following information to protect the general public from this sudden illness.

Did you seek a medical opinion on her illness while she was in the embassy?

Is the illness contagious that it requires her family to also be flown to Switzerland?
What about all the others with whom she had contact both in the embassy and outside?  Do they not need to be advised what the illness is so that they could get  medical treatment?
It is your responsibility to advise the general public immediately.  When are you going to provide the Sri Lankan Government and the general public in Sri Lanka the information on this sudden and grave illness that requires treatment in Switzerland? 
  Please advise the Sri Lankan public immediately.  Based on the information you provide, the Sri Lankan Government should decide whether this act was genuine or a hoax. If it was genuine, you are to be commended. If it is a “hoax” then it is imperative that the Sri Lankan Government request the Government of Switzerland to recall you immediately.
Yours truly,
I. de Silva London, Ontario Canada

මතුගම සෙනෙවිරුවන්

            වර්තමාන ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා නරේන්ද්‍ර මෝඩි අගමැති තුමාගේ  ආරාධනයෙන් ඉන්දියාවට සැපත් වූ අවස්ථාව දෙරට අතර රාජ්‍ය තාන්ත්‍රික සබඳතා ශක්තිමත් කිරීමක් වෙයි. එහෙත් එම සංචාරයේ දී මෝඩි ජනාධිපතිවරයා කළ කතාවෙන් ගම්‍ය වනුයේ ඔවුන් තවදුරටත් අන්‍යාකාරයෙන් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ දේශපාලනයට ඇඟිලි ගසන ආකාරයයි. මෙය දීර්ඝ කාලීනව හිතකර තත්ත්වයක් නොවේ. වසර හතරහමාරක් තිස්සේ රට තුළ පැවති අස්ථාවර තත්වයත් ව්‍යවස්ථා අර්බුදයත් නිසා එළඹෙන මැතිවරණය තෙක් මේ රටේ ශක්තිමත් පාලනයක් ස්ථාපිත වීම පමා වීමට තියෙන ඉඩකඩ වැඩිය. එවැනි අවස්ථාවක ඉන්දීය සබඳතා නිවරදී කර ගැනීම අත්‍යවශ්‍ය කරුණකි. මෙහිදී අපට සිහිපත් වන්නේ හිටපු අගමැතිණියක වන සිරිමා බණ්ඩාරනායක මැතිණිය ගේ දේශපාලන ධූර කාල වලදී ඇය එඩිතරව ගත් තීරණයන් සහ ඉන්දු ලංකා සබඳතා නිවරදි ආකාරයටඉ කළමනකරණය කර ගත් ආකායයි.

            1960 වසරේ ඇය මේ රටේ අගමැති ලෙස පත්වූ පසු එම රජය ඉදිරියේ තිබූ බලවත් ප්‍රශ්ණයක් වූයේ ඉන්දියානු පුරවැසි ගැටළුවයි. අනෙක කම් කච්චතිවු දූපත පිළිබඳ ප්‍රශ්ණයයි.මේ ප්‍රශ්ණ දෙක සමථයට පත් කිරීම පිණිස ඇය සිය රාජතාන්ත්‍රික ඥානය යොදවමින් රාජ දූතයන් මගින් අදහස් හුවමාරු කරගත් බව පැවසේ. එහිදී වැදගත් වනුයේ සිරිමා මැතිණිය ස්වොත්සාහයෙන් යටගිය කරුණු අධ්‍යනය  කර ගත් ආකාරයයි. මෙහි ප්‍රතිඵලය වූයේ ඉන්දියානු පුරවැසියන් රැසක් ආපසු ඉන්දියාවට පිටත් කර යැවීමට හැකි වීමයි. ඩඩ්ලි සේනානායක රජය මේ ප්‍රශ්ණය අවුල් කර තිබුණද සිරිමා මැතිණිය එය යළි නිවැරදි තනට තල්ලු තර  ගනිමින් එසේම උඩරට ජීවත් වූ සිංහල වැසියන්ට අසාධාරණයක් නොවන පරිද්දෙන් විසඳීමට උත්සාහ ගත් ආකාරය දැක්විය හැකිය. ඇය මේ ප්‍රයත්නය පිළිබව එදා ජාතික රජ්‍ය සභාවේ දී විශිෂ්ට කතාවක් කළේය. එය මෙලෙස දැක්විය හැකිය.

      මේ ප්‍රශ්ණය පිළිබඳව අභවප්‍රාප්ත ඩඩ්ලි සේනානායක මහතා විසින් 1968 සහ 1969 යන වර්ෂ වලදී ඉන්දීය අගමැති සමග සකච්ඡා පවත්වන ලද නමුත් කිසියම් සම්මුතියකට එළඹිමට අපොහොසත් වුණා. මේ ප්‍රශ්ණය පළබඳ මා සාකච්ඡා ආරම්භ කලේ 1973 අප්‍රි යෙල් මාසයේ දී ඉන්දිරා ගාන්ධි මැතිණිය ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට පැමිණි අවස්ථාවේ දී යි.මේ සාකච්ඡා වල ප්‍රතිඵලයක් වශයෙන් අප රටවල් දෙකේ ජ්‍යෙෂ්ට නිළධාරීන් ලවා මේ ප්‍රශ්ණයට අදාල කරුණු ගැන විමසා බලවා වාර්තාවක් ලබා ගැනීමට තීරණයක් ගත්තා. ලබා ගත් සියලුම ඓතිහාසික හා වෙනත් සාධක සාක්ෂි නීතිමය කරුණු ආදිය ගැන ඉතා හොඳින් විමසා බලන ලෙස නිළධාරීන්ට නියෝග කලා.මේ නිළධාරීන් කොළඹදී සහ නව දිල්ලියේ දීත් සාකච්ඡා මාලාවක් පවත්වා අදාල කරුණු ගැන ඉතා හොඳින් සලකා බලා  වාර්තාවක් ඉදිරිපත් කලා. මේ සාකච්ඡා වලදී අප කච්චතිවු දූපත ගැන පමණක් වෙන්කොට ගෙන සලකා බැලුවේ නැහැ.පොක් සමුදු සන්ධීයේ සිට ආදම්ගේ පාළම -ඇඩම්ස් බ්‍රිජ් දක්වා ඇති මුහුදු මායිම් සළකුණු කර ගැනීමට තීරණය කලා.එසේ කිරීම මේ ප්‍රදේශයේ  අපේ ඛනිජ සම්පත් සොයා ගැනීමට හා සංවර්ධනය කිරීමට දීර්ඝ කාලීනව අපට වාසියක් හා වැඩි ප්‍රයෝජනයක් ගෙන දෙන ක්‍රියා පිළිවෙලක් වන බව පැහැදිළියි.

         පේදුරු තුඩුවේ සිට වයඹ දෙසට නාවක සැතපුම් 18 ක් පමණ ඈතින් පිහිටි ලක්ෂයක සිට ආදම්ගේ පාලම දක්වා නාවික සැතපුම් 80 ක් ක් පමණ දිගට වැටෙන මුහුදු මායිමත් මේ ගිවිසුමෙන් සලකුණු කෙරෙනවා. මේ මුහුදු මායිම කච්චතිවු දූපතේ සිට බටහිරින් නාවුක සැතැප්මකට ඈතින් වැටී ඇති බැවින් එම දූපතේ අයිතිය එහි ආධිපත්‍ය ගැන මතභේදයක් හෝ අර්බුදයක් මින් ඉදිරියට කිසි කලෙක උද්ගත වන්නේ නැහැ. මුහුදු මායිමෙන් තම රට පැත්තට වැටෙන මුහුදු තීරය හා ගොඩබිම පිළිබඳ පරමාධිපත්‍ය සහ සම්පූර්ණ අධිකරණ බලය ඒ ඒ රටට අයිති වනවා.රටවල් දෙකේම ධීවරයන් මසුන් අල්ලන වාරයන් තුළදී සහ වන්දනා කරුවන් ආගමික උත්සව පවත්වන මාර්තු මාසයේ දී මේ දිවයිනට පැමිණෙනවා. ඉන්දියානු  වන්දනා කරුවන්ට ගමන් බලපත්‍ර හෝ වීසා නැතිව දිවයිනට පැමිණීමට ඉඩ සැලසෙනවා.

