Yoshitha Perera courtesy The Daily Mirror

The travel ban on the Swiss Embassy local staffer – Ganier Banister Francis, who claimed that she was abducted by unidentified men, was extended till December 12 by the Colombo Chief Magistrate today.

When the case was taken before Colombo Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayarathne, Senior State Counsel Janaka Bandara said that the CID would record and complete her statement by Monday (09) evening.

He said that the CID had recorded her statement for about nine hours, starting from Sunday (08) 5 p.m to Monday (09) 2 a.m.

Earlier, sources said that she was directed to the Chief Judicial Medical Officer for a medical report.

However, the alleged victim has later requested for a female JMO to record her medical report.

Representing the alleged victim’s party, President’s Counsel Upali Kuruppu requested the Magistrate to issue an order on the Chief JMO to appoint a female JMO to examine her.

He also informed the court that the report given by the two doctors attached to the Swiss Embassy had mentioned that his client has also been sexually abused and assaulted during the incident.

Considering all facts, the Magistrate ordered the Chief JMO to provide a report on her physical and mental health condition on the next hearing date.

Last week, the Court issued an order preventing her from leaving the country and also ordered CID to record a statement from her on or before December 9. 

By Lahiru Pothmulla  Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The Batticaloa University should be absorbed to the national university system and utilized as a national asset without being abandoned, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said. 

President Rajapaksa said this at a meeting held with Education and Higher Education Ministers and officials of the education sector at the Presidential Secretariat last morning.   
According to the President’s Media, the President has said the time has come to allow universities to craft diploma programmes based on latest requirements of the country and that the universities should be encouraged to do this. Measures should be taken to uplift the education sector leaving behind false agendas,” he said.   

At the meeting, it was discussed to open up universities covering all districts across the country. The President pointed out the necessity to look into the possibility of renovating abandoned buildings located at larger plots of land in order to convert them into universities.   

President Rajapaksa reiterated the need to move away from the examination-centric education system and measures to expedite action laid down in his manifesto to improve the education sector.   

He highlighted the importance of leaving the decision making right to the educationists in the education sector instead of to politicians.   Meanwhile, he said unemployed undergraduates should be trained to be recruited at institutions where there are vacancies.  Commenting on the students who sat for the A/L examination 2018, the President said immediate action should be taken to enrol them to universities. Action should also be taken to release results of the 2019 AL exam and to enrol the students who passed the exam at universities immediately.

Hiru News

Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says that the reason for the defeat of his party at the presidential election is losing the vote bases of the Buddhists, the middle class and the youth.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Youth Front, MP Kavinda Jayawardnene, attended the event after a 30 minute delay, even though the former prime minister arrived at the scheduled time.

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

Mr. Bandula Gunawardane, Minister for Information Technology, Higher Education, Technology and Innovation and Co-Cabinet Spokesman has made a public statement on ten principles of government and the national policy in relation to priorities.  This statement further included major economic targets, which seemed to be not unrealistic as the targets could be easily achieved by structural changes in economic management and successful monitoring and remedial management required during the next five years to get the economy to right track and boost production. The most impressive targets included 6.5% annual GDP growth, Unemployment below 4%, 5% inflation and controlling the budget deficit to 4% of Gross Domestic Product.  In addition to these targets, it indicated that current per capita income to reach US $ 6500, however, the level of foreign reserves and the foreign value of Sri Lanka’s monetary unit have not mentioned, most probably current international uncertainty would have contributed to the difficulty in forecasting external performance.  There is no doubt that ten principles of government will motivate policy makers of the government sector as well as public who are looking at the policy implementation process of the government.

In terms of annual GDP growth, it appears that it will take ten years to double the economy, however, the monitoring and remedial management process remain at a higher level of motivation and administration free from corruption and the principle of people centric-development would support to maintain a strong public support to the national policy implementation process.

GDP growth, lower budget deficit, and lower rate of inflation direct to attract private investment and to maintain a healthy interest rate for borrowers to maintain profitable outcomes in investment firms and technology-based society gives incentives for creating many job opportunities.

If there is a healthy rate of growth and lower budget deficit, they would be the best incentives for debt problems in the country and the government could borrow more for new projects to create job opportunities.  The achievement of Productive citizenry needs technology-based society and wider disciplinary in management of firms with a higher-level productivity reducing expenses.  

I read a report in a newspaper which stated that the productivity of public sector employees is lower than the private sector and this should be a serious concern of the relevant authorities to identity if employees are paid equal salaries, wages and allowances, why public sector employees’ productivity is lower than private sector. In this environment, the government should develop criteria for changing salary and wages based on the productivity of employees and such a procedure should be used to job evaluation of individual employees in the workplaces. The government needs to negotiate the concept with trade unions and come to an agreement.

It is also recorded that Colombo Stock Exchange allowed to list and trade shares in foreign currencies. It is a very good move but needs to understand the risk of the procedure considering what happened in Malaysia and Indonesia late 1990s during the Asian crisis. Risk monitoring should be a priority in this policy changes because there may be manipulators against the government policy and to gain unfair advantages from the progressive policy of the government.  The liberal policy of the Colombo Stock Exchange would help to increase foreign reserves of the country, but expected results could be achieved only if the firms listing in CSE maintains a higher level of profitability to attract buyers.  Therefore, factors for bull and bearer markets need closely monitoring and taking appropriate remedial management on time rectify problems.

Sri Lanka also needs to establish regional or district level sub-stock exchanges to list regional small companies and combined firms of regional stock exchanges should be listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange. The current regulations regarding the listing of firms in the Colombo Stock Exchange has become a barrier to participate rural companies to listing and for this purpose Central Bank needs to develop applicable guidelines and legal changes to current system.  The development of a practical finance course with good English Communication skills for one-year period and offer to unemployed graduates and train them for successful workers in finance business will a good solution to unemployment and make cultural changes giving rural youth to be leaders and contributors to the economy.  This type of policy action created 100000 new jobs in the country and boost rural economy by modernization.  Sri Lanka can create restoration like Meiji Restoration took place in Japan.

The regional firms need to attract foreign investment from India, China, Japan and other Asian country, which bring technology to rural sector and entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to rural people. Maintaining successful controls to protect investors will be a key to success new policies

Sri Lanka needs to achieve a higher level of foreign value to Rupee and down the prices of imports to radically control inflation.  In this area Central Bank has an excellent role to play as a regulator but not a market operator.

The other vital problem in Sri Lanka is mobilization of debt capital for rural firms as trading banks and non-bank financial institutions have limits to credits as the capital structure and deposits for loanable funds has become a constraint and promoting share capital through regional stock exchanges would be profitable for rural firms and the banking sector release from the pressure to provide working capital for rural firms.

The government consideration for modernization with new ideas and maintain proper control and transparency in such control would support to achieve the reality of economic targets. However, the government and regulators must not forget dishonest elements which will create to the government.

It was the yahapalana government that brought and passed the 19a in April 2015 with key clause that no MP should be a dual citizen. The onus is definitely on them to prove that none of them were dual citizens when inserting this clause which was primarily to prevent Gotabaya Rajapaks from harboring intent to contest elections. The manner their cohorts went to file cases to prevent nominations being accepted is a case in point.

We now need to ask who in this good governance government inserted this 19a clause while hiding the fact that they were themselves dual citizens?

Article 92(b) and Clause 20(4) of the 19a and Article 91(1)(d)(XIII) of the Constitution says persons who are dual citizens are DISQUALIFIED from being elected as MPs or the President.

This means even after entering Parliament they cannot obtain dual citizenship.

So what was the purpose in inserting a clause when only 1 MP declared she was a dual citizen at nomination and her honesty led to her being dismissed from Parliament?

We are now asking if there are MPs in Parliament who are DUAL CITIZENS but have WITHHELD that information when filling their nomination papers.

This is un-parliamentary and if it has been done by any party/politicians who were supporters of 19a then it is daylight hypocrisy.

If a clause was inserted to deny a MP or a President to be dual citizen it was only right that ALL of them be asked to declare they are NOT DUAL CITIZENS.

The President of Sri Lanka was made to face embarrassing and humiliating court cases with ‘dual citizens’ questioning if he was a citizen of Sri Lanka to contest elections.

Therefore, the President must now demand that the Parliament that passed this 19a have all MPs declare that they are NOT DUAL citizens by affidavit.

Other than an affidavit what other ways can we know if a MP is a dual citizen?

1. The Foreign Ministry can request selected countries to confirm with their records if any of the 225 MPs are dual citizens
2. The Election Commission can make a demand
3. MPs personally admit being dual citizen
4. Immigration confirms their travel details for visa
5. Defense Ministry confirm letters issuing dual citizenship

The 19a was passed in April 2015 inserting clause on dual citizenship. Why didn’t the election commissioner ask MPs at time of nominations to produce affidavits that they were not dual citizens instead of relying only on their honesty to admit so. Only Geetha Kumarasinghe when filing nominations admitted to being a dual citizen. She was disqualified because of her honesty. Others who are now MPs while being DUAL CITIZENS cannot be in Parliament because of their dishonesty. If so their PENSIONS should be denied because they acted dishonestly knowing 19a strictly denied anyone contesting elections while being a dual citizen.

http://www.dailynews.lk/2017/05/03/local/114881/court-rules-geetha-kumarasinghe-disqualified-mp

MPs in Parliament cannot make a mockery out of democracy inserting clauses simply to fool the people and not adhering to them. We all know that 19a was specifically written to target individuals to prevent them contesting. Shall shallow constitutional amendments were made for petty political agendas. But natural justice must prevail.

Therefore, the President would have realized from his own personal ordeal and the manner his nominations was on a thin line because of 19a must put the ball into Parliament and demand ALL MPs produce AFFIDAVITS THAT THEY ARE NOT DUAL CITIZENS.  

Shenali D Waduge

By Shamindra FerdinandoCourtesy The Island

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was in the process of recording a statement from local female employee of Swiss embassy at the time this edition went to press yesterday.

The embassy employee reported to the CID yesterday late afternoon, but declined to undergo a medical examination in the absence of a female doctor though two nurses were available. The CID began recording a detailed statement from her, and a medical examination is to be carried out later.

Fort Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne, last Tuesday, Dec 03, ordered that the Sri Lankan employee, in hiding following high profile allegations that she was held at gunpoint for nearly two hours on Nov 25, provide a statement to the police before Dec 09.

Authoritative sources told The Island that though Switzerland had sought to get the police to record her statement at a venue outside the CID headquarters, the government had insisted that she visit the police.

The Colombo Chief Magistrate has barred the alleged victim from leaving the country without giving a statement to the CID.

Senior State Counsel Janaka Bandara, appearing on behalf of the CID, told court the CID had initiated an investigation after receiving a complaint from Swiss Ambassador in Colombo, Hanspeter Mock.

The Senior State counsel said the embassy had not cooperated with the CID officers who visited the diplomatic mission to obtain a statement from the employee concerned.

The police quickly established the identity of the missing woman though the Swiss repeatedly declined to identify her. Sources said that the embassy had now acknowledged the identity established by the police.

Considering the statement made by the Senior State Counsel, the Judge said it was imperative that a statement be obtained from the woman concerned.

The judge ordered the CID to convey the court order to the Controller of Immigration and Emigration.

She also ordered the case to be called on December 9 (today) and the CID to submit a report on the progress of the investigation.

Last week, Dr. Deepika Udagama, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, in response to a query regarding the investigation told The Island: “The HRCSL position is that an effective investigation required the cooperation and participation of all relevant parties – the victim, any witnesses etc.”

Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Aryasinha and Defence Secretary Maj. Gen. Kamal Gunaratne, on Dec 01, told Swiss Ambassador Hanspeter Mock that investigations had proved serious discrepancies between his complaint and the police findings. 

Courtesy Ada Derana

Defense Secretary Major General (Retd) Kamal Gunaratne says that the Embassy of Switzerland in Sri Lanka has acted on behalf of the needs of the Tamil Diaspora.

Speaking in the alleged abduction case of the Swiss Embassy local staffer, Gunaratne expressed these views to the media, at Pannipitiya.

Pointing out that the alleged victim is a Sri Lankan, the Defense Secretary stated that it is the responsibility of the security forces that work on the peace and order of the country to protect her.

When a Sri Lankan lodges a complaint that a Sri Lankan was in trouble, it is our duty and responsibility to launch investigations on it.”

Stating that it is regrettable that the Swiss Embassy did not disclose even the alleged victim’s name to the CID, Gunaratne says the investigations have discovered her name and all the details on the matter.

He stated that all sectors, including all embassies in the country, were informed on the investigation’s findings by the Foreign Ministry.

Commenting on the judgment passed on Brigadier Priyanka Fernando by the UK, Gunaratne says that it is his personal opinion that this was a result of politicians in the UK who came into power with the support of pro-LTTE Diaspora in the UK.

He further stated that Brigadier Fernando will not have to pay a fine as the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry and the High Commission will take necessary measures on it.

Stanley Perera Emeritus Medical Researcher 2/32 Chandler Road Noble Park Vic. 3174 Australia.

AN APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT

Dear President Gotabhaya Rajapakse,

Re-EXTORTION BY CABINET MINISTER GAMINI LOKUGE
The writer is an expatriate Sri Lankan residing in Melbourne, Australia who earned a name of patriotic writer during the time of war in Sri Lanka and your time as the defence secretary.  The writer was a front runner in challenging the International Community who conducted a smear campaign  to tarnish the image of Mahinda Rajapakse Government’.  It was an uphill battle for the patriotic Sri Lankans to counter propaganda campaign of bogus Tamil Refugees.  Their activities were slowed down in the past Ranil Wickremasinghe Government.  Since you became the President, it is seen an upsurge of Tamil propaganda activities all over the world.  Australia’s ABC and SBS TV news media are presently engaged in a propaganda campaign to tarnish the image of Rajapakses.  These news media are heavily infiltrated by bogus Tamil Refugees in Australia and elsewhere.
In the year 2002, Gamini Lokuge extorted a sum of Rs.5,000,000 from the writer.  At that time Lokuge was in the opposition.  When Lokuge failed to return the money extorted from me  when called for, I  lodged a colmplaint with the Bribery and Corruption Commissioner Ranasinghe.  Immediately thereafter, Lokuge crossed over to Mahinda Rajapakse Government.  President Mahinda Rajapakse rewarded Gamini Lokuge with a cheque for  a sum of rupees five million.  Naturally, my complaint with the Bribery and Corruption Commission ended up up in the waste paper basket.  Sunday Times published the matter in two full page article headed “FIVE MILLION RUPEE EXTORTION COME TO HAUNT LOKUGE’.  The writer also complained to the Leader of the opposition Ranil Wickremasinghe.  But it  fell in the deaf ears of Wicremasinghe.  Lokuge only paid me back Rs.200,000, Rs.25,000 and Rs.10,000 on three seperate occassions.
The writer also wrote to the  Australian Foreign Affairs minister, Alexander Downer for healp to recover the extorted sum of money.  Instead Downer dispatched a team of Fedderal Police to arreast me and frame charges on offering bribes to a foreign Official.
My dear President, using your so far unblemished good office, I earnestly urge you to retrieve from Gamini Lokuge’s state the extorted money and have it paid to me ASAP.  This, I hope your Excellency consider as a priority.  When this issue is resolved forthwith, I belive your constituents will  aknowledge the confidence that placed on you in the Presidential election.  Furthermore you will be considered as a leader with a BACK BONE.
 As a quick fiz solution, may I please suggest you pay the said sum of rupees five million out of the Presidential fund for which you have the power as the Executive President of Sri Lanka.
The report of Sarath N de Silva commission appointed by former President Chandrika Kumaranatune revealed:  it was Gamini Lokuge’s gun that was used to kill Vijaya Kumarfanatunga.  Furthermore Gamini Lokuge was known as President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s hit man was also a notorious thug.  Since you became the President of Sri Lanka, it is seen that Lokuge is getting too close to yourself.  This association with you and including Lokuge in your maiden mini Cabinet does not look as a good omen to you.  People are not happy about the formation of the mini cabinet.
While I congatulate you for the mandate you received, I make this forgoing submissions to you expecting your prompt action.
Long live my President Gotabhaya.
Yours Truly,
Stanley Perera

By Rajendra Alwis

I was deeply perturbed to note the judgment delivered by a UK court in absentia convicting Brigadier Priyanka Fernando (Case No.1801273043) in which he was fined £ 2400. Brigadier Fernando at the time of the incident was serving as the Defence Attaché in the Sri Lanka High Commission in London. 

Since Brigadier Fernando was holding a diplomatic position in the Sri Lankan High Commission in London when this incident took place no doubt that he was protected by diplomatic immunity as per Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. Accordingly, this judgment is a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention with serious procedural errors.

In 1967, Burma’s (now Myanmar) Ambassador to, Sao Boonwaat murdered his wife in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). However, the Sri Lankan government couldn’t take any legal action against him due to diplomatic immunity and he was brought back to Burma to initiate legal action. This is a classic case in point to illustrate diplomatic immunity for those who are not conversant with the procedural fairness in honoring and protecting it. 

Brigadier Fernando was convicted for cut-throat gestures displayed in body language that was said to have intimidated some demonstrators who had staged a protest against Sri Lanka in front of the Sri Lanka High Commission, in London. It is well known in Education Psychology that gestures and body languages always connote and denote different shades of meanings according to the life experiences of people which has no rational or objective base. Hence, this is a very subjective judgment that is not cerebral under any measurement.

In closing, please let me quote the pathetic fate of the Englishman, Timothy Evans, falsely convicted by the British court and hanged him in January 1950 saying he murdered his wife and infant child at their residence at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill. Three years after Evan’s execution, his downstairs neighbor, John Christie was found to be a serial killer by the British court who had also killed Evan’s wife and infant child. Later Evans was granted a posthumous pardon. What else to say other than saying British Law system is great”. 

Rt. Honorable Prime Minister please instruct your legal authorities revisit and rectify the undue judgment in Brigadier Priyanka Fernando’s case only to maintain the reputation of the law system of your country. Surely the newly elected President of Sri Lanka will look after Brigadier Fernando in a fitting manner to do justice.

