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‘Media in the land is governed by one person’– Lasantha Ruhunuge

April 12, 2013, 5:48 pm
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‘Media in the land is governed by one person’ – Lasantha Ruhunuge

BY KITHSIRI WIJESINGHE-12 APRIL 2013
When the Sri Lankan government wanted to give away free laptops to journalists, many seemed happy. But Lasantha Ruhunuge differed. As the president of the largest media trade union in the island – Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association – he had overwhelming reasons to do so.
‘What we need is not free laptops, but freedom to write and justice’ he wrote to the media ministry.
‘Tell us who killed our colleagues. Bring the perpetrators to book. That can strengthen us, but free laptops cannot.’
The consequences could have been deadly. But he prefers to shrug them off. “When you know that you cannot write without risking your life, it’s important to stick to your principles’ he says.
“For me, it was simply a matter of principles.”
As the news editor of the Sinhala weekly ‘Ravaya’, he keeps trying to push the boundaries. But heading a prominent journalists union can still be more challenging in a country where scores of media workers are killed with impunity.
Lasantha spoke to JDS on media freedom, right to dissent and the state of democracy in Sri Lanka.
The excerpts from the interview, follow:
A deficiency of critical media discourse seems to be convention in Sri Lanka. What are the features that enable this apparent silence and co-operation of mass media whilst the state carries on with undemocratic and oppressive policies?
I believe that two main factors have affected Sri lanka’s media society with regard to this situation.
One is the policy of repressing media practiced by the government. It has led to journalists been conditioned to carry on with their media practice without being critical or challenging state activity. Accordingly, Sri Lankan media are maintained merely as business houses only.
The other is business networks loyal to President Rajapaksa and quite intimate with the government acquiring and operating media institutions. Some mainstream media institutions are owned by ruling party parliamentarians and ministers. The ownership of several other media in receipt of outlets is held by heads of state establishments. Some editors have been appointed as government advisors.
In this context we cannot anticipate an independent and critical media culture. In media outlets operated by those loyal to the president and the government as well as those in receipt of government privileges, some journalists are forced to be pen pushers against their will in order to save their life and livelihood.
Identifying a single media institution that either questions, challenges or is critical about government action, is almost impossible.  It is evident that many media institutions and journalist conduct their activity in compromise and keeping out of conflict with the government. Some compete to be in the good books of powers to be. This is a travesty as well as a saddening situation.
So, the majority of journalists indulging in a media practice in compromise with the regime, is it due to institutional restraints or a tradition of cooperation that has become the hegemonic convention within the society?
It is true that the government keeps a band of obedient journalists by bestowing paybacks upon them. However, it needs to be mentioned that there is another facet that has not caught attention. A journalist in Sri Lanka is a professional with no workers’ rights. Even in relation to SAARC standards, we are at the bottom on rights. Many journalists do not receive a wage that befits their work. Whatever the danger faced in the line of duty, there is no liability insurance. Welfare facilities are almost non-existent. A majority of media outlets do not provide the equipment necessary for coverage. These conditions easily pave the way for the government to poach on many journalists. It is mainly by providing an assorted range of incentives.
There is no established procedure in Sri Lanka to recruit journalists or promote them to editorial boards. Mostly, these happen either on personal affiliations or on loyalty to the ruling party. My personal opinion is that to say journalists speak to uphold people’s rights, is a myth while they themselves do not stand for the right of their profession or freedom.
In no other country has the government media accreditation identity card become the main tool of journalism. But, in Sri Lanka the situation is totally different. No media institution provides their journalists with an official press accreditation card. In its place, journalists are forced to obtain the government media accreditation card. This has led to a state where the government media accreditation card has become the main criteria to identify a journalist in Sri Lanka. The country’s mass media has arrived at a juncture where it questions a journalist’s reputation on the basis of a government credential.
It is true that those involved in journalism in Sri Lanka are only a group of titular reporters, not proper investigative journalists. Today, the country has neither a pack of scribes who investigate, question the actions of powers that be and reveal it to the people, nor such practice.
Of course, there are a handful of journalists who endeavour to alter this sorry situation. Yet, they have to engage in a struggle that is massive as well as dreadful. On the one hand they have to face the repressive environment set up by the government through numerous laws and regulations in addition to violence. On the other, it is the constraints imposed by the pro-government stance of media institutes and their owners.
Isn’t it possible to transform this situation by the active intervention of media workers’ organisations?
Many members of media organisations in Sri Lanka also do not take any attempt to change this situation. Especially, a majority of journalists and their organisations in the country have not identified the importance of engaging in a media practice that falls in line with international standards and regulations. They are opposed to quality journalism. The reason they indicate is the fear to be in the bad books of the rulers. In addition they fear that such journalism would lead to unnecessary friction and retaliations. That is why the membership of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has fallen to the hands of those in Sri Lanka who are distanced from the media field. This is not only a disaster but also a state where we need to be ashamed of ourselves.
My belief is that those who were at the helm of the media field as well as those who led media organisations have to answer for this deterioration. We are aware of how they responded in crucial moments in history, when efforts were initiated for change. Actually, in terrifying circumstances we got along as if nothing has ever happened. In some occasions, we simply confined ourselves to protest demonstrations.
The editor of a mainstream journal was killed in broad daylight. Did the newspaper editors in Sri Lanka have the guts to stop their publications for one day? Has the media ever been able to stage a protest in unison? Why? Because we are not properly organised. Media bosses only welcome those who can be kept under their control. Those who criticise their political ideology and the ruling party are kicked out. In recent times, how many editors, editorial board members were thrown out within hours? Who is opposed to changing this situation? Many are looking forward not to be part of a collective struggle against this tyranny, but to jump to the seat vacated by the colleague who was kicked out.
Isn’t it right to say that those quick to take the initiative of branding those who bring to light issues about human rights and media freedom in Sri Lanka , as traitors, are mainly journalists themselves?
I agree that this is an argument that cannot be easily brushed aside. Nevertheless, as stated earlier, one would have to accept the reality of media ownership in Sri Lanka. Today, the media in the land is governed by one person alone. No news item that goes against his politics is given any space. Therefore, journalists in those institutes are able to do only one duty: To earn their livelihood in a manner that would help save their lives. That is why journalists within and without the country who question government deeds are named as traitors, in addition to the spreading of a doctrine that calls not only for the annihilation of those journalists, but also their loved ones. It is true that this handful of journalists is posing a challenge to the government.  That has led to the government carrying on a vicious campaign with falsified statements and cries for their destruction.
In addition, we are aware that the government has ushered in a number of oppressive laws in order to rob us of the right to information. Sri Lanka is a land where the accurate information is percieved as a crime. So called representatives of the people sitting in parliament defeated the bill on Right to Information with no qualms. Information was censored in a massive scale with the assistance of draconic legislation including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER). These are not seen as problems by a nation dazed by the delusion of Sinhala patriotism.
During the the 80s and 90s, Journals identified as the alternative stream came into existence as a response against extreme and destructive realities. Can we today detect any evidence of them losing their alternate content?
The alternative media practice we witnessed in the 80s and 90s is not a pragmatic thing anymore. Not a single media outlet remains committed to a peoples ideology. Each media institution has its own power strategy.  Journalists are confined to staying away from getting into dispute with the government and writing feature articles that only carry humour without substance. Instead of questioning the anti-democratic and dictatorial nature of the government, Sri Lanka’s media and journalists are reduced to safeguarding advertisement revenue and basking in the glory of sitting for a tea party thrown by the ruling elite as an honour.
In the 80s and 90s the alternative media and a group of such journalists emerge from this soil as an outcome of the massive social catastrophe and its resistance. Today what we see is the turning of a blind eye to the colossal social catastrophe and justifying it while proiding ample space to boastful rhetoric by the ruling elite. However, we have a glint of hope. It is the web sites that perform a role, to a certain extent, that was carried out as an alternative stream. With all their shortcomings, it is a creditable role.
In reporting politically controversial news, do you see a significant distinction between state governed media and those owned by corporates?
The primary practice of media owned by corporate business is to market social disasters. It doesn’t involve any discussion with quality or substance. They do not honour any acceptable norm in journalism. Nonetheless, they are silent about crimes and human rights violations committed by the political authority. The credibility and standard of both the state and corporate owned media is almost non-existent in the sphere of reportage and investigative journalism. It is a waste of time to even talk about quality in state owned media.
In the 80s and the early 90s alternative journals thought to have a clout, came in to being bearing the responsibility of revealing the human rights violations faced by the Sinhala society. But, weren’t the same journals aiding and abetting the atrocities committed in the Tamil dominated areas?
My view is that a majority of those identified as journalists haven’t have fulfilled the basics to serve in that role. An authentic journalist should have the spirit and determination to report and investigate crises and discriminations faced by all nationalities and to question the government on such matters.
What is your view on the attitude of Colombo centric Sinhala and English media concerning difficulties and repression that Tamil journalists have to suffer?
My earlier opinion is valid for some Tamil journalists as well as the Sinhalese. Having said that, it is important to note that there are many predicaments that are is unique to Tamil journalists. We need to acknowledge that. This is solely due to the fact that they are Tamil. Being a Tamil itself is enough to be a target of state oppression. In reporting a story, a place that can be freely covered by a Sinhalese could be out of bounds to a Tamil journalist. We need to keep in mind that the majority of journalists who were subject to violence throughout the recent past are Tamils. Therefore, it should be emphasised that the restriction on news coverage is also based on nationality.
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A Tamil Spring?