       එක් එක් රටට අයිති මුහුදු තීරයේ අනිත් රටේ මුහුදු යාත්‍රා විසින් අතීතයේ සිට සිරිත් පරිදි යාත්‍රා කිරීමට ලබා තිබුණු අයිතිවාසිකම් එසේම පවතීවි. මුහුදු මායිමේ සිට තම රට දෙසට වැටෙන ප්‍රදේශයේ ඛනිජ තෙල් ඇතුලු සියලුම ඛනිජ සම්පත් සොයා ගැනීමට සංවර්ධනය කිරීමට හා ප්‍රයෝජනය ගැනීමට එක් එක් රටට සම්පූර්ණ නිදහස හා අයිතිය ලැබෙන අතර සමුද්‍ර දේශ සිමාවෙන් එහා පැත්තක සිට අනෙක් පැත්තට විහිදී  පිහිටා ඇති ඛනිජ ඉල්ලම් ආදිය වඩාත්ම ප්‍රයෝජනවත් හා ඵලදායි ලෙස හාරා ගැනීම ගැන දෙරට අතර සම්මුතියක් ඇති කර ගැනීමට අවශ්‍ය විධි විධාන සලසා දී තිබෙනවා.

        සිරිමා බණ්ඩාරනායක මැතිණියත් ඉන්දිරා ගාන්ධි මැතිණියත් අතර අත්සන් කරන්නට යෙදුණු මේ දේශ සීමා ගිවිසුම  වගන්ති අටකින් සමන් විත වන අතර  එහි පළමුවන වගන්තියෙන් දැක්වෙන්නේ මේ දෙශ සීමාවේ අක්ෂාංශ සහ දේශාංෂයන්ය. එහි තෙවනි වගන්තියෙන් පැහැදිලි වන්නේ ඉන්දියානු ධීවරයන්ට සහ වන්දනා කරුවන්ට ආගමික උත්සව අවස්ථාවලදී කච්චතිවු දූපතට පැමිණීමට ඉඩ සැලැස්වීමයි. 1974  ජූනි මස 24  දින අත්සන් කරන්නට යෙදුණු මෙම ගිවිසුම  කියවා බැලූ කල්හි අද පවතින අර්බුදකාරී ප්‍රශ්ණයන්ට පැහැදිලි විසදුමක් සෙවිය හැකි වේ. ලංකාවේ නාවික හමුදාව විසින් අත්අඩංගුවට පත් ඉන්දියානු ධීවරයන් සහ යාත්‍රා නිදහස් කර ගැනීමක් ගැන ගෝඨාබය රාජපක්ෂ මහතා ඉන්දියාවට පිවිස කල්හි කතා බහක් ඇති විය. එම සාකච්ඡාවට වඩා වැදගත් වන්නේ මෙම ගිවිසුමයි. මේ ගිවිසුම ගැන නොදැන එකිනෙකාගේ බලවත් කම අනුව මේ ප්‍රශ්ණයන් විසදීමට හැකි නොවේ.

      අනෙක් ගිවිසුම නම් ඉන්දියානු පුරවැසියන් සඳහා වූ ගිවිසුමයි. 1964 වසරේ ලාල් බහාදූර් ශාස්ත්‍රී මහතා සමග එළඹ ගත් මේ ගිවිසුම අනුව ලංකාවේ වතු කම්කරුවන් 825000 න් පන්ලක්ෂ විසිපන්දාහක් ඉන්දියාවට යැවිය යුතු විය. එයින් ලංකාවේ පුරවැසි කම් හිමි විය යුතුව තිබුණේ 125000 කට පමණකි. නමුත් සිරිමා මැතිණියගේ  පාලනය බිඳ වැටීමෙන් පසු ඇති වූ තත්ත්වය මත ඩඩ්ලි සේනානායක රජය මේ වතු කම්කරුවන් ඉන්දියාවට යැවීම ගැන බලවත් උත්සායක නිරත වූයේ නැත. ඒ වෙනුවට ගිවිසුමේ සඳහන් කර්යයන් අවුල් කළහ. පසුව  සමගි පෙරමුණ රජය සිරිමා මැතිණියගේ මූලිකත්වයෙන් බලයට පත් වූ පසු කළ මුල්ම කාර්යයන් අතර මේ ඉන්දියානු පුරවැසි ප්‍රශ්ණය විසඳීමට කාලය ගත කිරීම විය. මේ සම්බන්ධව සිරිමා මැතිණිය 1974 ජූලි මස 23 දින ජාතික රාජ්‍ය සභාවේ දී පළ කළ අදහස් මෙසේය.

              1970 ද මා නැවත අගමැති පදවිය භාරගත් පසු පළමුවෙන්ම කලේ මා අත්සන් කළ ගිවිසුමේ කොන්දේසිත් පසුගිය ආණ්ඩුව විසින් සම්පාදනය කල ව්‍යවස්ථාවත් අතර තිබුණු මූලික වෙනස නැති කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය ව්‍යවස්ථා සංශෝධනයක් සම්මත කිරීමයි. ඒ වාගේම මම පියවර ගත්තා ගිවිසුම සාර්ථක ලෙසත් වඩා වේගයෙනුත් ක්‍රියාත්මක කිරීමට.මේ සඳහා අර්ථසාධක අරමුදල් ආපසු ගෙවීමේ ක්‍රියා පටිපාටිය සහ වත්කම් එතෙර ගෙන යෑමට අවශ්‍යබලපත්‍ර නිකුත් කිරීමෙ වැඩ පිළවෙල වඩා ලිහිල් සහ ඉක්මනින් නිම කළ හැකිවන අයුරු සකස් කලා. ඉන්දියානු පුරවැසියන් ලෙස භාරගන්නා ලද අය ඉක්මනින් ආපසු ඉන්දියාවට පිටතකර යැවීම සඳහා වතු පාලකයන්ගේ උනන්දුව සහ ක්‍රියාකාරි සහයෝගය ලබා ගත්තා. මුල් අවධියේ දී ඇති වූ පූමාදය නිසා ගතවූ කාලය තුල ඇතිවූ අඩුපාඩුව පිරිමසා ගැනීම සඳහා  ඉන්දියානු පුරවැසිකම් ලැබූ අය ආපසු ඉන්දියාවට පිටත්කර යැවීමේ වැඩ පිළවෙල වඩාත් වේගවත් කිරීම සඳහා ගත හැකි ක්‍රියා මාර්ග සහ ක්‍රම ගැන ඉන්දරා ගාන්ධි මැතිණීය සමග සාකච්ඡා කිරීමට එතුමිය 1973 අප්‍රියෙල් මාසයේ දී ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට පැමිණ අවස්ථාව උපයෝගී කර ගත්තා. ඉන්දියාවට ආපසු පිටත්කර යවනු ලබන්නවුන් ගේ සංඛ්‍යාව වර්ෂයක් පාසා සියයට දහයකින් වැඩි කිරීමට එතුමිය එකඟ වුණා. ඒ ක්‍රමය අනුව පන්ලක්ෂ විසිපන්දාහක් ආපසු ඉන්දියාවට පිටත් කර යැවීම 1981 වන විට සම්පූර්ණ කර අවසාන කිරීමට හැකිවනාවඇති. ඉතිරි හැත්තෑපන්දාහ ආපසු යැවීම 1983  ජූනි මාසය වන විට අවසන් කළ හැකි වනවා.