By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

Events surrounding the tyrant western nations arrogantly calling themselves as international community despite they being only 20 odd nations whereas there are nearly 200 nations in the world community behaving in respect of Sri Lanka following the people’s victory in the presidential election clearly elaborates their unhappiness over the choice of the 6.9 million voters amounting to 52% of voters of this country.  They  croak from every roof top available that they are the devout, ardent and dedicated guardians of what they call the ‘democracy’ in the world, a hollow slogan used by them solely for their own convenience and to get their vicious ambitionswhich has become a mere baloney.

These Tyrant Western Nations (EWNs) displeased with the victory of the new populist government have unleashed a massive anti-Sri Lankan crusade.  The crusade has started from Switzerland and Britain to be joined by other TWNs very soon.  The shameless and unprincipled  Swiss Embassy in Colombo in contravention of all international conventions and norms have facilitated a top official of the Sri Lankan Intelligence service to flee the country with his family members immediately after the election and this fugitive bandit is reported to have taken with him many sensitive documents and finger prints of hundreds of intelligence officers which could be used to intimidate or to take action against them, similar to the situation that was created by the Millenium Compound exposure which helped the LTTE terrorists to kill a number of Deep Penetration Unit top officials. 

Suddenly it was reported a female Tamil national official of the Swiss Embassy has been abducted by a gang in a white car and that she had been made to confess some information pertaining to issue of Swiss visas to some Sri Lankans including Nishantha de Silva who has fled the country with his family members. . This lady has been surprisingly released unharmed and now believed to be hiding in the Swiss Embassy Compound or in some other hideout and the Swiss Embassy has attempted to take her to Switzerland in an ambulance plane  but permission to do that has been has been denied by the Colombo Magistrate Court on a request made by the Foreign Ministry and the Policed. The Court has ordered the Embassy to arrange her to give a statement to CID on her purported abduction

The political chameleon Rajitha Senaratne who was a killing agent of PRRA during the horrendous Premadasa regime and has now become an abduction partner has said that the relevant Swiss Embassy lady officer, whose whereabouts are unknown to anyone other than the Swiss Ambassador in Colombo, has said that the said officer’s confession has been taken by threatening her with a pistol and at present she is in an unconscious status.  The failed presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa has also reported to have made a similar statement. 

To get this matter cleared without allowing room for it to cause any embarrassment to Sri Lanka and at the same time prevent the vicious TWNs to use it as a tool to project that the so-called human rights violations are taking place in Sri Lanka after the advent of the new government Rajitha and Sajith should be subjected to thorough investigations and their statements should be publicised in the international media and both of them should be charged for involvement in anti-national crimes and treason.

This Swiss episode has become a very sensational subject to full media coverage locally and in overseas. 

The Indian newspaper Hindu” correspondent in Colombo, Meera Srinivasan has reported that the attack on Swiss Embassy staffer was worrying Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) chairperson Deepika Udagama who has said that the persons who attacked the Embassy staffer have demanded information on persons who have sought diplomatic protection through the Swiss Embassy.

She says that the Foreign Ministry in Switzerland has requested the Swiss Ambassador in Colombo Hanspeter Mock to meet Prime Minister Mr.  MahindaRajapaksa and the Foreign Minister Mr. Dinesh Gunawardene and brief then about the situation.

It make all sensible Sri Lankans to wonder why the Swiss embassy is keeping the concerned staffer inside the embassy compound but asking the GOSL to conclude the investigations enabling her to leave for Switzerland while the Sri Lanka’s ambassador had been summoned to explain the incident. 

The former foreign minister Prof. G.L. Peiris claims that the Swiss Embassy incident is a conspiracy aimed at discrediting the new government and it has clearly proven that the complete story is a lie.  He has 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.

Prof. Peiris alleged that this was an attempt to discredit the government as soon as it started work. He explained especially as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is scheduled to meet in March 2020 serious allegations could be levelled against Sri Lanka. He said the government has the strength to defeat all these obstacles and move forward. 

Prime Minister Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa commenting on the Swiss issue said that after truefacts relating the incident came to light, the unpers connected to the incident have become very much puzzled and now find difficult to face the situation.  He said some members of the UNP are still conspiring against the government despite their colossal defeat in the elections.  However, he said that there are some UNPers who are national minded and are ready to cooperate with the government in its nation building exercise.

 The government’s spokesman Dr.Bandula Gunawardene also accused that this episode is a western plot to discredit the government and said that all investigations of the government to conduct thorough investigations about the matter and take appropriate legal action against those who had been responsible.

As per the Police there is no truth in the Swiss Embassy claim of the purported abduction of it local staff.  Police said that there is no evidence of abduction of anyone in the said location on the date and time span stipulated by the Swiss Ambassador.  Police have arrived at this determination after a thorough check on CCTV cameras on the whole area.  

Reports from Zurich say that the Swiss Secretary of State has instructed the Embassy in Sri Lanka to send the concerned staffer and her family to Switzerland a Swissair plane is being kept in readiness to take them to Switzerland and it would take about 10 hours for this ambulance plane to arrive to Colombo.  However the concerned staff has not given a statement to the Police and there is a Court order banning her to leave the country without giving a statement to the Police and obtaining permission to leave. 

The arrogant and pigheaded Swiss Ambassador Hanspieter Mock seems to have made a mockery on the purported incident by denying to divulge her identity, by denying access to local doctors to examine about her alleged illness saying that she had been examined by Swiss through Skype and by insisting that she should be allowed to go to Switzerland with her family and it seems that this Mock fellow is deliberately creating a case to say that Sri Lanka’s new government is trekking on a despotic path by denying one of their staff to leave for Switzerland to secure medical treatment. 

In less than one month of we Sri Lankans electing Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as our President, a person who will not dance to the tunes of the Tyrant western nations (TWNs) these TWNs have started their cussed game of blackmailing countries to tow to their dictates or face severe consequences.  The dirty Swiss have taken the lead in an attempt to smear the image of Sri Lanka. In a prelude to this vicious campaign they acquitted 12 tiger terrorists who had been imprisoned in that country for various crimes.

The NGO vultures too have joined this smear campaign with much enthusiasm as they very much desist the advent of President Gotabhaya as the ruler of this country.  Already Pakasotty Saravanamuttu (this is how he was referred to as by Pa.Cha.Ranawaka addressing a meeting in Matra when he was in Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government) has said that in an article last Sunday that the abduction game has started and has stated that the Swiss Embassy staffer was abducted and surprisingly she was released after questioning for about two hours.  This is the tip of the iceberg and in the next few days NGO vultures such as Jehan Perera,, Viyangoda and even Jeppos and Litro Amila could join the chorus.

People elected M r. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as president of this country since they were convinced that he will not allow the TWNs, NGO vultures and anti-national elements to make this country a playground for them.  He has appointed the most appropriate person as the Foreign Minister of this country. Therefore, these foreign initiated canards against this country should be nipped in the bud and stern action should be taken against all those who had been involved in this smear campaign and the Swiss Ambassador Mock who seems to have been personally involved in the affair should be declared as a persona non grata and should be ordered to leave this country within 48 hours.   

Malinda Seneviratne

People from the same camp, in terms of who they voted for, can and do come up with different reasons for victory, or if that’s the case, defeat. 
For example, some who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa could put his victory down to one or more of the following: a) ineptitude of the Yahapalana regime and failure to deliver on promises, b) the need for a strong and tested leader in the face of new threats to national security, c) perceptions that he was a doer as opposed to a talker (that’s Sajith), d) a strong, determined and well-coordinated campaign as opposed to Sajith Premadasa’s wayward, disorganized effort further marred by in-fighting. 
Others could point to the overwhelming surge in the anti-UNP vote from areas dominated by Sinhala Buddhists and claim that it was a response to unnecessary and endless needling of the majority community by various UNP spokespersons. They could add that lack of clarity on the part of Sajith Premadasa on his arrangement with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) given that party’s Eelamist posturing through conditions offered to and rejected by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was key. 
So it is about strengths of the winner and weaknesses of the loser and/or their respective parties. Strengths and weaknesses can be understood in different ways. How would some one who voted for Sajith explain the outcome?
Some might say ‘he didn’t have enough time to campaign since his party was slow in offering him nomination.’ Others would add, ‘and Ranil Wickremesinghe didn’t put his heart and soul into the campaign,’ even though the party leader has refuted this claim by pointing out that he was asked to campaign in the North and East, which districts he delivered. Whether he was key in this ‘deliverance,’ of course is another matter. Anyway, some inclined to be self-critical rather than looking for scapegoats have argued that there was very little campaigning at the grassroots, that the UNP’s party machinery was rusty, that UNPers were demoralized after the debacle at the local government elections in February 2018, and that Sajith’s ‘I-ME-and-Myself’ did not excite the floating voter, that Sajith had a tough brief to defend considering the (non) performance of the government in which he was a cabinet minister.  
Finger-pointers who are not willing to acknowledge error or blemish, have simply said ‘it’s all because Gota appealed to Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists.’  Some say ‘It’s the BBS’. That’s the Bodu Bala Sena. The BBS and it’s political twin, Ravana Balakaya, following the election stated that the organizations would be dissolved following the parliamentary elections.
‘There you go!’ did someone exclaim? It’s easy to join dots (any which way you like) to prove you point. Still, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya ‘decisions’ are worth commenting on. Now these outfits are considered extremists by some who, interestingly, extrapolate the ‘extremism to the entire Sinhala Buddhist population. Interestingly too, they don’t apply the same logic to the National Thawheed Jamath (NTJ) and the Muslim community. Neither do they pause to compare and contrast the extremisms — the involvement of the BBS in Aluthgama and Digana versus the Easter Sunday attacks carried out by the NTJ.  Cost of damage to property and lives lost could be but are not compared. 
Back to the BBS and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. So is it that the BBS and the Ravana Balakaya, having ‘delivered’ the presidency to Gota, have concluded ‘mission accomplished, we got our man in and our work is done?’ Is Gotabaya a BBS man or Ravana Balakaya man? That would be utterly simplistic. First of all, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya are essentially fringe elements of the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourse. More visible, of course, just like the NTJ, but that’s just one part of the story. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, when he was Secretary, Ministry of Defence, did accept an invitation extended to him by the BBS to be chief guest at the opening of an office somewhere in the Southern Province. That was out of order for a government servant. Does that make Gota a member of the BBS high command? Did the BBS deliver the presidency to Gota?  
The BBS contested the last parliamentary elections as the ‘Buddhist People’s Front’. The total votes polls by that party was 20,377 or just 0.19%. Nation-wide. And that’s ‘push’ enough to decide who would be president? Sobering, ain’t it?
Forget the BBS; was Sinhala Buddhist nationalism the most significant element at the election? Ameer Ali, in an analysis titled ‘Sibling wins, patriarch celebrates and minorities stunned,’ in the Colombo Telegraph, certainly thinks so. 
Ali believes that Ethno-religious nationalism decided the winner. He claims that ethno-religious Buddhist nationalists created and presented an image to the Sinhala public that the two minorities are a clear and imminent danger to national security. He claims, ‘an uncompromising but ultra-nationalist section of the institutionalised Buddhist clergy spearheaded a campaign to deprive the minorities of that privilege and rallied Sinhala Buddhist voters behind Gotabaya, who in their view will be the man to save Buddhist Sri Lanka.’ And, pointing to the fact that Sajith won handsomely in the North and East, but was trounced elsewhere, Ali concludes that it was indeed a battle between the Buddhist majority and the minorities. He says, in the process, that the minorities ‘hoped for a 2015 repeat scenario when their votes decided the winner in a tightly fought presidential contest and threw their support behind Sajith Premadasa.’
On the hand, why doesn’t Ali see that the Sinhalese and Buddhists could perceive an existentialist threat given statements issued by the likes of Sumanthiran and Hizbullah and of course the fact that terrorists from both the Tamil and Muslim communities unabashedly vented against Sinhala Buddhists? He doesn’t play that part of the game, but picks the reverse. It can’t cut just one way, though.
Anyway, Ali’s reading reminded me of an elegant meme created by Shanuki De Alwis just after the January 2015 election. It was a warm interpretation of the result, depicting the North and East embracing/protecting the rest of the country. Indeed, it seemed apt at the time. However, if you looked at the numbers, the story is very different. What the anti-Rajapaksa candidates gained between 2010 and 2015 from these two provinces are dwarfed by what Mahinda lost in just the Southern and Western Provinces. It was not just the minorities that defeated Mahinda in 2015. 
Less than five years later, Mahinda’s brother swept these very same provinces by massive margins. Were people in the relevant districts suddenly converted to the political stance of the BBS (if we believe that claim)? Obviously there are other explanations. Yes, national security was an issue. So was incompetence. Incoherence. Utter confusion. You name it!  That’s all Yahapalana attributes. 
So why say ‘Buddhist’ or ‘Sinhala’ just because of the 6.9 million who voted for Gotabaya happened to be identified in such terms? Sure, they were Sinhalese and Buddhists, but on what basis can anyone say that it is only their ethnic identity and religious faith that determined choice? It’s a bit like saying all those in the North and East who voted against Gotabaya are Eelamists or Islamic Fundamentalists. They voted for Sajith, a Sinhalese, who was in rhetoric far more nationalistic than Gotabaya was, if anyone followed their respective speeches. So Sinhala Buddhist anxieties may have been part of the story, but it cannot be concluded that it was THE story of the election result.
It’s about how you want to skin it, in the end. Minority angst can of course privilege perceptions and hence persuade people like Ali to say ‘we are shocked’. Shocked because you didn’t expect it or shocked because you fear the consequences? Perceptions are real, even if they are not based on facts. You paint a monster and then ‘the monster’ haunts you. You believe your own propaganda. You have a set frame and cannot fathom that that’s not the only one available. You see certain things, choose not to see others and are absolutely ignorant of still other factors. So you go with what you know, throw in anxieties and political preferences/disappointments and get to ‘THIS IS WHAT IT WAS!’  
It’s good to feel good or, as the case may be, to feed one’s anxieties in a masochistic kind of way. That’s however simplistic political analysis, nothing more.  
malindasenevi@gmail.com

By Lasanda Kurukulasuriya Courtesy Island

December 8, 2019, 9:24 pm

In what must surely be one of the strangest games of diplomatic brinkmanship to be played out in this country, the Swiss embassy in Colombo demands an investigation into an alleged ‘abduction’ of one of its local employees. However, it appears there is not a shred of evidence to support its case – not even a statement from the so called ‘victim.’ The new government of Sri Lanka – barely 10 days into office – having immediately ordered a probe into the incident, is in a quandary. Authorities find themselves at every turn obstructed by the very party that requested the probe.

The Embassy refuses to divulge the identity of the ‘victim.’ It pre-empts the police from getting a statement from her saying that “Due to a deteriorating health condition” she is “currently not in a state to testify.”

Nor will it allow a judicial medical officer to examine her and give a report on this ‘deteriorating health condition.’ An official statement on the Embassy website however claims that the mission is “fully cooperating with the Sri Lanka authorities.”

That statement, dated 29 Nov, says the mission had “immediately” lodged a formal complaint with the Lankan authorities. But the Sri Lanka Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its press release of 28 Nov. said, it was informed of the alleged abduction on the 27th. It is arguable whether two days late can be considered ‘immediate.’ In the interim, several news reports damaging to the image of the country and its new government appeared in the media, citing Swiss officials plus a lot of hearsay.

The embassy statement says: “On 25 November 2019, a serious security incident involving a local employee of the Embassy of Switzerland in Colombo occurred. The employee was detained against their will in the street, forced to get into a car, seriously threatened at length by unidentified men and forced in order to disclose embassy-related information.”

CID investigation

The CID investigation showed that there was little truth in the Swiss allegation. Briefing the media on 04 Dec. Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunewardena said, “All the evidence shows the victim’s position has no standing.” Asked what information the Ambassador had supplied, he said “A small note saying he has received this complaint from the victim. … There was no statement, no complaint.” Foreign Secretary Ravinath Ariyasinghe added, “He stated only that there was an abduction. Subsequently he presented a sequence of events.” Ariyasinghe said the ministry had informed the ambassador that his statement did not correspond with findings based on witness interviews and technical information including Uber records, CCTV footage, telephone records and GPS data.

The embassy has been pressing the government to allow the woman concerned to be flown out of the country in a special ‘ambulance plane’ in order to receive medical treatment. However, the court has issued an order preventing her from leaving the country till 09 Dec. and requiring a statement from her before that date.

If the Swiss genuinely want to cooperate with the investigation but are concerned about protecting their employee’s rights, why don’t they arrange for her to make a statement in the presence of her lawyer, at the embassy, where she would presumably feel safe – instead of trying to whisk her away and thereby preventing the law from taking its course?

The alleged victim’s absence at her residence as reported by the police, along with the embassy’s attitude, has opened up speculation that she is being accommodated in the Swiss mission. On 04 Dec the Embassy issued a notice to its nationals saying, “The Embassy of Switzerland in Colombo herewith informs that due to the current situation in Sri Lanka, and until further notice, the operation of the Embassy has been reduced.” What is this ‘situation’ in Sri Lanka that the embassy refers to? Apart from adverse weather conditions in some parts of the country, there is no emergency ‘situation’ – unless it has become a ‘situation’ for the mission to keep a Sri Lankan citizen (who does not have diplomatic immunity) within its premises indefinitely?

What will be the impression if the request to fly her out is granted without allowing access to law enforcement authorities? It’s not difficult to imagine the kind of sensational headlines that would appear in the international press about an ambulance plane evacuating the victim. Such reports could potentially suggest that the government was in some way associated with the alleged abduction (reported in Swiss media as if it were a fact). The very day after the incident was alleged to have taken place, the Embassy’s version was reported in Western media, embedded in a now-familiar anti-Rajapaksa Western narrative predicting doom and gloom.

White vans and death threats

It is intriguing how new information, the origins of which are not clear, have also got into circulation through media reports. Opposition politicians in Sri Lanka referred to the incident as a ’White Van’ abduction. The ‘White Van’ has by now become a brand name, the mere mention of which conjures up a picture of lawlessness and rampant crime. Another assertion, nowhere made by Swiss authorities upto now, is that the abducted woman was forced to reveal cell phone data on Sri Lankans who had sought asylum in Switzerland – including CID inspector Nishantha Silva who had been investigating cases brought by the previous government against the Rajapaksas. Silva is said to have fled the country on 24 Nov following death threats, to seek asylum in Switzerland – ‘according to reports’ and unnamed ‘sources.’