April 12, 2013, 5:49 pm
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A Tamil Spring?

application/pdf iconDownload PDF version—–April 13, 2013 | M S S Pandian and Kalaiyarasan A
A new generation of college students in Tamil Nadu has taken up the cause of the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Articulate, wellinformed and uncontaminated by the influence of time-serving politicians they have successfully forced an agenda on the three main political parties in the state.
M S S Pandian (mathiaspandian57@gmail.com) teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Kalaiyarasan A is a PhD scholar at the Centre for Studies in Regional Development in the same university.
And why not? It is better than never. The spark has grown into a flame and we add fuel believing that it burns till the light of equal rights reaches the long deprived and oppressed people
– Lalith Raja, senior system engineer,
Infosys, Chennai, in NDTV Blog.
The spark which has ignited the students’ rage in Tamil Nadu against the United States-sponsored United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on Sri Lanka and India’s eventual support to it began in one of the most unlikely places, the Loyola College at Chennai. The academic excellence of the college, most believe, is a result of its depoliticised student body. Shattering the myth convincingly, on 8 March, eight young students from the college – Dileepan (18), Britto (20), Anthony George (20), Ramesh alias Paarvai Dasan (20), Paul Kenneth (20), Manikandan (19), Shanmugapriyan (19), and Leo Stalin (20) – went on an indefinite hunger strike demanding the implementation of a seven-point charter.
The charter demanded, among other things, a proactive role by the union government for an independent probe into the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army at the end of Eelam war in 2009, a referendum on the demand for an independent Tamil state of Eelam and the imposition of economic sanctions on Sri Lanka. As if to “humour” P Chidambaram, the union finance minister who happens to be an alumnus of the college, the students promised a non-cooperation movement mobilising the people of Tamil Nadu not to pay taxes to the union government. Smelling a political opportunity, politicians – including those from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Congress whose direct and indirect complicity in the Sri Lankan war crimes needs no mention – made a beeline to the venue of the fast. But for K V Thangabalu, the former TNCC president, who was heckled with anti-Congress slogans, most of them were politely welcomed; yet their overtures were unrequited. The students’ resolve was to keep their protest unsullied by time-serving politicians.
In a midnight operation, reminiscent of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government’s past style, the Tamil Nadu state police broke the fast on its fourth day. For them, four days were more than enough. Not only did the fasting students receive support from students from other colleges, but it also triggered and galvanised a state-wide students’ protest against the UNHRC resolution. Thousands of them from arts and sciences as well as engineering and medical colleges took to the streets in different parts of the state, small towns were no exception. The protest in which young men and women participated in equal strength took varied forms – posters and pamphlets, hunger strikes, processions, human-chains, effigy-burning, rail and road rokos, and siege of central government offices.
Significantly, schoolchildren, accompanied by their teachers and carrying pictures of the 12-year-old Balachandran, who was shot dead in captivity during the Eelam war, too conducted their own protest marches. Parents and teachers, sharing the students’ concerns, tacitly endorsed their action. After all, three senior staff of the Loyola College kept vigil at the venue where the students fasted.
The fringe could not hold out for long. They soon joined the mainstream. Sixty-nine students from IIT-Madras, a campus where the only authorised political activity hitherto has been protesting against caste-based reservation a la the Youth for Equality and P V Indiresan, expressed their solidarity with the sentiments on the streets by observing a day-long hunger strike. About 40 of the students who sat in fast were from north India; and Som Prakash Singh, an MLA from Bihar, addressed the students. Posters giving details of the Sri Lankan conflict and its consequences for the Island Tamils adorned the campus. They were in seven languages, including Tulu. The IIT-M administration did not disapprove of the protest. Also, the IT professionals working in some of the IT majors conducted a human chain protest along Chennai’s IT-corridor. No less than 150 IT professionals took on themselves the task of distributing pamphlets on Sri Lankan war crimes to the suburban train passengers. They sought the passengers’ support for the student movement.
New Political Literacy
A slice of Tamil Nadu’s past may not be out of place here. In 1939, C Rajagopalachari, the premier of the Madras Presidency, ridiculed on the floor of the Madras Legislative Council the first anti-Hindi martyr L Nadarajan, who died in prison: “It was due to his illiteracy that he picketed and it was due to his picketing that he happened to be in jail, but his illness was certainly due to other causes”. The Congressmen did not miss Rajagopalachari’s gruesome humour about a dead man; and they laughed. Similarly, referring to the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu, T N Seshan once observed, “Mobs of illiterate and semi-literate Tamil people, mostly poor, lapsed into fits of fury in the cause of so remote a language, English.” It is no longer a story of illiterate and semi-literate mobs. Things have indeed changed – perhaps because of decades of reservation for the underprivileged in educational institutions. The national media which played blind about the protest woke to the reality, though fleetingly, when the students of IIT and IT professional joined the agitation.
At the peak of the agitation, over two lakh students were on the streets.
The symbolisms which accompanied the agitation are important. The flag of the LTTE and pictures of the slain LTTE leader, Velupillai Pirabhakaran, had a constant presence in the students’ agitation. Yet, this was not a call to arms but an act of clinging on to a memory of the Island Tamils’ decades-long struggle against the Sri Lankan majoritarian state. The students’ demand was to conduct a referendum among the Island Tamils and the Tamil diaspora on the question of Eelam. It may be remembered here that it was the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), under the leadership of Appapillai Amirthalingam, which sought a mandate for a separate Tamil state by means of a vote during the 1977 Sri Lankan general election. In addition, the flag of the LTTE, an organisation banned by the central government, asserted the students’ defiance against the Indian state and the Congress Party.
It is not the pictures of Pirabhakaran but the poignant images of Balachandran before and after his killing were the ones which mobilised the students, children, and indeed the wider public. Also, the black shirt, a polyvalent symbol of Tamils’ degradation introduced by Periyar E V Ramsamy among his cadres during the days of the Self-Respect Movement, was ubiquitous in student protests. The newness of the protest did not, thus, abandon all past inheritances.
New Leadership
Significantly, the students’ agitation has thrown up a new young leadership, men and women, in Tamil Nadu. Listening to Shanmugapriyan alias Chembian of the Loyola College or Divya of the Dr Ambedkar Law College (the erstwhile Madras Law College) in television talk clearly shows that here is a new generation of Tamils which is imagining new political futures. Self-assured, articulate and well-informed, they could rattle ill-informed TV anchors without batting an eyelid and confidently talk of Geneva convention and Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Their understanding of politics too is complex. For instance, they are deeply aware of the politics that the media has played and continues to play. A large flex banner which was used in one of the demonstrations read, “Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Official Media Partner: The Hindu”. Indeed, a brilliant summary of the newspaper’s shameless role in defending the Mahinda Rajapaksa’s genocidal regime. The students’ agitation is slowly acquiring organisational structures. One among them, Tamileelam Viduthalai Manavargal Iyakkam (Students Federation for Free Eelam), works on the basis of collective leadership, student teams, and a think tank.
If the DMK chief M Karunanidhi, whose contribution to stop the civilian deaths during the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009 was a four-hour farce on the sands of Marina Beach which he and his party calls a protest fast, had to leave the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), he had no other option. As the DMK MP and the party’s official spokesperson T K S Elangovan confessed, “The atmosphere in Tamil Nadu is too charged. It is a burning issue. We can’t afford to be isolated.” It is not the DMK which reduced the UPA to a minority, but the credit for that should go to the protesting students of Tamil Nadu. If the Tamil Nadu chief minister and the leader of the AIADMK, J Jayalalithaa, who earlier described the civilian deaths in the Eelam war as unavoidable collateral damage, had to endorse all the demands of the student agitators in the form of a state assembly resolution, she too did not have any other option. Political parties no longer lead but are being led – at least for the moment.
If the Congress nurtured hopes of a political future in Tamil Nadu, it is no doubt bleak. The fear and frustration of the party functionaries in Tamil Nadu is all too evident. The spectres of 1967 when student campaigners ensured the defeat of the Congress stalwart K Kamaraj and reduced the party to irrelevance in the state might be haunting them. The senior Congress leader E V K S Ilangovan, facing the cameras in the studio of Puthiya Thalaimurai (New Generation), a new Tamil television channel which takes up issues ignored by the mainstream media, accused the channel of being a front for the LTTE and threatened CBI raids on the channel. Elsewhere, he has declared that the Congress would bring out short films and posters explaining its contribution to the Island Tamils’ cause during the past five years. Going by the social media postings, the new generation of Tamils hope – of course, in jest – that these will include the Congress contribution to the war crimes in Sri Lanka too.
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JHU slams governments casino plans

April 12, 2013, 5:50 pm
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JHU  slams governments casino plans

April 11, 2013, 12:00 pm

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By Maheesha Mudugamuwa
In the wake of the governments push to open up the countrys casino industry to international developers, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) yesterday urged it to reveal the areas where the casinos would be located.

The JHU said that it was vehemently opposed to the establishment of casinos in Sri Lanka and criticized the way the casinos were expanding in the country.
Speaking of the governments intention to develop tourism industry with the help of casinos, the JHU argued that the foreigners would not come to Sri Lanka for casino. If they want to gamble they would go to Macao or Goa in India.
Sri Lanka should not be a hub of betting and gaming, the JHU said adding that it went against tenets of the State religion. If large numbers of casinos were set up in Sri Lanka, the country would get a bad name and people would no longer be able to be proud of the country.
JHU General Secretary and the Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said that the Casino clubs were not necessary for Sri Lanka to promote tourism, as the country was blessed with natures gifts and a rich cultural, historical and religious heritage.
He said that the countries, which did not have much to offer to visitors, focused on entertainment tourism. They licensed casinos, massage parlours and brothels.
The country could promote cultural tourism because we have cities such as Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa which have a unique historical, cultural and religious background, Ranawaka said. Some people seem to believe that we have to sacrifice moral values to promote tourism.
The JHU General Secretary added that the country could also promote ecotourism as it had scenic beauty and landscapes that were unique and climatic conditions that were diverse.