         සිරිමා මැතිණිය සද් භාවයෙන් කළ මේ කටයුත්ත සම්පූර්ණ වූවානම් අද මලය කඳුකරයේ දෙමළ ජාතිවාදී ප්‍රවණතාවන් දේශපලඥයන් හරහා සුදු වන්නේ නැත. එහෙත් එම රජය බිඳි වැටීමෙන් පසු 1977 පත් වූ ජේ.ආර්. ජයවර්ධන රජය මේ ඉන්දියානු පුද්ගලයන් ආපසු නොයවා ඔවුන්ට දිව්රුම් පෙත්සමක් මගින් පුරවැසි කම ප්‍රදානය කළහ. එහි ප්‍රතිඵලයක් වශයෙන්  කඳුකරයේ දෙශපාලඥයන්ට අද සිය පිරිස වන වතු කම්කරුවන් ගේ චන්දය වෙන්දේසි කිරීමේ හැකියාව ලැබී තිබේ. කෙසේ වෙතත් එදා සිරිමා මැතිණිය ගත් දූරදර්ශී තීරණ ආදර්ශයට ගැනීම අදට ඉතාමත් කාලෝචිය.   13 වන ආණ්ඩුක්‍රම ව්‍යවස්ථාව ක්‍රියාත්මක කළ යුතුය යන්නෙන්  සිහින් තරවටුවක් ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්ෂට කරන්නේ ඉන්දු ලංකා ගිවිසුමක් එද අත්සන් කර ඇති බැවිනි. නමුත් එයටත් පෙර ඉන්දියානු ලංකා ගිවිසුමක් ඇති බවද ඉන්දියාවට මතක් කර දිය යුතුය. පසුගිය කාලයේ දී මෝඩි අගමැති වරයා මලය කඳුකරයට විත් රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ සහ මෛත්‍රීපාල සිරිසේනට මැද්දනේ සිට ගෙන රටට රජයට කළ බල පෑම කාහටත් අමතක වී නැතිවාට නිසැකය. ඒ බල පෑම නිසා අඹ ගමුව ප්‍රාදේශීය සභාව  තුනකට කැඩීමට රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ යොමු විය. නෝර්වුඩ් හා මස් කෙළිය යනුවෙන් දෙමළ දේශපාලඥයන්ට ඇරුණු පළාත් පාලනයක් ඇති කිරීම කළ මේ බලහත්කාරය කිසි සේත් නීත්‍යානුකූල නැත. එම ප්‍රයත්නය පරාජයට පත් කරලීමට මහින්දරජපක්ෂ යන්  ද කිසිම උත්සාහයක නිරත වූයේ නැත.. 2019 ජනපතිවරණයෙන් ඔප්පු වූයේ ඒ චන්ද වෙන්දේසිය පුස්සක් බවයි. මෙවැනි කරුණු  ආදර්ශයට ගැනීම මගින් 2019 දේශප්‍රේමී ජනතා ජයග්‍රහණය ශක්තිමත් කළ හැකිය. ද හින්දු පුවත්පතට ගේඨාභය රාජපක්ෂ දුන් සම්මුඛ සාකච්ඡාවේ දී 13 ගැන දැක්වූ අදහස් වඩා ප්‍රතිඵලදායක කරගන්නට නම් ඉන්දියානු සීමාව ගැන තර්කානුකූලව අදහස් දැක්වීමට සමත් විය යුතුය. සිරිමා මැතිණියගේ විශිෂ්ට ආදර්ශය එයට හොඳින්ම ප්‍රමාණවත්ය.

මතුගම සෙනෙවිරුවන්

Sri Lanka Study Circle

By Stanley Perera, Melbourne, Australia..

My dear Ambassador, Your recent larrikinish behaviour is looked upon down by the decent and civilized society.  In other words it is a shame on Swiss people.  To begin with, I must politely tell you to leave my country and go back to where you came from without creating disharmony amongst the Sri Lankan communities.  Your fabricated and larrririnish lies about the abduction and sexually abused staffer is seen as the lowest of the low which is also not up to a civilised ambassador.  Ambassador, please note that you are only an ambassador who should play diplomacy without hurting the host country.  In the past during the time of war against Tamil Tiger Terrorists your biased against the democratically elected government in siding with the Tamil Terroists was also not an acceptable behaviour.  You smuggled out of Sri Lanka truck loads of racists and terrorist Tamils to fill your ballot boxes in conniving with other western countries who followed your foot steps.  In that scenario, the western countries built up a strong media machinery to campaign against Buddhist Sri Lankan country.  You were seen in and out of the former Prime Minister’s office when the President dissolved the Ranil Wickremasinghe’s government.  Furthermore you were also seen in the parliament gallery applauding and cheering for Ramil Wickremasinghe playing a role of a corrupt politition.  Ambassador, what is your problem with Rajapakse government?   May I please re-iterate here once again, you need not  hang around in my country if you don’t like the way of the host country, you are free to leave at anytime you like.  Nobody wants you here in Colombo to bullshit and tarnish the image of Sri Lanka.  You abducted  out of Sri Lanka that Police Officer Silva and gave political assylum in Switzerland knowingly very well Silva was a wanted criminal by Sri Lanka government.  That proved beyond any reasonable doubt thata this local staffer of yours and youself cooked up a false story of abduction deliberately to cover up your scullduggery of abduction of criminal police officer Silva out of Sri Lanka.  You and your local staffer are liars.  We Sri Lankans want to know who is behind this scullduggery?  How much you were paid to fabricate lies about the abduction of your local staffer? Have you got the power to detain the local staffer and prohibit her to be investigated by the Sri Lankan Authorities?  Why don’t you reveal the full name and nationality of the local staffer?  Does the local staffer entitiled to diplomatic immunity?  Reveal the full name of that criminal police officer Silva?  What is the relationship between the local staffer and Silva?  You are a bull shitting diplomat who has no honesty and inetegrity.  You leave me no alternative other than to call you disgraceful liar.  You walked all over my soverign country.  If I have the power, I will deport you back to where you came from with one way ticket on a deck cargo submarine.
Yours Truly,
Stanley Perera Melbourne, Australia.  

කන්දප්පා පැනගිය පසු  කරළියට ගෙන ආ  ස්විස් නාටකය -උපුටාගැනීම දිවයින

පසුගිය කාලයේ බුද්ධි අංශවලට එරෙහි සීඅයිඞී විමර්ශනවලදී වධකයාගේ චරිතයට පණ දුන් ඒඩි‍්‍රයන් නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා නව රජය බලයට ඒමත් සම`ග ඉකුත් 24 වැනිදා හොර රහසේම ස්විට්සර්ලනත්යට පලා ගියේ ය.

 සිය දරු පවුලද සම`ග එසේ පලා ගිය නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා පසුව එරට සිට විදේශ මාධ්‍යයකට ප‍්‍රකාශයක් කරමින් පවසා තිබුණේ තමන්ට මරණීය තර්ජන එල්ල වීම නිසා ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයට පලා ආ බවකි.

 මෙකී මරණීය තර්ජන කතාව වෙනුවට රාජිත සේනාරත්න ප‍්‍රමුඛ නඩය පසුගිය කාලයේ නීතිය නවමින් සිදු කළ දඩයම හමුවේ තමන්ට වැලිකඩ බෝඩිමේ යකඩ කූරු සහ ජම්පර සිහිනෙන් පෙනුන නිසා ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයට පැන ආ බව නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පා කීවේ නම් අපටද ඒ කතාව පිළිගත හැකිව තිබිණි.

 එහෙත් ඔහු කීවේ වෙනනකි. නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පා එසේ මරණීය තර්ජන කතාවක් කියද්දී මාතෘ භූමියට ද්‍රෝහී වූ ඔහුව අත්පොළසන් දෙමින් වැළ`ද ගත්තේ කොටි හිතවාදී දෙමළ ඩයස්පෝරාව සහ විජාතික ක`දවුරය.

 නීතියේ දෙව`ගන සතුව ඇති තරාදිය ගෙන පංචිකාවත්තට විකුණන ආකාරයෙන් බුද්ධි අංශවලට එරෙහි විමර්ශන සිදු කළ ඔහු ද්‍රෝහීන්ගේ වීරයා බවට පත්විය.

 මෙහිදී ද්‍රෝහීන් වෙතට කන්දප්පා යැවීමේ වගකීම මුළුමනින්ම වත්මන් වැඩබලන පොලිස්පතිවරයා ඇතුළු පොලිස් දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව භාරගත යුතුව ඇත.

 එයට හේතුව වන්නේ අපරාධ පරීක්‍ෂණ දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව භාර ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ නියෝජ්‍ය පොලිස්පති රවි සෙනවිරත්න සහ හිටපු ඒඑස්පී තිසේරා විසින් නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පා පැන්නීමේ මෙහෙයුම දියත් කළ බව මේ මොහොත වන විට අපරාධ පරීක්‍ෂණ දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව තුළින්ම හෙළිවෙමින් තිබීමය.

 කෙසේ වෙතත් නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා මෙසේ ස්විට්සර්ලනතයට පැන යෑමත් සම`ග තවත් පැත්තකින් සිදුවූ දෙයක්ද තිබිණි. නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පාගේ පලා යෑම මෙරට ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ පූර්ණ අනුග‍්‍රහය සහිතව සිදුව තිබුණකි.

 ඒ අනුව ඔහුගේ පලා යෑමත් සම`ග එම සිද්ධිය ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාව පාර්ශ්වයෙන් ආන්දෝලනාත්මක එකක් බවට පත්වීම හේතුවෙන් අවසානයේ ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත රජයේ ඇ`දිවත ගැලවී නිරුවත ලෝකයට හෙළිවන සිදුවීමක් බවට එය පත්වූයේ මෙරට ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපතිවරයා ඇතුළු කිසිවෙක් නොසිතූ පරිදිය.