An attempt to trace the provenance of these stories shows that the ‘White Van’ element was introduced on 26 Nov. by a pro-UNP website, which added that the abductee had been questioned on Nishantha Silva. Also on 26 Nov., the German-language Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) citing ‘Sri Lankan media reports’ said Silva had received death threats after the change of government. But the local reports too cited unnamed ‘sources.’

So who was the original source of this information? What are the ‘reports’ that could have appeared just a day after the incident allegedly occurred, even before the foreign ministry had been informed? NZZ is “the most important and prestigious Swiss daily newspaper published in the German language” said a well informed source, adding that it was “highly influential also in Germany and Austria, indicating big time manipulation.” Information from NZZ and LNW was also picked up and circulated by swissinfo.ch website.

It would appear that CID inspector Nishantha Silva who, police confirmed, left the country, is in fact the main player in this drama, to which the abduction story is but a sequel. Local media reports (citing unnamed sources) say Silva and his family left the country three days after his boss, CID Director Shani Abeysekera, was transferred to a lesser post – suggesting that he lost protection as a result. However, it is unlikely that flights and visas to Switzerland could have been arranged in three days, and would more likely have been organized well ahead. MP and former minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe has pointed out that “high ranking military officers had been denied visas whereas relatively junior policeman and his family had received visas in record time.” He further alleged, in remarks to The Island 27.11.19 that Silva ‘worked closely with the foreign missions.

The Swiss Embassy has not denied that Silva has sought asylum. In its statement of 29 Nov. it only rebuts the allegation that the Swiss government “rejected a request for the extradition of an employee of the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Departmet (CID) and his family,” saying “No such request has been submitted.”

For those who scripted this drama, a CID inspector’s unauthorised departure from Sri Lanka may not have constituted a story big enough to make international headlines. But the story of abduction of a Western embassy employee the following day, being forced to divulge details of his asylum application, has the potential to become a diplomatic scandal with serious repercussions. Readers need to ask themselves how likely it is that a local embassy employee would be entrusted with sensitive information of this nature in the first place, and still less, that she would be carrying it around on her cell phone.

Upcoming UNHRC session

With the UNHRC sessions in Geneva due in March, the possibility that there is mischief afoot cannot be discounted. This episode comes against the backdrop of President Gotabaya having publicly rejected Resolution 30/1. It is likely that the new government will present Sri Lanka’s case against the war crimes allegations targeting its security forces and wartime political leaders, using the considerable body of evidence contradicting these charges, that was ignored by the former regime. The ‘war criminal’ label may then get unstuck, and this will not be to the liking of Western powers that introduced the resolution. It is relevant to note here that the Swiss Federal Court very recently acquitted 12 suspects from charges of fundraising for the LTTE, and went on to declare that the LTTE is ‘not a criminal organization.’

The election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President of Sri Lanka has caused ripples in the Western world, which appears to be in overdrive in its attempt to manage the new situation. Is there a tacit threat in recent moves, to warn the fledgling government that if it fails to fall in line with Western strategic objectives, it may have to face pressures from a newly unleashed pro-LTTE diaspora?

If a state of chaos is required by those who seek to impose hegemony, then the promise of stability held out by the new government will not be to their liking. The president leading by his own example has set about changing the political culture, shedding the vulgar trappings of power, trimming waste and mapping out plans for accelerated development. He has reached out to the minorities in the North and East (who ‘did not vote for him’) with the promise of a better life. Once these communities begin to enjoy the fruits of development they may begin to cooperate with the government’s efforts– if they are seen to be genuine. This, in turn, would narrow the space for imperialist forces to use the age old ploy of ‘divide and rule’ in Sri Lanka, to secure control in this strategically important region. No wonder the West is worried.

Courtesy Island

December 8, 2019, 9:20 pm

By D. C. P. Amarasekere

In Sri Lanka, the paddy farmer who is central to the ‘nation’ has been cruelly displaced in national policy for decades. Most Sri Lankan political leaders remember the farmer in cycles, and it typically coincides with an election. Every election season the farmer makes a come-back, front and center, on election agendas. The candidates vie for the 2 million plus farmers’ votes almost like in an auction, each outbidding the other, by using bigger and better subsidies and handouts. The fertiliser subsidy and the buying rate for paddy are the two most salient grievances that dominate political debates. To set the record straight, there is a wide gap between the “farm-gate price” (the price that farmers get for selling paddy), and the price which consumers pay for rice. However, this is always exaggerated. While the gap between the consumer price and the farm-gate price ranges between 20-30%, the farmers, politicians, and NGOs imagine this to be as high as 100%. The exaggeration may not have an empirical basis, but it helps demonize the exploitative forces such as banks, millers, retailers and other intermediaries in the paddy-rice value chain. The seasonal demonization helps with self-preservation, not limited to-, but particularly of politicians. The symbiotic relations between politicians (at all levels) and business interests notwithstanding, political candidates market themselves in theatrical fashion as brave soldiers fighting to eliminate the exploiters from the paddy-rice value chain and restore the rightful dignity of the Sri Lankan farmer. After the elections, the status quo resumes.

Given that the newly-elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa presented the most comprehensive set of policies, programmes and initiatives in the area of agriculture during his campaign, it is important that we hold him, the Minister of Mahaweli, Agriculture, Irrigation and Rural Development in the interim cabinet – Mr. Chamal Rajapaksa, the State Minister of Agriculture – Mr. Vidura Wickramanayake, and the government accountable to deliver on the much-needed reforms in agriculture. The newly elected President has walked into a putrid political system as well as an economy at the brink of a collapse. However, some quick measures need to be taken to address the crisis in agriculture in Sri Lanka. This article is intended to highlight a couple of “stylized facts” about income and labour of paddy-farming households in order to push the agenda beyond the fertiliser subsidy and the farm-gate price. The declining welfare among farming households and opportunities for farmers give a clear indication that we have to innovate in order to survive.

Farming Households Always Operate at a Loss

First, let us look at the basic balance sheet of a farmer. This calculation carries two disclaimers: 1) the numbers are derived from day-to-day conversations with farmers over the past couple of decades in a village in the Hambantota District, but accurately reflect the figures for the Maha season of 2018; and 2) perhaps contrary to popular understanding, the vast majority of smallholder paddy farmers employ agricultural labour for most farming-related tasks. In this village, on average, a farming family cultivates between 1-1.5 acres of paddy land. From cultivation to harvesting, a paddy season lasts roughly 5 months. On average, to cultivate one acre of paddy, a farmer incurs the following expenses (per acre of paddy):

Second, let us calculate how much the paddy farmer (who cultivates one acre of paddy), earns at the end of the 5-month season. Based on national figures, the paddy harvest per acre during the 2019 Maha season was roughly 1,900 kilos. If the farmer sells his harvest to the government at the current price of Rs. 38, he/she will earn an income of Rs. 72,200 at the end of the 5-month season.

It is interesting to note that the farmer’s average monthly income during the season seem to be barely above Official Poverty Line (OPL) in 2016 which is Rs. 4,166. In conversations with farmer households (consisting of two adults and two children), the monthly expenditure was recorded as follows:

This means, farming households incur a loss of Rs. 431/day, Rs. 12,930/month, and roughly about 1.5 lakh per year. This loss is always settled by incurring debt, borrowed mostly from local loan sharks at exorbitant interest rates. Year after year, the debt increases, as the earnings are rather low. While this is a simplified view of the infamous ‘farmer debt’ issue, it gives a rough idea of the sustained nature of debt in farmers’ lives. Many of them die indebted to a number of creditors, and not all of them are banks. A Sri Lankan farmer, at the end of his life, may owe 2-3 million or sometimes even more. The debt that is owed to individuals who typically tend to be ‘strongmen’ in the area, is automatically transferred to the wife and the children of the farmer. Farmer debt is a never-ending cycle that is of inter-generational nature.

Alternatives and the Role of the Government

One cause of this bleak situation of the paddy farmer is the extremely low productivity. Compared to other South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, Sri Lanka’s productivity is significantly low. But one should not be fooled to think that improving ‘productivity’ simply means an increase in rice production. ‘Improving productivity’ means increasing yields and cutting the cost of production simultaneously. In fact, producing more and more rice is counterproductive. An excess supply of rice to the market causes prices to fail, which in turn does not help the farmers’ situation. If the price falls below the cost of production, the farmer incurs losses and struggles to pay the debt he had accumulate during the season and any arrears from previous seasons. One important point that current and future policymakers need to understand is that the demand for rice is flat. In other words, there is only so much rice that we can eat, and for the past 20 years, the average annual consumption of rice has been approximately 110 Kilos per person. This means the domestic consumers are incapable of absorbing a glut of rice on the market.

While the next option is to export rice to foreign markets, it is easier said than done. For decades, the global market preferences have been in favour of long-grain cultivars such as Thai, Pakistani and some Indian rice varieties. The demand for the Sri Lankan short-grain varieties is comparatively very low as they do not appeal to the palette of rice consumers in most other countries, nor can they be used in recipes in the gourmet food or fast food products. A new demand, however, can be created (globally) on the basis of the health benefits of eating Sri Lankan varieties of rice, but this would require a well thought out and medium- and long-term branding and marketing programme at the national- and international levels. As the investment on such a strategy would be substantial, we must maximize our usage of rice and its by-products such as paddy husk, rice bran, and broken rice.

Approximately 575,000 metric tonnes of rice husk is produced in Sri Lanka every year, and utilizing and disposing this low-value by-product as been a challenge for millers and farmers. However, paddy husk has been successfully used as a soil conditioner for mulch, and as a biofuel for furnaces. It is also used for insulation and as packaging material, a cleaning agent for steel and iron, a raw ingredient in producing cement, and fillers for the plastic industry. Paddy husk has been used as fuel in several industries, especially in rice processing mills. Furthermore, rice bran has been successfully used to produce rice bran oil which has a number of health benefits as well as a growing demand in the international market. Similarly, broken rice can be used to make cereals and health drinks. Rice can also be used to make liquor such as sake in Japan. Regrettably, most of these ventures are not undertaken in Sri Lanka. These ventures may be too capital-intensive for farmers to undertake, but they offer new avenues of income for millers and other intermediaries. The idea is not to demonize the millers and the other intermediaries in the rice value-chain in Sri Lanka, but to create opportunities and markets for all stakeholders. Having said that, the millers and other intermediaries need to be regulated, taxed, and their employees must be paid EPF/ETF. An uncontrolled mushrooming of millers has led to frequent fluctuations of millers’ income, which in turn has led to a high degree of precarity in the labour they employ. If they are given opportunities to produce new value-added items for export, it could create a win-win situation in which the millers’ incomes are increased and stabilized, and the state coffers gain foreign exchange. As the millers do not have the technological wherewithal, the government must take the initiative to introduce small production plants that are used in other parts of the world to entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. Last week, the new President, in an interview on the state’s role in supporting technological innovation spoke convincingly about the state’s role in putting in place the basic infrastructure that is necessary for such innovation. This suggestion, I believe, fall under the umbrella of the ‘basic infrastructure’ that is necessary for innovation in agriculture. The state, together with the private sector, would have to assist with marketing new agricultural products in the global markets until the required marketing skills are inculcated in the new generation of agricultural entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka.

If producing more rice does not necessarily improve the lot of farmers, what can the government do to help their household economies? The key to cracking this lies in maximizing farmers’ labour. A farmer works only 20 days in a 5-month period. This goes back to a point made earlier in this article that the vast majority of smallholder paddy farmers employ agricultural labour for most farming-related tasks. One might ask, what he/she does during the remaining 130 days. The blunt answer is – nothing. This has been the pattern over the years, and regrettably, it has become a part of the rural farming culture. The solution to improving farmers’ incomes lies not in increasing the value of handouts or free inputs of production, but in allocating their under-utilized time for producing high-value agricultural products.

Many innovations can be proposed in this respect. For example, in the dry zone where kohomba (azarirachta indica) and mee (madhuca longifolia) trees grow in abundance, farmers’ can be allocated state land to grow mee for medicinal purposes and kohomba for timber. Kohomba and mee seeds can be used to produce fertilizer, cosmetic products and biofuels. Similarly, farming cooperatives can be encouraged to produce wood apple and other fruit and vegetable varieties that are indigenous to the area. Ranawara, Beli flowers, Murunga and other herbal parts can be processed into fine teas for which there is increasing global market demand. Cultivating rare and indigenous plant and flower varieties that have international market value (such as cactus) is another viable enterprise. A quick glance at the trees, herbs and flowers that grow in the northern and southern dry zones in the country suggests that many value-added agricultural goods can be produced by farmers in both regions. With two international airports in the southern and northern tips of the country, these products could be easily transported by air to any country in the world. State support for farmers to move into value-added agricultural products should open up opportunities to unite farming interests of the south and the north of the island. Those who are inclined to use their time on manufacturing non-agriculture related products can be encouraged towards brickmaking and producing cement blocks for construction. To guard against an over-supply of agricultural produce of the same kind in a given season (eg. an excess of pumpkin because everyone is growing pumkin), the state can regulate by maintaining an upper limit of production for each crop. The point is to make productive use of farmers’ underutilized time and encourage them to move into value-added agriculture, however, guarding against them flooding the market with the same kind of produce. All this needs careful planning, taking into consideration the terrain, climate, soil, access to water, and the skills of farmers in a given region. Monetary support for such ventures can be implemented through Anyonyadara Samithi in rural areas that already operate as community development mechanisms.

The options are many. It is the government initiative and the support in terms of creating markets and branding that is much needed. The job of the President who is committed to agriculture and competent Minister and State Minister of Agriculture must be to explore these avenues of innovation and work with farming communities to diversify agricultural production. It is the responsibility of the Minister and the State Minister of Agriculture, in collaboration with the private sector, to find international markets for these products, work on a long-term branding plan for Sri Lankan agricultural products, and improve connectivity to transport the products from the farm to the table. In other words, there is a lot more we could try as a country before we call agriculture a “failure”.

The farmers also have to do their part and meet the government halfway. They have to snap out of the dependency mentality. The dependency of farmers is not figment of capitalist imagination. It is a reality created by politicians to exercise control over the farming population over decades since the country’s independence. The fertiliser subsidy in Sri Lanka dates back to 1962 is a case in point. Its main objective was to make access to fertiliser easy and affordable to farmers, thereby stimulating high-yields in paddy. Since then, however, despite both the contribution of agriculture to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) being just 7%, and the massive expenditure on providing the fertiliser subsidy (currently Rs. 15 billion), no government has moved to suspend the system. This is because as much as one-third of the labour force is employed in the agricultural sector, and the large voter base of farmers (around two million) immediately made the subsidy into a highly ideological political tool crucial to state-building. In addition to fertilizer, other inputs of production, are also subsidized, if not provided free of charge. We have now reached a point at which the farmers’ safety net has turned into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency. Most Sri Lankans would agree on the basic level of not wanting their tax rupees used to fund complacency and further indebtedness among farmers. The farmers have to realise that and take control over their lives that have been on autopilot for too long.

If the new President and his government are serious about making any noticeable difference in the farmers’ lives, the agenda has to go beyond the fertiliser subsidy and the purchasing rate of paddy. It is time to step out of this comfort zone, and explore creative ways to secure the vote-base of farmers. Some proposals above may not be the most comfortable options in the short-term, but they are necessary if we are to envisage a future of agriculture in Sri Lanka. The government’s and farmers’ failure to innovate in agriculture will only expedite the process of transitioning to the hands of global agribusiness. Before we know it, our land and labour will be controlled by global agribusiness, especially in the face of agreements such as the MCC. But if we utilize our land and labour more effectively, this process can be slowed. The choice is ours. Innovate or perish.

by Rajeewa Jayaweera Courtesy The Island

December 7, 2019, 4:02 pm

For all intent and purposes, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s (GR) recently concluded state visit to India, his first as Head of State is considered a success. A one on one meeting scheduled for 15 minutes had lasted one hour. During this time, both leaders have supposedly found common ground and established a personal rapport, so essential in relations between countries, especially between countries with a history of thorny periods.

The newly elected Sri Lankan President, in his inaugural speech stated, “we want to be neutral and stay out of conflicts amongst the world powers.”

While in India, he reiterated his intention to renegotiate the 99-year lease with state-controlled China Merchants Port Holdings which would have no doubt pleased his hosts.

The Editor of The Hindu, Ms Suhasini Haider, sought clarification on the issue of Hambantota Port. GR stated “I believe the Sri Lankan government must have control of all strategically important projects like Hambantota. After all, these are not like hotels or a terminal, but to give control of a port or an airport or our harbors is different.”

It is heartening to note, the new President does recognize the need for Sri Lanka to be in control of its Ports, Airports and other strategically important assets. It must apply across the board to all such projects awarded not only to the Chinese but also to Indians, Americans and any others. The Sri Lanka Navy manages the security inside the Hambantota port.

Not too long ago, Petroleum Corporation officials visited the Trincomalee oil storage tank farm to survey the 15 or so tanks leased out to Lanka IOC Plc, Indian Oil Corporation’s subsidiary in Sri Lanka. They were sent away by LIOC officials, the reason being approval was required from their Delhi Head Office. GR must make sure, such mistakes are rectified and never repeated.

The recent public announcement by GR of the 99-year Hambantota Port lease agreement being a mistake on the eve of his departure to India could have been avoided. Firstly, it negates his announcement at Ruwanwelisaya “we want to be neutral.” Secondly, China is the world’s second most powerful nation in the world with a population of over 1.4 billion. A public démarche of the intention to further renegotiate an already renegotiated agreement by a leader of a country of 21 million souls is an affront to China. If necessary, the way around the issue would have been to discreetly take up the issue with the Chinese leaders during a visit to China. Such a visit to the nation’s largest investor, highest creditor and all-weather friend is due sooner than later in the name of being neutral.