Ravi accuses govt. of trying to keep economy afloat on casinos, taverns

April 11, 2013, 8:47 pm

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By Ravi Ladduwahetty
Colombo District UNP Parliamentarian Ravi Karunanayake charged yesterday that the government was trying to run the economy on casinos, taverns and brothers with the national economy in an absolute perilous state and moving without direction.
This is the new CTB of the government. It is casinos, taverns and brothels and that is the way the government is running the open economy, despite all its cries of Mathata Thitha. Surveys have revealed that more and more women were taking to alcohol, Karunanayake said.
The government has legalized the import of ethanol, which is a raw material for the production of alcohol, he said. The public debt is Rs. 7,251 billion and small and medium scale enterprises are going out of business with over 25 per cent of them already closed down. The national revenue, as a percentage of GDP, has declined by 11.5 per cent and a further Rs. 9 to 10 billion is needed to finance the Balance of Payments, Karunanayake said, adding that due to the much hyped hedging deals, the government was now saddled with the liability of another USD 60 million to Standard Chartered Bank, while the major power projects such as Norochcholai and Kerawalapitiya, had failed to bring down the cost of power generation.
All the major infrastructure projects of the government had become white elephants, MP Karunanayake said.
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Final Report: Removal Of CJ Bandaranayake Was Unlawful – International Bar Association

April 12, 2013, 5:53 pm
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Final Report: Removal Of CJ Bandaranayake Was Unlawful – International Bar Association

By Colombo Telegraph -April 12, 2013
Following the release of the Executive Summary of the International Bar Association report A Crisis of Legitimacy: The Impeachment of Chief Justice Bandaranayake and the Erosion of the Rule of Law in Sri Lanka, the full report has been published today.

Chief Justice
The removal from office in Sri Lanka of Chief Justice Bandaranayake was unlawful, is undermining public confidence in the rule of law, and threatening to eviscerate the country’s judiciary as an independent guarantor of constitutional rights states the Executive Summary of an International Bar

Colombo TelegraphAssociation’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) report released two weeks ago.

Sternford Moyo, IBAHRI Co-Chair commented, ‘We call upon the Government of Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to reverse the impeachment and replacement of Chief Justice Bandaranayake and to work to rebuild the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession in the country, as a matter of absolute urgency.’
Read the full report here
FRIDAY, 12 APRIL 2013
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Somawansa Amarasinghe yesterday complained to Police Chief N.K. Ilangakoon about the alleged military patrol near the Matale mass grave on Wednesday night.

In his letter, Mr. Amarasinghe said uniformed military personnel had moved around the grave around 9.30 pm on Wednesday. He said the discovery of the grave that dated back to the period between 1987 and 1989 had become a serious issue subjected to judicial process.

“We believe the judicial process should continue without any complication,” he said.

According to initial investigations, the skeletal remains of 154 persons were found in the grave. The JVP believes that their members who went missing during that the insurrection led by them had been buried here. Also, it was confirmed that these persons were tortured and executed.

Archaeologist Raj Somadeva also found through his investigations that the grave dated back to the 1986/1989 period.  Besides, the judicial medical officer also made the same conclusion.  It was informed to court by Magistrate Chaturika de Silva.( Kelum Bandara)
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RSF/JDS urge UNHCR to prevent refugee journalist’s expulsion from UAE

April 12, 2013, 5:55 pm
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RSF/JDS urge UNHCR to prevent refugee journalist’s expulsion from UAE

FLASHBACK: Sex Abuse and Murder in Sri Lanka- New Photos Emerge-Tim King Salem-News.com-Mar-08-2012

12 APRIL 2013 BY RSF | JDS

Reporters Without Borders and its partner organization, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), are very concerned about Rathimohan Lokini (also spelled Lohini), a Sri Lankan journalist of Tamil origin who could be expelled from the United Arab Emirates despite having United Nations refugee status.
She is one of a group of 19 Sri Lankan refugees who are under threat of being deported from the UAE by 11 April.
“In the light of recent developments and the appalling climate for the Tamil media in Sri Lanka, we are extremely worried about the consequences of a forced return for Rathimohan Lokini’s safety,” Reporters Without Borders and JDS said.
“Our concern is heightened by the fact that the Sri Lankan state TV stationITN has reported that they could be sent back, so the government is aware of the possibility and Lokini would be exposed to serious reprisals.
“We therefore urge the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to do everything possible to prevent this expulsion, which would constitute a total violation of international law and the right protection that the UN Refugee Agency granted to Lokini.”
Lokini began working as a presenter for National Television of Tamil Eelam(NTT) in June 2006. This station covered the civil war in the areas controlled by the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), broadcasting its programmes both locally and internationally.
Part of her job was to present reports on clashes between government forces and the LTTE rebels. Her visibility exposed her to a considerable risk of reprisals by government security forces and pro-government militia.
As her result, she resigned from her post and left the rebel area in December 2008. Fearing that she could be recognized and become the target of reprisals by members of the Sri Lankan armed forces as the civil war escalated, she finally left Sri Lanka in April 2009.
According to the tally kept by Reporters Without Borders and JDS, five radio and TV journalists working in Tamil regions of Sri Lanka were murdered from2007 to 2009.
Lokini’s proposed deportation comes at a time of growing harassment of Tamil-language journalists in Sri Lanka. The BBC’s Tamil-language service was repeatedly censored in March. After armed intruders attacked the premises of the daily Uthayan in the northern city of Kilinochchi on 3 April, four employees had to be hospitalized and two are still in a critical condition. The attackers have not been arrested.
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Ultimatum to President

April 12, 2013, 5:57 pm
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Ultimatum to President
By W. Siri Ananda-2013-04-12
If President Mahinda Rajapaksa does not agree to abolish the Executive Presidency, a broad front will be formed and a common candidate will be presented to contest the next presidential election, the National Association for a Just Society (NAJS) said. Chief Incumbent of the Kotte Naga Viharaya, Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thera said after winning the presidential election, all powers held by the Executive Presidency will be handed over to Parliament within a period of 120 days.
“A special meeting regarding this matter will be held on 18 April at 4:00 p.m. at the National Library, and leaders of all political parties and trade unions will be invited,” the Ven. Thera said.
He also said government constituent party leaders, including Leader of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), Prof. Tissa Vitarana, Communist Party Leader D.E.W. Gunasekara, United National Party (UNP) strongmen, Ravi Karunanayake and Dr. Jayalath Jayawardane, some members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Leader of the Democratic People’s Front (DPF), Mano Ganesan and many other prominent figures in politics and academics fields have met and shown their support towards the proposal.
Furthermore, Ven. Sobhitha Thera, together with other members of the NAJS made a courtesy visit to the Chief Incumbents of the Asgiriya and Malwatte Chapters as well as Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, who showed strong support towards the abolition of the Executive Presidency.

Rohana Seneviratne Wins Saraswati Sanskrit Prize 2012
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For fun! a tribute to President Rajapaksha

April 12, 2013, 5:59 pm
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Thursday , 11 April 2013
Alliance challenges government, whether election for north can be held before June.
Government notifies that it would completely reject the Geneva resolution, and Tamil National Alliance queried whether it will reject the assurances given to the international sector that it would hold the northern election before September month.
Alliance parliament member M.A.Sumenthiran said, the international sector should be more attentive to the activity of the government. If government has the courage and confidence let it conduct the northern election before June month, Sumenthiran challenged.
A media briefing was held in Colombo, and Sumenthiran made the above statement.
Opposition party leader Ranil Wickramasinghe queried in parliament two days back and External Affairs Minister Prof.G.L.Peiris responding to it, explicitly said, they are completely rejecting the resolution implemented at the United Nation Human Rights Council this time.
The implementation of Reconciliation Commission report and holding the northern election before forthcoming September month, recommendations were made in the resolution, hence he queried whether government is rejecting this?
In the settlement of racial crisis, government has given many assurances to India, United America, United National Council including international sector.  However government is rejecting everything.
Minister G.L.Peiris said, this special assurance given to the international society cannot be implemented. He says all the assurances will be functioned by deviating; hence the international society should be more attentive concerning this.
Assurance were given of holding the northern election “saying next year”  and now four years have lapsed. If northern election is held, it is certain that the government will be defeated, and government does not desire to accept defeat, hence it is postponing the election.
This is a perfect opportunity to assess whether government has the support of the northern people and the stance of Tamil people concerning a settlement to the racial crisis, and to what extent the Tamil people support the Tamil National Alliance.
Sumenthiran MP challenged the government and said, if it has the courage and confidence let it hold the northern election before the month of June.
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Video: Police And BBS Block Anti-BBS Vigil In Colombo

April 12, 2013, 6:01 pm
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Video: Police And BBS Block Anti-BBS Vigil In Colombo

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North Korea must end its ‘belligerent approach’, says Obama

April 12, 2013, 6:02 pm
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The Guardian homePentagon plays down intelligence report that regime might have a nuclear missile but says it is prepared for worst
 in Washington and  in Tokyo
 Friday 12 April 2013 
 

Link to video: Barack Obama urges North Korea to end ‘belligerent approach’