 මෙහිදී රාජ්‍ය තාන්ති‍්‍රක විශ්වසනීයත්වය අවභාවිත කර තිබීම හේතුවෙන් මෙරට ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපතිවරයාද සිටියේ බරපතළ උභතෝකෝටිකයකට මැදිවය. මුලදී සරල තැනක තිබුණද නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පාගේ පලා යෑම මොහොතින් මොහොත සංකීර්ණ කරුණක් බවට පත් වෙමින් තිබිණි.

 නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා යනු මෙරට ජනතාවගේ මානව අයිතීන් කඩ කළ බවට චෝදනා එල්ල වී

 ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවේ ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණයෙන් වරදකරු වූවෙකි. එසේම ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයට පැන යන මොහොත දක්වාම ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවේ නීතිය අවභාවිත කරමින් ආන්දෝලනාත්මක විමර්ශන ගණනාවක් සිදු කළ අයකු බවටද ඔහුට චෝදනා එල්ල වී තිබිණි. නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා මෙරට අධිකරණයක් හමුවේ මිනී මැරුම් චෝදනා එල්ල වූ චූදිතයකුද වේ.

 එවන් තත්ත්වයක් තුළ ඉහළින් මානව හිමිකම් කතා කරන ස්විට්සර්ලන්තය වැනි රාජ්‍යයක් නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා වැන්නකුට දේශපාලන රැුකවරණ දෙන්නට තරම් ළ`ද බොළ`ද තැනකට ඇදවැටීම ලෝකය ඉදිරියේ ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයේ රෙදි ගැලවී යන කරුණක් වීමටත් සියල්ල මෙරට ස්විස් තානාපතිවරයා වන හාන්ස් පීටර් මොක් මහතාගේ නහයට උඩින් යෑමටත් හේතු විය.

 ඇතිවූ මේ තත්ත්වය තුළ ඊළ`ගට සිදුවූයේ කුමක්ද? හෙළිවූ නිරුවත වසා ගනු වෙනුවට ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවේ ස්විස් තානාපතිවරයා කරනු ලැබුවේ තවත් නාටකයක් කරළියට ගෙන ඒමය. ඒ අනුව නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පා මෙරටින් පලා ගොස් දෙදිනකට පසුව තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ සේවය කරන ශී‍්‍ර ලාංකික කාන්තාවක පැහැරගෙන ගොස් ඇතැයි කියමින් රාජ්‍ය තාන්ති‍්‍රක මට්ටමින් ශී‍්‍ර ලංකා විදේශ කටයුතු අමාත්‍යාංශයට පැමිණිලි කිරීමට ස්විස් තානාපතිවරයා කි‍්‍රයාකරනු ලැබීය.

 මෙහිදී අදාළ කාන්තාව සුදු වෑන් රථයකින් පැහැරගෙන ගොස් ඇතැයි මුලදී කී ස්විස් තානාපති හාන්ස් පීටර් මහතා පසුව එය බැහැරකර ඇයව සුදු කාර් රථයකින් පැහැරගෙන ගොස් නිශාන්ත කන්දප්පාට වීසා ලබා දීම සහ තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ අභ්‍යන්තර කටයුතු පිළිබ`ද ප‍්‍රශ්න කර ඇති බවත් ඇයට දැඩි ලෙස තර්ජනය කර ඇති බවත් විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශයට කළ පැමිණිල්ලේ ස`දහන් කර තිබිණි.

 මෙසේ පැහැර ගැනීමට ලක්වූ බවට ස`දහන් කර තිබුණේ ගාලියා බැරිස්ටර් ප‍්‍රැන්සිස් නමැති ස්විස් තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ සේවය කළ මෙරට නිලධාරිනියකි. ඇය ශී‍්‍ර ලාංකික දෙමළ කාන්තාවකි.

 නව රජය බලයට පැමිණීමත් සම`ග එල්ලවූ මෙම චෝදනාව ඉතා බරපතළ එකක් විය. එසේම එමගින්

 ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවට ජාත්‍යන්තර වශයෙන් විශාල කළුපැල්ලමක් ඇතිවීම ද සැලකිල්ලට ගත් රජය කළේ ස්විස් තානාපතිවරයාගේ එම පැමිණිල්ල ලද විගස ඒ පිළිබ`ද වහාම විධිමත් විමර්ශනයක් ඇරඹීමය.

 අපරාධ පරීක්‍ෂණ දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ විශේෂ කණ්ඩායමක්, සීසීටීවී තාක්‍ෂණය පිළිබ`ද විශේෂ පොලිස් කණ්ඩායමක් සහ අපරාධ විමර්ශනයෙහිලා පුහුණුව ලැබූ පොලිස් කණ්ඩායමක් එම විමර්ශනයට එක්ව තිබිණි. මෙහිදී සිද්ධියට මුහුණ දුන් තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ කාන්තාවගේ ප‍්‍රකාශයක් නොමැතිව සියල්ල සිදු කිරීමට වීම විමර්ශකයෝ මුහුණු දුන් බරපතළ තත්ත්වයක් වූහ.

 එහෙත් අවසානයේ ඔවුහු පැය විසිහතරක් තුළ සිද්ධිය වූ බව කී ප‍්‍රදේශය අවට ඇති සියලූම සීසීටීවී කැමරා නිරීක්‍ෂණය කරමින් දුරකථන දත්ත විශ්ලේෂණ සහ ජීපීඑස් දත්ත ඔස්සේ පුළුල් විමර්ශනයක යෙදී විද්‍යාත්මක කරුණු රාශියක්

 එක්රැුස්කර තානාපති කාර්යාලය කියන ආකාරයේ

 පැහැරගැනීමක් සිදුව නොමැති බවට තහවුරු කරනු ලැබූහ.

 තානාපතිවරයා කළ අදාළ පැමිණිල්ලේ ස`දහන්ව තිබුණේ සිය කාර්යාල නිලධාරිනිය පාසලකට යන අතරතුර පැහැරගැනීමට ලක්ව තිබූ බවය. එහෙත් විද්‍යාත්මක දත්ත මත සිදු කළ විමර්ශනවලදී අනාවරණය වී තිබුණේ තානාපති කාර්යාල සේවිකාවට අදාළ පාසලට යෑමට කිසිදු හේතුවක් තිබී නොමැති අතර ඇය පැය දෙකක පමණ කාලයක් සිය මිතුරියකගේ නිවසක රැු`දී සිට ඇති බවය. ඇය එසේ මිතුරියගේ නිවසේ රැු`දී සිට ඇත්තේ පැහැර ගැනීම සිදුවූ බව කියන කාලපරාසය තුළය.

 මේ තත්ත්වයත් සම`ග විමර්ශන කණ්ඩායමේ ඊළ`ග නිගමනය වූයේ පරීක්‍ෂණ ඉදිරියට ගෙන යෑමට නම් අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම පැහැරගැනීමට ලක් වූ බව කියන කාන්තාවගේ ප‍්‍රකාශයක් ලබාගත යුතුයැයි යන්නය.

 පසුව මෙම විමර්ශනයෙන් හෙළිකරගත් තොරතුරුද සම`ග මෙරට ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති හාන්ස් පීටර් මහතා හමුවූ විදේශ ලේකම් රවිනාථ ආරියසිංහ මහතා සහ ආරක්‍ෂක ලේකම් මේජර් ජෙනරාල් කමල් ගුණරත්න පවතින

 සත්‍ය තත්ත්වය පිළිබ`ද තානාපතිවරයා දැනුවත් කරමින් ඉදිරි විමර්ශන ස`දහා වහාම පැහැර ගැනීමට ලක්වූ

 කාන්තාවගෙන් ප‍්‍රකාශයක් ලබාගත යුතු ඇතැයි තානාපතිවරයාට දැනුම් දෙනු ලැබිණි.

 එහෙත් ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවේ ආරක්‍ෂක ලේකම්වරයා සහ විදේශ ලේකම්වරයා එසේ පවසද්දී ගැසු තුරුම්පුව වැරදී සියල්ල හත්පොළේ ගෑවී ඇති බව වටහා ගත් ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපතිවරයාගේ ප‍්‍රතිචාරය වූයේ අදාළ කාන්තාව දැඩි මානසික පීඩනය නිසා ප‍්‍රකාශයක් ලබාදිය නොහැකි තත්ත්වයට රෝගීව සිටින බැවින් ඇය සහ පවුලේ සාමාජිකයන් සියලූ දෙනා ගිලන් සේවා ගුවන් යානයකින් ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයේ

 රැුකවරණ ස`දහා රැුගෙන යා යුතුව තිබෙන බවය.

 ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවට විශාල අපකීර්තියක් ගෙන දෙමින් ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති කාර්යාලයෙන් එල්ල වූ මෙකී චෝදනාවේදී යම් අපරාධයක් සිදු තිබේ නම් ඒ පිළිබ`ද අනාවරණය කරගැනීමකින් තොරව මෙසේ වින්දිතයා රැුගෙන යෑම ස`දහා ඉල්ලීමක් කිරීමට තරම් ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති හාන්ස් පීටර් මහතා ඒ වන විට අන්තයටම ඇදවැටී හාන්සි වී සිටියේ එසේය.

 සැබැවින්ම ලොව රාජ්‍යතාන්ති‍්‍රක නියෝජිතයකු මෙතරම් කො`දු බි`දගත් අවස්ථාවක් අපි දැක නැත්තෙමු. මෙරට ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති හාන්ස් පීටර් මහතා මෙවන් පහත් තත්වයකට ඇද වැටුණේ ඇයි?

 කෙසේ වුවත් තානාපතිවරයාගේ ඉල්ලීමට අනුව අදාළ කාන්තාව සහ පවුලේ සාමාජිකයන් ස්විට්සර්ලන්තයට රැුගෙන යෑම ස`දහා අවසර දීමට

 ශී‍්‍ර ලංකා රජය සූදානම් නොවිණි. රජයේ මතය වූයේ යම් අපරාධයක් සිදුව තිබේනම් ඒ පිළිබ`ද සත්‍ය අනාවරණය කර ගැනීමකින් තොරව ඇයට රටින් පිටව යෑමට අවස්ථාව දිය නොහැකි බවය.

 ඒ අනුව සිය තානාපති කාර්යාල නිලධාරිනිය සහ ඇගේ පවුලේ සාමාජිකයන් ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති කාර්යාලය තුළ ර`දවා තබා ගැනීමට මේ වන විට තානාපතිවරයා පියවර ගෙන ඇත. ඒ හේතුවෙන් මේ දක්වා ඇගෙන් ප‍්‍රකාශයක් ගැනීමට නොහැකි වීම නිසා අදාළ නිලධාරිනියට රටින් පිටව යෑම තහනම් කරමින් අපරාධ පරීක්‍ෂණ දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවට ප‍්‍රකාශයක් ලබා දෙන ලෙසට අධිකරණ නියෝගයක් ලබා ගැනීමටද පොලිසිය ඊයේ (3 වැනිදා* කටයුතු කළේය.

 එහෙත් සත්‍ය මෙසේ වෙද්දී පෙරේදා (2 වැනිදා* සුපුරුදු ලෙස පච මාධ්‍ය හමුවක් පැවත්වූ හිටපු ඇමැති රාජිත සේනාරත්න රටට කීවේ කුමක්ද?

 තානාපති කාර්යාල නිලධාරිනිය පැහැරගත් කණ්ඩායමේ සිටි එක් අපරාධකරුවකු ලෙස මාධ්‍යයට අදහස් දැක්වූ රාජිත ස්විස් තානාපති නිලධාරිනියගේ කටට පිස්තෝලයක් ඔබා තර්ජනය කර ප‍්‍රකාශ ලබාගෙන ඇති බව කිසිම විලිලැජ්ජාවක් නැතිව පැවසීය.

 මේ හේතුවෙන් භීතියට පත්වූ එම නිලධාරිනිය නිවසට ගොස් මේ දක්වා සිය පවුලේ සාමාජිකයන් සමග පවා කතාබහ කර නොමැති බවද කට උල් කරමින් රාජිත සේනාරත්න රට හමුවේ ස`දහන් කළේය. එසේම පරාජිත ජනාධිපතිවරණ අපේක්‍ෂක සජිත් පේ‍්‍රමදාස මහතාද යළිත් දුවන කෝච්චියට බෙල්ල තැබුවාක් මෙන් මෙම සිද්ධිය පිළිබඳ ප‍්‍රකාශයක් කරමින් කියා සිටියේ තානාපති නිලධාරිනිය පැහැර ගැනීම ජාත්‍යන්තර වශයෙන් ශී‍්‍ර ලංකවට විශාල අපකීර්තියක් බවය.

 පසුගිය කාලයේ කිඹුල් රැුවුලා මාධ්‍ය ඉදිරියට

 රැුගෙනවිත් මේ වනවිට පඹගාලක පැටලී සිටින රාජිත මෙන්ම අපේකමට එරෙහිවන සජිත්ගේ දේශපාලනයේ ඇති කුහක බව පෙන්වා දීමට ඔවුන් කරනු ලැබූ මේ ප‍්‍රකාශම ප‍්‍රමාණවත්ය.

 රාජිතලාගේ දේශපාලන හැසිරීම මෙසේ වෙද්දී යම් අන්දමකින් මේ කියන තානාපති නිලධාරිනිය අදාළ චෝදනාව කිරීමෙන් පසු ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ රැුකවරණ මැද විදේශගත වූයේ නම් මේ රටට අත්වන ඉරණම කෙසේ විය හැකිව තිබිණිද?

 එසේ වූයේ නම් ලබන මාර්තු මාසයේ මේ රට තුළ මැතිවරණ උණුසුම පවතිද්දී ජීනීවා මානව හිමිකම් කවුන්සිලය තුළ ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා ඇතුළු රජයට එරෙහිව නැගී සිටින ප‍්‍රධාන චරිත දෙකක් බවට රටින් පැන ගිය නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා සහ ගාලියා බැරිස්ටර් ෆ‍්‍රැන්සිස් නමැති මෙම තානාපති නිලධාරිනිය මතුවීම කිසිවකුටත් වැළැක්විය නොහැකි වනු ඇත.

 මෙතෙක් කලක් ජීනිවා මානව හිමිකම් කවුන්සිලය තුළ ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාවට එරෙහිව කරන ලද චෝදනාවලට ද්‍රෝහීහු සාධක කරගනු ලැබුවේද මෙවන් නාටක වූහ. ඒ සියල්ලෙහි නිසි සාක්‍ෂි කිසිත් නොවුණද චෝදනා බොහෝ තිබිණි.

 යම් ලෙසකින් මේ කුමන්ත‍්‍රණය සාර්ථක වූයේ නම් එළැඹෙන මැතිවරණ සමයේ රාජිත සේනාරත්න වැන්නවුන් ජනාධිපති ගෝඨාභය රාජපක්‍ෂ මහතා ඇතුළු වත්මන් රජයට එරෙහිව ඊළ`ග මඩ ව්‍යාපාරය දියත් කිරීමේ මෙවලම බවට එය තෝරාගෙන තිබුණාද විය හැකිය. එහෙත් වත්මන් රජයේ ¥රදර්ශී කි‍්‍රයාදාමය හමුවේ මේ මොහොත වන විට සියල්ල ඇත්තේ ව්‍යර්ථව ගොසිනි.

 හන්සයෝ පැන්ස දෙකට වැටී ඇති අවස්ථාවක මතුවී සිටින සැබෑ රාජ්‍ය නායකයකු ඉදිරියේ ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපතිවරයා සම`ග මේ වන විට රාජිත සජිත් වැන්නවුන්ද කුජීතවී අවසන්ය. සැබැවින්ම නිශාන්ත සිල්වා කන්දප්පා මෙරටින් පලා යෑමත් සම`ග ස්විට්සර්ලන්ත තානාපතිවරයා කරළියට ගෙන ආ මේ නාටකයේ පිටපත නම් හරිම අපූරුය.

 එහෙත් රංගනය ගොබ්බ එකක්ම වූ වග මේ මොහොත වන විට ලෝකයට හෙළිවෙමින් ඇත.

 සමන් ගමගේ

Sri Lanka has elected a new President. The victory is nothing that the international community are too gaga over as seen by the manner they have chosen not to even extend congratulations as common courtesy & diplomacy dictates. The surge in popularity of the new leader increasing among those who did not vote for him must be also a thorn to digest to these destabilizing elements. Do the new policy makers understand the threats that exist as well as the new threats likely to increase using every apparatus the international community have under their control? What are the weapons that the international community have under their control? How will they use them and what strategies can Sri Lanka adopt are some of the challenges Sri Lanka, its leaders and even its citizens will immediately have to address.