The President may not be aware of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s demand during a political rally for the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) forthwith. Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who felt slighted stubbornly refused to comply during his term of office. To comply with Premadasa’s demand would have been political suicide for Gandhi.

Furthermore, the new government is virtually begging for investments. Demanding the revision of already finalized investment projects sends all the wrong signals to prospective investors. Sri Lanka’s reputation as an investment-friendly country was tarnished since the trashing of the agreement with Emirate Airlines in 2008, all the way through Colombo Port City and the initial Hambantota Port agreement.

Prime Minister Modi has offered a credit line of USD 400 million for infrastructure development and a further USD 50 million to deal with terrorism challenges. Monies drawn down from a credit line must be paid back, often with interest. The terms of the credit line are not known. However, what it means is, Sri Lanka can draw down up to the specified amounts for capital goods, Consulting, Advisory Services, Report Preparations etc. It is customary to restrict the facility to Indian firms. They will determine Suppliers, Contractors, Prices etc. Sri Lanka must eventually repay the full amount.

The Indian credit line is no comparison to the USD 480 million American Millennium Challenge Corporation grant requiring no repayment.

The rapport established by the two leaders during their first meeting is a good start. It now needs to be followed up with more positive progress.

GR’s gesture of announcing the release of Tamil Nadu fishing boats apprehended by the Navy as a goodwill gesture received no reciprocity. Modi made a two-sentence reference to the issue during his state banquet speech. He spoke of the issue “affecting the livelihood of fishermen” and the need for a “humanitarian approach.” Meanwhile, the direct and indirect loss incurred by Sri Lanka due to poaching by Indian trawlers was estimated in 2015 at USD 61.5 million, 2% of the GDP of the Northern Province and still climbing.

The Yahapalana government initially attempted to repair relations with India damaged by the previous Rajapaksa administration, with numerous appeasing gestures. Nevertheless, it did not take long to realize India’s limitations, China’s economic strengths and deep pockets. Sri Lanka ended up signing the 99-year Hambantota Port lease agreement to the utter consternation of the Indians.

Despite all the current back-slapping, bonhomie and congratulations all around, Sri Lanka must take a realistic long-term view on how best to manage its foreign relations.

Since Independence, Sri Lanka has not encountered disputes with any country in the region other than with India. It will be no different in the future.

Sri Lanka must consider the day when Narendra Modi is not the Prime Minister. Also, to be considered is a day when a weak government in the center is in a coalition arrangement with a political party from Tamil Nadu. Priorities and many other considerations could change in such an eventuality.

Never again must she find itself with no friends especially in the UN Security Council as it once did in 1987 after the infamous food drop.

During the interview with the Editor of The Hindu, asked if the Troika (three-man coordination team) concept to manage Indo – Sri Lanka relations as done during the 2010-2015 Mahinda Rajapaksa regime would be revived, he responded in the negative. “Well, at that time there was a necessity because of the conflict. But now I don’t think it is necessary as we can work through the Foreign Ministries” was his response.

Compliments are due to President Rajapaksa for his decision. Between 2010 and 2015, the management of foreign relations was two centered. One center was the Foreign Ministry headed by an incompetent Minister and a Monitor alien to the subject. The other was the President himself and his Secretary at the President’s office.

Matters became worse in the next four years with three Ministers holding office in four years.

It was compounded by a Foreign Secretary with questionable loyalties pursuing his private agenda till October 2018. The Prime Minister was also making decisions, and at times, the former Finance Minister. The former President made occasional statements more often than not craftily claiming ignorance. The Speaker, having appointed the former Foreign Secretary as Foreign Relations Advisor too waded into foreign affairs. The appointment was a historical first.

One hopes, GR’s decision will succeed in ensuring Foreign Relations is handled strictly by the subject ministry under his direction. The Foreign Office currently headed by an able Foreign Secretary and with 58% of our foreign missions headed by career officers is well poised to execute the new President’s agenda keeping interlopers at bay.

One of the upcoming foreign affairs challenges is the UNHRC periodic review meeting in March 2020. A decision on requesting a revision of Resolution 30/1 would be required soon. Will the Indian warmth and goodwill shown during GR’s recent visit extend to supporting Sri Lanka in such an initiative?

Back at home, GR has made the following positive remarks, well received by the general public.

“But I am clear that we have to find ways to directly benefit people there through jobs and to promote fisheries and agriculture. We can discuss political issues, but for 70 odd years, successive leaders have promised one single thing: devolution, devolution, devolution. But ultimately nothing happened.”

He said the full devolution of powers as promised by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1987 could not be implemented “against the wishes and feeling of the majority community.”

“Anyone who is promising something against the majority’s will is untrue. No Sinhala will say, don’t develop the area, or don’t give jobs, but political issues are different.”

With these few words, GR has spoken more sense than both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremasinghe have spoken in the last decade. He is spot on in saying, the Sinhalese community will not object to developing the North and giving Tamil people employment.

GR’s simplicity and lack of ostentatiousness have earned him many plaudits. Simplicity does have a charm of its own. That said, certain occasions such as formal welcome ceremonies with a guard of honor and state banquets do call for a certain degree of formality. Both the Indian bureaucracy and the military lay great emphasis on customs, traditions, etiquette, norms and forms on such occasions. The attire of both Indian President and Prime Minister reflected their conformity.

The public is full of praise for GR’s decision to continue living in his house outside Colombo. He supposedly travels in a convoy of fewer than five vehicles and stops at signal lights. These are populist but dangerous gestures. As he implements unpopular yet badly needed reforms, he will earn the wrath of many. SWRD Bandaranaike was felled by a member of the Saffron brigade, a group that played a decisive role in his revolution. The last thing this country needs is a Presidential assassination. If the convoy stops at signal lights, the President is unnecessarily exposed to danger. If it travels daily at high speed with sirens blaring, he becomes a public nuisance.

The more practical and pragmatic option for our President would be to move into the President’s House after converting a small area as private quarters as done by his Indian counterpart. It will also have necessary security equipment and save the state of unnecessary expenditure.

The Indian President’s official residence Rashtrapati Bhawan is in a 130-hectare premises in Delhi and consists of 340 rooms. President’s residential quarters consist of a small section consisting of a few rooms.

Indeed, a concept worthy of emulation.

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

November 26 marks the day when Maha Adikaram Keppetipola and Maha Nilame of the Uva Madugalle were executed on the banks of Bogambara Wewa on the orders of the British Governor.

It was left to Dr Henry Marshall, a friend of Maha Adikaram Keppetipola to take away the head of Keppetipola and send to the Edinburgh Phrenological Society to study the head. Later it was handed over to the museum of the medical faculty and it lay there until a relative of Keppetipola, Upali Keppetipola, petitioned the British Government for its return.

This cranium of Keppetipola is the link of the Kandyan kingdom and present independent Sri Lanka. Credit should go to President Maithripala Sirisena to freeing the Kandyan Freedom Fighters from the stigma of Traitors.
It was the brilliant swordsman of the Kandyan kingdom Udagabada Nilame and Dissawa of Wellassa Madugalle who set the ball rolling on December 7, 1816 for the freedom of the country

He was sent twice to prison by the British for these acts and they feared him for his skill in warfare. He was in prison for two years in Jaffna Fort but was released on the birthday of George IV.

No doubt that the cranium of Keppetipola lies at the foot of the stone pillar, but Madugalle also should be commemorated on the same day at this very place, because both were executed on the same day on the banks of Bogambara Wewa.

“Realising that entire Sinhala people were misled, Keppetipola thought that the time had come to avenge the plot of Robert Brownrigg”

The head or the decapitated body of the warrior was buried in cognition by the British army who was in charge of the execution and no one has found where he was buried. But the fact remains that both were executed on the same day.
Then why not we commemorate both at this spot – Keppetipola and Madugalle.
The marketing phrase that the Independence for Sri Lanka had been won without a shedding a drop of blood is a fallacy.
Over the years, since the advent of foreigners to Sri Lanka’s shores from around 1505 MANY HAVE fought to regain the Independence of the territory they had forsaken.
Among them comes Keppetipola Maha Adikaram born at Matale. But unfortunately, he was A Traitor” to the country he was born and sacrificed his life for the country, fighting the ruthless British of that era.
It is recorded that officers like Lieut. J. Maclaine of the 73rd Regiment used to hang captured prisoners in front of him while taking his breakfast. So was another Lt. Col. Hook.

Keppetipola Maha Nilame was a heroic fighter, who fought the British in the 1818 rebellion. Governments after Independence have come and gone, which promised that the name of Keppetipola would be De-gazetted from the Gazette of the British, which had declared that Maha Nilame was a Traitor, to the Imperial Government of Britain.
The blood and the toil of the people of the country went to force the Colonial powers to restore Independence back to the people
It brings us to mind the way the British treated one of their own kinsmen William Walsh a Scotsman, who resemble the Kandyan freedom fighters when he was quartered on the orders of Edward the First and his flesh thrown around. In the case of Keppetipola, his Cranium was stuffed with salt for preservation and was taken away to the British Empire and kept in the Tower of London first and later taken to Edinburgh.
The Cranium was later returned, to Sri Lanka and kept in the Colombo Museum for nearly ten years before this valuable property was brought to Kandy – Thanks to Upali Keppetipola.

Valiant fighter Monaravila Keppetipola was one outstanding man who did not seek pardon from the British, even though they were very willing if he did ask for it. Instead, he gave his life for the people of Sri Lanka on the Banks of Bogambara Wewa, which area is now within the Keppetipola Memorial Hall.
Keppetipola’s cranium lies buried at the Sacred Mahamaluwa in Kandy over which there is a monument.
The cranium is within a glass case, which was deposited after it was exhibited to the public at the Kandyan audience hall, behind the Sri Dalada Maligawa.
Keppetipola’s birthplace is in the district of Matale and this is the only connection. It is alleged that he had a son who was from a second bed, but fearing the British would destroy him after Keppetipola, he entered into Sangha hood and has since then his whereabouts are not known He is alleged to have died while been a priest and the direct descendent of Keppetipola expired.

But, there are many who are connected to his ancestry. But, in the recent past, there is a number of people who are trying to claim relationship to this nobleman. The only man who could ever be thought of was Upali Keppetipola who was instrumental in getting down the cranium which had been removed to the Edinburgh Phenomenological Society. In fact, there was a time, when Upali Keppetipola alone paid homage at the monument at Maha Maluwa, Kandy, by placing a wreath of flowers.
The background of Monaravila Keppetipola begins with Governor Robert Brownrigg who avoided the issue of placing a Kandyan on the Throne of Kandy or even allowing to administer the Kandyan Provinces.

The fact remains that after the disposal of the King, it was said that the reins of the administration of the Kandyan Provinces would be handed over to the Kandyan Chiefs. But they did not realise, the cunning British Diplomacy and the trained Civil Servants who were sent to Sri Lanka and also the spies like Sir John D’ Oyly.
An innocent set of Kandyan Chiefs was ‘caught’ in the intricacies of British administration and lost the country through a set of rules that the Britishers called Treaty”. 
The Kandyan Chiefs only realised that they were taken for a ride by the British State of Art of conquering the countries through diplomacy.
It was an unwritten promise that British would place one of Kandyan Chiefs on the Throne. But, Brownrigg, did not honour his word and was at one time questioned in the British Parliament for his acts.  

Realising that entire Sinhala people were misled, Keppetipola thought that the time had come to avenge the plot of Robert Brownrigg, with his posting to Uva to quell the riots of Wellassa. Monarawila Keppetipola tried to redeem the land of his birth. Thus began the Rebellion of 1817-1818 with Monaravila Keppetipola at the helm.
The shameful nature of bringing down the rebellion by the British, especially on the orders Sir Robert Brownrigg, was such that even law officers of Britain recorded that it was unimaginable horror and ruthlessness of the British.

Kandyan Families were completely wiped out and the best of the Kandyan gentry went into hiding, while some sought toed with the British and earned their favours and also converted themselves into the faith of Christ. So much so it is recorded that pandemonium reigned in House of Commons. It was debated by British Parliamentarians even to the extent of condemning their own King for having a representative who knew no decency – that was Robert Brownrigg.
Most of the people, who after the British – Kandyan Treaty thought it fit to enter into the service of the British, had plum offices, while others were stripped of their positions. 

When the Kandyan Treaty was signed, Keppetipola Maha Dissawa was the Dissawa of Matale and subsequently the British appointed him to Uva as well. While he was in Uva, a chance utterance to the Translator David de Alwis, cost him his future and his life. He had one day told the translator in conversation that it was time for the British to bid goodbye to the country and place a Sinhala King on the Throne of Kandy. 

There was also a time when Keppetipola, punished officers under him who were trying to curry-favour  with the Government Agent of Badulla. The Governor became so vexed that he told the Kandy Commissioner and the resident representative Doy’ly that the people were rising against the Representative of the British King.
Keppetipola also frowned on the methods employed where his work was being interfered with the British. The British on the other hand had their own favourites in Sabaragamuwa, where the people of these areas helped the British to find their way into Kandyan Territory. 

“So, it should be noted that the real force for the freedom of the country were people like Keppetipola and other Chieftains”

He also indicated that as the Dissawa, he had the right to obtain the dues from Kataragama Devale. These led to the events of the Rebellion. 
A relative of Kirthi Sri Rajasinghe was roaming the area named Doaraiswamy, whom the British suspected as a claimant to the Kandyan Throne.
In the meantime, the Assistant Government Agent Sylvester Wilson sent Hadji (Who was appointed Dissawe of Uva) to capture Doraiswamy.
From the very commencement, the people of Wellassa did not take a liking over the appointment of Hadji. When he went to Wellassa, he had to face an armed gang, where he was taken into custody and his brother who accompanied him was hurt.
Wilson who heard about these incidents made an attempt to arrest the armed gang with a band of Java soldiers. But, he could do nothing and he succumbed to a fatal shot of the gang by bow and arrow. Not content with these incidents, Brownrigg offered to pay 2000 pagodas to anyone leading to the arrest of anyone who killed Wilson.

It is recorded that the British who recruited the scum of their country for adventure, had people like Lt. O’ Neill and others of their kind used to hang prisoners of the rebellion before their breakfast table and eat in front of them. That was the scum that entered the British Army at that time.
So by first January 1818, the entire Kandyan Province was under war, with the British. A quick discussion was held at the Audience Hall of Kandy by Robert Brownrigg and it he was told that under no condition, would the Kandyan Provinces be handed over to the Sinhala People. 
At this meeting, it was also stated that Robert Brownrigg declared that if anyone brought the Head of Keppetipola, he would be offered 2000 Pagodas (The type of currency at that time )

By February 18, the British moved, declaring that anyone who should bring the head of Madugalle or Pilamatalawa was offered 1000 Pagodas. But, with more troops of the British being brought in to quell the rebellion it became a failure, with the intrigue within the rebels. By August, the rebellion was an utter and miserable failure.
But on 28 October, Lt. O’Neil captured Keppetipola, due to a sneaking trader who had gone to barter goods to the village where Keppetipola stayed. Three days later Madugalle was arrested, and by November 4, under a heavy guard, both were brought to Kandy. By November 13 both were brought before a Kangaroo Court.  
Both were executed on November 25, 1818 with several other Kandyan chiefs. Ellepola Nilame was executed on October 27. 
So, it should be noted that the real force for the freedom of the country were people like Keppetipola and other Chieftains. The lands and properties of those who were in the rebellion were confiscated by  in January 1818. as belongings of Rebels, Outlaws, and Enemies of the British. 
The list of eighteen whose lands was confiscated to the Crown was head by Keppetipola, the former Dissawe of Uva.

by Shiran Illanperuma Courtesy NewsIn Asia

Colombo, December. 8 (Xinhua): Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said Saturday that his government is looking forward to continuing to develop friendly relations with China.

The two countries enjoy a strong, long-standing friendship, which has laid the foundation for practical cooperation,” Rajapaksa, who assumed office on Nov. 21, told Xinhua in an interview during his visit to the Colombo Port City, a project jointly developed by the Sri Lankan government and China’s CHEC Port City Colombo Ltd.

Rajapaksa visited the project along with Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Cheng Xueyuan and other government officials to officially declare the 269 hectares of land reclaimed from the sea for the project as part of the Colombo district.

The new prime minister said his government will never forget China’s strong and long-term support for Sri Lanka’s development.

He said that he did not believe that Sri Lanka’s engagement with the China-initiated Belt and Road Initiative amounted to a debt-trap” as portrayed by some Western media.

We are very confident that Sri Lanka can very clearly repay the loans for the Hambantota Port and other development projects. Today, the economy has collapsed but when we rebuild it, paying back loans won’t be a question,” Rajapaksa said.

The prime minister also described a recent spate of media hyping of Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s remarks on Hambantota Port deal as quoting out of context.”

The President didn’t mean there is any problem about sovereignty. What the President meant was that our government, unlike the previous one, has a principle of not privatizing assets,” he said.

If Sri Lanka and China have any problems, we can easily discuss and resolve them as friends,” Rajapaksa said.

According to a statement by the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka on Dec.2, the two countries have agreed to further strengthen political trust between the two countries and upgrade their pragmatic cooperation.

The two countries will speed up the implementation of cooperation on big projects, including the Colombo Port City and the Hambantota Port, under the existing consensus, and on that basis draw up and promote a new blueprint for future cooperation, the statement said.

(The featured image of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa above is by Tang Lu)

Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Brig. Salley appointed SIS chief Former Military Intelligence chief Brigadier Suresh Salley has been appointed as the head of State Intelligence Service (SIS) by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, informed sources said.

DIG Nilantha Jayaweera, who was the SIS director has been transferred to the Police headquarters. 

Meanwhile, Brigadier Chandana Wickremesinghe has been appointed as the Army Spokesman.

Hiru News

ස්විස්ටර්ලන්ත තානාපති කාර්යාලයේ නිලධාරිනියක් පැහැර ගැනුනු බව කියන සිද්ධිය සම්බන්ධයෙන් අදත් පාර්ශව කිහිපයක් අදහස් පළ කළා.