Barack Obama has called on North Korea to end what he described as its “belligerent approach” as US intelligence officials concluded for the first time that the country has a nuclear weapon small enough to be carried on a missile.
The US president made his first public comments on the crisis as a congressional hearing was told of the Pentagon’s latest intelligence assessment on North Korea. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report said it concluded “with moderate confidence that the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles”. But it said the missiles would not be reliable.
The Pentagon later sought to row back from the DIA assessment read out in Congress, saying that North Korea’s had not yet fully tested a nuclear weapon.
US military commanders have been preparing for North Korea to launch a missile after a new round of United Nations sanctions were imposed last month.
The US has threatened to shoot down any North Korean missiles but it might only do so if the missile appears to be targeted at a US territory or one of its allies such as South Korea or Japan. If the missile is headed out to sea the US might try to avoid further escalation by letting it take its course.
Pentagon spokesman George Little refused to say what the US response would be. ”We are prepared to respond to any missile threat,” he said.
Little later issued a statement saying: “In today’s House armed services committee hearing on the department of defence budget, a member of the committee read an unclassified passage in a classified report on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.
“While I cannot speak to all the details of a report that is classified in its entirety, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage. The United States continues to closely monitor the North Korean nuclear programme and calls upon North Korea to honour its international obligations.”
South Korea’s defence ministry also cast doubt on the finding that North Korea could make a nuclear warhead small enough to go on a missile. “Our military’s assessment is that the North has not yet miniaturised,” ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said in Seoul on Friday morning.
“North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests but there is doubt whether it is at the stage where they can reduce the weight and miniaturise to mount on a missile.”
Obama, speaking to reporters after he met UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon at the White House, said: “We both agreed that now’s the time for North Korea to end the kind of belligerent approach that they’ve been taking and to try to lower temperatures.
“Nobody wants to see a conflict on the Korean peninsula. But it’s important for North Korea, like every other country in the world, to observe the basic rules and norms that are set forth, including a wide variety of UN resolutions.”
He added that the US would take all necessary steps to protect its people.
The Obama administration remains of the view that North Korea’s actions and rhetoric over the last month are bluster and that there is no serious threat yet.
The DIA assessment was revealed by Congressman Doug Lamborn during a congressional hearing. He said the part of the assessment dealing with North Korea had been declassified.
Lamborn, reading from the report, which was produced last month, said: “DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles. However, the reliability will be low.”
The revelation came after a Pentagon briefing at which the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, refused to say whether North Korea was capable of building a nuclear weapon that could fit on a missile, arguing that the information was classified.
Administration officials know there is much more public scepticism about such intelligence claims after assessments about Iraq’s weapons capabilities proved so wrong.
The revelation at this juncture will be viewed with suspicion by some anti-war groups who will wonder if, as with Iraq, it is part of a process to demonise North Korea ahead of military action.
But there appear to be no senior figures inside the Obama administration pressing for military intervention in North Korea to bring about regime change. The policy at present remains “strategic patience”, with officials content to settle for containment.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is heading to the region on Thursday for talks with South Korea, Japan and China.
Earlier, in Washington, Mark Fitzpatrick, a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, argued that while “strategic patience” was an answer for the present “artificial” crisis, in the long term the aim should be regime change and the reunification of North and South Korea.
He did not anticipate North Korea willingly trading away “big bang” weapons – the only significant achievement of which it could boast.
Fitzpatrick argued in favour of broadcasting direct to people in North Korea, targeting the finances of the ruling elite and highlighting its human rights record.
“The answer to the question: is regime change the answer? Yes,” Fitzpatrick said. ”But it is not obviously an immediate answer to the current situation. North Korea’s actions and statement, however, reinforce the conclusion that there is only one happy ending to this long-running tragedy: unification of the Korea as a democratic, free-enterprise based republic.”
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Syria: Aerial Attacks Strike Civilians

April 13, 2013, 9:16 pm
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Syria: Aerial Attacks Strike Civilians
59 Unlawful Attacks Documented in Northern Syria
HRWAPRIL 10, 2013
(Aleppo) – The Syrian Air Force has repeatedly carried out indiscriminate, and in some cases deliberate, air strikes against civilians. These attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war), and people who commit such violations with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes.
The 80-page report, “Death from the Skies: Deliberate and Indiscriminate Air Strikes on Civilians,” is based on visits to 50 sites of government air strikes in opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo, Idlib, and Latakia governorates, and more than 140 interviews with witnesses and victims. The air strikes Human Rights Watch documented killed at least 152 civilians. According to a network of local Syrian activists, air strikes have killed more than 4,300 civilians across Syria since July 2012.
“In village after village, we found a civilian population terrified by their country’s own air force,” said Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch emergencies researcher who visited the sites and interviewed many of the victims and witnesses. “These illegal air strikes killed and injured many civilians and sowed a path of destruction, fear, and displacement.”
Media reports, YouTube videos, and information from opposition activists show that the Syrian government has conducted air strikes all over Syria on a daily basis since July 2012.
Through the on-site investigations and interviews, Human Rights Watch gathered information that indicates government forces  deliberately targeted four bakeries where civilians were waiting in breadlines a total of eight times,  and hit other bakeries with artillery attacks. Repeated aerial attacks on two hospitals in the areas Human Rights Watch visited strongly suggest that the government also deliberately targeted these facilities. At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visits to the two hospitals they had been attacked a total of seven times.

In addition to the attacks on the bakeries and hospitals, Human Rights Watch concluded in 44 other cases that air strikes were unlawful under the laws of war. Syrian forces used means and methods of warfare, such as unguided bombs dropped by high-flying helicopters, that under the circumstances could not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and thus were indiscriminate.

In the strikes Human Rights Watch investigated, despite high civilian casualties, damage to opposition headquarters and other possible military structures was minimal. As far as Human Rights Watch could establish, there were no casualties among opposition fighters.

For example, a jet dropped two bombs on the town of Akhtarin in northern Aleppo at around 1 p.m. on November 7, 2012, destroying three houses and killing seven civilians, including five children. The strike injured another five children, all under 5.  Human Rights Watch identified a possible military target in the vicinity, a building about 50 meters away that was used by opposition fighters at the time. This building was only lightly damaged in a subsequent attack, however.

A neighbor who rushed to the site after the attack told a Human Rights Watch researcher who visited the area:

It was tragic. The buildings had turned into a heap of rubble. We started pulling people out using just our hands and shovels. A cupboard and a wall had fallen on the children. They were still alive when we found them, but they died before we could take them to their uncle’s house. There is no clinic or medical center here.
In addition to the attacks on bakeries and hospitals, some attacks documented by Human Rights Watch, particularly those in which there was no evidence of a valid military target in the vicinity, may have deliberately targeted civilians, but more information is needed to reach that conclusion, Human Rights Watch said.

The government’s use of unlawful means of attack has also included cluster munitions, weapons that have been banned by most nations because of their indiscriminate nature. Human Rights Watch hasdocumented government use of more than 150 cluster bombs in 119 locations since October 2012. Human Rights Watch also documented that the government used incendiary weapons, which should, at a minimum, be banned in populated areas.

The obligation to minimize harm to the civilian population applies to all parties to a conflict. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other Syrian armed opposition groups did not take all feasible measures to avoid deploying forces and structures such as headquarters in or near densely populated areas. However, an attacking party is not relieved from the obligation to take into account the risk to civilians from an attack on the grounds that the defending party has located military targets within or near populated areas.

Human Rights Watch was able to visit only sites in opposition-controlled areas in northern Syria because the government has denied Human Rights Watch access to the rest of the country. While further investigation is needed, interviews with witnesses and victims of air strikes in other parts of the country indicate that a similar pattern of unlawful attacks have taken place there.

Human Rights Watch believes this report should galvanize international efforts to end deliberate, indiscriminate, and disproportionate air strikes and other attacks on civilians, including all use of cluster munitions, ballistic missiles, incendiary weapons, and explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas. The information we have gathered should also assist those seeking to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

In addition, Human Rights Watch calls on governments and companies to immediately stop selling or supplying weapons, ammunition, and material to Syria, given compelling evidence that the Syrian government is committing crimes against humanity, until Syria stops committing these crimes. The international community should in particular press Iraq to verify that no arms from Russia or Iran for Syria are passing through its territory, and to that end allow independent, third-party monitors to inspect convoys and airplanes crossing Iraqi land or airspace and bound for Syria.

“The Security Council, largely due to the Russian and Chinese veto, has failed to take any meaningful steps to help protect civilians in Syria,” Solvang said. “But that should not stop concerned governments from stepping up their own efforts to press the Syrian government to end these violations.”

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12 April 1968: “The country has lost not just Dr King but the King”

April 13, 2013, 9:20 pm
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BY ALAN BRIEN PUBLISHED 04 APRIL 2013
Martin Luther King Jr using the telephone in a hotel.
Martin Luther King Jr calls after encountering a white mob in Alabama. Photo: Getty.1913 New Statesman Archive logo
Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated forty-five years ago today. Here, Alan Brien reports from a grief-stricken New York.
The only cheerful faces I have seen here since the assassination of Martin Luther King last Thursday have been those of the Negro looters on television. Colour is a great romanticiser of electronic images, painting tragedy as melodrama, tinting actuality with the pastel shades of Hollywood farce. Vietnam has almost vanished from the screens these last few days with its ketchup blood and dry-ice smoke, recalling inappropriate images of John Wayne wading novocaine-faced through the swamps of Iwo Jima. Now the long-distance camera eyes sprout on stalks in the riot areas of America’s own cities, and many sequences we watch might almost be from some innocent, whimsical, indulgent, black-face musical of the Forties like Cabin in the Sky. The impulse-shoppers of the slums, celebrating an impromptu, out-of-season Christmas, could be observed queueing in an orderly fashion, like wartime civilians in Britain, outside broken-open shops. The fantasies of the commercials, where goodies rain down from Heaven and gadgets magically furnish empty rooms, were being acted out for real. The kind of easily portable wealth that professional criminals would search out – cash, jewellery, watches, etc – seemed often ignored. One woman staggered under the weight of a monster carton of Kleenex. A man almost danced down the street pushing a cumbrous dressing table with a huge mirror – and waved to the watching millions at home as he went. Another sat among the splintered glass, sparkling like tinsel in the TV spotlights, sensibly trying on a liberated pair of banana-yellow boots for comfort and style.
At first, the police stood by in most places, simply directing the traffic in flood-lit robbery as the exploited expropriated a little of the surplus profit of the exploiters – only to be gently rebuked by the New York Times next day for such un-American priority for people over things. Later, sniping and fire-bombing broke out and the law reasserted its traditional role. In Manhattan, rumour was full of tongues, pandering to that guilty thrill in anticipating the apocalypse which is one of the deep excitements of modern metropolitans. Reports of besieged suburbs, hijacked buses, mutinying schools and marching mobs leapt from lip to lip. The true facts, available instantly on such radio stations as WINS, which broadcast an uninterrupted flow of news around the clock, were barely more credible as the astonishing weekend began.
The curfew in the nation’s capital retreated to 4pm on Saturday – earlier than that in Saigon. More regular troops were deployed to protect Washington than Khe Sanh. New York is the only American city I know at all well. I have spent an annual working holiday here every year since 1961. Each time I arrive I feel an intensifying weight of violence in the air which presses down on the visitor like the atmosphere of Venus on an exploring astronaut. The electric crackle of static which arcs from the hand to the doorknob or the lift buzzer – and makes many an unwary tourist imagine his coronary has caught up with him at last – seems to symbolise the bottled aggression stored in these human batteries. In the past, my friends here have vied with each other, whether expatriates or natives, in telling tales of life in the asphalt jungle – mad taxi-drivers who kidnapped passengers to tell them the story of their lives, sadistic vandals terrorising an entire subway carriage for an hour’s journey, six-year-old children threatened by knife-carrying nine-year-olds on the fringes of the Park, lessons invaded by drug-addicts, alcoholics and sex perverts. My reaction has been shock and fear and a desire not to believe. Their’s has been a rather callous bravado – like sixth-formers putting the wind up a cissy new boy.
Now, this week, I am the one who has always expected this hell to break loose. Looking from the outside across the Atlantic, like many Britons, I have seen the storm cones hoisted for a hurricane. Since the killing of President Kennedy and Malcolm X, it seemed inevitable that more sacrificial victims would follow in time. It is the residents who cannot believe their eyes and ears and implore you to tell them that what is happening is impossible. For once, the old liberal cliché about everybody being guilty for the crime of one psychopath seems, if not true, at least universally believed to be true. There is a widespread desire to canonise Martin Luther King, a great and good man fit to stand alongside Gandhi or Danilo Dolci, into a saint and martyr unrivalled in history. Each man loves the thing he kills and the civil rights leader is rapidly becoming an immortal. His reputation escalates from hour to hour. A Negro leader described him as the noblest human of our century. A rabbi called him the Black Moses. The Pope’s comparison of him to Christ crucified seems to almost nobody even a trifle hyperbolic.
It is an awe-inspiring and rather unnerving sight to see the mass media of American opinion-making (what one British journalist unkindly calls “The Bullshit Machine”) firing on all cylinders to a single theme. Dr King’s picture is in every shop window, in every paper and magazine, punctuating almost every programme on TV. The US flag, and this is a nation of flag-fliers, is everywhere at half-mast, sometimes upside down (the sign of a nation in distress). Public events which might seem tactlessly light-hearted, such as the Oscar awards, are postponed or cancelled. Radio announcers assure you that you will hear nothing frivolous all day on their channel. The country has lost not just Dr King but the King. These words and images have done more to damp down riot than all the police and troops. Any Negro anywhere is treated by whites as if he were personally a close relative of the murdered man. How long this spontaneous unity in mourning will last, no can tell. But it is an America I have never seen before.
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An Honest Reckoning Of A Tormented Past