US is on a pivot to Asia having besieged all other continents round the world. The military apparatus of the US is now engulfing the seas with marine presence, while it is using its other soft weapons both covertly & overtly. Transnational corporations have entered the scene & produced MCC project with a carrot of developing Sri Lanka’s road & rail a camouflage to entice and market it via a $480m grant already spent on numerous legislative changes rolled out as part of the proposals’ pre-conditions. The ACSA and SOFA compliment the MCC and anyone promoting it should well study the impact of implementing all 3 together with the US Peace Corps presence to realize the likelihood of Sri Lanka being transformed into the next Diego Garcia in Asia. This danger should be read with the verdict demanding UK hand over Diego Garcia to the Chagosians and UK’s main political parties carrying opposing views simply as a smokescreen to fool the masses. This US pivot is impacting other countries of Asia too. Has Sri Lanka taking stock of the US pivots taking place in other countries of Asia? Are the issues faced by these countries similar to Sri Lanka? How far does India realize who is a bigger threat eventually – US or China? What risks are India taking that will impact entire Asia? How else will these destabilizing elements try to upset Sri Lanka’s governance? Have we taken stock of the players and the likely scenarios to be launched as well as the likely baits to be used? Have Sri Lanka’s leaders placed these risks and dangers likely to impact Sri Lanka as well as in South Asia, regionally and across entire continent? Do we want to end up like Middle East?

We have told ourselves a nice story about the economy. As we adopted the Manchester School and made it into the 20th-century model, the market became central. We renamed it into the neoliberal model. We forgot that the economy is far more than just the work sphere, or the business cycle.

I have written about this in the past because part of this is ideology.

We ignored the centrality of home life to economic life. Why we have stopped investing in those things that keep home life going.

We see it with education, which we continue to shortchange. It was not always this way. The launch of Sputnik led to a generalized panic. The United States lost its technological edge. We had to do something! Part of that something was a massive investment in public education. We needed to get our children and young adults ready for what these days is called science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; STEM for short.

The Russians launched Yury Gagarin soon after Sputnik; we knew we were falling behind. Not only was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration told, even ordered, to catch up. We started to do something else. Basic and secondary education was prioritized, and budgets grew.

But it was in the area of education that the impact of the Sputnik Crisis was to be most felt. In 1958, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Education Act in an effort to ensure that the highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields.” In order to achieve this goal, the act made provisions for loans and grants to institutions of higher learning who wanted to improve their mathematics, science and foreign language programs. Of course this made perfect sense; there was no point setting up research and development bodies if there would be no trained personnel to run them.

Consequently, the National Science Foundation (NSF) was revamped and its budget drastically increased. In 1959, Congress appropriated 134 million dollars for the Foundation, almost a hundred million dollars more than the previous year. By 1968, the Foundation was receiving about half a billion dollars a year in federal funds; in fiscal 2012, the NSF had a budget of some 7 billion dollars and provides the funds for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted in colleges and universities throughout America. In some fields, such as mathematics and computer science, the NSF is the major provider of federal support. At all events, in the decade between 1955 and 1965, federal expenditure on research and development rose from 2.7 billion dollars to more than 15 billion dollars, as old bodies, such as the NSF, and new ones, such as NASA, competed to fund research of one kind or another.

But it was not just the government that was putting in new resources into education. The system itself was enthusiastic in its determination to take a giant leap forward, for practitioners of education in America were by no means sanguine at the thought of being left behind by their Soviet counterparts. James B Conant, a former President of Harvard University carried out a detailed two year study of American high schools with the support of the Carnegie Foundation in order to ensure that all gifted children were being properly motivated to pursue higher education; and in 1960 Harvard embarked on its biggest fund-raising up till then for the purpose of reforming its whole approach to education. The campaign raised 82.5 million dollars.

Less than a decade later subsidies went to public colleges and universities. This is the origin of well-funded systems like the University of California, and the California State system. These subsidies allowed students to attend colleges, and not go into massive debts. In fact, most students who graduated from college did so without debt or very little debt.

Compare this to the present. We are in the midst of a planetary emergency. We need people trained in the STEM fields. This is not because the Russians launched a satellite into space, or beat us into manned. No, the planet is in the midst of a crisis. And we may face extinction.

However, we are cutting educational budgets at all levels, from pre-K to graduate schools. States and the federal government have a problem finding the money. Teachers are facing pay cuts and benefit cuts across the board. The crisis is worse in some states than others, but it’s a crisis.

As a society, we decided that the market should take care of this. Why many charter schools (who can choose their student body) are financed with public funds but are run as private organizations. These schools also lack in the area of certified teachers.

It gets worst. The current administration is taking this effort to epic levels. Why? Science could impinge on the market and its instincts. The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing a new measure that will exclude science from its rulemaking. According to the New York Times:

The measure would make it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules because many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements. And, unlike a version of the proposal that surfaced in early 2018, this one could apply retroactively to public health regulations already in place.

In the final analysis, it is coming from our faith in the market, no matter what. It is also a retreat from the role of government, which is also part of the economy. Ultimately it is a product of corporate capture.

It is a rejection of the science that allowed us to clean this country’s waterways. It is part of a pattern, which also doubts the existence of the climate emergency. It is a complete surrender to the market.

So what happens when we ignore the core economy? For starters, we see increased insecurity and the costs of certain core services have gone up.

The transformation of the American economy into a market-centric system where education was commoditized happened in the last forty years. It creates not just distrust, but also insecurity. It is one of the reasons behind the precariat.

Then we have other issues that are part of this, the efforts to reduce the already paltry safety net is not just an attack on good government. It is also a direct affront to the core economy. If the elderly, for example, have no means to take care of themselves, it will have a direct effect on the rest of society. Just as we have some of the most expensive pre-K in the world, we have a safety net that is dissolving in the name of the market. This takes away from the efficiency of workers in the private sector.

The inequality in pre-k also keeps poor parents at home, or children are placed with relatives. While children of well to do parents go to schools that could cost as much as college. This deepens inequality and handicaps most. This is problematic because those children show up to school not ready to learn. They already are attending substandard schools. This is a cost we all pay. It is also an early indicator of the school to prison pipeline.

We also see this with health care. We have the most expensive, least efficient system in the world. People stay at a job to keep their insurance, as good or bad as it may be. People fear to go to the hospital, because there will be a bill to pay, and perhaps lose all they have worked for in their lives. This makes society sicker and less able to function. Some in the market charging as much as they can get away with, and lobbying politicians to prevent them from imposing measures that would slow down, or reverse trends. They include things like a maximum price for drugs, or being able to negotiate for lower costs on all services.

We have monetized and put in the hands of the market higher education, healthcare, basic research. We forgot that our success in the 1950s and 60s came from a heavy investment in these areas by the government. No, the private sector did not build the internet, which you are using right now to read this piece. That was the Department of Defense. Granted, ARPANET came from a need to survive a first, even second nuclear strike. But it is the origin of the internet and the information economy.

Nor did the GPS system we all use came from the private sector. In fact, it is still a military system that we civilians use. It was the government that invested in the basic science and technology needed to develop this. Many of the medicines we use today started with basic research at the National Institutes of Health. It was not the private sector that did that, so when we are told by the industry that it costs a lot of money to bring new medicines and procedures to market, they are correct, but a lot of it came from the taxpayer.

Over the last few decades, our investment in basic research has gone down. These are the trends:

For the first time in the post–World War II era, the federal government no longer funds a majority of the basic research carried out in the United States. Data from ongoing surveys by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that federal agencies provided only 44% of the $86 billion spent on basic research in 2015. The federal share, which topped 70% throughout the 1960s and ’70s, stood at 61% as recently as 2004 before falling below 50% in 2013.

The sharp drop in recent years is the result of two contrasting trends — a flattening of federal spending on basic research over the past decade and a significant rise in corporate funding of fundamental science since 2012. The first is a familiar story to most academic scientists, who face stiffening competition for federal grants.

This rise is coming from the pharmaceutical industry. It is not just because they can get great profits from new drugs. But they can impose intellectual property rights on these, avoiding the need to share. This makes medicines that much more expensive for much longer.

When combined with a lack of price controls in the United States this makes it a very good business. And we are seeing it with old drugs, such as insulin. Small changes in the drug allow them to patent the drug anew. This is one reason insulin continues to rise in cost. Also, things like the Epipen, originally developed by DoD scientists to treat troops during a chemical attack, have gone into the stratosphere when it comes to price.

When Americans say that this is capitalism gone astray, they have a point. This is a system where the regulatory bodies were captured. It is also a system where profit is put ahead of human life affecting all spheres. In particular the core, or household economy.