Hiru News

නිවාස සංවර්ධන හිටපු අමාත්‍ය සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස මහතාගේ නිවාස ව්‍යාපෘතියක් හරහා තිස්සමහරාම, වීරහෙළ ග්‍රාම සේවා කොට්ඨාසයේ ජනතාව දැඩි අසීරුතාවකට පත්ව සිටිනවා.

ඒ, නිවාස ඉදිකිරීම් සඳහා ලබාදුන් ආධාර මුදල් නිවාස සංවර්ධන අධිකාරියේම නිලධාරීන් පිරිසක් විසින් යටිමඩි ගැසීම හේතුවෙන්.

නිවාස සංවර්ධන හිටපු අමාත්‍ය සජිත් ප්‍රේමදාස මහතාගේ මඟපෙන්වීම මත තිස්සමහාරාම, වීරහෙළ ග්‍රාම සේවා කොට්ඨාසයේ අඩු ආදායම් ලාභීන් උදෙසා මෙම නිවාස ව්‍යාපෘතිය ක්‍රියාත්මක වී තිබුණේ මීට වසර දෙකකට පෙරයි.

 ‘‘සාම සිසිලගම  නිවාස ව්‍යාපෘතිය ලෙස එය නම් කර තිබුණා.

එම නිවාස ව්‍යාපෘතිය මගින්, එක් නිවසක් ඉදිකර ගැනීම සඳහා රුපියල් ලක්ෂ 6ක මුදලක් කොටස් වශයෙන් ජනතාවට ලබාදීමටයි නිවාස අධිකාරිය පොරොන්දු වී තිබුණේ.

නිවාස ඉදිකිරීම සඳහා කොටස් වශයෙන් ජනතාවට මුදල් ලබා දී තිබුණේ චෙක්පත් මාර්ගයෙන්.

එහෙත් මෙහි සිදුව ඇති පුදුම සහගත කරුණ වන්නේ එලෙස ලබාදෙන මුදල් ජනතාව විසින් යළි නිවාස අධිකාරියේ නිලධාරීන් පිහිටුවා ගත් සමිතියකටම ලබාදීමට නියම කර තිබීමයි.

ඒ අනුව, නිවාස ඉදිකිරීමට වැලි, ගල්, සිමෙන්ති ආදී අමුද්‍රව්‍ය සඳහා අධික මුදලක් වැය වූ බව පවසමින් නිවාස අධිකාරියේ නිලධාරීන් මෙම ජනතාවට වංචා සිදුකර තිබෙනවා. <

අඩු ආදායම් ලාභී ජනතාවට නිවාස සංවර්ධන අධිකාරියේ නිලධාරීන් සිදුකළ මෙම වංචා සහගත ක්‍රියාවලිය හරහා ඔවුන් මේ වනවිට නිවෙස්වල ඉතිරි වැඩ නිම කර ගැනීමට නොහැකිව දැඩි දුෂ්කරතාවට පත්ව සිටිනවා.

මෙම ගම්මානයේ ජනතාවගේ නිවාස සිහිනය මේ වනවිට වනගත වී අවසන්.

එදාවේල හරි හම්බ කර ගැනීමටවත් නොහැකි ඇතැමුන් අලුතින් ඉඳිකල නිවාසවල බිත්තිවලටම ආවරණයක් යොදා ගනිමින් මෙලෙස ජීවත් වනවා.

පසුගිය රජය සමයේ මාධ්‍ය සංදර්ශන යොදා ගෙන නිවාස ව්‍යාපෘති ඉදිකලත් එම බොහෝ නිවාස ව්‍යාපෘතිවල තත්ත්වය මෙය බවයි ජනතාව පෙන්වා දෙන්නේ.

Courtesy The National-The Newspaper that supports an Independent Scotland

TWO-faced Tory candidates in the suburbs of London have been caught trying to win votes among the Tamil community, promising a two-state” solution to the troubles in Sri Lanka.

The so-called two-state solution refers to a separate Tamil state – Eelam – in the northern and eastern parts of the divided island.

Whilst prominent Tories are out on the campaign trail, offering Tamil voters the promise of a homeland whilst implacably refusing to countenance a referendum on Scottish independence.

The controversial manifesto pledge on international tensions says: We will continue to support international initiatives to achieve reconciliation, stability and justice across the world, and in current or former conflict zones such as Cyprus, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, where we maintain our support for a two-state solution.”

The wording is at best clumsy and at worst highlights the double standards at the heart of the Tory campaign. They are happy to attract votes among Tamil migrant communities down south, whilst saying the exact opposite to Scots north of the Border, where their election campaign has been predicated on blocking an independence referendum.

Those close to the controversy suspect the influence of Theresa Villiers the MP for Chipping Barnet, a North London constituency with a significant Tamil population.

She is a leading figure within British Tamil Conservatives, a right-of-centre support group mostly comprised of Tamil businessmen and members of the medical community.

The group and its aims are also supported by Jackie Doyle-Price, MP for Thurrock and Conservative chairman James Cleverly.

Some suspect that in order to garner votes in their own backyards, Villiers and Cleverly may have over-cooked the Tory manifesto for local purposes.

The majority of Tamils in the UK came either as economic migrants or as refugees from the island’s 25-year-long civil war, which claimed the lives of more than 100,000 civilians.

Sutton and Cheam MP Paul Scully is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils and represents the suburbs south of Tooting in London, which has historically one of the biggest Tamil populations.

As a former local councillor, he is sensitive to the diversity of the area. Yesterday he tried to dampen the controversy claiming that the badly worded initiative only referred to the Middle East”.

The Tories seem to have made promises they cannot deliver and which are inconsistent with their opposition to either a two-state” or federal solution in the UK.

Their resistance to independence for Scotland has cast them in a hypocritical light.

Whatever the outcome of the controversy it has already provoked two very different responses.

The Sri Lankan government, which voted in a new president only a week ago, are incandescent with rage.

Controversially, the new president is Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former military leader who prosecuted the bloody end to the army’s long-standing war with the Tamil Tigers.

The final days of the war were marred by accusations of war crimes, and pressure for meaningful reconciliation is still a key demand of the international community.

The last thing the new presidency needs is yet another international standoff over the island’s most febrile issue – the creation of a Tamil homeland to the north.

In Scotland the Tory’s clumsy policy risks a different issue entirely.

The SNP and supporters of independence will either see hypocrisy or a break in the ranks, with Tories willing to contemplate two-state solutions abroad whilst denying them at home.

The SNP have been contacted for comment.

Parul Chandra Courtesy Strategic News International

NEW DELHI: Was a local employee of the embassy of Switzerland in Sri Lanka briefly abducted by some unidentified men as is being claimed by the Swiss mission? Or are the embassy’s claims untrue as is being claimed by the Sri Lankan government? Amidst the counter-narratives being offered by the two countries, the truth has been the obvious casualty. Even more interesting, the staffer remains in the embassy with the Swiss claiming she’s unwell.

The spat began shortly after the swearing-in of Sri Lanka’s new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa last month. The Swiss, in a lengthy statement issued on December 2, claimed that a local employee was detained in the street and threatened by unidentified men to force her to disclose embassy-related information.” The alleged detention is said to have occurred on November 25. The Swiss government statement also said that it reported the incident to the Sri Lankan authorities, calling for a swift and thorough investigation”.

The alleged abduction occurred just days after Sri Lankan police officer Nishantha Silva fled the country for Switzerland. Silva had probed several important criminal cases involving killings and torture that reportedly occurred during the tenure of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the island nation’s President. Gotabaya, then his defence secretary, has denied the allegations.

The Sri Lankan police have been seeking access to the staffer; they want to question her about her claims since they have apparently found no evidence that suggests abduction. They maintain that the sequence of events do not match the movements of the embassy staffer.

The Swiss, though, are in no mood to accede to this request, claiming instead that the employee is ill and that she cannot be questioned on health grounds” and that her health must take priority”.

So great has been the Swiss government’s concern for their staffer’s health that they reportedly approached the Sri Lankan government for permission to allow her to be flown by an air ambulance to Switzerland for treatment. The permission has been refused as the Sri Lankan authorities want to question her first. Earlier this week, a Sri Lankan court barred her from leaving the country until she records her statement with the police.

Sri Lankan newspapers have reported the country’s new foreign affairs minister, Dinesh Gunawardena, as saying that the sequence of events and timeline related to the alleged incident is an attempt to tarnish new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s image. The minister said the staffer is yet to file a complaint with the police, underscoring that she would not be allowed to leave the country without the government being provided with her name, her national identity and her statement. There is suspicion that the estimated 25,000-strong Tamil diaspora in Switzerland maybe involved.

Former Sri Lankan foreign affairs minister GL Peiris, who is with the Rajapaksas-led SLPP (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna), believes the incident has been cooked up to bring disrepute to the country in the run up to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meet in March next year. The UNHRC is headquartered in Geneva in Switzerland and Sri Lanka has been at its receiving end in the past over human rights violations during its civil war.

KAMALIKA PIERIS

Voices of Peace” edited by Sarah Kabir, (2018) consists of a set of interviews with   members of the LTTE and the Sri Lanka armed forces taken together.  The book weaves together” the narratives of ten former LTTE cadres and ten SLM personnel who fought at the front line in the Eelam war.  

The purpose of the book is to see how front line fighters on the two sides viewed the Eelam War. The book was funded by Swiss Federal Dept of Foreign affairs, Expolanka, ONUR and private donors. A Tamil translation appears to have been issued simultaneously.

The author, Sarah Kabir has a BSc. in Social Policy from the University of Bristol, and a MSc. in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies from the London School of Economics.  She thereafter researched into   development and peace building.

Sarah has worked on research projects alongside researchers from the Universities of Sussex and Durham. She has also worked with various international and local organizations within the civil society sector and her work has appeared in various academic publications and research reports.

Her mentors, for this book  included two anthropologists,  who have done field work in Sri Lanka  R. Stirrat  and  Tom Widger  as well as Rajesh Venugopal, a  visiting fellow  at University of Colombo, fellow of the Centre for Poverty Analysis and an Advisor at Verite Research (Sri Lanka). Rajesh has researched on Sri Lanka. Sarah has thanked, inter alia, Vinya Ariyaratne of Sarvodaya and Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu of Centre for Poverty Analysis for their advice.

Sarah Kabir said that   she had been working in civil society for a long time. The narrative that we normally hear   or the narrative that we seem to keep talking about is that the military are perpetrators and they violated all the rules. I really strongly believed that,” she said. Her perception about the military made her more sympathetic towards the LTTE than the Sri Lanka army.

But when I went and met these people, it changed my opinion entirely about the military,” said Sarah, it made me realize that these people are human too, and I had kept painting them as this one entity over another, and now I’ve learnt better after listening to them (sic).”

Sarah was born in the midst of Sri Lanka’s lengthy civil war, reported the media. Her earliest childhood memories are interspersed with war effects. I was in a local school in Colombo,” she said. School was closed one day because a bomb had gone off.”Her school kept getting closed, and at the time, she didn’t understand why that happened. It didn’t hit me that so much atrocity was going on somewhere else,” she recalls, referring to it as a detachment.”

For this book, Sarah had interviewed 20 combatants, 10 former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and 10 members of the Sri Lankan Army (SLA). The book contains these interviews.  It is not storytelling, though it is described as such, and it has been backed by a questionnaire.   It is part of a much larger volume of primary research.

The respondents for this project have been supplied by various agencies. Some respondents were found by Sarvodaya, others by the Ministry of Defence, Seva Lanka also by friends, colleagues and journalists. They were of course, from the LTTE or the Sri Lanka armed forces. The LTTE segment included a representative from the Imran Pandian regiment, which provided personal security of Prabhakaran.

Researchers also looked for gender, age, years spent fighting, location in the war and position held during the war. So for both sides, we have storytellers with experiences ranging from just two years in the war to over twenty years, some recruited under the age of 18, those who followed orders and those who gave orders, said Sarah.  Not an easy thing to do with such a small sample.

‘Our paramount concern was to ensure the safety, confidentiality, anonymity and emotion well being of the storytellers’. So some were anonymous also aliases were used. The team has taken legal advice on where it was not safe to reveal real names and even aliases. In these cases the narratives were completely anonymised.

The interviewer took measures to make the story teller feel comfortable, eliminate the chances of the interviewer compelling or directing the answers. Their conversations were carried out in their homes or private spaces. They seem to have had group sessions too.

We used a very flexible and adaptable strategy and discussion during when conducting our field work, said Sarah. We spoke with each story teller between three and five times. We conducted over 100 conversations, including preliminary discussion with all 60 story tellers.’ Interviewers maintained their non-interventionist role and refrained from leading the stories in biased direction.

 The conversations were not carried out as interviews. They were informal interactions over a cup of tea or a meal. Some conversations lasted up to five hours. It takes time for a person to open up.  We built up friendships with most of the story tellers that continue to this day. The data is presented in their respondent own words. People tell their stories differently each time.  ‘They were continually constructing and reconstructing their narratives.’

This book  has  a jumble of objectives. Here they are. Firstly, the book aims for multiple truths and narratives of the conflict, to really try to understand what drove them to arms and what their ideologies were.” It is a discovery of what we do not yet know about the conflict and post conflict situation. Only those who were there can tell the people  what actually happened.

Secondly, we are told that this book gives a unique insight into the storytellers own understandings of the causes of war, why they fought and why the other side fought. They even take responsibility for why the other side needed to fight or defend themselves.

Thirdly, the book blends both sides to blur the lines between the LTTE and SLM, rather than entrench divisions.’ The intention,” Sarah explains, was to make the readers think, ‘Oh, he could be LTTE or he could be military. You couldn’t even tell the difference at times.”

 The book implores its readers to embark on a journey and engage with the story tellers not simply as LTTE or SLM but rather as men and women they can relate to. It aims to change the lives of the storytellers and readers and also contribute to peace building  and the reconciliation process.

The book is clearly an agenda driven project, with the outrageous objective of equating the Sri Lanka armed forces and LTTE .That may be a first for any country. The Eelam Wars were outright civil wars.  It was the State versus the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. At no stage were the two combatants  equal. They were definitely not after the same objective either.

 Thanks to the Eelam wars,  the  Sri Lanka army  developed into an internationally admired ,well trained, professional army. The LTTE, on the other hand, was reading manuals on how to fight as the fight ended at Nanthikadal. Sri Lanka army fought on for 29 years without comment. It  was declared to be a demented, unmanageable force only  because it won the war.

QUOTATIONS

I had to discard the original list  of quotations selected for this  essay. I found that some of the statements made in the book, regarding the Sri Lanka armed forces, would infuriate readers if they were broadcast outside the book. They seem to be safe and snug inside the book,

Here are some other quotations. 

SET  NO 1 .

I had no choice but to join the LTTE, we were very poor.  For the poor joining the LTTE was the only way.  We  had been poor for generations .Those who failed the O level joined the LTTE. I saw the LTTE cadres going round in their vehicle and I joined them.   The LTTE would spot  us on the  road and speak to us about issues that the people face.   In camp, instead of military training they taught us about Sri Lanka  political issues and about Tamils being deprived of their rights (p 36,38,50)

 SET 2

I joined the LTTE in 1988.  Multiple shells dropped on my neighborhood, a family was killed. I found the infant’s finger and the mother’s arm. That day six boys joined the LTTE. (p45)

There were lots of deaths in the village [due to the army]. In 1984 about 130 were killed and their bodies were found in a well. Houses were burnt and infants were victims too. Usually the attack happened at night when people were sleeping.  They would arrest youths and shoot anyone who tried to run away.  Those who were arrested were then taken to camps. They would burn tyres so we could see the smoke. Those arrested did not return. (p44)

Seeing these people being killed in my own village I joined the LTTE. It wasn’t just one incident. I witnessed many such incidents through the years from Grade three to ten. LTTE offered us the safest place, I felt comfortable with the LTTE. It was only after joining that we learned that the LTTE wanted a separate territory and we had to fight against the Sri Lanka Army. It was only after the war started [that we] found it was a difficult path and not one to follow. (p44)

 One LTTE member recalled that his school principal took them to a trip to a beach, (unspecified). Two Sri Lanka navy boats arrived and had a physical fight with the principal, the children ran away. Next we learned that the principal had been killed. (p36)

SET 3

I joined the LTTE because we were being attacked. We wanted to get our rights back. I felt we needed a solution for our people. ( p 53)

We weren’t forced to join LTTE. We wanted to  join. (p203) We weren’t paid a salary but depending on our circumstances the political division would look after our families if a cadre was very poor. If his parent’s house hadn’t a roof they buy the material and fix it. But they never gave us cash in hand. After five years a LTTE could marry and then they were given an allowance. (p74)

We chose the LTTE .We wanted to die for a cause. We weren’t afraid. (p 92 )  LTTE  was highly disciplined. We were a secretive organization and only knew each other’s  LTTE  aliases. (p 63) I didn’t regret joining the LTTE. I made a lot of other female friends so we didn’t feel the need to go back to our families. It was fun. (p53).