April 13, 2013, 9:22 pm
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An Honest Reckoning Of A Tormented Past

By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -April 13, 2013

Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena
Colombo TelegraphThose who murmured of ‘collateral damage’ and looked the other way when civilians were mowed down during the last days of the Wanni conflict in May 2009 certainly share a common callousness with those who shrugged their shoulders when previous governments of a different colour killed the ‘Southern terrorists’ of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) with all the ruthlessness at its command, more than two and a half decades ago.
Decades of innocent blood spilt
In a large measure, these may even belong to the same social group, never mind the shocking imperviousness to innocent blood spilt and quite belying the inherently contradictory stances of professing themselves to be devout Buddhists.
Never mind also the cardinal principle that an elected government must be held to higher standards than a terrorist or insurgent group. The one overriding rationale is that even as barbaric and as bloody as the Sri Lankan State may be, it must be protected at all costs. So after decades of blood spilt of all ethnicities in this country, is it any wonder that this country still remains agonized? Without a honest reckoning of its tormented past, can there be any real peace for its people in the future?
For decades, this column had been emphasizing that the cry for justice in Sri Lanka is not exclusively limited to members of one ethnicity, however much lobbyists on one side of the ethnic divide may try to make out. This point was powerfully underscored by recent happenings regarding the chance discovery of 154 skeletonslast year in the Matale District. As commented upon in these column spaces last month, there is a common element of impunity and a common cry for justice in respect of all these enforced disappearances of the past few decades. And it is that commonality that needs to be centered within the accountability debate concerning Sri Lanka, both within these shores and beyond, (see The Killing of Children and Sri Lanka’s Bloody Legacies, March 3rd 2013).
Undeniably unpalatable truths
This week, family members of those who disappeared (predominantly of Sinhala ethnicity), during the brutal state crackdown in that area, asked for justice from the government as forensic inquiries conclusively established evidence of brutal torture. Several skeletons had gruesome evidence of severed heads and limbs and in one instance, a skull had been sawn; in others, a wire had been used to give electric shock and hoops of thorns were discovered with skeletal remains.
Rightly, the JVP has dismissed the suggestion of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry with scorn and asked for a properly expedited judicial inquiry into the discovery of this crime scene, pointing out moreover that the Commanding Officer of the government troops in that area at that time was none other than the currentDefence Secretary, the President’s brother. We are then confronted with the undeniably unpalatable truth that, at the very time that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was campaigning in Geneva as an enthusiastic opposition parliamentarian regarding the fate of the Sinhala ‘disappeared’, his own brother was in charge of a counter terror brigade that now stands accused of complicity in those very same horrific disappearances.
Applicable legal norms
Many years back. Wijesuriya and Another vs the State (77 NLR, 25) concerned one of the very first prosecutions of state agents for acts of degradation committed under the supposed authority of military law. In Wijesuriya’s Case, two army soldiers were prosecuted for the attempted murder of a suspected insurgent held in army custody after she had been arrested by the police. The accused claimed that the shooting occurred during combat where the first accused who first shot at her, was only carrying out the order of his superior officer to destroy (‘bump off’) the deceased.
The prosecution urged the court to hold that, whether there was a period of combat during the incident or a state of actual war, in either case, there could be no justification for the shooting of a prisoner who was held in custody. The Court of Criminal Appeal (the highest court at the time) agreed with this submission. It pointed out (unanimously) that no soldier could obey an order of his superior when such order is manifestly and obviously illegal and then plead mistake of fact in good faith. Provisions of international humanitarian law were referred to, in particular, the treatment of prisoners under the Geneva Conventions which had been ratified and accepted by Sri Lanka at that time.
The Court’s denunciation of terms such as “in combat”, “in the field”, “prisoners of war”, and “military necessity” which were sought to be used by counsel appearing for the accused to justify the brutal acts committed by them, was notable. It rejected the argument that when a state of emergency is called, the ordinary civil law of the land is pro tanto suspended, thus entitling the military to engage in whatever acts of brutality in pursuance or supposed pursuance under emergency powers conferred on them. The Court unanimously affirmed the convictions of the accused and by a majority, affirmed their sentences.
An era of abandonment of principles 
That was then. Now, we are in quite a different era which has disregarded those principles openly. Yet the point is also our own cynicism on these matters. So when the JVP asks for a credible inquiry, we resort instead to the nonchalant query as to what inquiry is possible for those killed by the JVP during that time?
Such cynics should be reminded yet again that the government’s blatant committing of atrocities needs to be treated quite differently to the barbarities committed by terror groups from the North, east or South as the case may be. When we abandon that crucial distinction, we abandon also the notion that Sri Lanka is a democratic country. Worse, we open ourselves to a dangerous obliteration of basic Rule of Law safeguards. In actual fact, it is precisely at this forsaken state that this country is in now, where even the façade of law and constitutionalism has been ripped away.
Further, to be perfectly clear, there is little point in raising alarm cries regarding the deterioration of ordinary law and order while being unforgivably blasé regarding extraordinary crimes committed during extraordinary times. If we proceed down this path of casually dismissing past atrocities with no need for retributive penal punishments or even genuine restorative justice akin to Truth Commissions in other countries, we must also by necessary implication not be outraged when our police remain militarized and politicized, with the personal security of an ordinary individual at risk at any point of the day. There is a visible nexus from one manner of abandonment of the Rule of Law to the other. One cannot separate the normal from the abnormal any longer.
Pitiably, we are at this stage of complete abandonment, four years following the end of conflict. We should look not only at our politicians but also at ourselves and ask the question ‘Why?”
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Matale Mass Grave: A Nation Without A Conscience?

April 13, 2013, 9:25 pm
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Matale Mass Grave: A Nation Without A Conscience?

By Emil van der Poorten -April 13, 2013

Emil van der Poorten
Colombo TelegraphThe discovery of a mass grave, adjacent to the Matale hospital, with theremains of about 200 human beings in it, dating back to the late-nineteen eighties does not appear to have provoked the kind of consternation that it should have in any country with even a pretence to democratic practice leave alone a constantly-invoked adherence to all that is humane within Buddhist philosophy.
I think back to that time in Sri Lanka’s history which I was, thankfully spared experiencing, when I was a member of Amnesty International and received a copy of their annual report on Sri Lanka which stated that, by their calculation, there had been in excess of 60,000 “disappearances” in the south-west quarter of Sri Lanka alone during the second JVP insurrection. This, they stated, did not include “extra-judicial executions” permitted by prevailing law, and battle-field casualties. An astounding figure considering that those “disappearances” did not include, literally, a body count of those similarly “disappeared” or killed in other parts of the country including those in which a different insurrection raged! The word “horrendous” is probably over-used in this day and age but its application to these circumstances appears more than justified.
In a land where gossip has always reigned supreme and it is virtually impossible to keep any kind of secret, how could the burial of 200 bodies, presumably all of whom hailed from villages in the area, have been kept under wraps for very nearly a quarter century? Apart from the matter of humane conduct in combat, this is what bemuses me the most.
But when I got to thinking about this kind of thing, my thoughts went back to the first (Che Guevara) insurrection of 1971 when, probably on a smaller scale, the “upholders of law and order” were more than suspected of indulging in similar practices. While the numbers were not anywhere close to those of the late 1980s, the horror of it all was not far behind.
I remember being told by a planter colleague who managed one of the few company-owned plantations in the N. W. Province, that the “forces of law and order” had lined up a large number of young men, on the lip of a large pit that they (the young men) had excavated prior to mowing them down into the mass grave where they were then buried.
More close to home, a Che Guevarist insurgent from the Kegalle district, for reasons too lengthy to detail here, chose to seek my help in order to surrender to the security services. He arrived on my doorstep one evening during a time of dusk to dawn curfew and would only consent to surrendering to the army. Again, for reasons that do not lend themselves to recounting in a composition of this length, I was able to arrange for an army patrol to visit our rather remote residence. When that army patrol arrived and the officer in command had interrogated the man, he believed the man’s involvement in the insurrection had been peripheral and that he should have little fear of surrendering and being subject to due process of law.
One catch here though was the fact that the army patrol, under orders existing at that time, had to hand the man over to the primary police station in the province and my army officer friend assured me that under cover of darkness, the prisoner would probably be beaten to death and then “tired” at the top of an adjacent hill, as was the practice then.
In the circumstances, my wife and I were left with little (moral) choice but to keep the fugitive under our roof – a criminal offence at the time – and take him into the army unit in the self-same provincial capital the next morning. We did. After a sleepless night, for obvious reasons, and a nerve-wracking drive past the local police station the next morning we delivered the man to the army unit.
The good news is that the fugitive served time and is, a senior citizen, leading a life in retirement in a place far away from his village of origin with no one – including the wife he married, after incarceration – aware of his deep, dark secret!
This narrative should prove, if proof be needed, that it was the Bandaranaike regime that initiated the practice of “disappearances” and the “unorthodox” disposal of bodies. And it wasn’t only in this large centre that bodies were being disposed of away from the public’s gaze. On one occasion when I was in the process of picking up the mail from the post office which was on the opposite side of the road to the local police station, my wife inquired from a post office employee what the awful smell she was getting was. He pointed to a plume of smoke rising from behind a six-foot hedge and, in pantomime, described the shooting that had preceded the necessity for the rudimentary, tire-fuelled pyre.
It has been suggested, over and over again, that the late 1980’s set the tone for what has happened during and after the “Eelam war.” Not so. It is nigh on half a century since extra-judicial executions were first legitimized in this country. Isn’t it time to try to change course from this murderous insanity? Isn’t the single biggest question, “When faced with forensic evidence which, even at the preliminary stages appears irrefutable, what are we going to do about this?” Does this not present a very real opportunity to begin to come to terms with those terrible past travesties of justice, purge ourselves of their residue and take the steps that are ESSENTIAL to ensure that this does not continue to occur?
While those questions are obviously rhetorical, the real question, immediate and urgent, is “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THE MATALE BODIES AND WHEN WHICH DOESN’T CONSTITUTE YET ANOTHER COVER UP?*
* The (inevitable) Presidential Commission of Inquiry has been appointed as I write this and I suggest it will be consigned to the same container that all its predecessors now occupy, sent there by no other than He Who Commissioned the Report.