Basic services are not there. Labor rights are under attack. Ultimately, because of this, the planet is under attack. However, some people are getting insanely rich. This will have negative effects on the overall economy, as well as political stability.

Yes, when Senator Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders raised the issue of a wealth tax, this is partially what they are addressing. We need to rebalance our economy in ways that will redistribute wealth. But that will also strengthen the role of government and re-regulate industries towards the common good and away from pure profit-making. We also need deep investment in green economies, meaning that subsidies to mature industries (the fossil fuel industry) will need to go to the green industries we need to survive as a species.

This is precisely why those who benefited greatly from the centrality of the market above all else are not happy. If you made a few billion under the current system, higher taxation may cut your wealth growth curve. It will not stop under either model but will slow it down.

Think about this. How many cars, planes and homes can you own? How much material stuff can you acquire? Psychologists have found that people who are extremely wealthy have distorted views.

Several studies have shown that wealth may be at odds with empathy and compassion. Research published in the journal Psychological Science found that people of lower economic status were better at reading others’ facial expressions — an important marker of empathy — than wealthier people.

A lot of what we see is a baseline orientation for the lower class to be more empathetic and the upper class to be less [so],” study co-author Michael Kraus told Time. Lower-class environments are much different from upper-class environments. Lower-class individuals have to respond chronically to a number of vulnerabilities and social threats. You really need to depend on others so they will tell you if a social threat or opportunity is coming, and that makes you more perceptive of emotions.”

They may also develop an addiction to accumulating more money, which is a problem. One reason why they may feel threatened by a wealth tax. It will reduce the speed at which they get that money. Why they will fight against this. Maybe even, run for office themselves.

We need to recalibrate and re-regulate the economy to make it work better. And by regulation I mean change how it works. Not just who is regulated. But we also need to expand government investment in public services, including education and healthcare. Chiefly, we must move away from the market as the only way to run the economy.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Clarifying the UK’s Conservative Party’s stance with regard to its reference to Sri Lanka in its election manifesto, senior party officials said the reference is applicable only to the Middle East but not to Cyprus or Sri Lanka.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that its attention had been drawn to remarks made by a member of parliament, Udaya Gammanpila, over media yesterday in connection with the reference to Sri Lanka in the election manifesto of the Conservative Party in the run-up to the general election in the United Kingdom scheduled for December 12, 2019.

The full statement is as follows:

In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign Relations wishes to state that a paragraph on page 53 of the Conservative Party manifesto which refers to Sri Lanka is worded as follows:

‘We will continue to support international initiatives to achieve reconciliation, stability and justice across the world, and in the former conflict zones such as Cyprus, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, where we maintain our support for a two-state solution;’

Following the publication of the manifesto, the High Commission of Sri Lanka in the UK in consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Relations took immediate steps to make strong representation to the Co-Chair of the Conservative Party The Rt. Hon. James Cleverly with regard to the distortion contained in the manifesto in its reference to Sri Lanka.

This was conveyed through a letter by Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in the UK Manisha Gunasekera on 27 November 2019 addressed to the Co-Chair of the Conservative party.

The High Commissioner affirmed that the reference to Sri Lanka as a country which requires a two-state solution is unacceptable, and has never been the position of any party in the UK. She reaffirmed that successive British governments led by all parties have always supported peace and reconciliation in a united Sri Lanka. The High Commissioner, therefore, requested that the paragraph be suitably amended to accurately reflect the Conservative party position on Sri Lanka.  A copy of the letter is annexed herewith for perusal (Annex I)

Subsequent to representation by the High Commissioner through the above submission as well as through outreach to senior representatives of the Conservative Party, the Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party Paul Scully issued the following clarification on the subject to the High Commissioner by his email communication of 27 November 2019:

‘The party’s position regarding Sri Lanka has not changed. To be absolutely clear, the two-state line in the section was intended to refer only to the Israel-Palestine situation in the Middle East (as is stated policy).  The commitments to Sri Lanka and Cyprus were simply about continuing existing efforts to support peace and reconciliation in divided societies.’

The above position has also been reiterated by The Rt. Hon. Theresa Villiers, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the UK through her public post on social media (Facebook) of 30 November where she has further added the following:

‘The subsequent reference to a two-state solution refers to the Middle East, NOT to Cyprus or Sri Lanka.  I have been in contact with Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, and he has confirmed this. ‘

Conservative party Deputy Chair Paul Scully has in his twitter message of 3 December 2019 once again reiterated the above position of the Conservative party, stating the following:

‘There is no Conservative manifesto commitment relating to the makeup of governance of Sri Lanka. … two-state relate only to the Middle East.’

The Ministry of Foreign Relations is of the view that the above would clarify the position of the Conservative Party on the issue as well as action taken by the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the High Commission in London to correct the distortion.  

Courtesy Ada Derana

Sri Lanka’s former foreign minister Prof. G.L. Peiris claims that the incident involving a local staff member of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo is a conspiracy aimed at discrediting the incumbent government. 

It has been clearly proven that the complete story of the Swiss Embassy incident is a lie,” he said, speaking to reporters. 

He stated that based on the CCTV footage and other technological evidence, the female embassy staffer in question had never been at the location where they claimed she had been at that time and that it has now been proven that there is absolutely no truth to the story”.

Peiris, who is the Chairman of the Sri Lank Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the main constituent party of the ruling alliance, alleged that this was an attempt to discredit the government as soon as it started work.

Especially as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is scheduled to meet in March 2020 serious allegations could be leveled against Sri Lanka, he charged while adding that they see this as a secret plot to obstruct the government’s path at the get go.

He said the current government has the strength to defeat all these obstacles and move forward. 

Courtesy Ada Derana

The Foreign Ministry of Switzerland and the Swiss Ambassador in Sri Lanka has requested permission to take the Swiss embassy staffer, who allegedly was involved in an abduction incident, to Switzerland, revealed Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.

Speaking at a press conference today (04), Gunawardena stated that the Swiss government has requested permission to fly the alleged victim and her family to Switzerland on an ambulance aircraft, citing health issues.

However, the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court has already issued an order preventing the said staffer from leaving the country.

Gunawardena stated that a Sri Lankan, who hasn’t verified their identity using either NIC or a passport, cannot be allowed to leave the country, especially without even obtaining a statement. This was relayed to the Ambassador, he added.

The press conference was also participated by Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Ariyasinghe and State Minister of International Cooperation Susil Premajayantha.

උපුටාගැනීම Hiru

පසුගිය රජය සමයේ දක්ෂිණ  අධිවේගී මාර්ගයේ වැඩකටයුතු අවසන් කර නොමැතිව අනාරක්ෂිතව විවෘත කිරීමට අනුබල දුන් පුද්ගලයන්ට දඞුවම් ලබාදිය යුතු බව සත්‍ය ගවේෂකයෝ සංවිධානය පවසනවා.

All rational thinking people are stupefied as to why the Swiss embassy is keeping a Sri Lankan National inside the embassy compound but asking the GOSL to conclude the investigation into an alleged abduction which has not been officially made by the victim. This is a strange situation. We have been reading statements by everyone but the victim. What if the version of the victim is completely different! We can only know what her version is if the embassy simply allows her to leave the embassy. Why are they keeping her inside an office since 25^th November? It is now over a week that this lady has not seen her family. This is very awkward behavior for a country eternally preaching about human rights!

Amidst all this Sri Lanka’s ambassador is summoned to Berne to explain the factual dispute.

Let’s get something very clear first:

It was the Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Pierre-Alain Eltschinger on 27^th November 2019 about an incident. All that he said was: the female local recruit was threatened” in order to force her to disclose embassy-related information” – detained ‘against her will’ ‘on the street’

“Switzerland views the incident as a very grave and unacceptable attack on one of its diplomatic missions and their employees,” spokesman says  

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/swiss-raise-alarm-attack-sri-lanka-embassy-employee-191128061621424.html

That statement did not disclose any detail about her being abducted in a vehicle by unidentified persons which was only included in the statement by the Swiss Embassy Colombo. (pl refer what the Swiss Ministry said and what the Swiss Embassy has said in its official statement)

So if authorities go by only the Swiss Foreign Ministry statement – she was never abducted.

This means the Swiss Embassy must explain how they included a version that the Swiss Foreign Ministry did not include!

Obviously the Swiss Mission in Colombo has given various other details and Sri Lankan authorities investigating these have claimed that the timeline and sequence do not match against the details they gave. This was after going through witness accounts, technical evidence, Uber records, CCTV footage, telephone records and GPS data.