We believed in Prabhakaran and trusted him. He was the best leader in the world and was like a god to us. We had   genuine respect for him. He never drank or smoke or committed any wrong. When we joined we wanted to see Prabhakaran before we died . I will never forget the moment I did.  We did not have to salute him. He ate with us. He was known fondly as annai brother, (p 92 )

Our regiment, the Imran Pandian special regiment, was an important one and very close to the leader. It was the backbone of the LTTE. From the day we joined, we were with him. We grew up with him. We ate with him. (p 113)

During Prabhakaran’s  time law and order was perfect. Prabhakaran  instructed that Sunday be designated for house related work. There were elders homes and orphanages  set up during LTTE rule. Anyone found begging or destitute would be taken to these homes. Everyone was treated well there. You would    not want to leave once you went to these homes. (p 92)

There were no beggars. They were put into homes. There were home for elders, orphans, and destitute. There were no caste issues, no religious or status issues, everyone was equal.  No unemployment, LTTE even maintained agriculture, fish and coconut divisions.  Every  family was employed.  Rape was unheard of.  If   they robbed Prabhakaran punished the robbers.  There was a shortage of electricity, but LTTE looked after civilians properly. Better than government now.  (p 154)

During the war, safety wasn’t an issue. People knew how to protect themselves from the bombs.  We had security. We lived without fear and threats, we could safely send  children to nursery alone. Law and order was well balanced under LTTE.  During LTTE time you could go anywhere leaving your shop open and your cash outside. You could wear jewellery and go out. It was a very safe environment. ( p 153, 155)

SET 4

Our main focus was to ensure that the SLN  didn’t capture our ships and to efficiently clear the ships that come from overseas.  (p65)  Sometime if Sri Lanka army  soldiers were injured and  if we could not carry them, we would kill them.( p101)

When we joined the LTTE we were ready to die. We never thought we should lose. It is hard to bear sometimes. We could not bury Prabhakaran properly. We couldn’t believe we were destroyed we were so powerful. We believed the entire Tamil community was behind us.( p 59, 124,194)

LTTE deployed us soon after our training. What we faced since have  been bitter experiences I don’t ever want to relive them. (p93)  We lost everything because we had  got involved with the LTTE. Finally we got nothing out of the war.(p189)  Most think the Tamil people did not achieve anything through the war. As a former LTTE cadre we also think we didn’t achieve anything. There was no outcome, so there should not  be a war again.(p188)

SET 5

We were with the LTTE in this small area that they controlled but we thought it was a big area. We didn’t know much about the outside world, the real world. (p202)

Only after I was released that I learn of a place called Vavuniya, I only knew up to Omanthai before. Then I got my bike and went to Nuwara Eliya and Kandy and Anuradhapura. Only then I realize that we were living in such a small area under the LTTE  and there was so much more to explore.  Earlier we were living between three towns, unaware of how big Sri Lanka was and how much more there was to see. (p220)

SET 6

When I was young  I was told that Sri Lanka army  would shoot us  if they saw us. We were raised to fear the Sri Lanka army .  LTTE cadres were told as children, that Sri Lanka army  will shoot on sight. (p 202 ) We hadn’t met the Sri Lanka army  in person so most had a negative image of them. Most were not aware of what they even looked like.(p109)

I had never seen the Sri Lanka Army.  When we crossed the lagoon I was terrified they would shoot us if they saw us because that was what we were told. (p 91) I was very scared wondering what they would do to us. That is the first time I saw Sri Lanka army. They gave us medicine, water and biscuits.  Even while eating the biscuit I was scared. I was badly injured and they put me in a tractor. ( P 108)

Form our childhood days were raised to believe that if the Sri Lanka army  sees us they will shoot us.(p108). Until I met the Sri Lanka army during rehabilitation, I was scared. But then I realized that what we were told was not true. Now I am not scared anymore. (p 202 )

SET 7

My family and I turned ourselves in at Mullaitivu. We were not given any water. They thought there were only 10,000 of us but there were roughly 200,000 of us. (p103) I was in a Sri Lanka army  transport bus. my wife  [fell ill]. I told a soldier she needed a seat and he almost assaulted me. (p103)

We surrendered in 2009 but have got nothing that we were promised. At the point of  surrender they removed our clothes. we were not treated like humans. No food or water was given. When we surrendered we hoped they would take care of us according to internationalstandard. I surrendered as an LTTE . I was sent to prison.  My family was given a hut and food I’m not saying they were not looked after, but they faced a lot of  difficulties. (p106)

SET 8

Sri Lanka army completely disregarded IHL specially in prisons.  The way they use to hit us in prison.  One day I was  playing chess and a solider came and hammered the boy, then when I went out … to have a wash,  a soldier caught me and beat me. (p 111)

‘ it is the lower ranked officers who tend to be racist’ (p145)

When they arrested us we were taken to a school in Vavuniya. They kept 4000 cadres in this school. For a month all of us were tortured there. They would hit  us on the head as we stood in line. Suddenly, after a month a general from the police visited and gave an order. ‘These are former LTTE cadres who were trained and specialized in operating various weapons including artillery.  You have to treat them with humanity.’ After that we were treated fairly. (p 112 )

My fear was that I would be taken to Boosa. People say they tortured inmates there.(p110). Boosa was not as bad as the first prison. Boosa was over crowded, 8 in one cell.    No ventilation no light. But we got three rice meals a day. We were given plain tea at 6 am. I was then sent to Senapura  rehabilitation camp. There were a few racist officials there but most took care of us well. I cannot comment on others experiences, but my experience was good.(p112)

  In prison we were treated well, we were given an extra curry if we wanted it.  We could watch TV or play carom (p116)

SET 9

Rehabilitation was worse than prison, I was supposed to be trained in carpentry for six months but I was only trained for 60 days and they made me sign  the register saying 6 months training was completed. The program I found useful was the Sinhala lessons but they lasted only fir three months and for just one hour, I only learnt 80 words. (p 116)

In rehabilitation I was treated like a pet. Four officers from the Sri Lanka army  were like fathers to me. It was an interesting period. I feel  it was a very good chance given to me. They gave me counseling. A guru from India did the counseling. It was a very good programme. They also gave us vocational training and they treated us well. The officers were really good people. Most officers were retired school principals. They [gave] counseling, training and treated us well. The officers were really good people who were recruited into the programe by the government . even now I maintain a good friendship with them. (p 110)

I was kept in rehabilitation camp for two and half years, they treated us well. Soldiers were told not to hit us.  Rehabilitation was good. we got good opportunities in there. Some took their O levels. They found who had worked  for government officers during the LTTE time, in  post office, hospitals or as teachers and the government continued to pay their salaries. I studied Sinhala at camp. Only bad thing was the CID used to question us all the time. The CID, Terrorist Investigation Unit and other groups all interrogated us to ensure our stories were the same. (p110)

We were taken on a 7 day course to Colombo. we saw  Viharamaha Devi Park, Galle Face, Nelum Pokuna, also Kandy Nuwara Eliya . Even  if you have money you cannot see Parliament and Port as we did.  we did the city tour on a double Decker, I don’t know about the others, but I felt better after this trip.(p117)

The government should give Rs 5 lakhs per person after rehabilitation. They should invest in our children. (p153)

SET 10

One Tamil asked me, there are war monument to commemorate those the Sri Lanka army  considered heroes. What about the LTTE who sacrificed their lives. aren’t they heroes too. Every time they see these monuments they are reminded that they lost the war. (Ratnapriya.  p 237)

monuments like the toppled Kilinochchi water tank should not be there. Every time we go past we are reminded that we toppled it. Sinhala people come to see it like it’s a big thing. And when they see Tamil people they look at us in anger. We do they keep reminding us that we lost.  In one place they should have a memorial for both sides. we are heroes too. Both sides have heroes. (p237)

They shouldn’t call us former cadres now. They should treat us equally,

SET 11

During the war our army unit brought some displaced Tamil civilians to a kovil but the people at the Kovil did not to let them in because they were of a low caste. (p75) . There was a project to build 100 houses for the IDPs at Kankesanturai. Most of the IDPs were fishermen. The higher caste people did not want them and protested against the project. (p253)

Ratnapriya joint commanding officer of CSD HQ for Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in 2012 said when interviewed’ I realized that they [Tamil population] have always needed a leader. (p144)

A family in Kilinochchi complained that a soldier wearing a white sarong stole one of their hens.  soldier denied it. To settle the matter I told the army base to give the family five hens, it was more than they lost, but the family did not want the hens, they wanted the soldier punished. (p253)

In 2002 I visited Kandy to get my prosthetic legs with the help of Handicap International. People would look at us with suspicious because we were Tamil. In Kandy there were only Sinhala TV channels and when I switched to a Tamil one the OIC scolded me. They were all very racist.  That day I felt we needed a country of our own. (p 69)

  SET 12

To win the war you need to capture ground. [For this we need infantry] Infantry soldiers were from poor families who needed money. They came from remote areas. Soldiers who joined because of poverty are the reason we won the war. (p201)

But there were some who joined because they wanted to fight for their country. One man we assigned to the kitchen went to the frontline. He was killed. Some monks gave up their robes and joined, (p201)

SET 13

Sri Lanka has forgotten what we did for our country. No one knows the reality, we saw with our own eyes. How     we carried them, gave them food and water, I know how we women soldiers helped the LTTE. We didn’t go home, we forgot our families and  helped them. (p205)

We saw with our own eyes how the male soldiers suffered to help those crossing over, they would carry the achchies. They worked tirelessly. They did good things. (p 206)

I would get so sad when I saw them crossing over with nothing but their land deeds and a few cloths held tightly to their bodies (p229).

Many refugees at Nanthikadal were women so we [women soldiers] had to be there.  We didn’t have toilets for them. There was excrement everywhere.  We gave them water and food. We would drink salt water and give them the good water. The water there is hard to drink. Our morning food would only come at noon. We would most often give it to the children. No one talks about these good things.  We also suffered a lot but we did not have any anger towards them. Even when we were trying to help them they still hit us. They had put oil in the wells and toppled the big water tank. When we gave them food they fought among themselves to eat the food. (p 105)

  SET 14

In my first battle, [we found that] the LTTE did not have bullet proof vests, and wore slippers. (p197)

You must apply ROE whenever possible, when we saw LTTE approaching we get a loudspeaker had announce in Tamil that we would not harm them if they surrendered. But they attacked or killed themselves anyway. Once we were attacked by a lone LTTE shooter, I asked him to surrender, we won’t kill him but when a solider approached him he threw a hand grenade.  We spoke to him again but he killed himself. (p 91)

Most of the time LTTE come to us claiming to be innocent and once we got close they blow themselves up. So we were always fearful of approaching them. (p62)

In 1993 I was in the east, we were clearing mines. I was Platoon commander at the time.  I found that the LTTE had been monitoring my movement and there were four land mines near where I usually sit.  On another occasion the LTTE attacked the tractor I was meant to go in, and then there was a mortar attack on a place I wanted to have a conference in.  (p 86)

  SET 15

I once killed on a Wesak poya day. We attacked two suicide crafts where 22 LTTE girls and 25 LTTE boys were killed. Killing people on Wesak poya day made me feel very guilty. I went to my monk to confess (P139)

I don’t like to have memorials or medals in my house because they represent killing. (p209)

From my experience I know we in the SLAF took a professional approach. (p100)

I was based in Katunayake from 1998 until the war ended in 2009 I have flown many times and dropped bombs. If certain factor aren’t in line with military objectives the operation is abandoned, e.g. if the target is in a civilian area. A long and comprehensive process involving many parties is followed when identifying targets and making a decision to attack. I have flown over targets and not bombed them. I was trained in IHL and know about proportionate force. We stuck to these rules. Personally I think that SLF was professional in how it conducted itself. We had a very comprehensive process we didn’t simply fly out and drop bombs.  It is our responsibility to communicate whether an operation is feasible, to HQ. (p66) 

I don’t wish to fight a war like that ever again. I know how difficult it was. But I am trained to fight and if asked to fight, tomorrow I will do so again. It is my job. (p187)

If the war starts again we will fight.  We saved our country. I have fought against an enemy who fought against my country.  If I have to fight again I will. (SLAF officer p106)

Ultimately we did not regret what we did in the war as it was a task we had to do (army  p135)      ( CONTINUED)

Kudaligamage Geethanjana

Indo Lanka Accord was an outcome of a brawl between old school politics of the cold-war mentality of Indira Gandhi and Junius Richard Jayawardene. This outdated agreement must be renegotiated or entirely repealed for the benefit of both nations.

Agey wayiraya” “ඇගේ  වෛරය“ is a term not only related to the silver screen but also very much related to politics. There is a well-known piece of political advice shadowed through the ages, never ever to mess with a woman in power.” J.R. Jayawardene, the ‘old fox’ of Sri Lanka’s modern politics, dared to cross that figurative ‘Rubicon.’ And made not him, but us to pay dearly for his mischievous political conduct like a slippery ‘Anda’ ‘ආඳා,’ fond of habituating in the muddied water of politics rather than the clear political atmosphere.

JRJ had ridiculed Indira Gandhi and her son in his 1977 election campaign. JRJ’s criticism of Gandhi was entirely unnecessary but premeditated political play for the entertainment of the western gallery. He was heavily investing in Western assistance for his development plans for Sri Lanka, therefore, he might have thought of repaying the west by means of becoming the pet of the west in South Asia. His criticism of Indira was not at all a gaff or a slip of the tongue. It was a calculated performance to win the hearts and minds of the western political establishment who hated Indira Gandhi due to her pro-Soviet policies at the time.

JRJ may have thought to entertain some of his fans in the west, especially in the USA to make them rally around his administration and to reap the benefits of being pro-western. It was a very dangerous but well thought political gamble. JR was no Sirisena or Mangala to make ridiculous statements not knowing their repercussions, but a well-experienced politician. It was pretty clear that he had envisioned to use our country’s strategic importance as a bargaining chip to make our country the darling of the western block and receive western assistance for the development of Sri Lanka in the same manner how Lee Kuan Yew had used Singapore located in close proximity to China. But Washington had different plans. So, the consequences of his political ‘Cabaret’ on his election campaign stage did not bring expected results; instead, asking even more from JRJ, Washington made JRJ to perform a ‘Lap Dance’ for India’s PM Rajive Gandhi, making JRJ’s entire gambit politically calamitous to Sri Lanka.

Indira Gandhi and JRJ were old school politicians who lived in a cold-war mentality. During their time, neo-liberalism was not as powerful political force as of today. What Indira and JRJ thought at the time were outdated to current conditions with the new realities of our time. Indira Gandhi and JRJ could not see through the contemporary politico-economic changes of the time and beyond- that were taking place in England under Thatcher, and in the US under Reagan. Global capitalism was restructuring itself during that time gradually straining post 2^nd World War freedoms granted to the newly independent colonial world. The world was changing rapidly. JRJ came into power in 1977, by 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall marked the ending of cold-war creating an absolutely ‘free’ world, free to global capitalism to act free from the restraints of socialism. JRJ or Indira could not see any of this was coming. They could not envision the direction of global capitalism’s desire to change itself from its pretentious freedoms to its true nature, the complete global authoritarianism. They couldn’t foresee the new potentials of global capitalism and its re-masking itself with ‘neo-liberalism’ and globalization. In this trajectory of western global dominance, Sri Lanka became a victim, the sacrifice. 

Indira Gandhi or JRJ would never have thought that India would become a strategic partner of the US within the next 30 years in the Indian Ocean region under ‘pivot to Asia’ policy of the US. Although JRJ dreamed to be the ‘poodle’ of the USA in the Indian Ocean in 1977, by 2016 India not only had stolen JRJ’s dream of becoming USA’s poodle from him, but also she had demonstrated that she even can go further by becoming the prodigious example of the world political history by becoming ‘useful idiot’ of the US’s Indian Ocean policy.

However cunning JRJ may be, he still couldn’t foresee that the Tamils could play ‘Judas’ sabotaging his election promise of taking us to the promised land through western aid. The west playing the judge Pontius Pilate, (the Roman governor of Judea,) asked the question from messiah JRJ: what’s the truth about racial politics in Sri Lanka?” Knowing that he was not telling the truth, just like what Mangala did at the UNO, JRJ also said what western administrations and India wanted to hear. With the outcome of the1983 communal riots, India, with full diplomatic and moral backing of the west, signed Indo Lanka Accord and sent IPKF to Sri Lanka. The real reason behind enforcing the Indo Lanka Accord was not the Tamil grievances but to bring JRJ’s Sri Lanka under the Indian sphere of influence because India thought JRJ was creating a security threat to India.   

Therefore, the Indo-Lanka accord must be considered as a document outdated to the current world conditions. It is a security threat to both India and Sri Lanka.   

Remembering and recollecting history to understand our challenges in the Indian Ocean

If we are to understand our challenges in the Indian Ocean, more than anything else, it is very much symbolic to defend the name of it. By saying in uncertain terms that you are not any Tom, Dick or Harry but Kunta Kinte, we must stress the fact that the Indian Ocean is the Indian ocean and not Indo Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is located beyond the narrow strait of Malacca. Therefore, when we participate in any international forums or signing agreements related to the Indian Ocean, we must stress the actual name of the ocean.

When two world powers, China and the USA competing with each other to have their physical presence in Sri Lanka, the island nation naturally inclined to asses both powers in relation to Sri Lanka’s own security concerns. Unfortunately, the findings are not pretty for the USA. For Sri Lankans, it is clear that the USA is not only desiring to have a foothold in Sri Lanka but also has other vendettas, vested interests and hidden agendas in the region and therefore manipulating the island’s internal issues to its advantage. For that reason, Sri Lankans feel the USA as a dishonest harbinger, that invites more problems than solutions to the current crisis, and has become even a part of the problem.

In contrast, Sri Lanka doesn’t find any evidence to prove that China has hidden agendas in the Tamil separatist struggle in Sri Lanka other than their desire to have a foothold on its soil. Assessing this situation, if Sri Lanka inclines to tilt toward China and embrace Chinese assistance for her development, would that be Sri Lanka’s fault or the failure of the USA’s foreign policy toward Sri Lanka? The USA doesn’t seem to care about the national security concerns of Sri Lanka and her unwavering commitment to preserving its unitary status.

Had the USA remained a neutral and honest partner in the national issue of the island, and if it really desired only to have a foothold, it would have been able to establish a physical presence in Sri Lanka on friendly terms way back in the late 70s or early 80s during the tenures of ambassadors William H. Wriggins or John H. Reed with a little bit of hullabaloo from the leftist parties of the island at the time. But strangely enough, the US didn’t pursue it. Not only that, in the mid-80s, Ambassador James W. Spain reaffirmed the official position of USA about Trincomalee harbor declaring that the USA had had no interest whatsoever, military or otherwise, in the Trincomalee harbor. (However, despite ambassador’s statement, people were suspicious and rumored about the Singaporean-American venture ‘Prima Sri Lanka’ wheat flour-mill that was established in the Trinco harbor-front as an America’s tacit way of entering into the Harbor)

Under tremendous pressure from the naked aggression of India, JRJ sought assistance from then US president Ronald Reagan, but just to learn that the Reagan administration already had trashed him altogether with the baby elephant that Pres. JRJ had gifted to Pres. Regan during his official visit to the USA. (This baby elephant had died in Diarrhea due to lack of attention.) Adding insult to the injury, giving a tenderfoot treatment to this senior-most politician in entire Asia at the time, Pres. Regan was audacious enough to advise JRJ to follow the dictates of India. It was clear that JRJ was hurt very badly by this surprising treatment. Later he had mentioned this to the visiting US diplomat Peter Galbraith.