CPC owes Rs 450 B to State bank

 

By a Staff Reporter-2013-04-13
The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) owes a staggering Rs 450 billion to the State banks of Sri Lanka, and the banks are facing severe financial difficulties as a result.
The massive debt is said to be a direct consequence of gross mismanagement of CPC affairs. Highly placed sources, speaking to Ceylon Today, revealed that in the year 2012 alone, the CPC had suffered losses amounting to Rs 94 billion.
Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya (JSS) Petroleum Branch General Secretary, Ananda
Palitha, alleged that due to the pressure exerted by the employees and the media, the latest renewal of the CPC’s agreement with Petro Vietnam (PV) Oil Company incorporates a ‘monthly average’ payment plan, rather than the ‘five-day average’ payment plan, which was used before. This, he said, has greatly reduced the scope for corruption, which had, by 31 March, resulted in losses amounting to three billion rupees to the CPC.
“Both the monthly and five-day average plans are legal, but the monthly average plan, which is used at present, does not allow corruption. With the five-day average plan, the PV Oil Company could have chosen to appoint five days within the month, which correspond to the highest fuel prices within the world market, the CPC suffered losses of Rs 3 billion as a result of this agreement in the past,” he pointed out.
Palitha, who earlier accused the former management of instrumenting the corruption behind the previous agreement, said an independent committee should be appointed to investigate the matter.
When Ceylon Today questioned CPC Managing Director, Susantha Silva, about these allegations, he said, “The CPC owes Rs 400 billion to two State banks in Sri Lanka, and there are two main reasons for this. A lot of effort is being put towards salvaging the CPC from this situation at the moment.”
Elaborating on huge debt he said, “More than Rs 100 billion of this amount is due to giving fuel on loan to various entities in Sri Lanka, with more than 50% of this money being owed to us by the power sector of Sri Lanka. In addition to this, SriLankan Airlines owes us
Rs 32 billion and Mihin Lanka owes us a further Rs 5 billion. They haven’t started paying us back, but seem to have the funds to spearhead other projects.”
He said the provision of fuel at subsidized rates to the CEB accounted for Rs 260 billion of the debt.
“For many years now, the CPC has lost Rs 35 per litre of fuel given to the CEB, as a subsidy. Roughly Rs 100 million was lost by the CPC per day because of this. In 2009, the loss was Rs 11 billion, Rs 26 billion in 2010, Rs 94 billion in 2011 and Rs 89 billion in 2012. When the Treasury stopped paying us this deficit sum of money in 2007, the CPC lost over Rs 260 billion as a result of subsidies,” he claimed.
He said Rs 40-50 billion was present as stocks within the CPC, which together with the Rs 100 billion debts owed to the CPC by the CEB, SriLankan Airlines, Mihin Lanka and other entities and the Rs 260 billion the CPC has lost over the years due to subsidies, roughly amount to the Rs 400 billion owed by the CPC to State banks, Silva said.
When questioned as to the nature of the agreement with the PV Oil Company, he said it had been drawn up by a Technical Evaluation Committee, a Special Standing Cabinet Approved Procurement Committee and finally a Cabinet sub Committee.
“Before commenting on the integrity of this agreement, I must first evaluate it,” he said.
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Police in Sri Lanka show their true saffron colours

April 13, 2013, 9:26 pm
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Police in Sri Lanka show their true saffron colours

Screen Shot 2013-04-12 at 9.25.26 PM
GroundviewsGroundviews-13 Apr, 2013
Lest we forget, the Sri Lankan police, who act under the orders and protection of the Ministry of Defence, are far from doyens of impartiality.
A few weeks ago, we noted that ”it is quite clear that four policemen, no more than 3 feet away from and staring directly into the face of the Buddhist “monk” who is engaged in destroying private property isn’t quite enough these days for an arrest to be made”. There is evidence, from no less than the Government’s Minister for Justice himself, that the Muslim owners of the property the “monks”destroyed were forced to withdraw their charges against the perpetrators.
Contrast this Police inaction and collusion with fascist forces with their behaviour today in Colombo, against a peaceful vigil, as clearly indicated in a Facebook page that promoted the event. Sirasa TV captures the response by the Police in grim detail.
Clearly then, in Sri Lanka today, Buddhist “monks” destroying private property are kosher, but citizens attempting to light a candle, and walk peacefully in solidarity, are fit to be physically assaulted, hurled abuse at, arrested, intimidated and brutishly dispersed.
We feature below an audio interview with a participant at the vigil, who recounts his experience and the nature of the Police intimidation,
PhotographerChannelled to us by @iromip Groundviews published a live account of the vigil on Twitter.@mhmhisham, @megtegal and others were also live tweeting the proceedings, including a number of updates noting that the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and others (possibly from State Intelligence services) were ardently photographing those at the vigil. The individual below was identified by participants as someone who wasn’t part of the vigil but actively photographing those who were present for it.
Our tweets and retweets are reproduced below, and include links to several Facebook status updates as well that clearly highlight fear, concern and opposition to what is now mainstream ethno-religious extremism, condoned by Police and with complete impunity, openly supported by Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the government of Sri Lanka.
Click on each post for full text and associated media.
Update, 2.30am, 13 April 2013: A reader emailed and said that “by 8.30 Samuddha Jayanthi Mandiraya, the headquarters of the Bodu Bala Sena, had heavy army protection. Army, not police.” The peaceful vigil first congregated around the HQ of the BBS. The same reader flaggedthis photo of an individual, sporting a BBS t-shirt, who was also spotted taking pictures of the faces of those present for the vigil.                           Continue reading »
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‘How Can The BBS, Claiming To Be Buddhists’ – BQBBS Urges Mahanayakas To Speak Up

April 13, 2013, 9:28 pm
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‘How Can The BBS, Claiming To Be Buddhists’ – BQBBS Urges Mahanayakas To Speak Up

By Colombo Telegraph -April 13, 2013 |
“We once again stress that we are not anti Bodu Bala Sena. We honour everyone’s right of expression and speech. However, we are Buddhists (Sinhala Buddhists if anyone cares further) questioning the Bodu Bala Sena via the Dhamma. One of our biggest questions is ‘how can the Bodu Bala Sena, claiming to be a Buddhist organization, so blatantly violate Lord Buddha’s teachings on right speech?’” Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena Facebook update says today.