So when State Secretary Pascale Baeriswyl questions Sri Lanka’s envoy K. Hettiarachchi & asks him to explain how Sri Lanka’s evidence contradicts Switzerland’s version we should be asking is it the first version that she was threatened on the street or the additional versions given by the Swiss Embassy or the coterie of other third party versions that Sri Lanka has to investigate?

If Switzerland has no interest in delaying the investigations why are they not releasing this Sri Lankan National – first to be medically examined and next to help file complaint and expedite investigations based on her direct complaint and not those of third or fourth parties making statements on behalf of her.

If Switzerland is supporting to settle the matter by due process of law, then why is a person kept virtually hostage inside an embassy compound. Not only is this a mental torture for her having to be stuck inside a small office but she must be traumatized by not seeing her family for over 1 week now.

This is quite inhuman of the Swiss authorities who claim her health is deteriorating but will not allow any Sri Lankan doctors to examine her?

If she was well enough to come to work how can her health fail so suddenly?

What has happened to her inside the embassy that the Swiss do not wish to tell the world about.

This suspense is only allowing many people to create their own versions which is confusing the investigations further and which is why it requires authorities to get her version directly.

The Swiss Embassy Colombo is behaving very childishly regarding this entire incident.

The key to this is that there is a major variance in what the Swiss Foreign Ministry originally said on 27^th November 2019 and the official statement issued by the Swiss Embassy Colombo on 29^th November 2019 (5 days after the incident) while keeping the local recruit boxed up inside the embassy compound.

If the Swiss authorities are not allowing any doctors to see her at least they should allow the Cardinal to visit her and bless her.

But the behavior of the embassy is bordering the ridiculous and it is more like a hostage situation which is far more worrying than an alleged threatening on the street.

A Sri Lankan National is being kept inside an embassy compound since 25^th November and the embassy is refusing to release her and we all want to know why.

Leave aside filing complaint or being questioned, shouldn’t she deserve medical attention and to return to her family? Why is the Swiss denying this – her fundamental right?

More than concluding any investigations, she should get medical assistance and return to the comfort of her home and family.

Shenali D Waduge

A Sri Lankan Citizen

Its 3^rd December 2019 exactly 8 days since a Sri Lankan National is being kept inside your embassy compound and we want to know why. We do not buy your stories that she is refusing to make a statement which later was turned into she is too ill to make a statement. We are not buying any of the stories you claim she said either. We want her out of that embassy and shown to our doctors but most of all she must return to her family. Your embassy is denying her fundamental right of freedom. Where is that Sri Lanka Human Rights head, why is she not demanding the embassy release our national?

Every bit of news since 25^th November has been what the Swiss media, the international media & the Swiss embassy is claiming.

NOTHING has been said by our Sri Lankan National.

How do we know what the Swiss embassy is telling is the truth?

What if they have done some mischief to her?

Is she safe, is she really ill, is she really inside the embassy, is she alive are some of the questions now entering our minds.

If the embassy does not wish to show her, the embassy must at least release a voice recording of hers to show the Sri Lankan citizens and in particular her family that she is alive.

We are very worried about our national.

Why should the Swiss embassy keep her inside so long?

Why should the Swiss embassy insist on transporting her and her family away?

What is the Swiss embassy trying to hide?

We have had enough of Swiss Embassy drama. Come clean on what you have done to our national. The entire local staff are now scared to even open their mouths. Is this the big freedom, human right that you people are boasting to the world about.

Enough of your lies.

Release her.

Have you people scared her family too. Is that why they are not coming forward to ask her release? Is the Swiss Embassy holding this family to ransom? Is that why no family members or relations are even lodging a complaint that their family member is missing? Otherwise this woman’s family must be wondering where the hell she is. What about her child, the child your embassy said she dropped, have you not thought of the agony this child must be going through not knowing what has happened to the mother?

You wanted to pull off a stunt to embarrass the Govt but now the whole country is asking why your embassy is not releasing our Sri Lankan National. There are enough of abduction cases across the world, all of them lodge complaints with police and police investigate and try to find the culprit. So why is your embassy not cooperating if there was actually an abduction. We hope this is something not made up by you and that is why you cannot produce this woman whom you used to create a story. But how long can you keep a Sri Lankan National inside the embassy compound?  

Release our Sri Lankan National whom your embassy is keeping as hostage.

Time someone filed a fundamental rights case and lodged a complaint with the human rights commission against the Swiss embassy and lodged a complaint with the UN regarding this hostage taking situation.

Sri Lankan Citizen

Lt Col. A.S. Amarasekera (Rtd,) H.M.G.B. Kotakadeniya (Senior D.I.G. Rtd,)
Co-President Co-President  The National Joint Committee

The National Joint Committee condemn the action taken by the Embassy of Switzerland and their Government to facilitate the travel of a public official attached to the CID by the name of Nishantha out of Sri Lanka and the subsequent grant of asylum in Switzerland to the said Nishantha. Soon after it was revealed that the Government of Switzerland was behind this high handed and illegal act, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland issued a statement that an official of the Embassy of Switzerland in Sri Lanka had been abducted and detained for two hours by an unidentified group. It is in this situation that the Government had requested the identity of this official who is said to be a local employee and a citizen of Sri Lanka for the purpose of investigating the alleged abduction. The Government of Switzerland has refused to divulge the identity of this official or any access to her although they falsely claim that they are cooperating with the investigation. This is obviously because such investigation would reveal the illegal conduct on the part of the Government of Switzerland.

Article 38 (2) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which is codified as a law in Sri Lanka by the Diplomatic Privileges Act No. 9 of 1996 states,

Other members of the staff of the mission and private servants who are nationals of or permanently resident in the receiving State shall enjoy privileges and immunities only to the extent admitted by the receiving State.”

So far the Government of Sri Lanka has not extended diplomatic privileges to other staff members of diplomatic mission of other countries in Sri Lanka in terms of Section 2 (5) of the said Act. Thus this employee cannot claim diplomatic immunity. This high handed act on the part of the Government of Switzerland, denying access to one of their employees who has no diplomatic immunity is not only illegal but also an affront to the sovereignty of the Republic of Sri Lanka. According to the media reports which appeared today the Government of Switzerland has requested the Government of Sri Lanka to allow this employee to be flown out of Sri Lanka in an air-ambulance on the basis that there is rapid deterioration of her health.” The National Joint Committee wish to remind the Government of Switzerland that if there is rapid deterioration of health” of a citizen of Sri Lanka, it is the responsibility of the Government of Sri Lanka to provide urgent medical assistance to safeguard her life and not the Government of Switzerland. The Sri Lankan Government is fully capable of ensuring the safety of its citizens.
There is a serious doubt whether this employee is to be removed from Sri Lanka against her will for the needs of other interested parties.

Therefore before granting authorization by the Government of Sri Lanka it should be satisfied that this request to leave Sri Lanka is made at the request of this employee who is a citizen of Sri Lanka. We also wish to bring to the notice of the Government of Switzerland that obstructing police officers investigating a crime in itself is a violation of the criminal law of this country and the diplomatic immunity extended to the Diplomatic agents of the Embassy of Switzerland does not extend to engage in criminal activities in this country

The Government of Sri Lanka has a right to know from the Government of Switzerland the reason for suppressing the identity of this particular employee. It is necessary for the Government of Switzerland to make public whether they have any evidence that the Government of Sri Lanka was involved in the alleged abduction to suppress the identity of this employee. If such an allegation is made it is the duty of the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate such complaint. To deprive the Government of Sri Lanka in performing its obligation towards its citizens cannot be permitted for any reason.

It is obvious that this entire drama is to cover up the illegal act on part of the Government of Switzerland and to embarrass the Government of Sri Lanka especially at a time when Geneva session are due in March 2020.
The National Joint Committee note with much regret that even the notorious report of the OHCHR dated 16th September 2015 based its findings on the so called testimonies of witnesses whom the Commissioner withheld the identity. (Vide Paragraph 24 of Part 1 of the Report.) It is unfortunate that western governments with vested interests make use of the UN High Commission for Human Rights to harass and make false allegations on sovereign countries that are unwilling to comply with the dictates of these governments. Unable to find proof of these false allegations the latest is to withhold the identity of the ‘so called victims’ and to initiate action against countries based on false allegations. The Government of Sri Lanka needs to revisit whether it could any longer treat the Government of Switzerland as a friendly nation that it could extend diplomatic immunity. The Government of Sri Lanka should be mindful and take cognizance of the true friends of Sri Lanka without accommodating rogue states, hell bent on making false allegations for political reasons.