Although we inclined to think that experienced politicians make political decisions objectively away from emotions, they too can become very subjective and emotional like any other person when they make political decisions, no matter whether those decisions are history-changing epochal decisions. JRJ, a well-known pro-American politician and the bearer of the nickname ‘YankyDickie, took a 180-degree turn and became a lap-dog of India overnight, not only because he had been forced by Washington but also he was unable to see the reason behind why the USA was forcing him to take the Indian advice. This is the reason why many reluctant to call JRJ a statesman. Driven by the emotional reactions due to his wounded heart, he reacted in vengeance. He may have thought to teach a lesson or two to Washington by becoming pro-Indian all of a sudden. But any statesman in his shoes under his circumstance would have resisted India since the Vadamarachchi operation was almost ending with a successful result. (But JRJ had lied to media about his military saying that his military leaders refused to take Jaffna due to high casualties.)

But JRJ’s emotions were justified by the behind the scene activities of Washington forcing JRJ to deal with India leaving JRJ without any other options. On February 05, 2017 writing to The Hindu, under the caption of I was forced into a deal with India, Jayawardene told US envoy” Amit Baruah says… that JRJ revealed that Sri Lanka was forced (by Washington) into making a deal with India… He (JRJ) stressed that none of his outside friends (obviously referring the west) would help him, so he had no choice but to make a deal with India, the unclassified CIA document read…

…it appears that the Americans also played a behind the scene role in ensuring channels of communication between president Jayawardene and PM Gandhi… interestingly, a third CIA intelligence assessment of September 1986 stated that India was rapidly expanding” its armed forces to intervene in Sri Lanka…” 

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/I-was-forced-into-a-deal-with-India-Jayewardene-told-U.S.-envoy/article17195748.ece

As I said earlier, it was well known that JRJ was pro-western in general and pro-American in particular. When analyzing JRJ’s important political decisions during the initial few years of his rule, such as inviting VOA to have its relay station in Chilow, one can argue that JRJ was really envisioning to go even further to accommodate American military presence in Sri Lanka to put Sri Lanka firmly and loyally within the western sphere of influence like Singapore or South Korea.

Given the overwhelming western enthusiasm and pledges for development aid soon after his election victory in 1977, JRJ’s thinking of exploiting our strategic location as a bargaining chip to impress the west in this cold war era was pretty predictable. From his point of view, it could have been viewed as a logical move. But considering US ambassador James W. Spain’s sudden public statement about Washington’s unwillingness to occupy Trinco in the 1980s, it could be conjectured that it was USA (not Sri Lanka) that demonstrated their unwillingness to establish a military base in SL at that time even if Sri Lanka was willing to accommodate one. 

Under this hypothesis and JRJ’s political history, I think JRJ purposely antagonized India to please the west especially the USA. And considering JRJ’s risky political maneuvers in the past, it is also logical to presume that he might have given sufficient window purposely for the UNP mobs in Colombo and inner cities to escalate communal riots in 1983 to inflict colossal damage to the country’s image. By doing so he might have calculated to provoke India, and in turn, give a reason to react militarily, thus he might have expected to create favorable conditions for him to gain the American sympathy and hence to keep the USA on his flank in the equation. This could be the last of all senseless politics of JRJ. Does JRJ capable of executing such a heinous criminal political treachery? Those who have lived under JRJ might give an answer in a single word. YES! As we have experienced in recent history, decent politics of the UNP died with Dudley Senanayake. All the rest of UNP politicians after him were criminals capable of doing unthinkable. There are only three political parties that had mastered political violence in Sri Lanka, the LTTE, JVP, and the UNP.

However, after Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi continued Indira’s Sri Lankan policy of destabilization. JR may have expected a firm American reaction favorable to him. But Washington was not interested to swallow the bait of JRJ. But instead, they already had another bait put in position for JRJ and Indian foreign policy establishment. They both gulped the American bait gleefully without a second thought. 

For Washington, JRJ’s reaction was predictable. Hurt by American humiliation, (as Washington may have predicted) JRJ reacted in such a way expecting to pinch the American nerve by signing Indo-Lanka accord. By doing so he thought he also can take revenge from Washington by placing SL within the influence of the Soviet bloc, all of a sudden portraying himself as a cute panda of the Russian bear. But Washington was way beyond JRJ and India had already foreseen the collapse of the Soviet Union and had envisioned the impending unipolar world.

When you see this entire issue through this historical perspective, the Indo-Lanka Accord becomes an outcome of an outdated global condition. It was a product of the cold war. Today world realities are different. Today India is pro-American than Sri Lanka (at least until one of the parties shake the apple cart). It is time for Sri Lankan administration to renegotiate the Indo-Lanka Accord with India based on current geopolitics and the challenges of both nations due to the existing global conditions driven by the Neoliberal agenda of balkanizing entire region.

US passivity of Indian hostility toward JRJ was unusual and could be a part of the design

US Ambassador James W. Spain, an enthusiast of JRJ, was heading the American mission during this most volatile period of Sri Lankan history. During Indo-Lanka Accord, he was there and personally witnessed a Sri Lankan sailor attacking the then Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi when Mr. Gandhi was receiving the military guard of honor after signing the infamous Indo Lanka Accord.

However, the unusual passive position of the US mission in Colombo toward highhanded interventionism of the Indian government in 1987 (including the violation of SL air space and dropping humanitarian aid to North of the island) was pretty obvious and could be witnessed during and after the Indian mediation and in the aftermath of the Indo Lanka Accord. This passivity was so obvious as well as so mysterious that the then US ambassador, an experienced career diplomat James W. Spain must have received strict instructions from Washington to treat the then Indian High Commissioner Jyotindra Nath Dixit as if Dixit was the undeclared viceroy of Sri Lanka at the time. Ambassador Spain closely associated with Dixit during these turbulent times. Dixit also acted as if he was the clandestine ruler of the island. By passively approving Indian McCarthyism in this island nation, the USA not only signaled India a specific message of encouragement but also sent a trembling signal to JRJ’s administration not to shake the cart or make any stupid turn but to comply and obey Indian dictates. It was inexplicable to think why did the USA behave that way? The USA wouldn’t behave in that manner if Indian intervention was going against its interests in the region. So, it is clear that Indian intervention was exactly what Washington awaited and was pretty compatible with the grand strategy of the USA in the region.

I personally knew Ambassador Spain. He was a soft-spoken wonderful individual. I happened to paint his portrait after he got retired. Since he had chosen to live in Sri Lanka in his retirement life, he was living at Gall-Face Court at that time. I had to spend about a week with him until I finished the painting. Knowing the fact that Ambassador Spain had a lot of information about the ruling class of Colombo, and that he knew a lot of behind the curtain dealings and other details about Kolombian politics in relation to Indo-Lanka accord, I asked him to write a book about his experience as the US ambassador during that troubling time of Sri Lankan history which culminated inking  Indo-Lanka accord. (He was the author of a number of books and I created the cover page for one of them.) My request might be a very selfish and circuitous way to know the information that I was not privy to access. He said it was a good idea, but never said he would do it. A few years later he passed away in Chicago burying a compendium of secrets about USA-Sri Lanka relations during the time of Indo Lanka accord with him.

When we recall this volatile period of history, it is pretty clear that the US foreign policy establishment had taken India for a ride (big time). It was a very clever strategy from the US’s part, that had planned and estimated every bit of detail to trap India to do exactly what Washington had anticipated. Washington had laid the trap and projected India to react in a particular way, and India reacted exactly the way that the US had expected like a ‘useful idiot.’ The US at that time tacitly purveyed all sorts of trickeries and signaled the Indians that the USA was fully in compliance with India’s regional superpower position and had no intention to upset or interfere in the sphere of India’s influence. Stupid Indians have swallowed it hook, line and sinker without question. By that way US got India to do the bidding on its behalf for the long-term US strategies in the region. In other words, Washington made the stupid cats in Delhi to pull the jack seeds out of the fire on its behalf. Indian cats in Delhi happily did it with pride. This strengthened the position of LTTE and India and helped them to push the separatist agenda to the very brink of dividing Sri Lanka. What a superb crafty fiat of diplomacy of Washington? It will take another 100 more years for the Indians to accomplish such a mastery level of diplomacy that Washington had applied to trap India. Kautilya (c. 350–283 BC), the master of diplomacy and crafty politics must have been reborn in foggy-bottom this time to teach a lesson to the naughty Indians.

When it comes to Sri Lanka, Indian stupidity had no limit. It was not India that buckled US calculations amassed for 50 years of diplomatic hard work but it was by two upset jockeys hailed from a southern village of the jungle, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabhaya – by unexpectedly defeating the pet of the west, the LTTE. This unpredicted turn of events messed entire US plans and pushed the design for another 20 years into the backseat.

If the USA had only an honest desire to have a foothold in Sri Lanka, it would have been a much easier problem for Sri Lanka to resolve it, and the USA might have gotten it with a little bit of shouting and yelling from the left, and considerable acceptance from the general public during JRJ’s administration. (of course, JRJ’s pro-US policy was the main reason for then Indian PM Indira Gandhi to fund, train and arm separatists in Sri Lanka, but if the USA firmly stood behind JRJ without playing double games and without speaking from both ends, JRJ would have approved a US base in Sri Lanka at that time. Don’t forget, JRJ was enjoying 5/6 of parliamentary majority)

JRJ was a great politician but not a good statesman. He was an old-fashioned politician; therefore, he could never understand the emerging realities of global politics that was developing since Reaganism in the US and Thatcherism in the UK. If he could see through the reason why he had been abandoned by Washington at the very crucial hour of need, he could have analyzed the reason behind it. I even suspect 1983 black July’ also could have been a staged event by some faction to advance their separatist agendas. Whoever triggered it, the Black July had trapped JRJ without having an escape route.

Thirty years ago, global politics was different from that of today and with the presence of the Soviet Union playing a bigger role in global politics, it was multi-polar in character. Then, on the other hand, China and India were not as significant economic powers as of today. If the USA had a military position in Sri Lanka at that time, that situation would have been similar to that of USA-Singapore, USA-Malaysia type of economic-military partnership. It is baffling as to why the USA never pursued to achieve that goal when it was a much easier task then? Isn’t that because the USA’s grand strategy assigned to the South Asian region was much larger than merely having a foothold in Sri Lanka? This is the area of India’s complete witlessness exposes. India behaves overconfidently about its regional position and strategic partnership with the USA. What they haven’t taken into notice is that the USA can pull a new enemy from anywhere at any time out of the hat as it wishes. Today’s strategic partner of the USA could be a potential enemy tomorrow. For the American foreign policy establishment, it is simple as such. What happened to Pakistan, former USA’s regional strategic partner? They used Pakistan when India was in the Soviet sphere of influence and abandoned it after Soviet Union was collapsed. Now they are pitting India against China.

Militarily speaking, India is just a paper tiger. The incompetence and inefficiency of the Indian military were exposed big time during its deployment in Sri Lanka. Washington knows this. China knows it. The Indian union never had confronted a formidable enemy in her entire post-independence history. India still has to go through the acid-test of the nation’s patriotism of its artificial union. Germany has proved it, China has proved it and even another one, the greatest of the loose unions in human history, the Soviet Union had proved it. But can India prove that her entire population is willing to sacrifice their lives to safeguard the Indian union? The only occasion when India briefly engaged a formidable enemy was the Sino-Indian war in 1967. She lost it embracingly. Under this condition, if India ever had to confront a western military, likes of the US military in the Indian Ocean, oh…the only conclusion I can come to is…sorry about them. God Shiva must save India since I doubt if the Indian military can save it.

So, India must understand the fact that as far as it plays the same ugly game of 13^th amendment with Sri Lanka, she digs her own grave much deeper inch by inch. India must reevaluate her Sri Lanka policy since Indira Gandhi was a cold-war hoax, therefore must acknowledge that the Indo-Lanka accord, the end result of her SL policy, was a security blunder that threatens both countries.

For Sri Lanka’s weakness, it has an ethnic minority that can be useful for any potential enemy of India that is aspiring to balkanize it. Because India is the home for 70 million Tamils. Sri Lanka sees the USA’s Sri Lankan policy as an existential threat. Any analytical mind would conclude that the USA’s policies eventually threaten the unitary status of the country. From Sri Lankan point of view, SL is baffled to answer the question ‘why?’ Why the USA cannot get out of the ethnic issue of the island and sincerely seek help from Sri Lanka to strengthen its economic-military strategy in the region? The answer to this question is the location where we can find the kernel of the problem. The entire purpose of the west getting a foothold in Sri Lanka is unchanged since the Portuguese; it is to hold sway over the whole of India” Actually Sri Lanka would have been a much safer place without India, or if India was a subcontinent full of small nations. Sri Lanka has been victimized because of India. If India wasn’t there next to us, the Sinhala majority population would never be treated like this by the west.

It was not the sympathy of Jews that the USA supports Israel unconditionally, but the USA’s desire to dominate oil fields of the region. The USA needs Israel to exist in the region to achieve that end. Israel knows this and Americans know it. In Sri Lanka, it is not the sympathy of Tamils that drives the USA’s foreign policy establishment to diplomatically and morally support the Tamil cause, but the Tamils are the best tool to balkanize India. We know it, Tamils know it and the USA also knows that we know it. But India is indifferent about it. Washington knows once the Tamil separate state is created in NE of the island, it won’t rest there until the division of Tamil Nadu is achieved in India. And then, it will never take long to bring a domino effect in this artificially created Indian union for many other Indian states to break away from it. To achieve that goal, a separate state in Sri Lanka is a fundamental necessity. For that reason, American policy planners consider the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka as a foreign policy asset and a useful strategic tool than the friendship of the majority Sinhalese. This is the bitter truth of the USA Sri Lanka relations.

However, as far as Sri Lanka holds its position of resistance, India will stay together. (I know some of the Lankaweb forum members had said earlier that divided India is good for its neighbors. That’s true. But unfortunately, the road to the division of India has been fallen across our home country, that is how it has been strategized by the west. For that reason, we like it or not, when we protect our unitary state, eventually India will be saved. It might be bad news for some in the west but can’t help. Change your strategy, we will support you to divide India if India behaves and treats us the same way. If the USA could dismantle the mammoth superpower Soviet Union, India must realize that dismantling India is just a cakewalk for the west.

Given that the origin of Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka was India’s making, conveniently and convincingly Sri Lanka can claim that they are fighting to save India from the stupid Indians. That is the rib-tickling irony of Indian politics. Sri Lanka is fighting India’s war while India is in a deep slumber enjoying the strategic partnership with the USA. India has cunningly dislocated their fight of Tamil Separatism into Sri Lanka. Until we firmly address this existential threat and remove the reason for the recurrence of this problem, external interference in the country and Tamil separatism will stay in Sri Lanka. I am sure Pres. Gotabhaya will have the courage to take the bold decision to solve this problem once and for all. That is the reason why we must advocate relocating our capital to Trincomalee as a part of the strategy. Pres. Gotabhaya also needs to convince the Indian establishment to stop insisting on the full implementation of the 13^th amendment. And he must renegotiate it or abrogate it entirely ASAP, not only for the sake of the unity of Sri Lanka but also for the unity of INDIA.      

Chanaka Bandarage

The British Conservative Party election manifesto in page 53 states:

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

The text is very clear. It is in plain, easy to understand English.

That is, if the Conservative Party is elected to power at the 12 December 2019 general election, it will support a two state solution for Sri Lanka. This basically means the creation of the Tamil  Eelam in Sri Lanka. This was the demand of the megalomaniac Terrorist Leader Prabhakaran who was killed by the Sri Lankan armed forces on 19 May 2009.

According to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Relations, the Conservative Party has made following clarifications since issuing the election manifesto:

…. 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 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 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.”

Re above last paragraph, the Ministry of Foreign Relations (or the Sri Lankan High Commission in London) are not qualified to state that the Conservative Party has clarified its position. The clarification must come from the ‘horse’s mouth’, formally.  The Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Relations is not privy to the Conservative Party’s internal tactics and policies. The Email, Twitter and the Facebook messages by Paul Scully and Theresa Villiers may be authentic. But, they are not the Conservative Party.  The fact of the matter is that despite Sri Lanka’s vehement protest the Conservative Party has not amended its election manifesto.  The adverse policy in relation to Sri Lanka continues to stand, as first announced. The Conservative Party has not  even issued a formal/official response that what the Party has actually meant was that the two state policy only applies to the Middle East, and it believes in reconciliation to solve Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem.

Again, the language in the current Conservative Party election manifesto is crystal clear and unambiguous – they support a two state solution in Sri Lanka.

Since defeating the Tamil Tigers there has been much progress in regards to Sri Lanka’s ethnic relations.  Sinhalese and Tamils now live happily in Sri Lanka as a One Nation. Not even the ultra extremist Tamil groups in Sri Lanka are demanding a Tamil Eelam. In the recently concluded Presidential Election, Tamils, especially the Northern Tamils, voted for Sinhalese politicians, even disregarding a strong Tamil candidate. Everyone in Sri Lanka talks about such positive things as reconciliation etc today, not about creating two states.

Then, why does Mr Johnson led Conservative Party have intentions to work to divide Sri Lanka if it wins the forthcoming general election? Why did they change their policy on Sri Lanka suddenly? Anyone would agree that this has been done to please the large Sri Lankan Tamil voter base in the UK – instigating them to vote for the Conservative Party.  The Conservative Party must have thought that through such a promise, they could win the Sri Lankan Tamil vote.  It is a fact that the UK based Tamil groups are very active and fiercely lobby both the Conservative and Labour Parties (and also other parties) to take action to split Sri Lanka into two.

This is a very bad, unethical practice on the part of the Conservative Party.

Mr Johnson and the Conservative Party have failed to realise that though quiet, there is a very large Sinhalese population in the UK and their numbers far exceed that of the Sri Lankan Tamils. If the Conservative Party wants to play politics with the Sri Lankan vote of the UK, the Sinhalese voters should reciprocate in kind.  They should en-mass vote for the Labour Party. 