Who has the moral right to protest ?
“We urge the Mahanayakas to speak up. Sri Lankans have the greatest respect for them and only they can truly put an end to this. For today the rising face of Buddhism in Sri Lanka is Gnanasara and the Bodu Bala Sena, and the Mahanayakas continued inaction and silence isn’t helpful. If they delay further, we fear it will be too late. This is no time for half measures.” they further say.
Meanwhile Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) Executive Committee member, Dilanthe Withanage wrote in Buddhists Questioning Bodu Bala Sena Facebook page; ”FAKE BUDDHISTS and LTTE SUPPORTERS and Real Buddhists – We are happy thank to BBS these groups ( Including Muslims, catholic etc) started talking of Buddha’s Teaching. It is a great victory for Buddhism. Started Chanting Buddha’s teaching, Started going to Buddhist Places. Read Malinda’s article“
We publish below the BQBBS facebook update in full;
Dear Friends,
It was humbling to see so many people present last evening, given the fact that this idea was first announced on Tuesday (9 April) and solely promoted on Facebook and held on a day (12 April) when most people have gone on vacation or back to their ancestral homes.
There were no organizers per se, no pre-meetings, just Sri Lankans guided by the sense of Civic Duty, to maintain and preserve the peace of our tiny Island Nation as it is called for in our beautiful National Anthem, Buddhists guided by the peaceful words of Lord Buddha on Samma Vacca (Right speech) on Subhasita Vaccan (on well spoken speech) gathered in unison.
We once again stress that we are not anti Bodu Bala Sena. We honour everyone’s right of expression and speech. However, we are Buddhists (Sinhala Buddhists if anyone cares further) questioning the Bodu Bala Sena via the Dhamma. One of our biggest questions is “how can the Bodu Bala Sena, claiming to be a Buddhist organization, so blatantly violate Lord Buddha’s teachings on right speech?” Yesterday we posed this question again and got the same answer. So much of the Dhamma is about right speech, 4 of the 10 evil acts (Dasa Akusal) is about speech, one whole factor of the Noble Eight Fold path leading to Nibbana is dedicated to Right Speech. Yet, all this is cast aside by the leaders of the Bodu Bala Sena in the name of “preserving the Dhamma”. If Buddhists in Sri Lanka allow this to continue, they will be left with a Buddhism bereft of any essence, a flower without its perfume. We will be left with temples, ancient ruins, yellow robe wearers, just symbols of Buddhism. We urge the Mahanayakas to speak up. Sri Lankans have the greatest respect for them and only they can truly put an end to this. For today the rising face of Buddhism in Sri Lanka is Gnanasara and the Bodu Bala Sena, and the Mahanayakas continued inaction and silence isn’t helpful. If they delay further, we fear it will be too late. This is no time for half measures.
Now a word on courage and honour…there is no courage, there is no honour in the strong trampling the weak, in the majority attacking a minority. Such victories are hollow. Yesterday we saw young Sinhala Buddhists taking a stance, peacefully gathering, staying calm in the face of abuse and false accusations from the Bodu Bala Sena members, amidst the heavy hand of the police, this is courage, this is honor. This gives us hope, that in our tiny Island Nation there are people who will stand up to the might and have the courage to say “this is not right”.
“For the Blessed One, O Lord, spoke these words to me: ‘I shall not come to my final passing away, Evil Mara, until my laymen and laywomen, have come to be true disciples — wise, well disciplined, apt and learned, preservers of the Dhamma, living according to the Dhamma, abiding by the appropriate conduct, and having learned the Master’s word, are able to expound it, preach it, proclaim it, establish it, reveal it, explain it in detail, and make it clear; until, when adverse opinions arise, they shall be able to refute them thoroughly and well, and to preach this convincing and liberating Dhamma.’ (Mahaparinibbana Sutta)
Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitata
This for those who were labeled “Nightclub Buddhists” just because they didn’t wear white.
Alankato cepi samam careyya
santo danto niyato brahmacari
sabbesu bhutesu nidhaya dandam
so bramano so samano sa bhikkhu.
Dhammapada Verse 142.
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“I’m going to Sri Lanka for the New Year. But won’t travel to Jaffna since I can’t speak Sinhala” – Tamil businessman

April 13, 2013, 9:30 pm
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“I’m going to Sri Lanka for the New Year. But won’t travel to Jaffna since I can’t speak Sinhala” – Tamil businessman

Saturday, 13 April 2013
A millionaire Tamil businessman in London told us that he would be visiting Sri Lanka for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year this year, 30 years after the Black July, but would not be visiting his hometown in Jaffna since he cannot speak Sinhala. We will not reveal the businessman’s name for his safety.
He further said, “Over 60% of the population in Jaffna is Sinhalese. Most of them are from the military. There’s no GPS Navigator like in London to find an address. Every sign post I heard is in Sinhalese and there’s only one sign post remaining from the past, which is in Murukandi. The civil engineer who set up the sign post is now in London and he told me that it cannot be removed since it is set in concrete. Therefore, the Murukandi sign post is still remaining. I heard that there are many Sinhala villages setup with Sinhala names. We are now strangers in Jaffna, where we were born. Therefore, what’s the point in going to Jaffna and getting hurt? You know what would happen if a wrong word slips out of the mouth. There are army personnel every step of the way in Jaffna. Therefore, it would be better to travel to Colombo and visit the people there.”
We decided to publish this piece of information as our New Year message this year following the last minute telephone conversation we had with the businessman minutes prior to his departure from London. We hope that the New Year blessings would reach all our readers although in some instances the good wishes are limited to only a few.

NfR SriLanka condemns the armed and arson attack on Uthayan news paper office, Jaffna

Saturday, 13 April 2013
Net working for rights, a network for media freedom and human rights in Sri Lanka condemns in strongest terms the dastardly armed and arson attack on Uthayan news paper in Jaffna, which took place at dawn today. This is a yet another major blow to independent news paper culture in Jaffna and freedom of expression rights in Sri Lanka.
According to NfR sources in Jaffna around 4.30 am shooting randomly, a three armed men forced their way in to the Uthayan Jaffna. At that time the office was full of news paper delivery personal and tens of thousands of news papers were ready to be transported.
The staff and delivery personal had to run for their life. The armed gang then set fire to the news paper bundled to be distributed and newspaper rolls in the printing section. They had shot and damaged the web printing machine also. The whole printing section had caught fire, according to initial reports. The damage run in to hundreds of thousands of rupees, a staff member told NfR SriLanka.
A senior journalists of the Uthayan Group told NfR that armed gang who attacked the Newspaper office must be belongs either to state security forces or armed gangs sponsored by them. Jaffna is a garrison town where military and police presence is threateningly visible. He reminded that out of dozens of attacks that has directed against the Uthayan and its employees over the last few years, not a single attack has been resolved and culprits brought to the book. This incident too will not be properly investigated to a completion, he predicted.
Expressing his anger, the owner of the Uthayan news paper group Mr. E. Saravanpavan, M.P. told that whatever intimidations and harassments unleashed against the Uthayan, the newspaper will continue to publish informing the Tamil people. He is expressed fear that this attack could be a prelude to media suppression that may take place during the Northern Provincial election due in September 2013.
NfR SriLanka urges all democratic forces in SriLanka to strongly condemn this attack and show their solidarity with the besieged independent media in Jaffna.
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A Tolerant Sri Lanka: Report on online poll

April 13, 2013, 9:33 pm
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A Tolerant Sri Lanka: Report on online poll

Screen Shot 2013-04-12 at 10.39.49 PM
13 Apr, 2013

The past few weeks have seen a rise in incidents and publicly expressed sentiments against the Muslim community by groups who claim to represent the rights of Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Expressing concerns of undue place given to Muslims in Sri Lanka – from entrance to the Law College to issuing Halal certification to even increase in Muslim population and property ownership by Muslims, groups such as the Bodu Bala Sena and Sinhala Ravaya have taken it upon themselves to educate the Sinhala Buddhists on these concerns. While these groups declare to be non violent, speeches given by them at various rallies, defamatory references to individuals and the attacks on Muslim owned businesses in the past few weeks give the impression of a situation of vigilante groups gathering strength.

It is in this context that Social Indicator, the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives created an online questionnaire to gauge the views of people on this issue. The questionnaire was open for responses on Typeform from April 3 – April 11 2013. The questionnaire was answered by 975 respondents who fall into the age categories below. The questionnaire can be accessed here and the complete dataset here.
Screen Shot 2013-04-12 at 10.07.45 PM
Looking at the results of the survey, it is evident that most respondents do not share the opinion of groups such as the Bodu Bala Sena and believe that their activities should be banned. Faith in law enforcement is low, with around 40% of respondents believing that vigilante groups engaging in raids and attacks on private property would never be arrested. 75% believe that the Defence Secretary’s association with the Bodu Bala Sena have strengthened the power of the group to continue their vigilante activities.
With regard to the highly controversial Halal issue, majority do not believe it is the win-win solution as claimed by those who were involved in arriving at this decision. 40% of respondents believe that it is unfair by people who buy only Halal products while around 30% believe that this decision is only a temporary solution that would aggravate the anti Muslim issue further.
It is interesting to note that more than 60% of respondents believe that the Media should not give a voice to groups like the Bodu Bala Sena. With majority of respondents labelling groups like the BBS as ‘intolerant’, on the issue of Mobitel including a song (for sale) by the BBS in their mTunes library, around 42% believe that Mobitel should remove the song from their library, that people should not have anything to with businesses that support groups like the BBS and that calling for a boycott of Mobitel is necessary to send a clear message that people will not tolerate anyone supporting groups like the BBS.
What the future holds for the country with the present activities of vigilante groups going from strength to strength is a hotly debated topic today. Majority of respondents thinks that the anti Muslim sentiments being expressed should be taken very seriously. More than 75% of respondents also believe that it is realistic to think that Sri Lanka might see another Black July.
Please note that the results of this survey cannot be generalised to Sri Lanka or a specific community.
Clicking on any of the charts below will allow you to share the selected infographic across social media sites and also allow you to embed them on websites and blogs.
Thank you to the 975 individuals who took the time to answer this questionnaire.
This short video shows a scene where a Muslim owned business establishment was attacked by a mob (which included Buddhist Monks) on March 28th. 17 persons were arrested 3 days later and on April 2nd were “warned and released by the Magistrate” after the parties involved agreed to settle the case.
Describe in one word your opinion about the actions of the authorities in this specific case.
Q4 Wordle
Click here for larger image.
More than 950 respondents answered the final question “What in your view should be the response of the Government regarding the activities and demands of groups like the Bodu Bala Sena?”. All relevant answers can be viewed in the Scribd document below. Respondents called for the Government to take strict action against those who engage in hate speech, vigilante activities and threaten the peace of the country. Most respondents also very strongly condemned the Bodu Bala Sena and their activities and believed that they should be banned. Freedom of expression is also discussed by some, where they believe that everyone should be allowed to express their opinion but the line must be firmly drawn when they infringe upon the beliefs and rights of people, whether they belong to a majority group or minority group. No one should be above the law and it is high time the Government acted against these divisive groups before they gather more strength.
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For Those Who Pooh-Pooh The Anti-BBS Protestors

April 13, 2013, 9:35 pm
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The streets of Colombo have seen worse sights.
Colombo TelegraphThat sentence deserves to stand on its own. It is an epitaph on a city where too much violence has been vented by too many. It is a sentence on a people who rarely get on the streets and make a fuss. But on Friday 12 April a mixed bunch of people gathered to hold a candle-lit vigil outside the venue of the hate-speech BBS. For strategic reasons they may have chosen the venue in order to provoke a response from the BBS which would expose their hate-speech and intolerant attitude. Nonviolent protests are nearly always strategic and their dynamics are not always agreeable to all participants. However, when I read an article by a friend on how he ‘saw’ this candle-lit vigilit urged me to write a response. Instead of objecting to any dynamic of the vigil he objected instead to the composition of the vigil-holders in no uncertain terms.
Oh right. So if we were to look around and say oh please, the Colombo elite is here and facebookers, … oh oh I am so disappointed. I need more Buddhists, more middle class people and I don’t like to see people who worked in NGOs, lived overseas or who are in the upper middle class of CMB in this protest cheek by jowl with me, that’s a position that smacks of bias and prejudice as to WHO should be protesting and even further who has the moral right to protest. It’s saying “I wanna support the Sri Lanka which excludes the types I do not identify with because I suspect everyone of having an agenda and this will stop my supporting the cause of an inclusive Sri Lanka for all. I need ‘my people’ to support all this!”
Get over it.