The Labour Party has not adopted such an adverse policy against Sri Lanka.

Traditionally many Sinhalese vote for the Conservative Party. But, on this occasion they should send a clear message to the Conservative Party – that they do not support its current position that Sri Lanka should be divided on ethnic lines and that a Tamil Eelam should be created in Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese would change their mind if prior to the election the Conservative Party amends  its election manifesto or issues a formal communique stating unequivocally that it does not believe in a two state system for Sri Lanka, and it only promotes reconciliation for Sri Lanka. Again, this must be done formally, by the Conservative Party Headquarters – the body that issued the election manifesto, not through Email/Twitter/Facebook messages by individual Conservative Party politicians.

(Addenda to the article on the above subject posted on December 6th, 2019 Lankaweb)

Dr Sudath Gunasekara 7.12. 2019

Further to my previous essay on the above subject published on 6^th Dec, I would like to add few more comments on the UNP that would be interesting to my readers.  JR had carefully selected two young brilliant politicians Gamini Disanayaka and Lalith Atulathmudali as potential future leaders to fill the vacuum of the party after him. In fact JR was grooming Gamini as his successor Gamini to be the next President. But Premadasa, (Just like what Sajit did in 2019 against Ranil) deployed an Island wide campaign against JR against his move to nominate Gamini and he wanted the nominations for the Presidency. I remember the words JR MARAMU appeared overnight on the roads and instances where even school children wrote these words on their slates were reported.  Finally JR gave in and Premadasa (Father of Sajit) who took over the leadership by force and intimidation from JR towards the end of 1988  became the President on 2^nd Jan in 1989. From the day he became President he did not like Gamini and Lalith as he considered them to be a potential threat to him. So he sidelined them and demoted in their Ministerial positions. Gamini decided to leave politics under Premadasa and left the country to Cambridge for studies. Lalith remained behind as destiny wanted him to and he was finally assassinated on April 23, 1993 at an election meeting at Kirulapana by Premadasa’s goons.  Premadasa himself was assassinated by the LTTE on 1 May 1993, perhaps in retribution for what he had done. He was succeeded by D.B. Wijetunga and got down Gamini to lead the Party. He was also assassinated the LTTE at an election meeting in Totalanga. while he was addressing Presidential meeting to Chandrikas luck.

The following two mews items that appeared in media narrate the conspiracy behind Lalith”s political assassination.

Athulathmudali was assassinated when he was shot by a gunman on 23 April 1993 after an election rally at Kirulapana. Initially, the government blamed the LTTE and produced the body of a Tamil youth named Ragunathan which was found near the scene of the shooting the following day. He had apparently died from taking a cyanide capsule. However, these claims were later proved to be false.

A Presidential Commission carried out by the Sri Lankan Government concluded that Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa was directly responsible for the assassination. It also concluded that the Tamil youth Ragunathan, was murdered by the same people who killed Athulathmudali, by forcibly administering him with cyanide.”

Does this not  speaks volumes of Ranasinha Premadasa’s vicious  plans to remove the most brilliant political leader JR had picked up to take the UNP forward and the irreparable damage he had done to the UNP in particular and the country at large

 In this back drop what credentials Sajih can claim to lead the UNP at a crucial time of the Party like the present when it had fallen to the lowest level in its history with both in its anti-Sinhala Anti-Buddhist policies and the quality politicians it has brought to Parliament where there isn’t a single promising Potential leader of quality statesmanship.

I consider the assassination of Lalith in 1993 and the death of Gamini in 1994 as the beginning of the journey of UNP to its demise for which R Premadasa was solely accountable. He was directly responsible for Lalith’s murder, as it was later reported in the press, and of cause for Gamini’s, leaving the Party. These two young shining stars of the UNP would have definitely lifted the UNP to unbelievable levels had they lived. Of the two, having worked with him for one year and known very closely Lalith would have made this country a miracle in Asia if lived to lead the UNP. As a person who has worked closely with both, I can tell you with authority the story of UNP as a political party would have been completely different today if they lived to date.

Gamini being senior to Lalith in politics and more charismatic was certainly a popular politician who could attract crowds with his pleasant personality. But Lalith was a world class leader with his academic credentials from Oxford and Harvard with no peer either here or even in India. I worked with him very closely for one year under the Ministry of Agriculture and I rate him as the best politician and statesman I have ever met. I have devoted one chapter for him in my book ‘Deyata Ahimivana Ran Akara” a critique of public Administration of our time. Both of them revolted against Premadasa for which they had to pay dearly. Premadasa did not like both of them and finally got them removed from the party. That was the biggest damage Premadasa did to the UNP and the treachery to the country.  In this backdrop those crazy young UNP MPP who expect Ranasinha Premadasa’s son (who does not inherit an iota of R Premadasa’s talents) to lift up the UNP that has already been dumped in to the dustbin of history by Ranil, in my opinion is only day dreaming on their part.

If the political forces those who are dying for the UNP, wants to rekindle it again I think there is only one way to do it. That is to drop this illegitimate name UNP, baptized by the colonial British to ruin this country and the Sinhala Nation, as I have discussed in detail in my previous article, and start with a new name that can first attract and mobilize the Sinhala Buddhists populous and whole Sinhala nation including the s/Catholics and S/Christians, od cause better than the Pohottuwa. Otherwise, mark it, you people have no political future in this country.

By Bodhi Dhanapala

A version of this article appeared in the Island Newspaper, 6th Dec) Harim Peries (HP), writing to The Island on Dec 5. about “The UNF loss and looking ahead”, gives a road map for the UNP. It should make strange reading to most Sri Lankans except those who, by a Freudian slip, have pushed out of their minds some of the most important matters that led to the collapse of the UNP.

In his essay, HP has not mentioned anywhere about the bond scams, the first of which was carefully planned by first placing the Central Bank under Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, and then handing over its governorship to a Singaporean National that he personally endorsed. The parliament was dissolved to prevent the submission of the first COPE report, and a second bond scam, which was even bigger than the first, was carried out by the UNP the following year.

Then came the clash between the Prime Minister and the President, mostly because the PM tried to run the country with a coterie of cronies to the great annoyance of a rather simple minded President; who felt slighted after having been elated by simple gestures like the “Queen shaking hands with him even without gloves”! Sirisena realized that he was being duped by a Cabal which gave him doctored Sinhala translations of key documents which said quite different things in English.

It was this personal friction that ultimately led to the President looking at the UNP leadership with vengeance. His setting up a Presidential inquiry into the bond scam was for the fortunate outcome of that falling-off among thieves. It was the revelations from those inquiries that rocked the country and revealed the depth of the canker of corruption that has cut into every vein of the UNP and the legislature. A top leader of the UNP had to claim that he did not know who paid the rent for a luxury penthouse he lived in, and allegedly paid for by scam money. Every UNP leader had been to that Penthouse, and probably knew about its secret. These same people added footnotes to the COPE report on the Bond Scam to undermine it, and many were probably beneficiaries of the bond scam. To satisfy an angry public, the Penthouse Minister was gently removed from the Cabinet, but not from the top of the UNP, and then quietly brought back to other Ministries, where he had access to even more trade deals that allegedly yielded even more commissions – so the public felt. Premadasa said nothing and Harim Peiris says nothing.

Mr. Harim Peiris says that “There was a surprising renaissance of sorts after the October 2018 constitutional putsch and the resultant very short lived UPFA administration, which was subsequently deemed ultra vires the constitution by the superior courts”. How does Mr. Peiris know that “there was a renaissance”? True, the western diplomats in the Parliamentary gallery applauded. But no public vote had been taken. In fact, Mr. Peiris himself says “SURPRISING renaissance”. Indeed, if there was a renaissance, it was only in the minds of the Colombo-centric individuals who even believed that a counting of the second preference vote to Anura Kumara Dissanayake will clinch the presidential vote in favour of the UNP’s Premadasa who will come neck and neck to Gotabhaya. That was their level of (mis)understanding of the political pulse of the country.

Mr. Harim Pieris has not recognized the repugnance generated in the minds of the public by the acts of Mr. Mangala Samaraweera in Geneva, and in the country where he has claimed that Sri Lanka is not a country for Sinhala Buddhists. All Sri Lankans have equal rights, but the total amount of Taxes collected from the country comes mostly from the Majority areas, and it is those taxes and their fair-minded policies that paid for the war, the cleaning up of the North and East, the re-development of roads, infrastructure, and appointing a provincial council after a lapse of three decades. Most of those people who fought the terrorists were the Sinhalese, with invaluable help from the Muslims who were also victims of Tamil terrorism. The UNP leadership mocked the war and tried hard to hand over power to the terrorists; and joined hands with the TNA who was proxy to the LTTE.

The UNP, with Ranil, Sumanthiran and Jayampathy writing out the constitution under the aegis of their Daispora and Washington gurus, gave the appearance of being ganged up against the majority community. They believed that the key to electoral success is in winning over the minorities. Of course, they had no wish to grant anything to the minorities either. The draft constitution was disowned by Mr. Wickremesinghe himself and the UNP, with the TNA and Jayampathy holding their baby. The president could complain, in many instances, of his being duped by the Ranil-Mangala cabal.

The upper-class Tamil lawyer-politicians anchored in Colombo have misled the Tamil electorate since the 1930s. The UNP hopes to profit from the power of the Periya Dorai forever. There are visible cracks among the Periya Dorai clan. Furthermore, even the Periya Dorai distrust the Muslim leaders like the upstarts from Mannar. And then, we saw the likes of Mervyn de Silva and Sajin Vas Goonawardena on Premadasa’s political platforms, addressing meetings! Were the UNP organizers crazy? Were they working hard to undermine the personal popularity of Sajith Premadasa, as against the UNP activists and MPs, many commission “kakkas”?

The tragedy of the UNP is seen not in what Harim Peiris said, but in what he glossed over and couldn’t say. He says that the objective of the UNP in the coming months should be to prevent the SLPP from getting a 2/3 majority. More realistically, the objective of the UNP should be to at least get 21% of the votes, given that Sajith got 42% as a personal endorsement.

How can the UNP do even that?

The UNP should declare “Mea Culpa”, and hold its own Bond Scam investigation and purge every scammer from the party, from the top man to even those with a mere grain of suspicion. It must re-start with a clean Tabla Rasa. Criminal action against them is a matter for the police. Furthermore, the UNP should purge the party of men and women whose hearts and allegiances are in Washington, well knowing that some of them hold Samantha Power as their “Ishta Devathaava” or Guiding Angel, having even rejected the Triple Gem. Does Sajith have the strength to do it?

The UNP should purge from the party those men and women who cannot think and feel in the vernacular. There are those who know only the misinformed idiom of the Geneva script and the Swiss Ambassador’s mindset that led Mr. Mock to mock himself and the diplomatic corps.

By Udaya P. Gammanpila Courtesy Ceylon Today

“This is my last chance. My very first opportunity was sacrificed for Srima. The last two were sacrificed for Fonseka and Sirisena on the request of the party. I have been patiently waiting for this opportunity for the last 10 years; please don’t grab it from me.”

This was the plea made by UNP Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, which however, received an unexpected response from his party colleagues. The vast majority said in unison that Sajith should be the Presidential Candidate instead of Ranil. To his surprise, even his childhood friend, Malik Samarawickrema, ideological friend, Mangala Samaraweera, and disciples he groomed, such as Harsha De Silva and Eran Wickremaratne had joined this bandwagon.

Reality

When die-hard Ranil loyalists decided to back Sajith’s candidacy, Ranil reluctantly agreed with the majority. The vast majority of the UNP backed Sajith instead of Ranil, believing in his capacity to defeat Gotabaya. However, the reality was far from their imagination.

 Although Ranil was able to obtain 43 per cent in 1999 and 48 per cent in 2005, Sajith was able to obtain only 42 per cent of the votes, behind his rival by 10 per cent, or 1.3 million votes.

The UNP should now take stock and find the cause for this humiliating defeat. A strong opposition is essential for a functioning democracy. Hence, here is the perspective of a person who has not only contributed to planning the defeat, but also to executing the plan.

When the Presidential Election was announced, the UNP was in such a state that nobody was able to make it victorious. As I said in the campaign, if the five giants of the UNP – namely, D.S., Dudley, Sir John, J.R. and Premadasa – became one person and contested the election, the UNP would not have defeated Gotabaya. There were two reasons.

Unprecedented low

Firstly, the UNP’s popularity has touched an unprecedented low. Since the causes for this pathetic situation have been discussed at length, the limited space of this column will not be used to repeat the same. The classic evidence in this regard is the results of the 2018 Local Authority Elections. No government in the post-independent history has faced a defeat at a LA election.  

However, the UNP’s defeat was humiliating. It was able to receive only 29 per cent of votes. Several coalition partners of the UNF had obtained another 2 per cent by contesting independently, increasing it to 31 per cent.  Hence, the UNP commenced its campaign already 19 per cent behind the winning point of 50 per cent.

When the UNP was struggling to choose a candidate, the JVP, its coalition partner in the 2010 and 2015 Presidential Elections, announced the candidacy of its leader, denying a 6 per cent vote chunk to the UNP. With a vote bank of 6 per cent, the TNA could increase the UNP candidate’s votes to 37 per cent. 

Accordingly, the UNP candidate was to commence his campaign at 13 per cent behind the winning point.

There was no single incident after the LA elections that contributed to reducing the 13 per cent gap. Instead, there were a large number of incidents that further eroded the UNP vote bank. 

The Easter Sunday attack caused by the Government’s negligence, the alleged protection of terrorists by politicians, the collapse of the economy, the gas scarcity, the medicine scarcity and the piling garbage dumps throughout the country – all reflecting a lack of administrative skills by the Government – were prominent among those.

Secure support

In contrast, the SLPP, having received 42% at the LA election, was able to secure the support of the SLFP, which obtained 14% at the same election. Their cumulative vote bank was 56%, surpassing the winning point by 6%.  Accordingly, the SLPP candidate commenced the campaign with +6%, whereas the UNP candidate commenced it with -13%.

Secondly, the SLPP had fielded the strongest possible candidate available in the country. National security became number-one on the national agenda in the post-Easter Sunday attack era. In this backdrop, the SLPP nominated Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR), who spearheaded the military campaign to defeat LTTE terrorism. Further, when there was a trend to reject all 225 parliamentarians, GR posed the ideal solution, as he had never been in Parliament.  

GR had another advantage: Mahinda’s defeat in 2015 was a direct result of him being deserted by the Sinhala middle class. Realising this, GR attracted them through Buddhist monks, nationalist organisations and Viyath Maga. Since GR was not a part of Mahinda’s defeated Government, they had no hesitation to embrace him as their new hope. He was only an officer, not a politician in Mahinda’s Government.

Biggest threat

The UNP had identified GR as their biggest future threat. That is why it launched an operation to hunt GR within its first month in power by taking the Avant Garde ship into custody.

 Although the Government had commenced 17 investigations against GR, he was able to clear his name in people’s minds by responding to all allegations with documentary evidence through his friends.

In the light of the above, had R. Premadasa – Sajith’s father – or D.S. Senanayake – father of the UNP – contested the last Presidential Election, they would not have defeated GR. In a cricket match, the star batsman enters the ground after loss of the first wicket. If the first wicket falls in bad light conditions, a night watchman will be sent instead of the star batsman to save him for the future.

The UNP’s star batsman was Sajith, with big political hopes placed on him. The UNP showed its shallow political understanding by sending Sajith into the field when the UNP was surrounded by darkness. Accordingly, the fundamental reason for Sajith’s defeat was committing political harakiri by grabbing the candidature from Ranil when the conditions were extremely unfavourable to the UNP.  The other reasons for Sajith’s defeat will be discussed in forthcoming weeks.

Hiru News

Archbishop his eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith appeared before the Presidential Commission investigating Easter attacks for a second day today.

The Cardinal who made a statement before the Commission for nearly 4 hours yesterday behind closed doors, arrived at the Commission at around 9.30 this morning.

The Cardinal testified before the commission for over 3 hours today.

Speaking to media after testifying the Cardinal said he believes that justice will be meted out through the current Presidential commission.

Hiru News

පාස්කු ප්‍රහාරය පිළිබඳ සොයා බැලීමට පත්කර ඇති වත්මන් ජනාධිපති කොමිසම තුළින් පීඩාවට පත් ජනතාවට සාධාරණත්වයක් ඉටු වේ යැයි තමන්ට විශ්වාස බව අගරදගුරු අති උතුම් මැල්කම් කාදිනල් රංජිත් හිමිපාණන් පවසනවා.

පාස්කු ප්‍රහාරය පිළිබඳව සොයා බැලීමට පත්කළ ජනාධිපති කොමිසම හමුවේ අද දෙවන දිනටත් පැය 03 කට ආසන්න කාලයක් සාක්ෂි ලබාදීමෙන් පසු මාධ්‍ය වෙත අදහස් දක්වමින් උන්වහන්සේ මේ බව සඳහන් කළා.

ඊයේ පස්වරු දෙකේ සිට 3.45 දක්වා කාදිනල් හිමිපාණන් ජනාධිපති කොමිසම සහ මාධ්‍ය ඉදිරියේ ප්‍රසිද්ධියේ සාක්ෂි ලබාදුන් අතර, පසුව පස්වරු 4.15 ට සිට පස්වරු 06 දක්වා ජනාධිපති කොමිසම ඉදිරියේ රහසිගතව සාක්ෂි ලබාදුන්නා. අදත්, සාක්ෂි විමසීම සිදුවූයේ රහසිගතවයි.

උපුටා ගැන්ම හිරු නිව්ස්

විදේශ අමාත්‍යාංශයේ දැනුවත් වීමකින් තොරව එංගලන්තය විසින් පවුම් මිලියන 10ක් මෙරට ආයෝජනය කර ඇත්තේ කුමන කරුණක් සඳහා ද යන්න වහා සොයා බැලිය යුතු බව පිවිතුරු හෙළ උරුමයේ නායක උදය ගම්මන්පිල මහතා පවසනවා.

ඔහු මේ බව සඳහන් කළේ අද පෙරවරුවේ පැවති ප්‍රවෘත්ති සාකච්ඡාවකදී.