Who has the moral right to protest ?
The CMB upper middle class has walked the talk in the streets and maybe you are a mite surprised to see your bedfellows? Well that’s how it is. While I empathise with the concern of this writer that a peaceful Buddhist vigil was as he saw it hijacked as a strategic nonviolent protest by a mixed bunch who may have varying reasons beyond mere peace and compassion for being there, I was urged to draw out this pooh-pooh streak in us and take it up cos it’s not just the writer and his thoughts that is at stake but a ‘streak’ in our society to pooh-pooh whoever and whatever is done just for the sake of so doing.
Why is Colombo strategically a part of this protest? What the Colombo society did and did not do during the war as ambassadors of the peace both at home and abroad deserves kudos, only those efforts are largely ignored. The upper middle class ‘Colomboans’ dug their feet in and continued their professions and businesses when some of them had options to leave and set up shop elsewhere in the world. As a lawyer I saw the stoic continuation of professional relationships between the ethnicities in the main professions in Colombo. When the bombs fell in the heart of the capital city, the heartbeat of our nation one of the main reasons for foreigners not to pull out their investments from Sri Lanka was the good friendship and relations they enjoyed with the families of the Sri Lankans whose livelihood depended on these investments. The entire economic health of the nation depended on such relationships.
The ‘Colomboans’ continued to work and play in a peaceful manner in an inter-ethnic life which has outlived the storm and now are fighting for the multi-ethnic society they love. They keep their school inter-ethnic friends, their work colleagues, even yes, their nightclub friends from many faiths and jog on. So what? They are holding a candle today to save the society I love. I was born and ‘bred’ there and have insider experience of what it’s like to have such a rich life and belonging among diverse faiths and races. My friends were there on Friday the 12th, were yours?
Even as I write this in a personal vein, as a researcher and author of a book on Nonviolent Coexistence undertaken as a contribution to the peacwe education of Sri Lanka and was translated into the national languages in Sri Lanka, I wish to stress that this is not a counterattack on the writer of the linked article at all. It is an opportunity to look at the pooh-pooh streak in us, from the Diasporans who pooh-pooh ground initiatives, the un-Colomboans who pooh-pooh the Colomboans and the list goes on. If we are to launch a peaceful protest and united stand to save our society from bigotry and prejudice, hate speech and incitement to violence on the grounds of religion by extremist groups whoever they are and whatever their robes are, we will need to shed the pooh-pooh and stand shoulder to shoulder with diverse types and unite for once. This is our hour of need and we can do more than pooh-pooh. Long Live multi-ethnic, multi-faith Sri Lanka !
Eka mavakage daru kela bewinaa …
yamu yamu vee nopamaa,
prema wada sema bedha durera dhaa …
namo namo matha… !
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Armed squad attacks Tamil paper office in Jaffna setting ablaze press machines

April 13, 2013, 9:36 pm
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Armed squad attacks Tamil paper office in Jaffna setting ablaze press machines

[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 April 2013, 07:03 GMT]
TamilNetAn armed squad, allegedly operated by the Sri Lankan military intelligence, stormed the main office of the Uthayan Tamil daily in the city of Jaffna in the early hours of Saturday, setting ablaze the press machines and the copies of printed papers that were ready for distribution. The squad chased media workers away at gun point and poured petrol on the papers and machinery in the fourth attack to be reported on the popular Tamil daily since January this year. The pre-dawn attack, carried out Saturday at 4:45 a.m., comes 10 days after a similar attack on its Ki’linochchi office this month. Colombo’s systematic attack on the Tamil daily, owned by Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian E. Saravanapavan, seeks to destabilize the operation and dissemination of the paper in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils, especially before conducting elections to Northern Provincial Council. 

Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna

The sequence of attacks on Uthayan began with a series of targeted assaults on its staff disseminating the Paper in Jaffna, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa and Ki’linochchi districts.

The attackers burnt the copies of Uthayan paper each time. Then, the attacks escalated on its offices and staff.

“Now, the the terror has finally reached the stage of committing an act of arson on the press machinery itself,” said a media worker, who was chased away at gunpoint by the squad that stormed the office.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) politicians, who visited the Uthayan office have condemned in the strongest terms the arson attack on Uthayan daily.

Uthayan’s personnel were getting ready for the day’s distribution, at the main office, when the attack took place.

The editorial staff had already left the office concluding their work.

The squad that stormed the office opened fire at the air to chase away the media workers.

Then, the attackers, who had brought petrol with them, poured it on to the machinery, setting the machines ablaze.

Bursts of gun fire have also been directed by the attackers at the press machinery.

Colombo is seeking to completely curb the operation of the paper, which has become the most targeted newspaper ever in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils.

Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
Attack on Uthayan paper office in Jaffna
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Anti-BBS Vigil: A Critique Of The Critique

April 13, 2013, 9:37 pm
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Anti-BBS Vigil: A Critique Of The Critique

By Dayan Jayatilleka -April 13, 2013 |

ආචාර්ය දයාන් ජයතිලක
I wasn’t at the vigil because I don’t do vigils and if I were to make an exception it would be for an anti-BBS/SR demonstration spearheaded by the Left (in our case that would be the JVP and FSP), as are most anti-racist demonstrations all over the world. That is in fact the friendly advice I’d give the organizers of the laudable demonstration. As a founder member, as an undergradua

Colombo Telegraph

te in the late 1970s, of the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) that took on the Sinhala racists in the ’80s or tried to, I recall that we always reached out to and networked the trade unions, peasant unions, political parties, progressive clergy, student organizations, women’s associations, university teachers and the Left. That said I was aghast, but not really surprised to read Malinda Seneviratne’s critical account of the vigil (‘The BBS ‘Buddhists’, ‘Nightclub Buddhists’ and The ‘Vigil’ That I Saw’ April 12, 2013, Colombo Telegraph). He writes:
“But there were non-Buddhists in proportions that were a fair distance away from national ratios.” Two issues arise: Firstly, how on earth could Malinda tell? Is it a visual impression? If so, isn’t this the religious stereotyping, the equivalent of ethnic stereotyping, of the worst sort? Do the non-Buddhists have longer noses than the Buddhists, as the Jews were deemed to have in Nazi Germany? Where does this lead and where does it stop? Secondly, what does it matter? Should demonstrations accord with national ethnic or religious ratios? Are class, caste, provincial and gender ratios relevant too?
Malinda go onto say : “I was disappointed that there was little to tell me that the group was made up of people outside of the ‘facebooking’, English-speaking middle and upper-middle class.  I was less disappointed than perturbed when I noticed that in that group there were individuals who have been violently anti-Buddhist and anti-Sinhala…”
Here again, what is the implication? That Buddhists (or good Buddhists) don’t use Facebook or do not belong to or come from the English speaking middle and upper middle class? Or is that they are Buddhists only if they use Facebook to abuse Muslims? How would this class criterion fit Prince Siddhartha?
It is perfectly possible, even likely, that my own views are diametrically opposite to those of some of the crowd, especially on the war, the CFA and the current and long-standing leadership of the UNP, but I do not know the basis on which one can state as Malinda has, that in the group “there were individuals who have been violently anti-Buddhist and anti-Sinhala…” Were they/are they really ‘violently anti Buddhist and anti-Sinhala’, or simply anti-Sinhala Buddhism as an ideology? Could it be that Malinda is conflating the two? And by the way how ‘violently’ anti-Buddhist and anti-Sinhala were they? As violent as the mobs of July ’83 or those who threw a grenade at the Shah Rukh Khan show, or even those who stormed the Fashion Bug or verbally abused minorities (‘hambaya’ goni billa’, un-mun-arun’), and threw rotten eggs at shoppers?
Malinda writes that “My Muslim friend wrote, ‘What’s the ugliest thing in uniform? – a biased cop. I saw one today declaring pompously that everyone gathered at the vigil was either Muslim, Catholic or Tamil…’ I heard that too. The Police Officer can’t be faulted if he wondered how a ‘Buddhists against BBS’ event had so many non-Buddhists.”
Why pray can’t he be faulted? What business is it of a police officer to query the religious composition of a demonstration? Shouldn’t he be faulted precisely for having posed such a question? How did he come to that conclusion anyway— which by pure coincidence is the same one Malinda came to? Where in the world, outside of an Islamic theocracy would the police pose such a question and where in the world would a Chief Editor of an English language mainstream newspaper think it ok?
Malinda outdoes himself with the following paragraph: “…someone referred to the anti-BBS ‘Buddhists’ as ‘Nightclub Buddhists’. Strange juxtaposition and descriptive, yes, but it also raised questions of social status, class, lifestyle etc.  A Buddhist is a Buddhist, whether he/she wears white or black, a sil redda or jeans, but clothes mark and they mark well.  This was no Buddhist Cross-section, that much was apparent to me.”
Quite apart from the question of whether ‘Nightclub Buddhists’ who aren’t guilty of hit and run drunken driving of a lorry (a greater vehicle?) are somehow less Buddhist than the “Bay-badu Bala Sena” ones, what precisely does Malinda mean by ‘raises questions of social status, class lifestyle’? What questions? Of course clothes do mark but how do “clothes mark and [they] mark well”, in relation to Buddhism and the issues at hand? When once again Malinda says ‘this was no Buddhist cross section, that much was apparent to me’, how was it apparent, why is what is apparent (the result of sense impressions) taken to be the truth – which doesn’t sound much like the Dhamma—and what does any of it has to do with Buddhism, still less the legitimacy of a protest against religious fanaticism?
This hardly seems a fair or rational critique.
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